Weekly Read: The Heart Goes Last

/ JD Byrne / 1 Comment

My brother used to have a saying – an aphorism, I suppose – taped to his wall. It was attributed to Skippy the Lizard God and went like this:

Sex is like pizza – when it’s good, it’s really good. Even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.

The same is true of albums by great bands, movies by great directors, or books by great authors – even their lesser efforts are generally worth your time. That’s a long way of saying that while The Heart Goes Last is far from Margaret Atwood’s best work, it’s still worth a read.

The Heart Goes Last has a deliciously absurd premise. A husband and wife, Stan and Charmaine, are living in their car in a depressed, near-future New England dystopia (there’s some suggesting things are better in the rest of the US). They’re not exactly happy, but they’re getting by. They find out about a quasi-utopian project called Consilience that promises work, happiness, and safety, but with a catch – people in the town live one month in their home and then one month in prison (where they’re used as cheap labor). Stan and Charmaine move in. It’s wrong to say “wackiness ensues,” but what transpires is pretty fucked up.

Without going too deep into spoiler country, Stan and Charmaine get caught up in a grand scheme that could bring down the whole operation, one that detours through murder and organ harvesting, Elvis impersonators, romantic imprinting gone awry, and Dutch-designed sex robots.*

There are some wonderfully dark and funny bits in all of this. In one instance, Stan finds what he thinks is a love note between the two “alternates” who share his and Charmaine’s house (occupants switch each month – one set in the house, one set in the big house). It’s lusty and sexy in a way Charmaine simply isn’t, which makes Stan determined to find and bed the other woman (contact between alternates is strictly forbidden). He spins out an R-rated, Technicolor fantasy that covers not only his attempted seduction but the surely violent reaction from her muscled, bald, and tattooed husband. It’s all completely inane, made all the more so when we learn the truth about the note.

Then there’s the blue teddy bears. I don’t think anybody has gotten such mileage out of an ordinary inanimate object since Tom Hanks (Castaway link).

Which is all amusing for a bit, but it doesn’t really coalesce into anything substantive in the end. Part of that’s due to Stan and Charmaine, who are our only POV characters. Since they’re essentially pawns in the game, we never get a solid idea of what the game is, who’s playing it, and why (even at the end). In addition, neither one are what you’d call bright. Stan is mostly a slave to his baser urges, while Charmaine is so chirpy and positive (even when dispatching souls in her prison job) that it’s hard to sympathize with her very much. I agree with this bit from the NPR review:

The Heart Goes Last’s deepest investment isn’t in Consilience’s hideous secrets. It isn’t even in Stan and Charmaine’s inner lives — both characters have interior monologues like repetitive tape loops. The book is mostly interested in their sexual obsessions, and the way they fetishize each other only once they’re separated. But their predictability doesn’t do much to ground an unpredictable narrative, or give readers a worthy point of view. As other people plot against Consilience, the protagonists become hapless bystanders in everything from their marriage to the larger story.

It doesn’t help matters that the endgame, as it plays out between this two, has a confusing, Rube Goldberg quality. Which could be fun, if we had some idea of what the people setting up the scheme were trying to accomplish.

As I said, all that makes The Heart Goes Last frustrating and I certainly wouldn’t suggest it as a starting point for someone who’s never read Atwood before. But she’s too talented a writer to not score some points along the way, so I’d definitely say it’s worth it (it’s pretty brief, all things considered). Nobody succeeds every time, but few of us are lucky enough to stumble as interestingly as Atwood.

Also, if I ever meet Grandma Win in person, I’ll punch her dentures down her throat.

* Indeed, it’s kind of odd how many parallels there are with The Mechanical and The Rising that I reviewed recently. Dutch robots? Check. Reprogrammed humans? Check. Ruminations on the nature of free will? Check. Done in completely different ways, of course. The sex bots also remind me of Zappa, naturally.

Book Review The Heart Goes Last

Water Road Wednesday: Second Excerpt from The Water Road

/ JD Byrne / 1 Comment

In this scene, Strefer has run to the Triumvirate compound because of a buzz of rumors that something big has gone down there – very big. Sentinels are standing guard outside the Grand Council building as a crowd swells. She needs to get inside and find out what’s going on, but they’re not supposed to let anyone in.

Strefer stepped up and looked the Sentinel in the eyes.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice a mixture of vigilance and weariness. He was tall and forceful, with fine light-green skin, most likely a Guilder. That was a stroke of luck, Strefer thought. His pikti was slung loosely across his back. The way he carried himself suggested he had been here a while.

Strefer opened the hand in which she had clutched her identifications and handed them to him. “My name is Strefer Quants. I’m with the Daily Register.”

He took the cards, gave them a quick glance, and handed them back to her. “Why should I care? You don’t think I’m going to let you in just because you work for some newspaper, do you?”

“Why not?” Strefer asked, slipping the cards back into her pouch. “Is there something in there you don’t want people to know about?”

The Sentinel shot back at her with a wry smile. “I am afraid I cannot comment,” he said, with affected formality.

“Do you see a notebook in my hand?” Strefer said, keeping the game going. It was one she would surely win. “I’m not asking you for any comment. I’m just asking if there is something going on up there that you’re trying to keep from the public.” She gestured towards the doors at the top of the marble steps.

“Perhaps I wasn’t clear, missus,” he said, the smile replaced by a glower as he stared down at her. “I have nothing to say about whether anything is happening inside here. Much less to the likes of you, notebook in hand or not.”

“Fair enough,” Strefer said in concession. She decided to try another approach. “But you’ll let me by so I can make my appointment, at least.”

“Appointment?” he asked, confusion sliding across his face like the shadow of clouds moving across the sky. “Appointment with who? And don’t say one of the Grand Council members. They would be in session now. And, at any rate, they don’t greet visitors.”

Score one for her, Strefer thought. She knew from talking with Tevis that interviews with members of the Grand Council were possible. Cutting them off completely meant something important had happened inside. “Of course it’s not with one of the Council members, who do I look like? No, it’s with,” she paused for a moment, grasping for a name. “Keretki,” she finally said, forced to pull a name out of thin air.

“Who?”

“Keretki,” Strefer said, knowing this was her hook. “You know, the policy coordinator for the Arborians? I have an appointment to meet with him to discuss some trade matters he has been dealing with during the session. I’m sure you’ve seen him around here.” She threw the last line in to dig a little at her adversary.

“No, missus, I don’t know him,” the Sentinel said. “But this isn’t my regular patrol.” Another useful bit of information. “Regardless, I can’t let you into the building right now.”

Strefer turned from amused to angry in a flash. “Now look here. My boss spent weeks setting up this interview, all right? The publisher back in Sermont even had to get involved. This interview will be the centerpiece of our coverage of the Council session for the next week or so. It’s very important. Not just to me, either, but Keretki, too. You know the Arborians, always sniping at each other over the smallest things. He has them all together on the same page for once and wants the public to know about it. Do you really want to be responsible for pissing off all those people?”

The Sentinel stood in silence, reaching for an answer that was not coming.

“It’ll be worth your trouble, I promise,” Strefer said. “Have you ever heard of Olrey, the publisher of the Daily Register? He has a reputation for airing his feuds in the press. He could make things very difficult for the Sentinels, the Grand Council, the…”

Exasperated, the Sentinel put up his hands. “All right, all right, fine. You win.”

“Thank you,” Strefer said, suddenly buoyant. “You’re a very reasonable man.”

But before Strefer could make it up the stairs, he put his hand on her chest to stop her. “Hold on a second. You get to go in, but there are two conditions. First, none of this conversation we’ve had here is going to show up in your paper, all right? I don’t…”

“Agreed,” she said, cutting him off. “Say no more. What’s the other one?”

“Second, the Grand Council chamber is off limits. Got it?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “Kerekti’s office is on the other side of the building, I think. I won’t be anywhere near the Grand Council chamber.”

With that, the Sentinel stood aside and let Strefer proceed up the stairs. There were another pair of Sentinels stationed by the front door, but they did nothing to halt her progress. Once inside, she made sure that neither of them were watching her, then she went to look for the Grand Council chamber.

Weekly Read: The Master of Confessions

/ JD Byrne / 1 Comment

As I said once before, my wife and I spent a couple of weeks in Cambodia last year as a belated honeymoon. It’s a country of stunning geographical beauty, fascinating history, and warm, friendly people. But it’s also a place that still dealing with the deep scars of its recent past. Specifically, the impact of the overspill of the Vietnam War and the eventual rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s and the horrors that it brought.

Although the regime fell to a Vietnamese invasion in 1979 (some groups hung on until the 1990s), the country is still dealing with trying to bring to justice those responsible for an era that killed up to 2 million people. The first of those brought to trial was Kaing Guek Eav, known more widely as Duch. Duch spent most of the Khmer Rouge years in charge of the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, in which thousands of people were tortured and killed. In fact, there were only 7 survivors of S-21. S-21 is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which is a horrifying place.

The Master of Confessions, by French journalist Thierry Cruvellier, is about Duch and his crimes, but it’s not a straight biography. Nor is it a typical history of the Khmer Rouge. Instead, it’s the relations and observations of Duch’s 8-month trial before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. While it certainly goes into the history, it’s all done at arm’s length, allowing Cruvellier to effectively comment on not just what’s happened, but the trial itself and the very idea of seeking justice for such massive crimes (Cruvellier has also written about the Rwandan genocide trials – sadly, that book doesn’t appear to be available in English).

I already noted one example, when Cruvellier brings up the dynamic of confessions and their role in the justice system, something which is familiar to defense lawyers from Phnom Penh to West Virginia. Another is where he details how the mood of the trial changes the longer it goes on:

Five months into the trial, the quality of the silence in the courtroom has changed. No longer is it that breathless and dumbstruck silence that knows it is watching history being written, nor is it the solemn quiet of a legal drama. The silence that fills the courtroom now is that of fatigue, of weariness, of exhaustion with both the trial and Duch’s words. His performance has lost its shine. Now he sounds like he’s rambling endlessly.

Duch was rambling because, alone amongst the few charged by the ECCC, he pleaded guilty and spent most of his time trying to lessen his culpability, rather than deny it completely. That being said, as Cruvellier points out, Duch was rarely willing to extend his testimony beyond those areas that were already widely documented. It’s a cunning, if empty, strategy – admit what they can prove you did, stall on everything else. It would also be frustrating as fuck.

That frustration came to a head during closing arguments when one of the Cambodian lawyers representing Duch kneecapped his French superior and suddenly claimed that Duch shouldn’t be convicted at all. The argument is cowardly, but kind of compelling – not only was Duch not in the top echelon of the Khmer Rouge, but some of those who were are still free and, indeed, still part of the Cambodian government today. It was a bold, weird gambit that, as expected, fell completely flat.

Cruvellier’s approach also allows him some interesting digressions from Duch himself and the trial. In one instance he treks to the northern part of Cambodia, the rugged mountainous area near the Thai border where the remnants of the Khmer Rouge (including Pol Pot) held on until the 1990s. He explores the growing industry of genocide tourism, as various people try to monetize everything from gravesites of Khmer Rouge leaders to spots where their homes once stood. It was an uncomfortable bit to read, given that my wife and I travelled halfway around the world partly to see S-21 and the killings fields at Choeung Ek. I like to think that we’re both students of history, engaging in some empathy for the victims of the regime. But maybe we were just gawkers, scraping the surface of something we can never really hope to understand.

At the heart of Cruvellier’s observations is the same question most people ask about someone like Duch – how does someone do such horrible things on such a scale? It’s not really a question courts are designed to answer – they’re more interested in the what of someone’s actions, rather than the why (issues of intent aside). At the end there aren’t any good answers. Duch, for all his evil deeds, is not a mustache twiddling villain. He’s a man who glommed on to several ideologies in his life, each with equal vigor, whether it was the Khmer Rouge’s particularly brutal form of Communism or, in his later life, Christianity. At least he recognizes that flaws in his past ideologies. Duch doesn’t make the argument that Communism was failed, rather than conceded that it failed the Cambodian people spectacularly.

My only real beef with the book is the Cruvellier gives short shrift to the actual outcome of the trial. Duch was convicted (naturally) and initially sentenced to 30 years, a term that was increased to life in prison on appeal. Cruvellier dashes that off in a few lines at the end of the book. I wish he’d been able to get into the considerations at play in that appeal, particularly since increasing a sentence on appeal is almost unheard of in American law.

One of the reviews on Amazon faults Cruvellier’s approach because it:

is tainted by the author’s utter contempt for the institutions that conduct international criminal trials . . ..

It’s certainly true that Cruvellier has a jaundiced view of tribunals like the ECCC, but I’m not so sure it rises to the level of “utter contempt.” If anything, he seems to be disappointed at how tribunals that theoretically should aim for answering bigger questions of why ultimately wind up bound down by legal procedural minutiae. For what it’s worth, the couple of conversations we had with Cambodians about the ECCC showed a real ambivalence toward it. They seemed to think that justice was something that was never really going to happen and that the main purpose of the ECCC was to show the international community that something was happening and keep foreign investment flowing. Cynicism, more than contempt, but well earned, it seems to me.

Maybe I have less of an issue with Cruvellier’s point of view because, deep down, I’m a cynic, too, especially when it comes to international law. I found his reporting to be sober, nuanced, and tinged with the sadness that when humanity is at its most brutal it often can’t rise to the occasion when it comes time to do justice. It’s not as depressing a read as it sounds, but it’s not one that will leave you walking away with a song in your heart. Maybe that’s a good thing.

There’s a good interview with Cruvellier here, if you’re interested in more about him and the book (and how to actually pronounce Duch correctly).

MasterofConfessions

Water Road Wednesday: Gods and Beings In Altreria

/ JD Byrne / 1 Comment

One of the fun things about writing fantasy is that you get to build worlds from the ground up. Since you’re not playing with reality necessarily you can do just about anything you want. It also means you have to do a lot of background sketching to fill in your world. John Scalzi once wrote that he tried to go two questions deep on world building, which makes a lot of sense. It’s important that your world be well rounded (pardon the pun), even when it comes to things that don’t necessarily drive the narrative.

Which is to say that when I was building the world of The Water Road I had to decide what role religion played in it. Even though I’m an atheist, religion fascinates me and I think part of any well developed fictional world would be religion (unless the complete absence thereof was what you wanted to explore). In fact, one of the first things I wrote for The Water Road is the Altrerian creation myth. It’s not actually in any of the books, so this seems as good a place as any to let it see the light of day:

In the time before time, the Maker of Worlds saw a void in the firmament of the heavens.  She decided that it must be filled, lest the other stars and planets be drawn into the void and lost forever.

So the Maker of Worlds cupped her hands and dipped them into the Lake of Eternity.  She brought the water up in her hands and breathed on the waters while molding it into a ball.  When the swirling churning waters had been shaped into a perfect ball, the Maker hung the ball in the firmament and filled the void.

But when the Maker of Worlds looked at the ball of swirling water in the firmament, she was not pleased.  She plucked the young planet out of the heavens and set it in front of her.  The Maker thought for a moment and pondered what was missing from her new creation.

After a time, the Maker took the sharpest knife she could find.  She took the blade in her left hand and held her right palm out over the swirling waters.  In one quick motion, the Maker of Worlds sliced across her outstretched palm and the blood of the Maker fell into the churning, swirling, and empty oceans.

As the blood of the Maker of Worlds fell into the oceans, it began to become solid.  The more the Maker bled, the larger the stain on the oceans would become.  Before long, the spots of blood began to come together and form The Land.  As the land formed, the churning seas beat upon it, breaking off small parts which became The Islands.

The Maker of Worlds healed her wound and surveyed The Land.  With her breath, the Maker calmed the rough seas.  With her lips, the Maker gave the new world a kiss of life – to The Land, to The Islands, and to the seas.  Weakened by her work, the Maker hung the now living planet back in the firmament, where she forgot about it.

Eons passed before the Maker of Worlds remembered her watery creation with the one continent upon it.  In the time that had passed, The Land had become full of life.  Not only animals and plants, but intelligent beings, who lived together in communities and created a society.  The Land was rich and plentiful, but its inhabitants still found things to fight about.  They constantly warred, on upon the other, seemingly without end.  When the Maker saw what had become of her world, she was depressed.  And she was angry.

In her anger, the Maker of Worlds lashed out at her creation.  She drove a single finger into the soil on the east side of The Land.  Then, she drug it across the entire breadth of The Land, changing it forever.  In the wake of the Maker’s finger came Great Basin Lake and The Water Road.  To the south of the river, great mountains heaved up from the soil, all the way south to the cold southern seas.  To the north, The Land cracked and two great rivers were formed as water rushed into the fissures.  The far north, beyond the reach of the waters, became barren, dry, and inhospitable.  The people of The Land were likewise shattered, north and south, divided by the Water Road into Neldathi and Altrerian.  Many multitudes died.

When the Maker of Worlds realized what she had done, she howled in pain.  After all, she was a creator, not a destroyer.  He had lashed out in anger because her children had disappointed her.  Her anger saddened and disgusted her.  As she held back tears, the Maker of Worlds took the wounded world and gently placed it back in the firmament.  She vowed never to touch it again and let her children be.

And then, history began . . .

The Neldathi and the Altrerians were both polytheistic and shared the same pantheon of deities, but interacted with them in different ways. The Altrerians treated the gods as a group, beings that were all involved in the order of the universe. By contrast, each of the Neldathi clans had one god as a protector and venerated him or her over the others. The Maker of Worlds, in spite of the creation myth, wasn’t really part of the pantheon.

At the time The Water Road begins there’s been a seismic shift in the way the Altrerians think of the gods. Sometime in the semi-recent past, a Great Awakening swept across the nations of the Triumvirate. Only this wasn’t an awakening of religious fervor, but the emergence of a consensus that the gods actually didn’t exist. How people dealt with this varied – in the Guilds religious belief and observances disappeared in a generation, while the Telebrians hung on to the traditional cultural aspects of belief while largely proclaiming not to believe anymore.

On top of that, among the Neldathi there’s also a new strain of religious thinking. A movement led by a man named Goshen preaches that the gods are all actually different aspects of the one actual god – the Maker of Worlds. He and his beliefs will play an important role in The Water Road.

Another Reason Judicial Elections Are Dumb

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This year, for the first time in West Virginia, our judicial elections will be “non-partisan,” meaning candidates won’t be designated as belonging to a political party. That’s a shame, because that’s at least a useful data point to consider, even if it’s not definitive.

I’ve never been a fan of electing judges. Judges are supposed to be impartial servants to the law, not popular opinion. There are times when they should do the exact opposite of what the Twitter-mob wants. Insulation from the political process (with the acknowledgment that complete insulation is impossible) is critical if we expect the “rule of law” to mean anything.

Beyond such philosophical issues, there’s another reason that judicial elections are just dumb, one that I’ve been particularly aware of here as we begin to see campaigns for the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals get into full swing. People generally vote for politicians based on what they promise to do, either for particular groups of voters or the nation/state/county as a whole. It’s crass sometimes, but that’s how democracy works.

Here’s the problem when it comes to judicial elections – judges can’t make promises like that. For one thing, while the hoary right-wing chestnut that “judges don’t make law” is as silly as ever, courts are limited to issues brought before them in actual disputes between parties. No court has the power to simply issue an opinion on its own. For another, rules of judicial ethics prohibit candidates from promising to rule in particular ways on issues that may come before them. No judge can say if they’re elected they’ll rule a particular way on an issue or in favor of a particular party.

But if a judicial candidate can’t say “vote for me so I can do X,” what can they do? It comes down to a choice between meaningless fluff and vague non-sequitors.

In the current WV Supreme Court race the fluff angle belongs to Bill Wooten. His ads that I’ve seen (can’t find them online – how can a candidate for office in 2016 not have a web page?!?) all star his grandkids and highlight his role as a grandfather. Which is great (the kids are cute), but what does that have to do with his ability to be a justice? I realize that a big part of politics, at least locally, is name recognition, so the fluff accomplishes that (see also gubernatorial candidate Booth Goodwin’s ad about his WV birthmark), but it’s awfully thin gruel if you’re trying to figure out who to vote for.

At least fluff doesn’t promise anything more than that. This ad, from Beth Walker, promises something she can’t deliver:

Since when do Supreme Court justices decide to increase penalties for crimes? Putting to one side the foolishness of her plan (Really? We haven’t tried locking people in cages for selling drugs yet?), it’s just empty rhetoric. The cynic in me says all political rhetoric is empty – promises made are rarely kept, after all – but at least they’re plausible. The get tough promise is particularly odd in West Virginia, where sentencing is purely statutory and tied in with a parole system. Unlike the federal system, judges don’t have an awful lot of say on how long someone stays in prison.

That’s not to lay the blame at the feet of these, or any other, candidates. It’s not their ads that are dumb (although I disagree with Walker’s policy position), it’s the game they’re playing that is. They’re doing their best to convince people to vote for them in an election where they can’t promise to do anything if elected. It’s bound to lead to meaningless drivel in commercials. Which is kind of the point – is this any way to select the men and women who preside over the justice system?

 

Water Road Wednesday: The Neldathi of Kentucky?

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I have a list of topics for these Water Road Wednesday posts. I sat down last December and wracked my brain to come up with everything I could talk about without going too far into what actually happens in the books. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d wind up with a post about the blue people of Kentucky.

Although the story began much earlier, it came to the attention of doctors in 1975 when a child in the hospital was being treated based on the blue color of his skin (“as Blue as Lake Louise”). Then, as:

a transfusion was being readied, the baby’s grandmother suggested to doctors that he looked like the ‘blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek.’ Relatives described the boy’s great-grandmother Luna Fugate as ‘blue all over,’ and ‘the bluest woman I ever saw.’

Turns out, genes were to blame:

The Fugate progeny had a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia, which was passed down through a recessive gene and blossomed through intermarriage.

* * *

Methemoglobinemia is a blood disorder in which an abnormal amount of methemoglobin — a form of hemoglobin — is produced, according to the National Institutes for Health. Hemoglobin is responsible for distributing oxygen to the body and without oxygen, the heart, brain and muscles can die.

In methemoglobinemia, the hemoglobin is unable to carry oxygen and it also makes it difficult for unaffected hemoglobin to release oxygen effectively to body tissues. Patients’ lips are purple, the skin looks blue and the blood is “chocolate colored” because it is not oxygenated . . ..

According to family tradition, Martin Fugate came to the area, in all his bluishness, in 1820. There he married a woman who carried a recessive gene for the condition. Four of their seven children were blue. Other families in the area showed signs of the condition, too, with one group being described as “bluer’n hell.” The Fugate family began to move away in the early 20th Century, as coal mining picked up in the area.

Although it’s a genetic condition (exacerbated by inbreeding), it can also be caused by exposure to certain chemicals. It’s one of those conditions that’s so rare no doctor ever sees it, but they all learn about it medical school.

Did the Fugates and their like really look like the Neldathi of The Water Road universe? Doubtful. But it’s kind of interesting that a clan-based group of mountain dwellers I pulled out of my imagination have a kind of real world equivalent. Truth, as they say, is never a match for fiction.

Weekly Read: The Mechanical & The Rising

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It’s 1926, but not the 1926 we remember. There is no Lost Generation following the First World War, no Jazz Age, no impending economic collapse. Instead, the world, or at least the largest part of it, is ruled over by the Dutch. How have the Dutch managed this feat? Magic, of course.

Well, they call it alchemy, but it’s essentially magic, a combination of mysticism and technology that creates a horde of “clakkers” – mechanical creatures designed to do the bidding of their creators. With this technological marvel in their pocket, the Dutch rule the world, with only a rump New France holding on in what we would call Canada.

Regardless of the precise verbiage, Ian Tregillis has created a really interesting world with his Alchemy Wars trilogy, the third volume of which is due this fall or winter. It’s a world that allows readers to dive into to heady questions of philosophy and free will, all the while creating deed and interesting characters engaged in life or death struggles.

Depending on how you define “life,” of course. Or “death.” For one of the main characters in the series is Jax a clakker built to be a general servant and slave. When The Mechanical begins, Jax is present for the gruesome execution of a “rogue” clakker, one who has managed to slip the bounds of the “geas” that define his existence.

It’s not giving much away to say that Jax escapes all that, thanks to a sudden case of free will. At the same time, another character, a human, has his taken away. All the while the master of French spies (or former, as the case may be) is doing her best to try and understand the Dutch magic as a way of saving her kingdom. Their adventures aren’t for the faint of heart – Tregillis is a very descriptive writer and uses that skill to devastating effect when it comes to physical altercations – but they are exciting, occasionally funny, and ask some interesting questions.

Of the first two books in the trilogy, The Mechanical comes off slightly better. That’s largely down to the fact that it gets to introduce you to this new world and the sense of discovery is palpable. Furthermore, while both books are obviously parts of a larger whole, The Mechanical comes off as a better stand alone story than The Rising, which is clearly just setting up the pieces for the big finale in the third book.

Aside from that, there are couple of things that hold The Rising back. The Mechanical essentially has three main characters – Jax, the French spymaster, and one of her spies. All of them carry their weight (although the last one disappears once he gets “treated”) for the length of the book.

Jax and the spymaster return in The Rising, where the third leg of the stool is taken over by Longchamp, the captain of the guard in the last redoubt of New France. He was a minor character in The Mechanical, fleshed out briefly but well, and a world class blasphemer. He fit that role well. He doesn’t do so well with the promotion to main character, however. Oddly enough, with more time on the page he becomes less interesting and the blasphemous motivational speeches become tiring. Part of that is because his part of the story – a defense of the French capital from attacking clakkers – takes up entirely too much of the book.

The other disappointment about The Rising is that it pushes some of the philosophizing to the background in place of action. Nowhere is that more evident than when Jax finds a community of other rogue clakkers. There’s a great chance there to explore what free will really means – particularly in terms of evil and/or unethical behavior – because you have the community of beings who weren’t able to exercise it for so long. Unfortunately, it becomes little more than a side trip to allow Jax to grab a McGuffin and get back to the main plot. I really wish this had been stretched out some more.

While I have more nits to pick with The Rising than The Mechanical, that’s all they are. Tregillis has created a fascinating world populated by interesting people (and non-people) doing daring things. Can’t wait to see how he wraps things up later this year!

Tregillis-AlchemyWars-Blog

Water Road Wednesday: The Slaisal Islands

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The world of The Water Road is dominated by the continent of Altreria. It’s where the titular river is, where the Neldathi and Triumvirate face off, and where most of the action in the trilogy happens. It’s not the only bit of real estate in this world, however.

The Slaisal Islands are a chain of islands that lie off the continent’s northeast corner, curving away from the Badlands toward the northeast. Those who live there, called Islanders, are, naturally enough, sailors and fishers. In general, they stay out of the political squabble between the Triumvirate and the Neldathi. In short, if there’s a vacation spot in the world of The Water Road, this is it. I mean, consider the sunsets:

 

Lake_Malawi_-_Cape_Maclear_-_Thumbi_Island_Sunset

Not really the Slaisal Islands, obviously – they don’t even have cameras yet! But you get the idea. Photo of Lake Malawi in Tanzania, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Islanders are also traders, effectively controlling the commercial network at sea. Since they’re not part of the Triumvirate they aren’t bound by the alliance’s command to not do business with the Neldathi. In fact, there are four Islander cities along the Neldathi coast. They serve as way stations for Islander vessels, but also provide the only regular contact between the Neldathi and the outside world. There’s a similar Islander city on the northern coast, serving the same function with the Azkiri nomads who roam the Badlands.

In spite of their position on the periphery of events in Altreria, the Islanders are a key part of the story of The Water Road.

You Want Choices? You Got Choices!

/ JD Byrne / 1 Comment

The further we trudge down the path toward the presidential election, the sicker just about all of us are getting of the major candidates left in the race. Thankfully, there are so many more to burn through! Ed Brayton has surveyed some of the 1669 (you read that right) people who have filed to run for president and it is, let me tell you, an interesting bunch. Here’s a taste:

If you’re feeling a bit weird, you could try Sir TrippyCup aka Young Trippz aka The GOAT aka The Prophet aka Earl, if you’re not into the whole, ya know, brevity thing. And if you’re into the whole medieval fantasy thing, you could vote for Actual Literal Dragon. President Frederickson Asshat Kazoo does kind of roll of the tongue, doesn’t it?

There are lots of religious figures running. Jesus Christ himself is taking a shot at it. I can’t wait for the debate between him and The Antichrist. That just has to be moderated by Glenn Beck. And if you’re tired of voting for the lesser of two evils, you might cast your vote for Dr. Ourlordandsavior Cthulu (I can’t imagine how he found time to go to medical school with his busy schedule of devouring souls). I suspect Lesale Venomancer Deathbringer is just trying to get a cabinet position as Secretary of Defense. And for all the Satanists on your shopping list, there’s always Mrs. Luci Fer. She’s apparently running against her husband, His Royal Majesty Satan, Lord of the Underworld, Prince of Darkness. I doubt that guy will do anything about global warming. But I’m sure Abraham Israel will sacrifice whatever it takes to get the job done.

Every name has a link to the actual FEC filing for that candidate – he’s not making these up! Hell, I’m surprised these guys aren’t listed yet:

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Those are candidates I could get behind!

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I’m at Tamarack!

/ JD Byrne / Leave a comment

I’m at Tamarack!

Opened in 1996, Tamarack (just outside of Beckley) is a showcase for West Virginia artists of various kinds. According to its website, it was the first of its kind – a center devoted to the promotion of regional arts. In the 20 years since its opening more than 7 million people have visited.

Items sold at Tamarack have been juried and approved, which means getting into the collection there is something of an accomplishment. So I’m very pleased to report that my first novel, Moore Hollow, is now available there:

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Cell phone picture – pardon the quality

I think Moore Hollow is a natural fit for Tamarack, given that it’s set largely in West Virginia. It also ties a little bit into the political history of the state and, I hope, might give people a reason to rethink their perceptions of small mountain towns and the people who live there.

Of course, Moore Hollow is also still available from Amazon, as well.