Reading Roundup - April 2018

I kicked off April with A Closed and Common Orbit. Described as Wayfarers Book 2, it's more of a spin-off from Becky Chambers debut novel, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, following the past and present fortunes of minor characters from that novel: technician Pepper, her artist boyfriend Blue, and Sidra, an AI from the first novel now illegally embodied in a humanoid form; as well as Sidra's new friend Tak, an Aeluon. Sidra is completely lost in the limits of a human form, having been built to integrate into the systems of an entire spaceship, and moreover as a result of the events of the previous novel this is not a fate that she chose, it instead having been intended by her previous self before she had to be reset. This novel follows two threads: Pepper's, and later Tak's - attempts to help Sidra adapt to human form, and flashbacks to Pepper's childhood as a genetically engineered child-slave and her search for the AI that saved her from that life, but was confiscated from her when they reached 'civilised' space.

A Closed and Common Orbit is a much more compact and intimate tale than The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, and for my money is all the better for it. The first novel had a breadth of scope that acted against its strengths, which mostly lie in the characters and their small and personal interactions. A Closed and Common orbit is about the quest for identity, and that works with those strengths. Sidra's viewpoint(1) continually refers to Sidra's thoughts, but to the kit's hands; the body she has been given never really feels like hers. This enables a particularly neat scene in the closing chapters which I won't spoiler. I am also particularly fond of the ending, which does not involve Sidra neatly coming to realise that human is best, although I won't say more.

Next up was Joe Kelly and JM Ken Niimura's limited comic book series I Kill Giants, which has been adapted into a movie which I might see sometime(2).

Barbara Thorson is a troubled girl, obsessed with the idea that she has a calling. "I find giants," she says when questioned abouth er future on careers day. "I hunt giants. I kill giants." Her friend Sophia and the school guidance counsellor grow concerned as she seems to slip further out of control, fighting violently with the school bullies and threatening to unleash Coveleski, the magic warhammer in her handbag. Is Barbara simply retreating into fantasy to avoid her own pain, or are there truly giants causing the grief in the world? Or is the answer not so simple as an either/or?

Illustrated in stark, black and white lines, I Kill Giants is a comic with emotional punch. Barbara is an abrasive character. She is not remotely likeable, but is still deeply sympathetic, surrounded by well-meaning friends and adults who don't know how to offer the help that she needs, and whose assistance she doesn't know how to accept. The giants - real or not - loom large over Barbara's bleak world as dense patches of shadow, and must be fought - one way or another - before she can find any kind of peace.

I managed to find time to finish up another Harry Potter novel, this time The Half-Blood Prince, which means I only have the one left to go. Book six is where Shit Gets Real™, as Harry returns to Hogwarts only to find that his nemesis, Draco Malfoy, seems to be intent on some secret mission for Lord Voldemort, in which he may have the assistance of Professor Snape, and no-one else seems to believe him when he tells them. Also, Dumbledore wants him to spy on the new Potions master, and after the false start of Cho Chang, Harry is finally discovering girls.

The Half-Blood Prince marks the end of the Harry Potter series as it began. The Deathly Hallows is a radical departure from the pattern, which I'll talk about when I get that one finished, but it was about time the series had one, and the old school framing device is looking a little worn. Harry attends barely any lessons, and it's clear that Rowling recognised that Hogwarts had more or less served its purpose. There's a core of a very strong story in The Half-Blood Prince, but the setting which was such a strength in the previous books is here more of a burden.

A bit of a departure now, as I spent a few days with the pilot of the future, in Big Finish's Dan Dare: The Audio Adventures. Normally I do audio plays over on My Life as a Doge, but I picked this up in an offer through Audible, so here we are.

Fifties comic legend Dan Dare joins the Big Finish stable of updated retrofuturist icons in a series of six plays: 'Voyage to Venus', 'The Red Moon Mystery', 'Marooned on Mercury', 'Reign of the Robots', 'Operation Saturn' and 'Prisoners of Space'. A full cast portray updated versions of the characters from the old stories: Daring test pilot Dan Dare, Lieutenant Albert Digby, Professor Peabody and Sir Hubert Whatsisname are all present and correct, or... Well, working class hero Digby is now a gruff, professional soldier with little time for fancy flyboys, Professor Peabody is a corporate shill, and Sir Hubert is all about the military-industrial complex.

So, this is a much more dystopian view of the solar system than I remember from the little Dan Dare I know, with corporate shenanigans on top of the threat of the Mekon, weird, totalitarian superstates among the outer planets, a conspiracy which led to the death of Dare's father, and even the complete conquest of Earth at one point. It's bleak, and doesn't have a neat ending where everything is explained and okay; or even fully explained and not okay. To date, there is no second season of Dan Dare audio adventures. That makes me sad, although I know I'm contributing by buying through Audible and cutting down Big Finish's margins.

I did buy Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords through Big Finish, although in a sale. This series of audio plays is the first of several based on one of the Adventure Path sets for the Pathfinder RPG, following four of the game's iconic characters(3) - Ezren the human wizard, Harsk the dwarf ranger, Valleros the human fighter, and Merisiel the elf rogue - through one possible iteration of the published adventure(4). From the quiet village of Sandpoint to the ruined city of Xin-Shalast, this band of heroic adventurers pursue glory, vengeance, profit and vague hints of romance(5), and seek to thwart the return of Karzoug, the Runelord of Greed.

Rise of the Runelords is an action-packed adventure, and this is both a blessing and a curse. Action is hard to do well in audio, although in the hands of veteran director John Ainsworth and Big Finish's stable of writers there is a pretty good balance of sound effects and description. The characters are strongly drawn, although there are aspect that are inconsistent between writers; in particular, Merisiel and Valleros seem to fluctuate between friendly antagonism and shared attraction to the local innkeeper, and some sort of Sam and Diane dynamic. Still, overall it's good fun, and I'm likely to pick up the other series that have been released when I have the funds.

Finally for the month, John Gwynne's Malice is book one of a series called The Faithful and the Fallen, a fantasy epic set in a world where a war in heaven long past caused the local creator to up sticks and go off in a huff, leaving the titular faithful and fallen angels - called the Benelim and Cadushim - to duke it out for the fact of creation. Malice follows multiple viewpoint characters in a time of upheaval, as strange creatures stalk the land, giants emerge from the forests, and the rulers of the human kingdoms of the Banished Lands seek for a saviour, the prophesied Bright Star to battle the Black Sun who will champion evil.

Malice is one of those books that upholds the principles of Dark Helmet; that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb. The well-meaning persistently fail to spot glaringly obvious warning signs, and openly pick fights with numerically-superior douchebags. One blindly follows a master who believes himself to be the promised saviour, despite every indication that he's the opposite. Our actual hero neglects to mention a key fact which not only could have - as he himself realises - proved a significant asset during the climactic siege, but also have prevented, or at least slowed, the complete collapse of the defence.

If that sounds harsh, it's mostly because otherwise Malice is pretty good, and I wish it hinged less on such omissions(6). The characters are sympathetic, the untried youth with a great destiny much better written and more sympathetic than many, and the villains at least a little complex. Well, most of them; the sex-crazed witch queen seems pretty one dimensional(7), although we've not had much from viewpoints close to her as yet. I may well pick up the next book in the sequence.

(1) The narrative is third person limited.

(2) You know; if it ever shows up in a cinema near me and/or comes to a streaming service I have.

(3) Pathfinder's iconic characters are archetypal characters designed to illustrate the classes of the game system.

(4) I presume. It seems too acclaimed to be a complete railroad.

(5) Like... really vague, which in fairness is pretty much the level your typical tabletop RPG relationship gets to before everyone starts to feel hella awkward.

(6) It's also possible that some of these would be less egregious in someone without the reader's overarching awareness of the various plot threads, although I would still tend to scoff at those who chose to back the 'Bright Star' whose methodology involves totalitarian, dictatorial rule and brutal, 'greater good' pragmatism in the face of ethical dilemmas.

(7) There are much better female characters in the novel, but far fewer than there are men, and only one is a viewpoint character.