Reading Roundup - August 2016

The Scar is the second of China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels, named on my copy as the New Crobuzon series, and although the action of The Scar leaves the outskirts of the city itself in the prologue and never goes back, it does loom large in the thoughts of our protagonist throughout. Belis Coldwyn is an author and linguist, and as an ex-lover of Perdido Street Station's Isaac, unreasonably high on the government's to do list. She jumps on a ship to the colonies, but when that ship is intercepted by the forces of the floating city of Armada she is caught up in something vaster than she could have imagined. Some in the floating city have an audacious plan to tether an extradimensional leviathan and so make their way to the ruins of an ancient Empire and plunder their unimaginable power.

As with Perdido Street Station, the scope of The Scar is colossal. Geographically it far exceeds its predecessor, although the bulk of the action is restricted to Armada itself. The rough and gritty thaumpunk dystopia of Bas-Lag opens out from the claustrophobic glory of New Crobuzon through the eyes of Belis and a handful of other viewpoint characters, all of whom play key roles in the plot without any of them being major players, even when they think that they might be, as it rambles towards what is more of an end than a conclusion. The Scar is very much about the journey, rather than the destination.

Damian Lynch provides a radically different voice to Jonathon Oliver, and at first I did find this a bit distracting. Ultimately, however, he brings his own energy to the reading.

Sleeping Giants is the debut novel from author Sylvain Neuvel, and takes the form of a series of statements and interviews with the personnel of a highly secret project, recorded by the programme's enigmatic and ludicrously well-connected backer. The statements reveal the discovery of the pieces of a giant, alien mech functioning on an utterly unknown level of science, the underhanded and even illegal steps taken to secure it in US control and the intricate web of contingency plans and conspiracy used to bring it into the open.

While only touched on briefly, the mech's origins hint at future conflict with an ancient empire long-since withdrawn from Earth along with the planet's eleven other protectors, and the novel is pitched as Volume 1 of The Themis Files. I confess, I'm not rushing for the next one. While the multi-voice recording was excellent - I am hugely in favour of multi-voice recordings in general and this one had a talented cast on its side - I was not quite taken enough with the characters to truly get into the story, and given the archival approach I felt that it might have benefited from taking a broader view and including outside perspectives on the programme and the appearance of the robot on the world stage.

Not remotely a debut novel for prolific military scifi writer Jack Campbell, The Dragons of Dorcastle is the first in a series set in a world in which the ordinary people are caught between the mutually antagonistic influences of the two Great Guilds, the Mechanics and the Mages. The Mechanics create the devices on which society runs and insist on their exclusive right, indeed ability, to provide and maintain them, while the Mages manipulate reality by embracing a philosophy which insists that nothing is actually real. Neither have much time for the Commons.

When Mari and Alain, prodigies of the Mechanics and the Mages respectively, are thrown together by circumstances it at first seems to be nothing more than your average star-crossed love affair, but even as their feelings challenge their Guild teachings and their experiences reveal the internal corruption and contradictions of their masters, Alain becomes aware that Mari is a figure of prophecy fated to stand against a great Storm that threatens to tear the world apart. To defeat it, however, she needs to overthrow the established order of both Guilds and rally them in common cause with the ordinary people of Dematr, a level of change that neither Guild will allow, even if the alternative is destruction.

Also dragons.

MacLeod Andrews provides a good reading, although I did hear 'Alain' as 'Elaine' to start with. Overall, The Dragons of Dorcastle has an involving story and an interesting set-up, but personally I could have done with less romance. It doesn't feel like Campbell's strong suit, and narratively it primarily serves to provide a reason for the two leads not to discuss the vital prophecy in a timely and useful fashion.

Finally this month - this feels thin. I'm sure there must be something else I'm missing, although in my defence, The Scar is fucking immense - is Hamlet's Hit Points. One of my rare non-fiction reads, in this book rock star games designer Robin D. Laws uses a system of beat analysis to break down the fluctuation of hope and fear in the dramatic and procedural plots of three famous narratives, in order to provide exemplars for games masters to consider when pacing their own offerings. In addition to providing an interesting and innovative reading on three well-worn texts - Shakespeare's Hamlet, Dr No and Casablanca - and providing some interesting examples of technique for the storyteller or game writer, Laws discerns some under-discussed elements of the works involved, such as a eakness in Hamlet's supposed tragic flaws or the Freudian subtext of No. It's a genuinely fascinating approach and one I shall likely be applying to my future storytelling.