"Revenge is a dish best served unexpectedly and from a distance - like a thrown trifle."
- Francis Hardinge, Twilight Robbery
I've already reviewed the dead tree edition of Anciliary Justice, the critically acclaimed, multi-award(2) winning and - most importantly - really rather good first installment of the Imperial Radch trilogy, but given that I'm planning to swing by the rest of the series at last, I figured I'd refresh my memory of the starting point and revisit the lonely quest of Breq, last ancillary 'corpse soldier' of the long-destroyed warship Justice of Toren, to bring justice to the manifold Emperor of the Radch, a vast, interplanetary empire with its noble houses arrayed in a complex system of patronage and no concept of gender (represented by the nearly-universal use of feminine pronouns, save where Breq is talking to extra-Radch barbarians in their own language.)
I'm glad I did. It is, as I say, a very good book, and interesting for more reasons than the pronoun quirk. The Radch is a fascinating mix of science fiction feudalism and corporate hegemony (the houses are clearly aristocratic, but their power base and interests largely commercial,) and the narrative transcends a simple revenge tale with its complex and existential political dimension. There are, I note on my second visit, a lot of odd coincidences, although I do wonder if that isn't a deliberate hint of something bigger. The reading, by Adjoa Andoh, is excellent.
Twelve Kings, also known as Twelve Kings in Sharakai(3), is another tale of long-deferred revenge. Ceda (pronounced Chay-dah) is secretly the pit fighter known as the White Wolf, double-secretly a courier of dubious goods, and triple-secretly working a long - oh, so long - game to bring down the twelve immortal Kings who rule the city of Sharakai with an even dozen iron fists, not because they are deathless tyrants whose daughters form a cadre of bloody protectors called the Blade Maidens, nor because their once-human servants take a tithe of the population every once in a while, but because they killed her mother and called her rude names. Meanwhile a group of freedom fighters/terrorists are also gunning for the Kings, although notably they have even less plan than Ceda for dealing with the fact that they are unkillable.
There's a lot of good stuff in Twelve Kings, but as a novel it falters on the fact that Ceda is neither a particularly likable protagonist, nor especially competent. She's clearly supposed to be a tough, non-nonsense gal who goes for what she wants and gets things done, except that it takes her most of the book to achieve anything. Also, if you want to sell your heroine as sexually liberated, I personally would avoid mentioning that her twenty-plus years older sex partner first met her as a child anywhere near the actual sex scene (if you absolutely have to have her shagging someone who met her when she was a child and they were in their thirties.) Her machinations are often clumsy, and her 'complicated' relationship with her not-brother Emre gets tedious every time it shades towards romance. It's also highly notable that absolutely no-one seems remotely interested in the fact that a group of immortals place any importance on succession.
It's the literary equivalent of a beautifully shot film with an exotic location and decent cast - in this case the reading by Sarah Combes - but only a so-so script. On the other hand, props for a setting that is markedly different from stock, and an ambitious scope.
I was what they call these days an early adopter when it comes to Frances Hardinge, reviewing her first three novels and moderating an online Q&A with this up-and-coming Oxford-based author with her wry turn of phrase and strong hat game in my previous life as a teacher and semi-pro reviewer of children's books. Alas, when that life ended, I sort of fell out of touch with the children's and young adult book game, and I've got fearfully behind, which is doubly embarrassing as about half of my friends game - or used to game - with her and I once met her while she was dressed as a duck.
Twilight Robbery is a first for Hardinge; her first sequel, specifically a follow-up to her debut novel Fly By Night. It follows Mosca Mye, her homicidal goose companion Saracen and n'er do well for hire Eponymous Clent as they seek to prevent a kidnapping and, in the process, escape from a potential warzone through the city of Toll, which is actually two cities; not in the manner of Ankh-Morpork or Budapest, nor yet of Besel and Ul Quoma in The City and the City, but by dividing up the city between day and night. Toll by Day is a good town of good people, charging massive tolls to enter the city and equally massive tolls to leave, while Toll by Night is a squalid den of thieves. Every Twilight, the city transforms from one to the other, and it's a poor lookout for those whose name indicates that they were born under the protection of a night-time patron Beloved (and one of the things I love about this book - spoilers, this is a positive review - is that it's so hard to explain one thing without the others, so organically do the elements of world-building fit together.)
Full of twists and turns, reversals of fortune and exquisite turns of phrase, Twilight Robbery confirms that, while one-offs may be her preferred mode, Hardinge can go back to the well(4) and not find it brackish. Mosca remains a superb mix of spiky and kind-hearted, and if Saracen spends most of the novel being little more than quietly disgruntled, an excellent double-conspiracy plot more than makes up for a lack of goose maulings.
I dead tree'd this one, courtesy of the local library, less because I didn't want to own it than because I like to seize on whatever I can find to show support for the local library since, you know, it's a local library.
Kindle First is a mixed bag, and I mean really mixed. Not like a bag of mixed nuts, because maybe you don't like almonds but you do like walnuts, but they're all nuts (and probably not peanuts due to allergies.) No, it's a mixed bag like Bertie Bots' Every Flavour Beans; sure, there's all your favourites in there, but by definition there's earwax and the bile taste when you throw up in your mouth as well. Ocean of Storms is not the bile taste; it's more the bland, cardboardy tang of bad crsipbread.
EMP from the moon, aliens, desperate mission, sabotage, exploding love interest, manly-yet-intelligent-and-sensitive hero, sacrifice, cover up, corporate shenanigans, conspiracy, revelation, time travel! That is a lot of things for a book to include while yet and at the same time being incredibly predictable. It also has a posh British character written by someone with even less experience with what posh British people sound like than me, lapsing often into US vernacular, and the rest of the time talking like Archie Leach in Leverage despite being only about forty.
Being a Kindle First option I read this one on Kindle, and I'm happy not to have shelled out the three quid for the Audible upgrade.
Finally for this month, The Golem and the Djinni is a historical urban fantasy. A golem, created to be an ideal wife, is widowed en route to America and taken in by a New York rabbi. At the same time, a djinni is released form centuries of captivity and becomes an apprentice tinsmith in the city's Little Syria district. Dubbed Chava, the golem seeks to live a modest and blameless life, while the djinni, given the name Ahmad, embraces impulse and spontaneity and believes himself removed from any consequence. When they meet they find commonality in their non-human condition and bound nature - she is driven to fulfill the needs she senses around her, while he is held in human form by an iron cuff - but are pushed apart by violence before being reunited to face a common enemy.
The really striking thing about The Golem and the Djinni is that it is a beautifully written book, powerfully evoking 19th century New York, but that the magical nature of the protagonists has so little bearing until very late in the slow-paced narrative, and that in the end neither effects a great deal of agency over the outcome of the story. I don't know what I was expecting from the novel, but while I have no regrets of the twenty hours listening to George Guidall's evocative reading it certainly wasn't this. If you like your urban fantasy leisurely and contemplative, this is one for you.
- Francis Hardinge, Twilight Robbery
 |
| Eventually they're going to try to film this(1), and it's going to be... interesting. |
I'm glad I did. It is, as I say, a very good book, and interesting for more reasons than the pronoun quirk. The Radch is a fascinating mix of science fiction feudalism and corporate hegemony (the houses are clearly aristocratic, but their power base and interests largely commercial,) and the narrative transcends a simple revenge tale with its complex and existential political dimension. There are, I note on my second visit, a lot of odd coincidences, although I do wonder if that isn't a deliberate hint of something bigger. The reading, by Adjoa Andoh, is excellent.
 |
| Promises, promises... |
There's a lot of good stuff in Twelve Kings, but as a novel it falters on the fact that Ceda is neither a particularly likable protagonist, nor especially competent. She's clearly supposed to be a tough, non-nonsense gal who goes for what she wants and gets things done, except that it takes her most of the book to achieve anything. Also, if you want to sell your heroine as sexually liberated, I personally would avoid mentioning that her twenty-plus years older sex partner first met her as a child anywhere near the actual sex scene (if you absolutely have to have her shagging someone who met her when she was a child and they were in their thirties.) Her machinations are often clumsy, and her 'complicated' relationship with her not-brother Emre gets tedious every time it shades towards romance. It's also highly notable that absolutely no-one seems remotely interested in the fact that a group of immortals place any importance on succession.
It's the literary equivalent of a beautifully shot film with an exotic location and decent cast - in this case the reading by Sarah Combes - but only a so-so script. On the other hand, props for a setting that is markedly different from stock, and an ambitious scope.
 |
| In America, Fly Trap. I have no idea why. |
Twilight Robbery is a first for Hardinge; her first sequel, specifically a follow-up to her debut novel Fly By Night. It follows Mosca Mye, her homicidal goose companion Saracen and n'er do well for hire Eponymous Clent as they seek to prevent a kidnapping and, in the process, escape from a potential warzone through the city of Toll, which is actually two cities; not in the manner of Ankh-Morpork or Budapest, nor yet of Besel and Ul Quoma in The City and the City, but by dividing up the city between day and night. Toll by Day is a good town of good people, charging massive tolls to enter the city and equally massive tolls to leave, while Toll by Night is a squalid den of thieves. Every Twilight, the city transforms from one to the other, and it's a poor lookout for those whose name indicates that they were born under the protection of a night-time patron Beloved (and one of the things I love about this book - spoilers, this is a positive review - is that it's so hard to explain one thing without the others, so organically do the elements of world-building fit together.)
Full of twists and turns, reversals of fortune and exquisite turns of phrase, Twilight Robbery confirms that, while one-offs may be her preferred mode, Hardinge can go back to the well(4) and not find it brackish. Mosca remains a superb mix of spiky and kind-hearted, and if Saracen spends most of the novel being little more than quietly disgruntled, an excellent double-conspiracy plot more than makes up for a lack of goose maulings.
I dead tree'd this one, courtesy of the local library, less because I didn't want to own it than because I like to seize on whatever I can find to show support for the local library since, you know, it's a local library.
 |
| I want to know, what in this book could you not have written alone? |
EMP from the moon, aliens, desperate mission, sabotage, exploding love interest, manly-yet-intelligent-and-sensitive hero, sacrifice, cover up, corporate shenanigans, conspiracy, revelation, time travel! That is a lot of things for a book to include while yet and at the same time being incredibly predictable. It also has a posh British character written by someone with even less experience with what posh British people sound like than me, lapsing often into US vernacular, and the rest of the time talking like Archie Leach in Leverage despite being only about forty.
Being a Kindle First option I read this one on Kindle, and I'm happy not to have shelled out the three quid for the Audible upgrade.
 |
| Jinni in the US original. |
The really striking thing about The Golem and the Djinni is that it is a beautifully written book, powerfully evoking 19th century New York, but that the magical nature of the protagonists has so little bearing until very late in the slow-paced narrative, and that in the end neither effects a great deal of agency over the outcome of the story. I don't know what I was expecting from the novel, but while I have no regrets of the twenty hours listening to George Guidall's evocative reading it certainly wasn't this. If you like your urban fantasy leisurely and contemplative, this is one for you.
(1) It has in fact been optioned for television. Leckie announced on her blog that the producers were positive on approaching a series full of dark-skinned, ungendered, polytheists, but that was two years ago and I cynically doubt it will make it past pre-production without introducing a simmering love-hate sexual tension between a busty, blonde Breq ('she redefined the role with her audition') and a ruggedly handsome Seivarden.
(2) Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, Arthur C. Clarke and Locus.
(3) In case you confused it with Twelve Kings in Sheboygan.
(4) The metaphorical well; I'm unconvinced that a sequel to Verdigris Deep would work at all.
(2) Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, Arthur C. Clarke and Locus.
(3) In case you confused it with Twelve Kings in Sheboygan.
(4) The metaphorical well; I'm unconvinced that a sequel to Verdigris Deep would work at all.
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