Rudolf isn't going to like this.

Unless I get really busy and finish book three at work tomorrow, I'm finishing off 2019 with book #65 read, also known as The City of Gold and Lead, book two of John Christopher's Tripod Trilogy.

Again, we're being narrated by Will, who, along with cousin Henry and Jean Paul (Beanpole), made it to the sanctuary of the White Mountains in the last book. We learn a little of the Resistance in this book, mainly that it's headed by Julian, and that they've been up in the mountains since the Tripods came. The boys have been getting educated both in books, language, and fighting; a plan is underway to send at least three youths to Germany for a competition that would get people into the realm of the Tripods.

The Council ends up sending three boys; Will goes to the games as a boxer, Beanpole as a long and high jumper, and Fritz as a runner. Henry, of course, is upset at not being selected, and Will is not ecstatic to hear about Fritz, since Fritz is taciturn and reserved.

The three of them walk down into Germany and catch a boat run by a supporter of the Resistance, who also is as mad as Ahab, only less obsessed. When the captain goes into town and stays out longer than expected, Beanpole and Will go in to find him. Will gets in a bar fight and winds up in a gaol, Beanpole finds him and breaks him out, but their ship has left without them, forcing them to raft upriver on the side of a barn, then stealing a hermit's boat after a long lesson in why an individual is not a threat to the Tripods, and why an individual is also not a resistance supporter.

Anyway, they do end up making it to the games, where Will gets in as a boxer, Fritz wins one of his events, and Beanpole almost wins, but gets disqualified on a technicality. As such, Fritz and Will get honored by being taken by tentacle into a Tripod and then to one of the three cities of the Masters.

The City is domed, and filled with pyramids, and the boys taken from the games are first dressed and given rebreathers, then led to to a place where the masters can choose them as servants. (There's a lot of threes in the city. the pyramids have three sides, the time in the city is kept in 9 periods, with 9 segments in each period, the Masters themselves have 3 legs, 3 tentacles, and 3 eyes in a vaguely conical shape.

Will gets lucky, sort of, as his Master is fairly benevolent at first. When he finds Fritz later on, Fritz hasn't been as lucky, getting beaten fairly regularly. Will does take advantage of his Master's affections, learning what he can of the Master's plans and weaknesses, as well as seeing the Hall of Beauty, where the beauty of the earth is forever preserved like butterflies in a glass case.

We hear of the thick green atmosphere in the dome, and the extra gravity, causing the servants many issues. We see Will and Fritz trying to figure out how and when to escape. And when we get that far, we see Will escape, finding Beanpole outside the city, and a 12 day vigil in which Fritz does not appear.

There are things in here I read differently as an adult than I did whenever back in my youth I last read these. Among other things, Will's treatment by his Master does suggest something rather more untoward than I caught as a kid. The Masters might reproduce by Parthogenesis, but Will's master does seem to enjoy getting high on Gas Bubbles and having Will rub him.  We also get the first signs that other than the Masters entire plan to corrode the atmosphere in 4 years' time, they've been a benefit to human society's ability to get along.

While most modern young adult dystopian fiction revolves around humans being evil to humans, making the enslavers of humaity from outside of humanity helps hide the kicker that we're really our own worst enemies. Which I'm sure we'll return to in the finale.

The Heat of the Night

So, if I'm remembering correctly, the last time I read Under a Velvet Cloak by Piers Anthony, it would have been 2009ish. I know I was living in Missouri, and that I got it froom the Glenstone Library branch, but....

Anyway, this is/was the final Incarnations of Immortality book he wrote, dealing with the incarnation of Night, Nox. And frankly, my memory of the major plot points wasn't that great, so it was a bit like reading it for the first time.

We start in roughly 500AD England, in the time of Arthur. We get a peek at Jolie from what they refer to as T1 (Timeline 1, the one where the rest of the series takes place) entering T2 and meeting the "ugly sister", Kerena. Jolie doesn't really possess Kerena as much as she rides her, only stepping in when T1 diverges from T2, since Orlene has seen that all the other timelines end in destruction of the universe. As such, trying to get the timelines to correct by following the path that worked previously leads to Jolie witnessing the rise of Kerena as she joins a traveling magician to learn to use her "Sight". Morley vanishes, so Kerena begins a quest to find him, leading to working in a brothel, then working for Morgan Le Fey. Mogan sends Kerena to seduce Sir Gawain so that he may not touch the Grail. She succeeds, but not until falling for him.

Anyway, After dropping Gawain off in Camelot, Morgan teaches Kerena the last trick, to find Morley. Which she does, in Scotland, where he's a Vampire named Vorley. The woman who turned him, turns Kerena as well, right before Kerena realizes she's knocked up with Gawain's bastard. Who in turn has a curse attached to him, which as we see later down the line, is upon his descendants as well. Kerena seeks out the Incarnations, who all rebuff her. She swears revenge, and eventually figures out how to become Nox. (Along the way, she meets Lilith, Molly Malone, and a whole host of other minor characters who play roles in the series.)

And then, as Nox, and with her "Sight", she learns to travel the timelines that branch off T2, meeting Niobe, who's name she gives to Gabriel  Along the way, she's romanced by an Efreet, whom we later learn a heck of a lot more about than what we ever wanted to know. (This is not to say his story isn't interesting, but....)

So, basically, the entire book lays out the underpinnings of the previous 7 books, showing that Nox herself set up the entire series, as well as getting really involved in the ideas of alternate timelines, and the idea that the universe is a big tree with three major branches, one totally science based, one totally magic based, and one where they compete, and how to keep the tree from dying.

Which is really interesting, but gets bogged down occasionally under the whole "Women must pretend they don't enjoy carnal relations to keep men interested", mixed in with rape being a major factor in a few relationships.

Really, though, worth reading for completeness.

In the end

So, after much delay, I finally got my hands on Edward Lazellari's Blood of Ten Kings, the third and final book in his Guardians of Aandor series.

It took me a few chapters to get back into the setting, as we catch up with folks on our Earth who are actually from another part of the universe, A part closer to the center of reality where magic is much more prominent. Also, as is discussed, the closer to the center, the slower time flows. (The actual analogy is that reality is like an onion, the closer to the center, the more magic there is and the more things become less material and more energetic.) Having forgotten who they all were due to a botched spell upon arrival, the heroes have lived 14 years on Earth with no memory of who they actually are, while roughly a week has passed in Aandor. The Prince of the Realm, who came to Earth as a babe, is now 14 and being trained by the Guardians to speak the language, how to rule, etc. Which isn't really easy for a 14 year old who wants to enjoy his childhood. Perhaps worse is Guard Captain Cal, who married Cat on Earth, having forgotten his betrothed, Chrys, back on Aandor. As we open, the same arguments from book two are replayed, as everyone tries to figure out when they should head back to Aandor and wipe the rival kingdom whose invasion of Aandor is what sent everyone to Earth in the first place out.

About a third of the way through the book, and after a few more Aandorians arrive, the point becomes moot as a dying Necromancer kills the Tree Mage Rosencrantz, sending most of the cast back to Aandor, whether they like it or not. (A few do get left behind, and we find out their fates later.)

As such, we get to see the Earthlings adjust to life in High Medieval fantasy settings even as the returned Aandorians bring Earth technology back with them unexpectedly, even if the magic of Aandor doesn't allow it to function very long. (Honestly, I found myself laughing as half the characters were using iPhones on Aandor to show pictures proving lineage. Good luck finding a charging port in High Medieval.)

Any rate, once we're back on Aandor, we end up following around a few different groupings of the Guardians as they get thrown into starting a rebellion. (I'm skipping a heck of a lot of narrative here, but it's kind of like watching modern folks find their way through a High Fantasy escape room.)

In the end, the day is won, and just about everyone has dealt with the revelations thrown at them during the transitions. We also get a few lessons in how magic and science can work together with some very fun results.

While this is a mostly satisfying end to the series, I also started feeling like maybe it should have been stretched out over two books, since parts of the rebellion and many of the revelations of personal info felt rushed, like everything that needed to happen was going to happen, but there wasn't enough room to particularly space it out. Also, when the bride meets the betrothed, the friendship between them is awesome, even if most of what they talk about fails the Bechdel test.

As a side note, this copy came from the library my dad ended up frequenting after he finished reading through the local library where I grew up. Part of me wondered if this would have been one he and I would have discussed, or if he would have dismissed it as too modern.

In Nomine

So, as the library finally found me a copy of the final book of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality, I found myself racing through the penultimate book, And Eternity. Which used to be the series finale, but ya know....

Anyway, thanks to the revelations of Satan in the previous volume, we're mostly following around Satan's first wife Jolie as she works on secret missions on behalf of Gaea. Unfortunately, Satan had her also working on observing someone, who just happened to be Gaea and Mars's bastard child, Orlene, Who had a baby by Chronos prior to him becoming Chronos, and who's grandmother is currently one of the faces of Fate, and who's cousin Luna is shacked up with Thanatos.

As we saw back in book 2, Orlene kills herself. So Jolie drags her ghost around for most of the book. Which works out, since Gaea needs Jolie and her shadow to check in on a teenaged hooker who's mother works for Luna. This leads us to Vita. We also see more of Nox, the incarnation of night, who has the soul of Orlene's baby, and who presents a quest to Orlene to recover said soul. Orlene only need to gather something from each of the seven Incarnations of Day (which we find out more about that split later on... Basically the Day incarnations split into 7 areas, while Night remained undivided.)

Anyway, after getting Vita off drugs, away from her pimp, and under the supervision of a juvenile court judge who she ends up sleeping with, the three (and on one occasion four) of them wind up seeking out each Incarnation, slowly revealing their relationships with Orlene and showing quite a bit of what each of their offices concerns.

In the end, after securing the items from six of the Incarnations, Orlene, Vita, and Jolie ascend to Heaven and find, like Satan did, God is so busy contemplating his own divinity that he no longer pays attention to the world. As such, Luna's big moment is due to come, as her destiny in thwarting Satan is to provide the deciding vote in declaring the Office of Good vacant. Indeed, one of the best scenes in the entire series, basically a throwaway, happens here, where Satan causes a traffic snarl to prevent her from voting. Which Death's white steed takes her through.

And in the end, the vote on who gets the office happens, and at last Satan and Nox's true plans come to light. And as Jolie swore early on, God kisses Satan while all the Incarnations applaud.

Of note, this is also the only book in the series which I've actually done more than skim the Afterward on. In it he talks a bit about he feels as if good is really not present in the world anymore, and feels good really only works if people work to bring it forward, which I kind of agree with.

I know some folks really hate this volume. While I get that, and I understand, since Anthony's conclusions on the nature of men and women is annoying, I rather enjoyed this reread. I enjoyed the idea that sometimes, if a system is broken, or really doesn't work, the time comes to stop and restart and find a new way. Something I think more than a few of us can associate with.

Let's dive into the kiddie pool

So, I finally managed to drag myself through Bret Easton Ellis's The Rules of Attraction, which evidently is part of a shared universe of stories centering around the rich, privileged, downright vapid people of the '80s. (Read as: Clay, protagonist of Less Than Zero, shows up here as the Dumb Guy From LA, Lauren shows up again with Victor in Glamazon, and Sean's brother Patrick is the protagonist of Ellis's infamous American Psycho.)

So, at its core, this one is basically farce, as mistaken identities abound throughout the novel, only without any humor or any real point. We're mainly focused on Sean Bateman, Paul Denton, and Lauren Hynde. They aren't the only narrators, but they're the major ones. Sean deals drugs, skips class, and sleep around. By all accounts, he's sleeping with Lauren and Paul at various points, although his narration skips over any sexual shenanigans with Paul. Paul is a drama major who spends most of his time complaining about the other gay men on campus, pining over Mitchell (whom he dated, but Mitchell was closeted....Mitchell started sleeping with Lauren, which is how they met), being obsessed with Sean.... Lauren loses her virginity at the beginning of the book, and makes up for lost time the rest of it. She's pining for Victor, who went to Europe. (Victor narrates a few chapters, mainly talking about sleeping his way across Europe and doing drugs.)

All of this is set at the exclusive Camden College in New Hampshire, where the students and the townies hate each other.

Sean keeps getting this really weird love notes in his campus mail box. He thinks they're from Lauren. We, the readers, know it's some nameless woman obsessed with Sean who slices her wrists open after watching Sean leave a party with Lauren. 

Mind you, this happens within the first half of the book, so we still have another half to go of people's ennui, ending up with Lauren having her pregnancy by Sean terminated somewhere up by the Maine border.

Overall, the book was engaging I guess, but really it was like unto Sodom, only without any purpose. Every single narrator needed slapped. Any time I felt empathy with any of them, they promptly did something even dumber that killed off any goodwill I had built up. Honestly, as much more developed this is from the movie adaption, I kind of which I had just stuck with the movie.

Stop me if you've heard this before

So, Lisa W. Cantrell's Torments is less a sequel to her The Manse than it is the second half of the original book. Or more to the point, like Stephen King's It or Douglas Clegg's You Come When I Call You, it's the big bad calling everyone home again to finish what was started two years previously.

In this case though, most of the survivors have stayed in Merrilville, except Vince Colletti and Samantha Evers, both of whom come back early on in the novel; the former is dealing drugs out of Miami, the latter having been hiding in California.

We do get a few new characters, most of whom are in town to deal with the Beaufort House Condominiums being built on the site of the old Manse. The condos have been having issues since construction started, bringing in Sonny, who's both troubleshooting and looking to possibly buy the property. This sets him at odds with Mike, the foreman on the project, who can't quite figure out what's causing all the problems. The Interior Designer of the project, Jennifer, is happy to see Sonny, since he stays in one of the other models, meaning she's not alone at night in the complex, dreaming of a homeless man who keeps trying to warn her away.

We also revisit Pearl Rollins, who keeps getting reminded by Dood's ghost that things ain't finished, and Ted, who's taken Pearl's watch at watching the property through the night, waiting for a sign.

And then we have the missing Jaycee's, who's graves keep coming up empty.

It's a lot of fun to watch as the house rises again and we see what happens when demons get to run normal Haunted House attractions. It's not so fun to watch Sam go running back to her (dead) abusive ex boyfriend. This has always been one of the sticking points for me. Doesn't really help the pathos generated by Ted watching her do it, trapped in molasses fog, really doesn't fit the haunted house setting of the finale.

While this one is better written than the original, and remains a fun read, the multiple plot lines that get resolved a bit too quickly and one or two not so logical actions keep it from being a perfect Halloween read. Still fun.