Lover is crying 'cause the other won't stay

It's been a while since I picked up Mercedes Lackey's Last Herald-Mage trilogy, and it wound up in my bag on my way out the door.

I'd forgotten how, much like with The Neverending Story, I spend much of the journey wishing certain events would have a different outcome, then end up in tears when the don't.

 See, in Magic's Pawn, we meet the legendary Vanyel Ashkevron, who existed quite some time before the primary timeline of the Valedemar setting. (The original trilogy posited that no mages exist within Valdemar, and this trilogy ends up explaining why, as well as setting up events later in the main timeline.) Vanyel is somewhat of a peacock, vain and fey on the Ashkevron estate of Forst Reach. Being firstborn, he stands to become the holder when his father retires, but that holds no appeal to him. Indeed, he wants to be a bard.

Withen, Van's father ends up getting so upset with Vanyel that he exiles him to the capital of Haven to be raised by Sayvil, Withen's sister, who is a Herald-Mage. Sayvil's a bit of a battle axe, but she also gives Vanyel a chance to stand on his own without his father trying to press him into an image of himself. Vanyel, in the meantime, has learned to use indifference as a shield against everything.

One of Sayvil's pupils, Tylendel, who's also shay'a'chern (a Hawkbrother term that essentially means gay), ends up being the one who helps Vanyel reach out from behind the wall of indifference. Vanyel and Tyendel become lovers and enjoy a fairly torrid secret romance. (Van is trying to keep this secret from his father until he reaches the age of majority, when Daddy can't call him back and ship him off to a cloistered order, since as Heir and and not being a Herald, he has no legal protection until 18 from his father's whims.) As part of their cover for what's really going on, they pretend in public to hate each other, which tends to make Vanyel's instructors hate him, as well as attract the attention of Wester Leshara, who's family is feuding with Tylendel's family. As much as Sayvil tries to keep Tylendel out of the feud, Tylendel's twin Staven keeps trying to draw him in. We find out in a later conversation that 'Lendel and Staven share a bond to the point they can essentially merge mindw with each other.

That bond becomes important when Leshara hires an outland mage to take out Staven, sending 'Lendel into rather large backlash sickness. 'Lendel plots revenge from his sickbed, getting Van to get forbidden spell books from Sayvil's shelves. On Sovven Night, 'Lendel gates himself and Van to the Leshara esate and unleashes unholy creatures on the party at the estate. 'Lendel's Companion, Gala ride through and repudiates her Chosen, buying time for Sayvil and most of the senior Heralds time to get through the gate and end the attack. Gala dies, and as they try to stabilize 'Lendel back on the Haven side of the gate, 'Lendel instead jumps off a very high building. As the gate collapses, the energy goes back through Vanyel, buring open several channels that pretty much give him access to all the Gifts that Heralds have, including the Magic Gift. And he gets Chosen by Yfandes. Not that any of this matters, since between the backlash and the sheer emotional pain of losing his Lifebonded lover, Vanyel isn't in good shape. Indeed, he sneaks out to go say goodbye to Tylendel's corpse and then tries to join 'Lendel in eternal slumber.

After much debate and a rather one sided confrontation  between Vanyel and Withen, Sayvil ends up taking Vanyel West to k'Vala Vale, home of some Hawkbrothers she knows, in hopes that the brothers can heal and train Vanyel. That Moondance and  Starwind are lifebonded shay'a'chern doesn't hurt.

They do manage to get Vanyel a bit further along, but it takes an attack on a village nearby by Colddrakes and another village that's been taken over by the mage Krebain to get Vanyel to where he needs to be.

I kind of wish I had found this series earlier in life (I was loaned this trilogy back in 1998, and eventually ended up reading the entire series in fits and starts), since Vanyel's start here really resonated with me and my own inner drama during first love. Mine wasn't nearly as tragic as his, but it does tap in to that entire feeling of needing to hide who you are lest you be outcast.That it can affect me even now is a testement to how powerful Vanyel's tale is.

Who knew demons cure lice and fleas?

Recently I found out the lirbary finally got hard copies of Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric novellas, and I was quite ecstatic to be able to read more of the series set in her World of the Five Gods.

So, here we have Penric and the Shaman, in which Penric and his demon, Desdemona, get tapped to go help a Temple Locator to find a rogue shaman suspected of murdering a friend of the shaman. Penric has advanced since the first story, now a Learned in the Bastard's Order. The Father's Locator, Orwyl, doesn't quite know what to make of him, since Penric and Desdemona's conversations tend to be....odd to listen to.

The rogue shaman, Inglis, on the other hand, has run aground in the mountain valleys and damaged his leg. He does find himself among dogs that are on their way to becoming Great Beasts. The shaman who had been breeding the dogs died in a rock slide a few weeks prior.

Eventually, the plots meet up, and we get the full story of why Inglis is bleeding himself and why everyone was called together by the parsimonious Gods.

Given this is a novella, it's a short read, but I love this setting, and I love Ms. Bujold's writing. I also love the reconciliation between the dead mountaineer and his God. May we all be so blessed as to be able to greet divinity with a smile and a sense of humor.

Much love.

Torak's Wife

So, it took me a bit logner to get through Polgara the Sorceress than previous volumes in the David Eddings series, but she's also a longer read and I was on vacation for five days in there. (DC. There were Pandas.)

As Ce'Nedra complained at the end of Belgarath, the preseries story was unfinished, since Polgara has a story of her own. The Riven Queen and Garion go east to the vale and enlist Poledra to get Polgara to write out her story. Which she does eventually.

Much like Belgarath, Polgara tends to litter her narrative with the occasional aside poking fun at fictional readers of her manuscript. Which helps to lighten up the occasionally dark narrative.

By far the biggest change with Pol is that Polgara is aware that Poledra lived past her birth, as Poledra remains in contact with her throughout her life. Polgara, being a twin, loses her other half at 16 when Beldara marries Riva. Beldara manages to get Polgara out of her awkward and unkempt stage prior to marriage, although Beldaran's eventual death marks the start of deaths that will haunt her through the narrative.

We see much of her learning through her eyes and get the other half of the story told in her father's book, including that her mother was also instructing her. Until she eventually winds up in war torn Arendia to end the civil war, however temporarily. Mind you, she more or less bullies the three Duchies into behaving themselves and gets given her own Duchy, Erat, as a reward. Vo Wacune falls and so does her almost lover Ontrose with it. While Ontrose's death is very hard on her, it doesn't stop her from her duty as Duchess, helping the refugee Wacites settle in to Erat as it becomes Sendaria and destroying the Asturian raiders. She convinces one of the Tonedran Emporers to get a king in Sendaria, and thus her land becomes an independent nation.

After that adventure, she becomes the guardian of the Rivan line, as she fishes the heir, Geran, out of the bay and takes him back to her estate in Sendaria. We hear of her moving around with the heirs and making them vanish into obscurity until Torak's invasion of the West. The heir at the time goes into hiding in Algaria, while Pol and Belgarath get the forces running at Vo Mimbre. We hear of how she and Poledra combine into one particular owl to spy on Torak and Zedar during the siege. And how it was Poledra who helped her resist Torak's proposal on the third day.

We hear of the heir's mental subjugation to Chamdar and subsequent exposure to Chamdar's thoughts, and the later move into Cherek. Finally, the century of the Godslayer arrives and Polgara can finally move back to Sendaria. Which is probably the saddest chapter in the entire book as we learn of the fates of Garion's grandparents and the eventual fire that takes out his parents. And we hear of the move to Faldor's farm and Polgara's eventual acknowledgement of her love for her father.

Polgara is quite a bit more intimate than Belgarath. This is likely because Polgara is younger than Belgarath, and she's much more involved in the day to day history of the world than Belgarath is. It's a wonderful ending to the series, and a reminder of sacrifices made to bring about the changes we need in the world.

I knew Oregon was bad....

I found out a while back that Seanan McGuire had written a novel based on an RPG game and my interest was piqued. While I've never played DeadLands, I know enough people who have to have a very general idea of the setting, and hey, it's Ms. McGuire, who's writing I enjoy.

My lack of familiarity of with the setting was a bit of an issue for a few bits in Boneyard, although I caught the gist of the timeline changes. (The biggest one was that in this setting Deseret never became Utah and became a sovereign nation.)

Anyway, the plot mainly concerns Annie Pearl, Mistress of Oddities at the Blackstone Family Circus. Her daughter, Adelaide, is mute, but learned to sign from a Sioux who traveled with the circus. Annie has a past hidden in the City of Salt Lake, but no one in the circus is aware of it. Indeed, when we join the circus, they're traveling from Idaho to Oregon for what promises to be the last show of the season in a settlement known as The Clearing. Set into a bowl, The Clearing has a bit of a reputation, as most acts come out with full coffers, but rumor holds that about one in four acts that go through have problems.

And this being a novel, Blackstone is one of the tours that has issues.

Chief among those issues are the monsters that sweep out of the woods and kidnap several members of the circus. Not that Annie is there for this, since Adelaide wandered off into the woods on her own earlier. However, Annie gets joined in her search for her daughter by one of the circus roustabouts, Martin, who's girlfriend Sophia wound up being kidnapped by the monsters. Out in the woods, Annie's pet Lynx, Tranquility (a gift from her ex husband), protects them during an attack long enough to get Martin and Annie to the door of Hal, once one of The Clearing, now a hermit in the woods. And his story is a doozy.

Seems that the woods are filled with spirits of hunger that possess people and fill them with the urge to eat people. (Because People who eat people are the loneliest people...) AKA they become Wendigo. Hal's wife and daughter became Wendigo after he got hurt in the woods.

Adelaide, on the other hand, a few adventures later, is found amongst the wolf like things that also haunt the woods.

And then there's Annie's still current husband, Michael, who comes to Oregon from Deseret to take back his daughter for the benefit of their other daughter. (This is another place the setting needed a bit. Seems there's a bit of Steampunk in the world, since the wagons are steam powered.) His employer, Dr. Hellestromme, seems to like Michael's work.

In the end, one of the scenes I expected is played out, although not in a way I predicted it, and we again deal with one of the themes of golem creation: sometimes, man is the monster, particularly when the monsters are just filling their role in the world.

While the book is really readable, there are a few bits where you can hear the dice rolling in the background. And a bit more exposition on setting would have helped. 

Torak's Teeth

As I had stated previously, I came back and finished Belgarath the Sorcerer by David Eddings, having had a small break in the TBR pile.

We start with a very short prologue picking up right after The Seeress of Kell, with the Gods leaving after Polgara's motherhood became official. A conversation between Garion, Durnik, and Belgarath begins a plot to get Belgarath to write down his story, which covers most of the history of the world until Garion's birth.

And what a story it is. This volume clocks in longer than any of the other installments in the series, but it also covers a heck of a lot of ground. We hear about Torak taking Aldur's Orb, then using it to crack the world and the punishment he gets for using it so. We hear of the journey to Mallorea to retrieve the orb, and the split that turns Aloria into Cherek, Drasnia, Algaria, and Riva. We hear of Belgarath's descent into grief and madness following the supposed death of Poledra while he was getting the Orb and setting up Riva.

We have the birth of Polgara and Beldaran, and Pol's hatred of her father. We see Beldaran get married to Riva and start the line that would produce Garion in time. Then comes the writing of the prophecies.

Along the way, we find Belgarath getting directions from his Necessity and Polgara getting her own instruction and usually not telling Belgarath. Eventually Pol winds up in Arendia and gains a Duchy in Vo Wacune. Her father gets quite annoyed with her. Eventually Vo Wacune falls and Pol spends a few centuries being annoyed with her father. Then comes the murder of the Riven King, and Polgara's caretaking of the Riven line.

That falls apart a few times, although none so long as when Torak wakes up and invades Drasnia on his was to the Battle of Vo Mimbre, leaving the Heir at the Algarian Stronghold while Torak invades and decimates the West. That eventually gets settled by Brand exposing Torak to the Orb and poking a stick through his eye....

And then we wait for the birth of the Godslayer, and the sadness that is the deaths of Garion's Grandparents and parents.

We see the companions in their early years, and we end with Ce'Nedra deciding she needs to hear Polgara's story. Which will be later, since I had a few books show up.

It's a good, if involved read, filling in many of the gaps from the first two pentads.

Everyone must get "stoned"

On the advice of a friend, I checked out S. L. Farrell's first volume in his The Cloudmages series. Which is not a decision I regret.

We start Holder of Lightning on the Knobtop hill with Jenna and her obstinate goat. As it happens, she's in the right place at the right time to pick up Lamh Shabhala, AKA the first stone. (There are accents on the vowels, but I'm being lazy here. Given the entire book is based on Ireland, feel free to add in your own accents on every vowel.) Getting the stone is particularly fortuitous, given that the night she finds the plain stone is the night the Mage Lights start in the sky.

This causes issues, as the stone she bears is supposed to awaken the other stones of power, with Lamh Shabhala being the First and most powerful of the Cloch na thintri, which of course means several people who aren't poor goat herders from backwaters want that stone. Mind you, the kingdom/duchy of the Tuatha that Jenna lives in finds her first and leads her and her mother Maeve to Lar Bhaile, the capital of their kingdom in the company of Paidraic Mac Ard. Mac Ard is a noble, and bears a cloch mor (greater stone of power), though it hasn't awakened yet. He's also in love with Maeve by the time things get going in full gear and the stones waken.

So, let's see.... Just about everyone but Jenna wants the stone. During a quick trip to Doire Coill, we meet members of the race of man whom the Tuatha replaced. We also meet the ghost of one of the old holders, who helps Jenna to realize she can call on the spirits of every previous holder.

So, eventually, Jenna kills the queen, which is justified since Cinna was trying to use proxies to kill her. This sets off Mac Ard and Jenna's possible fiance. Jenna, left with no real choice, runs off with Ennis to the White Keep in the far Northwest of Inish Thuide. Where again, almost everyone wants the stone.

In the end, we get a war. We also get more politics than Party convention. (I'm really seriously condensing down things here, mainly because to get to far into th eplot details would spoil a heck of a lot of surprises.)

Any rate, there are at least two more books in the series, although I have no idea if they follow Jenna or not, since the blurbs in the book claim this is multi-generational, and I'm not sure if that refers to Jenna's descendants or two the ancestors in the stone.

While it does share much in common with Tolkien, it's hard to find fantasy that doesn't borrow from Middle Earth on occasion. The plot, once it gets going, is well paced, and the Machiavellian politicking is engaging. I will return here.

How Burke Got His Groove Back

I'll preface this by warning that I actually know the author, having been at a festival with him and having him as a FB friend. 

Michael Thomas Ford's The Road Home centers on Burke, a professional photographer from Boston, as he recuperates from a serious car accident at his father's farm in upstate Vermont. This is after determining that Burke's ex, Gregg, doesn't have room (or more to the point, Gregg's current doesn't like Burke), and every other Boston option has its own issues, like smoking or cats. Gregg, being a big city gay, isn't exactly thrilled to be trapped in casts on his dominant hand and leg and then shipped off to the farm. Of course, going home comes with its own baggage, as his best friend from high school, Mars (with whom he shared one moment of drunken passion) is the town vet.

Mars, as it turns out, is married and has a 20 year old son, who has the hots for Burke, regardless of the fact that Burke's twice his age. Not long after Burke's father and his new girlfriend give Burke some antique cameras his grandfather owned, Will reminds Burke what happens in the barnyard while taking pictures at a particularly rustic ruin of a farm. (Side note: I hit that particular section while I was at work. And suddenly was getting asked by everyone in the break room why I was blushing.) The farm ruin has its own part to play, as dad's girlfriend, Lucy, gives Burke a book her dead husband wrote about Vermonters in the Civil War. Said book has a picture of two gents and a girl, whom Burke tries to track down.

Tracking them down leads to the next town over, where Sam the librarian helps him dig into the history of the farm and the three people in the picture. Mind you, Sam is also gay, goes to Radical Fairie gatherings, and has never settled down, so it's not a great surprise when later on Burke and Sam start filing each other's card catalogs.

Mind you, there's still Will in the picture, who has a girlfriend (with a purity ring). Who doesn't understand why Burke isn't just thrilled to be his occasional side piece while he lives a heterosexual life in the public eye.

And then there's Burke's father, whom he can barely talk to, and when the conversation does come, the real issue between the father and son is not the one that was particularly expected.

In the end, everything works out, more or less, as these things do, and something close to a happy ending for most of them.

Now, the biggest issue I had reading this came from the fact that, other than my hometown is nowhere near the Green Mountains, much of Burke's reactions toward his cow pastoral matches with how I feel about my old Ohio home in the rolling hills. Well, except I doubt that I'm likely to give up the creature comforts of big city anonymity to move home where anything you do is public knowledge by the time you get home. (Seriously. Much as I enjoyed the story, I spent much of it having nightmares about having to live in my hometown again.)

I'd comment on the role of coincidence and fate in the narrative, but honestly, it's closer to that of The Bridge of San Luis Rey than say the Deus ex Machina of any comic book plot line.

It's also hard not to think of Will as a more pathos ridden Caliban, left without an ending by his own design.

I was amused when, early on, Burke finds a dog eared paperback of a Gordon Merrick novel on his nightstand. While Burke had bought a copy at WaldenBooks back in high school, I found myself thinking back on buying two of his novels at a used book store back in college.

It's a good read, and one that while the melody isn't mine, I've sung the notes on the chords that give it resonance a good many times.

I'll be in Scotland afore ye...

So, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I somehow let one of Simon R. Green's Ishmael Jones mysteries slip through my radar. With Very Important Corpses being finished over lunch, I have now rectified this.

Again, unlike Nightside or Secret Histories or even Ghost Finders, this particular series is a lot less overpowered. I mean, yeah, Ishmael has some unique abilities, but for the most part, he's more like an alien Sherlock Holmes, only with a girlfriend.

In this case, the mysterious Organization sends Ishmael and Penny to Loch Ness and Coronach House to figure out who killed an agent at the meeting of the secretive Baphomet Group. (Said group basically controls the financial world. No real world domination, only money domination.)

Any rate, the agent in question died in a locked room and was dismembered. Indeed, her room was destroyed in the process. The Principles all have their own staff, escorts have been hired in for entertainment, and several security personnel are involved. Ah yes, and the Major Domo, who's much more concerned about the house than the people.

By the big reveal, we're down to 4 Principles left, and while the conclusion involves something paranormal, it's human malice that held the (figurative) gun in the end.

We also get clues the the Organization may not be all that "good" of an entity, and further confirmation that Ishmael and Penny are in the same shared multiverse as his other modern series.

While I enjoy his other series immensely, I hold this one in special regard, since it doesn't go over the top to quite the degree the others do. And honestly, I can't pass up a good cozy, particularly when even with a few gooses, it remains true to the spirit of British cozies.

We're on the island of Mimbrate Knights....

As I said with my last update, I'm finishing up David Eddings's The Mallorean, which means we're now discussing the penultimate volume, The Seeress of Kell. 

Now, we basically spend most of our time here in 3 different locations leading up to the climax. We start (eventually) in Kell, home of the Dals. It is here where Cyradis does finally join the party.

It's also in Kell where Belgarath at last learns their final destination is Korim, what used to be mountains before Torak cracked the world in antiquity. Zandramas gets this information via mind control of Ce'Nedra. However, Zandramas has to deal with the arrival of Agachak from Cthol Murgos, who's Agnarak king of choice in the boy king of Mishrak ac Thull.

Anyway, the next stop on the grand tour is Perivor, inhabited by shipwrecked Arends from Vo Mimbre who've long since interbred with the Dals. Zandramas's second, Naradas, is already there and controlling the king. He keeps delaying the party, but ends up getting some bad soup.

And then it's off to the Turim Reef, where the final choice is made after a bunch of fighting and revealing all the missing pieces.

Whne the choice is made, we're treated to an epilogue not quite as long as the one in Stephen King's The Stand when Stu and Tom head back to Boulder. Since all parties (and people left behind earlier) all wind up on Perivor, everyone gets to discuss peace with almost all the world's leaders present and a new God of Agnarak presiding.

Everyone ends up getting a happy ending of sorts, Ce'Nedra has another baby, and Polgara has twins.

In the meantime, there are a few plot holes you can drive a truck through. The biggest one is that Beldin, who's not supposed to be one in the final choosing, is allowed to go because Zandramas used a being from outside this universe. However, when confronting said outsider, Cyradis mentions that the confrontation makes sense of a prophecy of the Dals. Second, Cyradis makes a comment on the way to Korim that suggests Zandrmas's fate is going to be the same regardless of the choice, yet after the choice, it's told to Garion that had the choice gone the other way, his would have been that new fate.

Plot holes and a bunch of misogyny aside (because Eddings can't keep his mouth shut when discussing pregnancy), the book does wind up being a fairly solid ending to the series, even if two subsequent prequels end up trying harder to fix the plot holes from both series.

So yeah. Good fantasy series, even with the flaws.

Travel by map, it's faster

Rather than starting the one off I still have from the library, I'm going to push through and finish The Mallorean before taking care of other business.

Which brings us to Sorceress of Darshiva.

We find out early on that I was wrong about Cyradis joining the party this early. Seems she was a heretofore never seen mostly solid projection, something Poledra does later in the book.

Mostly though, we spend the book in far eastern Mallorea, in the Melcene Empire area. Which leads Belgarath to find an unadulterated copy of the Ashabine Oracles, a sorcerer without training, and a relative of Zakath whom Zandramas crowns as an Emperor of Mallorea.We also find out that only in Kell can the party find out where the Place That Is No More is.

In the mean time, Urvon and Zandramas and their respective Demon Lords are fighting their way across Darshiva and Peldane, with Zandramas utilizing elephant cavalry. Zakath catches up with the party and winds up joining after some interference from Cyradis.

At this point in the series, one can't help but feel like the author is using the old Indiana Jones method of using an arrow on a map to move people along, with mosquito stops everyone on the map.

What we know at the end:

-The companions from the original quintet are plotting to join the new party, even as the Alorn negotiate with Urgit to distract Zakath's forces.

- Zandramas has one more Agnarak to defeat before she's unopposed in her quest to be the Child of Dark with the new God of Agnarak.

-Poledra and Zandramas are destined to have a meeting at some point that won't end well.