Lesson learned, reading Eric Griffin's Tzimisce, the second of the Clan Novels, on lunch is a bad idea.
As a bit of explanation before we get into the actual review, the Tzimisce clan are one of the two founding clans of the Sabbat, and their signature power, Vicissitude, has such abilities as flesh craft, bone craft, etc. They have the nickname "Fiends" for a reason.
So, their Clan novel picks up about 2 days prior to the main events in Toreador, showing the planning involved in the Sabbat takeover of Atlanta, which means we're mostly concerned with a bunch of Lasombra from Miami, New York City, and Madrid backbiting for control along with the nomadic packs that are helping in the attack. Entering into this wretched hive of scum and villainy is the Tzimisce "signature character" Sascha Vykos. While her backstory gets covered in much greater detail outside of the Clan novels (she started off as Myca, a young man of African descent in the days of Constantinople, chose to become female sometime much later, and then became pretty much genderless in more modern eras. There's quite an extensive biography of her out there, if you really want to look. In later books, she starts using the neutral gender terms, or occcasionally "it".), here she's mainly presented at the outset as stirring up the various contenders for control of the raid before taking over events for herself.
Let's see, an Assamite she hired to take out Atlanta's Tremere regent kills her ghoul servant, so she uses Vicissitude to turn said Assamite assassin into a copy of the ghoul, all while turning him into her servant in other ways. It's really kind of creepy to read.
Anyrate, about halfway through, we catch up with the raid on the Camarilla of Atlanta that ended the first book. We get peaks into Prince Bennison's madness, as his power of Dementation transports both the Brujah Archon and the Sabbat pursuers into a battlefield hallucination around the time Sherman was getting ready to burn Atlanta to the ground. Which ends about as well for the Camarilla as it did for the Confederates.
Victoria Ash, winds up among the captured. She gets tortured and eventually gets rescued by Settites looking for Vegel, who died in the last book.
Vykos eventually supervises the fall of the Eastern seaboard as far north as DC, which is about where this volume ends, as the reason for her transformation of the Assamite becomes clear. He fails though, so Marcus Vital, Prince of DC becomes Prince in Exile. Vykos, on the other hand, becomes Archbishop of DC.
It's a well written, if mildly disturbing volume in the series. It does a good job of showing us what the Sabbat had been re-envisioned as in Revised. Unfortunately, the next volume, which I'll be reading after a detour into the Werewolf novels, is the one I kept throwing across a room because it annoyed me so much. Tune in in two entries to find out if history repeats itself.
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Monday, June 4, 2018
Toreador, en garde! Toreador, Toreador!
Sadly, the actual lyrics from Bizet's Carmen don't do the actual song justice, but it seemed an appropriate title for this.
I've reviewed a few things from White Wolf on here previously, but since I'm waiting on a slim line of reserves at the library and frankly, I re bought the Clan Novels for a paltry sum a while back, I'm back into re-reading the 13 Clan Novels plus the Anthology that followed. I'll likely be reading two, then switching over to the Werewolf Tribe Novels for a volume (for some reason, the Tribe Novels came as a two for one thing) to alternate things a bit.
A brief history here. The Clan Novels started appearing not long after the Revised edition of Vampire: the Masquerade appeared. Thirteen clans, thirteen novels, and they were supposed to release one book a month, serial style. As I'm sure other folks remember, it never quite worked out that way. And indeed, given that there were several different authors on the project, the writing varies from book to book, and not all of them are particularly readable.
The series starts off with Toreador, the clan of artists. Or what passes for artists, sometimes, as our "Signature" character in here, Victoria Ash, has some talent, but one of her other clan members' artistic talent is stripping. Victoria (who showed up in more than a few other White Wolf fictions, including the Victorian Vampire trilogy as well as Gehenna) is a recent transplant to Atlanta, following the ending of the Blood Curse. (Which was a previous crossover double trilogy from when the released Vampire: The Dark Ages. I recall very small bits and pieces of that one, since it was kind of silly.) Victoria is hosting Elysium (essentially a time and place when all may gather without threat of violence) at the High Museum of Art on the Summer Solstice of 1999. Her political maneuvering prior to the event (featuring several sculptures of Cain killing Abel, since ya know, in the mythology, Caine was the first vampire) is designed to set the African American Brujah and Ventrue vampires to take out Prince Bennison (leader of the city), a Confederate officer, who by virtue of being Malkavian, is also insane and mildly racist.
Also floating around the narrative is Victoria's clanmate Leopold, who's convinced his memory has been wiped and Victoria is his creator; Vegel, a Settite functionary who's there on business from his employer (whom we meet in book 4); Rolph, a Nosferatu who has somewhere to be before midnight; and Benito Giovanni, who's in Boston, and who's narrative arc seems mostly to be told to cancel his trip to Atlanta then being kidnapped by Assamites.
Victoria belongs to the Camarilla, the most populous sect of vampires in this setting. The Camarilla is essentially feudal in nature, with a Prince having near autonomy over a city, and Six Traditions enforced to preserve the secrecy of the society. The next major sect, who appear towards the end of this, are the Sabbat, who tend to use leadership titles taken straight out of the Medieval Roman Catholic Church. The Sabbat doesn't particularly believe in the Six Traditions, although they too tend to keep secrecy from mortals.(An Inquisition that kills off roughly 2/3 of the vampire population tends to make everyone a bit cautious.)
Anyway, Rolph points out to Vegel that the Eye of Hazimel (the origin of the Evil Eye, and what is apparently a very old vampire's actual eye) is hidden within one of the Cain statues, He plucks the eye out of said statue and provides Vegel with an escape route. Sadly, an unforeseen, by the characters in this book at least, even t occurs as the Sabbat descend en masse on the party and begin the slaughter of the guests. In the confusion, Leopold gets tossed out a window, finds Vegel dead on the street, steals the eye, and cannibalizes Vegel. Oh yes, and he plucks his own eye out and replaces it with the other one. The fate of the others at the party is left unresolved at this point.
In terms of readability, this one is pretty well written, providing enough backstory that someone not familiar with the setting would be able to figure out most of what's going on. There are other bits of the narrative that won't become clear until later volumes, and honestly, have little to do with the actual narrative of this volume, but have to be included here to keep the timeline straight. Of course, it isn't until the end of the series the bits about what's under New York City become clearer. So yeah. We'll see how this progresses, knowing that somewhere down the line a few of these will likely get thrown against a wall again.
I've reviewed a few things from White Wolf on here previously, but since I'm waiting on a slim line of reserves at the library and frankly, I re bought the Clan Novels for a paltry sum a while back, I'm back into re-reading the 13 Clan Novels plus the Anthology that followed. I'll likely be reading two, then switching over to the Werewolf Tribe Novels for a volume (for some reason, the Tribe Novels came as a two for one thing) to alternate things a bit.
A brief history here. The Clan Novels started appearing not long after the Revised edition of Vampire: the Masquerade appeared. Thirteen clans, thirteen novels, and they were supposed to release one book a month, serial style. As I'm sure other folks remember, it never quite worked out that way. And indeed, given that there were several different authors on the project, the writing varies from book to book, and not all of them are particularly readable.
The series starts off with Toreador, the clan of artists. Or what passes for artists, sometimes, as our "Signature" character in here, Victoria Ash, has some talent, but one of her other clan members' artistic talent is stripping. Victoria (who showed up in more than a few other White Wolf fictions, including the Victorian Vampire trilogy as well as Gehenna) is a recent transplant to Atlanta, following the ending of the Blood Curse. (Which was a previous crossover double trilogy from when the released Vampire: The Dark Ages. I recall very small bits and pieces of that one, since it was kind of silly.) Victoria is hosting Elysium (essentially a time and place when all may gather without threat of violence) at the High Museum of Art on the Summer Solstice of 1999. Her political maneuvering prior to the event (featuring several sculptures of Cain killing Abel, since ya know, in the mythology, Caine was the first vampire) is designed to set the African American Brujah and Ventrue vampires to take out Prince Bennison (leader of the city), a Confederate officer, who by virtue of being Malkavian, is also insane and mildly racist.
Also floating around the narrative is Victoria's clanmate Leopold, who's convinced his memory has been wiped and Victoria is his creator; Vegel, a Settite functionary who's there on business from his employer (whom we meet in book 4); Rolph, a Nosferatu who has somewhere to be before midnight; and Benito Giovanni, who's in Boston, and who's narrative arc seems mostly to be told to cancel his trip to Atlanta then being kidnapped by Assamites.
Victoria belongs to the Camarilla, the most populous sect of vampires in this setting. The Camarilla is essentially feudal in nature, with a Prince having near autonomy over a city, and Six Traditions enforced to preserve the secrecy of the society. The next major sect, who appear towards the end of this, are the Sabbat, who tend to use leadership titles taken straight out of the Medieval Roman Catholic Church. The Sabbat doesn't particularly believe in the Six Traditions, although they too tend to keep secrecy from mortals.(An Inquisition that kills off roughly 2/3 of the vampire population tends to make everyone a bit cautious.)
Anyway, Rolph points out to Vegel that the Eye of Hazimel (the origin of the Evil Eye, and what is apparently a very old vampire's actual eye) is hidden within one of the Cain statues, He plucks the eye out of said statue and provides Vegel with an escape route. Sadly, an unforeseen, by the characters in this book at least, even t occurs as the Sabbat descend en masse on the party and begin the slaughter of the guests. In the confusion, Leopold gets tossed out a window, finds Vegel dead on the street, steals the eye, and cannibalizes Vegel. Oh yes, and he plucks his own eye out and replaces it with the other one. The fate of the others at the party is left unresolved at this point.
In terms of readability, this one is pretty well written, providing enough backstory that someone not familiar with the setting would be able to figure out most of what's going on. There are other bits of the narrative that won't become clear until later volumes, and honestly, have little to do with the actual narrative of this volume, but have to be included here to keep the timeline straight. Of course, it isn't until the end of the series the bits about what's under New York City become clearer. So yeah. We'll see how this progresses, knowing that somewhere down the line a few of these will likely get thrown against a wall again.
Friday, June 1, 2018
Arianism, Monophysitism, Iconoclasm, Filioque, and a bunch of dynasties
Probably not long before this blog began, I, on the advice of a friend of mine, read through John Julius Norwich's Byzantium: The Early Centuries. Then promptly forgot the authors name and only recently, when the original comment thread came up, went and found book 2 of the trilogy, Byzantium: The Apogee.
The first book covered roughly 500 years from Diocletian to the crowing of Charlemagne. Book 2 starts right after and guides up until the beginning of the reign of Alexius I, not long after the Turks have come into Asia minor and much of the Western Mediterranean has fallen to other hands, which is about 300 years, 3 or 4 dynasties, several Patriarchs of Constantinople, and one big schism between the Roman Church and the Eastern Church.
So, even though some of the concepts in the above title were discussed in the first book and the reason behind a few councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, here are a few definitions, since heretical notion keep coming back into play. Arianism contends that the Son was created by the Father and therefore not OF the father, thus God would not be a trinity. Monophysitism contends that the Son, rather than being both fully divine and fully human, was instead fully divine and given flesh. (These beliefs still show up in the modern era. However, since Christology is above and beyond my scope here, I'll point out that wikipedia has a couple fine articles discussing which branches of Christendom still have these in practice.)
Here in Book 2, we get more into the wars between the Iconoclasts and the Iconodules, as different Patriarchs either start smashing iconography or allowing it to flourish, generally depending on which Emperor is on the throne at any given point in time. One thing of interest to me in this war is that when the Iconodules eventually won out, the icons created were generally mosaic works or painting. Sculpture never really made a comeback in Byzantium. I should also note that when the Iconoclasts were in power, friction was increased with the Western Church, who venerated Icons much more prodigiously than the Eastern Sees ever did.
While we're speaking of religious matters, I should also discuss The East West Schism of 1054, which is chronicled near the end of the book. The roots of this lie in a host of issues that had long been simmering between the Latin speaking Western Church and the Greek speaking Eastern Church. When the Sees were first formed, all the Patriarchs were on equal footing, with the Roman Patriarch (Pope) First among Equals. However, particularly following the fall of Rome, the Latin speaking Roman See started doing things much differently from the much more inclined to debate Eastern Sees. (As I recall, of the Eastern Sees, Constantinople was the furthest West.) The Latins enforced celibacy among the clergy (or at least claimed to), where the Greeks would ordain married men. The Latin church used unleavened bread in the Eucharist, the Greeks did not. The Latin church inserted the Filioque into the Nicaean Creed, the Greeks thought the concept was heretical. (For the record, the Filioque concerned language that suggested that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the both the Father and the Son. Those not in favor of this believed that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone.) And the Western belief of Papal Supremacy, which the other Sees weren't particularly inclined to support. (A few Emperors did, since it reinforced the notion that the Byzantine Empire was still the Roman Empire.) Although, honestly, the actual Schism happened because 3 Bishops visiting Constantinople who had axes of their own to grind and empowered by a Pope who happened to die prior to their arrival excommunicated the Patriarch, who returned the favor. Somehow, this translated into the Latins and the Greeks excommunicating each other.
As for the Imperial Dynasties, I'm beginning to understand why Surveys generally only hit the highlights and lowlights of long term governments, since honestly, most of the dynasties bleed together, with the more interesting parts having to do with how any one leader gained or lost the throne. (There's a lot of Tonsuring, castration, blinding, and plotting involved in most of the successions.) While the author (who may just be following the lead of the few extant sources left) seems to favor the more Military aligned Emperors, more than a few here in the Apogee also revise the civil life of the Empire. Usually not living to see the person replacing them reverse those changes.
We hear of wars on the Western borders with the Bulgars and the Magyars, the Saracean capture of Sicily, the Eastern adoption of Venice, ad wars with several Caliphates to the East, where the Imperial breadbasket really came from.
These have been fascinating reads to me, particularly since most Western Histories mention the split between the East and West, then really don't mention Byzantium again until the Crusades. Given exactly how much knowledge survived in the East, this is almost criminal. Then again, most Western histories, particularly here in the US try to present history as inexorably leading to the US's founding, the apex of Western Civilization, skipping over other cultures entirely as unimportant.
The first book covered roughly 500 years from Diocletian to the crowing of Charlemagne. Book 2 starts right after and guides up until the beginning of the reign of Alexius I, not long after the Turks have come into Asia minor and much of the Western Mediterranean has fallen to other hands, which is about 300 years, 3 or 4 dynasties, several Patriarchs of Constantinople, and one big schism between the Roman Church and the Eastern Church.
So, even though some of the concepts in the above title were discussed in the first book and the reason behind a few councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, here are a few definitions, since heretical notion keep coming back into play. Arianism contends that the Son was created by the Father and therefore not OF the father, thus God would not be a trinity. Monophysitism contends that the Son, rather than being both fully divine and fully human, was instead fully divine and given flesh. (These beliefs still show up in the modern era. However, since Christology is above and beyond my scope here, I'll point out that wikipedia has a couple fine articles discussing which branches of Christendom still have these in practice.)
Here in Book 2, we get more into the wars between the Iconoclasts and the Iconodules, as different Patriarchs either start smashing iconography or allowing it to flourish, generally depending on which Emperor is on the throne at any given point in time. One thing of interest to me in this war is that when the Iconodules eventually won out, the icons created were generally mosaic works or painting. Sculpture never really made a comeback in Byzantium. I should also note that when the Iconoclasts were in power, friction was increased with the Western Church, who venerated Icons much more prodigiously than the Eastern Sees ever did.
While we're speaking of religious matters, I should also discuss The East West Schism of 1054, which is chronicled near the end of the book. The roots of this lie in a host of issues that had long been simmering between the Latin speaking Western Church and the Greek speaking Eastern Church. When the Sees were first formed, all the Patriarchs were on equal footing, with the Roman Patriarch (Pope) First among Equals. However, particularly following the fall of Rome, the Latin speaking Roman See started doing things much differently from the much more inclined to debate Eastern Sees. (As I recall, of the Eastern Sees, Constantinople was the furthest West.) The Latins enforced celibacy among the clergy (or at least claimed to), where the Greeks would ordain married men. The Latin church used unleavened bread in the Eucharist, the Greeks did not. The Latin church inserted the Filioque into the Nicaean Creed, the Greeks thought the concept was heretical. (For the record, the Filioque concerned language that suggested that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the both the Father and the Son. Those not in favor of this believed that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone.) And the Western belief of Papal Supremacy, which the other Sees weren't particularly inclined to support. (A few Emperors did, since it reinforced the notion that the Byzantine Empire was still the Roman Empire.) Although, honestly, the actual Schism happened because 3 Bishops visiting Constantinople who had axes of their own to grind and empowered by a Pope who happened to die prior to their arrival excommunicated the Patriarch, who returned the favor. Somehow, this translated into the Latins and the Greeks excommunicating each other.
As for the Imperial Dynasties, I'm beginning to understand why Surveys generally only hit the highlights and lowlights of long term governments, since honestly, most of the dynasties bleed together, with the more interesting parts having to do with how any one leader gained or lost the throne. (There's a lot of Tonsuring, castration, blinding, and plotting involved in most of the successions.) While the author (who may just be following the lead of the few extant sources left) seems to favor the more Military aligned Emperors, more than a few here in the Apogee also revise the civil life of the Empire. Usually not living to see the person replacing them reverse those changes.
We hear of wars on the Western borders with the Bulgars and the Magyars, the Saracean capture of Sicily, the Eastern adoption of Venice, ad wars with several Caliphates to the East, where the Imperial breadbasket really came from.
These have been fascinating reads to me, particularly since most Western Histories mention the split between the East and West, then really don't mention Byzantium again until the Crusades. Given exactly how much knowledge survived in the East, this is almost criminal. Then again, most Western histories, particularly here in the US try to present history as inexorably leading to the US's founding, the apex of Western Civilization, skipping over other cultures entirely as unimportant.
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Remind me to take Cornwall off the bucket list
Ishmael Jones and his girlfriend Penny are back at it again in Into the Thinnest of Air by Simon R. Green. While a slim read at 162 pages, it does continue our maybe an alien's story in a fun way that has absolutely nothing to to do with British National Security, the Organization, or really much of Earth shattering import.
Which is a nice change.
Instead, we find Ishmael and Penny invited to a pre-opening dinner of an Inn in Black Rock Towen. Said Inn (The Castle) has a spotty reputation dating back at least to the Victorian era when the Inn was run by Tyrone, who poisoned all of his guests and was later lynched by the locals. Prior to that, the Castle had been built by smugglers as a fortress. In the more modern era, legends abound about the long dead and gone tree appearing in the mist on occasion.
While Penny is the one with the invite, she takes Ishmael along as her "plus one", since the new owners knew her father. The owners won the lottery and are having old friends for dinner. These include the town vicar and his wife, a local reporter, and a woman who has done lots of background research on the castle. However, right before dessert, the wife vanishes into thin air in the kitchen.
What follows is seven people becoming increasingly paranoid, dredging up old tales of interdimensional demons and pacts with the devil as one by one, their numbers vanish into thin air. In the end, only Penny and Ishmael remain standing, left to finally solve the mystery.
Sadly the resolution and the identity of the culprit aren't exactly groundbreaking and original, but it's a solid yarn nonetheless.
Which is a nice change.
Instead, we find Ishmael and Penny invited to a pre-opening dinner of an Inn in Black Rock Towen. Said Inn (The Castle) has a spotty reputation dating back at least to the Victorian era when the Inn was run by Tyrone, who poisoned all of his guests and was later lynched by the locals. Prior to that, the Castle had been built by smugglers as a fortress. In the more modern era, legends abound about the long dead and gone tree appearing in the mist on occasion.
While Penny is the one with the invite, she takes Ishmael along as her "plus one", since the new owners knew her father. The owners won the lottery and are having old friends for dinner. These include the town vicar and his wife, a local reporter, and a woman who has done lots of background research on the castle. However, right before dessert, the wife vanishes into thin air in the kitchen.
What follows is seven people becoming increasingly paranoid, dredging up old tales of interdimensional demons and pacts with the devil as one by one, their numbers vanish into thin air. In the end, only Penny and Ishmael remain standing, left to finally solve the mystery.
Sadly the resolution and the identity of the culprit aren't exactly groundbreaking and original, but it's a solid yarn nonetheless.
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
There really isn't a single nice person in this
So, when I followed the tag to find out the last time I read a book in Richard K. Morgan's A Land Fit For Heroes trilogy, I found out I last posted about it in 2012, and even then it was mentioning the series in relation to another series I was writing about. However, someone in a facebook group posted about the series recently and I found out he'd finally finished it back in 2015.
Which brings us to The Dark Defiles, which has taken me about two weeks to wade through, where every character talks like they're playing golf on a pirate ship. Seriously. I think the ocean they're all sailing on isn't nearly as salty as the dialogue at points. Even the gods/demons/whatever they actually are drop the f bomb every other word or so.
Any rate, the whole series centers on three warriors, veterans of another war, called back in to duty as the dwenda, figures of legend, start re-entering the world. We have Egar, also known as Dragonsbane, from the steppes, who had taken over his clan until his brother and a shaman tried to kill him and take over the clan. We have Archeth, a half-human who's father came from another outside race that helped drive out the dwenda the last time and who currently is the Emperor's advisor. And we have Ringil, who started off in the League, got exiled for taking a male lover, then managed to alienate both major governments by trying to end the slave trade single handedly. Add to it that he was schtupping a dwenda back in book one and now spends a bunch of time in the wounds between the worlds... Oh yeah, and he commands the glyphs that make up the magic in this world.
At the start, the three warriors are well north of both the Empire and the League looking for the body of the Illwrack Changeling, supposedly the dwenda's champion in time long gone. During the course of the search, Ringil gets separated from the other two, who get captured by League privateers, since the Empire has decided to start a war with the League again.
Egar and Archeth wind up getting free when they shipwreck near the fabled city they were also looking for, built by Archeth's people in the Ago.
Ringil uses magic, captures the leader of the privateers (eventually), and starts his own quest to pretty much kill everything that moves.
(That's really simplified, but true enough.)
Eventually, we find out there's not a single nice character in this entire series, and just about every faction has been plotting to serve their own goals rather than what's best for everyone.
The entire series is quite interesting, and has a bunch of Queer representation in its characters. It's also quite coarse and unrefined. While I kind of doubt I'll ever reread them, I don't regret wading into this series.
Which brings us to The Dark Defiles, which has taken me about two weeks to wade through, where every character talks like they're playing golf on a pirate ship. Seriously. I think the ocean they're all sailing on isn't nearly as salty as the dialogue at points. Even the gods/demons/whatever they actually are drop the f bomb every other word or so.
Any rate, the whole series centers on three warriors, veterans of another war, called back in to duty as the dwenda, figures of legend, start re-entering the world. We have Egar, also known as Dragonsbane, from the steppes, who had taken over his clan until his brother and a shaman tried to kill him and take over the clan. We have Archeth, a half-human who's father came from another outside race that helped drive out the dwenda the last time and who currently is the Emperor's advisor. And we have Ringil, who started off in the League, got exiled for taking a male lover, then managed to alienate both major governments by trying to end the slave trade single handedly. Add to it that he was schtupping a dwenda back in book one and now spends a bunch of time in the wounds between the worlds... Oh yeah, and he commands the glyphs that make up the magic in this world.
At the start, the three warriors are well north of both the Empire and the League looking for the body of the Illwrack Changeling, supposedly the dwenda's champion in time long gone. During the course of the search, Ringil gets separated from the other two, who get captured by League privateers, since the Empire has decided to start a war with the League again.
Egar and Archeth wind up getting free when they shipwreck near the fabled city they were also looking for, built by Archeth's people in the Ago.
Ringil uses magic, captures the leader of the privateers (eventually), and starts his own quest to pretty much kill everything that moves.
(That's really simplified, but true enough.)
Eventually, we find out there's not a single nice character in this entire series, and just about every faction has been plotting to serve their own goals rather than what's best for everyone.
The entire series is quite interesting, and has a bunch of Queer representation in its characters. It's also quite coarse and unrefined. While I kind of doubt I'll ever reread them, I don't regret wading into this series.
Thursday, May 3, 2018
Conspiracy!
Not long after starting R. S. Belcher's The Night Dahlia, I had to go look up the previous volume in this series just to refresh my memory on Latham Ballard and his drunken magic.
So, this volume is not quite as conspiracy heave as the previous volume, although a fairly large one looms later on in the book as the mystery coalesces between Where is Crystal vs. How is she related to the previous serial murders that drove Latham out of LA several years ago?
Let's start at the beginning. The first chapter concerns Latham's continuing deal with the Devil, then we get to meet Ankou, a rather large presence in the Fae world who's also quite rich. Ankou's daughter vanished several years ago and no one can figure out where she is, leading Ankou to find her. A few deals are struck, and Latham is off to Greece with Vigil the Knight in tow. In Greece, connections are made, and we end up in the City of Angels, where Latham trained to be a Nightwise and ended up dropping out of the program. (There's a lot of information presented with this, in dribs and drabs. By far the most attention getting to me was that the Nightwise are funded by The Builders, out of the Brotherhood of the Wheel.)
Again, the actual mystery goes plaid over time, with cameos by Charles Manson, evil Buddhists half human crash carts, a few really seedy and one mildly classy sex clubs...drugs, alcohol...
Really though, much of the book is the gradual redemption of Latham from his own demons. And boy does he have a few. But really, exploring previous interpersonal relationships he had in LA when he was sure he was a good guy and how he started down the road he's been on and the start of climbing out of the hole his life is when everyone is telling him he can't is an interesting story hiding behind some very strange narrative points.
I look forward to returning to him whenever that time comes.
So, this volume is not quite as conspiracy heave as the previous volume, although a fairly large one looms later on in the book as the mystery coalesces between Where is Crystal vs. How is she related to the previous serial murders that drove Latham out of LA several years ago?
Let's start at the beginning. The first chapter concerns Latham's continuing deal with the Devil, then we get to meet Ankou, a rather large presence in the Fae world who's also quite rich. Ankou's daughter vanished several years ago and no one can figure out where she is, leading Ankou to find her. A few deals are struck, and Latham is off to Greece with Vigil the Knight in tow. In Greece, connections are made, and we end up in the City of Angels, where Latham trained to be a Nightwise and ended up dropping out of the program. (There's a lot of information presented with this, in dribs and drabs. By far the most attention getting to me was that the Nightwise are funded by The Builders, out of the Brotherhood of the Wheel.)
Again, the actual mystery goes plaid over time, with cameos by Charles Manson, evil Buddhists half human crash carts, a few really seedy and one mildly classy sex clubs...drugs, alcohol...
Really though, much of the book is the gradual redemption of Latham from his own demons. And boy does he have a few. But really, exploring previous interpersonal relationships he had in LA when he was sure he was a good guy and how he started down the road he's been on and the start of climbing out of the hole his life is when everyone is telling him he can't is an interesting story hiding behind some very strange narrative points.
I look forward to returning to him whenever that time comes.
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Schlieffen vs Élan and the long dig
Digging into Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August is a bit like getting cross examined. She's constantly bringing up everyone's strengths and failings and presenting them to you as both witness and jury.
Starting with the 1910 funeral of Edward VII, we see how interbred early 20th century European royalty actually is, and how cut off Germany feels from its European contemporaries. ( I mean, the war that ended up uniting the Germans into Germany was roughly 30 years earlier and had ended in a march on Paris that rather annoyed the French.) From there, we see the Triple Alliance form, with German, Austria-Hungary, and Italy form a mutual defense pact, while the Triple Entente sort of united Russia, Britain, and France. (When war actually breaks out, Italy refuses to join what become the Central Powers because Austria-Hungary started things with aggression. Russia mobilizes, but really doesn't do much beyond failing to properly do much of anything other than fail in invading Germany. They did rather well in other fronts, before signing a separate peace after the Bolsheviks overthrew the Czar in 1917...)
Anyway, Tuchman is mostly concerned with Germany, France, and Britain, with a bit about the invasions of Luxembourg and Belgium discussed as the various war machines gear up in August 1914, following whatever plan their military had mapped out in the period between wars. In Germany's case, that would be the Schlieffen Plan, which concentrated mostly on sweeping through Belgium and enveloping France from the North. For France, that would be Plan 17, which wasn't so much a plan as much as it was "We will take back Alsace-Lorraine and head to Berlin with élan et outré with a side of cran!"
Britain, on the other hand, really didn't want to get involved. Indeed, they spend most of August complaining, and it takes a heck of a lot of complaining to get their two Armies into the Battle of the Marne.
Anyway, since most of this is available in a more concise format elsewhere, Germany gets within 40 miles of Paris before a few factors end up allowing the Allies to make a stand that ends in 4 years of wet trenches, mustard gas, and nothing happening on the Western Front. (Indeed. if you have insomnia, allow me to suggest All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, which by the time the narrator dies, you'll swear you already did 100 pages ago.)
What makes Tuchman a more fascinating read than the surveys of The Great War is her ability to dig in to the personalities commanding all the belligerents in the conflict, from the Kaiser, to Sir John French (who wants France to leave him a path to the channel to escape), to Papa Joffre who ends up doing what ends up being the right thing by firing the one general who actually sees the conflict as it is, rather than through Nationalistic ideals that got the whole thing started.
Heck, we even get a chapter on Woodrow Wilson and why the Americans didn't enter until 1917, which, unlike the isolationism and adherence to the Monroe Doctrine that delayed entry into the sequel, instead involved Wilson's desire to play peacemaker, British blockades of the continent creating similar issues to the ones that set off the War of 1812 (which we tend to gloss over the fact Britain was a bit busy with Napoleon at the time), and a much less integrated German ethnicity in the States that rallied against joining the allies at the outset. (This was a bit odd for me, since the late 20th century seems to have fulfilled the Melting Pot to the degree that we judge based on skin color more than where our families immigrated from.)
Was it worth reading? Yes. It's a must read for anyone looking for information on the bigger belligerents in World War I. If you're wanting to know about the entire war, though, there are better resources out there that go more in depth into everything else going on and the other fronts of the conflict.
Starting with the 1910 funeral of Edward VII, we see how interbred early 20th century European royalty actually is, and how cut off Germany feels from its European contemporaries. ( I mean, the war that ended up uniting the Germans into Germany was roughly 30 years earlier and had ended in a march on Paris that rather annoyed the French.) From there, we see the Triple Alliance form, with German, Austria-Hungary, and Italy form a mutual defense pact, while the Triple Entente sort of united Russia, Britain, and France. (When war actually breaks out, Italy refuses to join what become the Central Powers because Austria-Hungary started things with aggression. Russia mobilizes, but really doesn't do much beyond failing to properly do much of anything other than fail in invading Germany. They did rather well in other fronts, before signing a separate peace after the Bolsheviks overthrew the Czar in 1917...)
Anyway, Tuchman is mostly concerned with Germany, France, and Britain, with a bit about the invasions of Luxembourg and Belgium discussed as the various war machines gear up in August 1914, following whatever plan their military had mapped out in the period between wars. In Germany's case, that would be the Schlieffen Plan, which concentrated mostly on sweeping through Belgium and enveloping France from the North. For France, that would be Plan 17, which wasn't so much a plan as much as it was "We will take back Alsace-Lorraine and head to Berlin with élan et outré with a side of cran!"
Britain, on the other hand, really didn't want to get involved. Indeed, they spend most of August complaining, and it takes a heck of a lot of complaining to get their two Armies into the Battle of the Marne.
Anyway, since most of this is available in a more concise format elsewhere, Germany gets within 40 miles of Paris before a few factors end up allowing the Allies to make a stand that ends in 4 years of wet trenches, mustard gas, and nothing happening on the Western Front. (Indeed. if you have insomnia, allow me to suggest All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, which by the time the narrator dies, you'll swear you already did 100 pages ago.)
What makes Tuchman a more fascinating read than the surveys of The Great War is her ability to dig in to the personalities commanding all the belligerents in the conflict, from the Kaiser, to Sir John French (who wants France to leave him a path to the channel to escape), to Papa Joffre who ends up doing what ends up being the right thing by firing the one general who actually sees the conflict as it is, rather than through Nationalistic ideals that got the whole thing started.
Heck, we even get a chapter on Woodrow Wilson and why the Americans didn't enter until 1917, which, unlike the isolationism and adherence to the Monroe Doctrine that delayed entry into the sequel, instead involved Wilson's desire to play peacemaker, British blockades of the continent creating similar issues to the ones that set off the War of 1812 (which we tend to gloss over the fact Britain was a bit busy with Napoleon at the time), and a much less integrated German ethnicity in the States that rallied against joining the allies at the outset. (This was a bit odd for me, since the late 20th century seems to have fulfilled the Melting Pot to the degree that we judge based on skin color more than where our families immigrated from.)
Was it worth reading? Yes. It's a must read for anyone looking for information on the bigger belligerents in World War I. If you're wanting to know about the entire war, though, there are better resources out there that go more in depth into everything else going on and the other fronts of the conflict.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Southern Murder
I don't know that I've read any of Charlaine Harris's Aurora Teagarden series prior to picking up Sleep Like a Baby, but if it's any indication, I might have to start searching for the rest of the series.
We open with Aurora Teagarden trying to comfort her new baby while coming down with the flu and her husband Robin getting ready to leave for a convention. The illness means calling in some extra help in Virginia, a babysitter they'd used previously after Sophie was born. Her half brother Philip is also around to help, although since he's much younger and in high school, his ability to help is somewhat limited.
This arrangement works well enough until the night Virginia vanishes and while searching for her, Philip and Roe find a dead body in the back yard. A dead body who used to be one of Robin's stalkers, who also previously tried to kill Roe.
Which quickly makes Robin a suspect, even though he's been in Tennessee.
Anyway, as the book progresses and we hear about several auxiliary characters, we do eventually find out what happened to Virginia and who killed the stalker.
It's a well written read. While it may not be Dame Agatha levels, Miss Christie also was much more interested in the mechanics than the emotions. Given this is series mystery, the emotional bonds help give this some oomph.
We open with Aurora Teagarden trying to comfort her new baby while coming down with the flu and her husband Robin getting ready to leave for a convention. The illness means calling in some extra help in Virginia, a babysitter they'd used previously after Sophie was born. Her half brother Philip is also around to help, although since he's much younger and in high school, his ability to help is somewhat limited.
This arrangement works well enough until the night Virginia vanishes and while searching for her, Philip and Roe find a dead body in the back yard. A dead body who used to be one of Robin's stalkers, who also previously tried to kill Roe.
Which quickly makes Robin a suspect, even though he's been in Tennessee.
Anyway, as the book progresses and we hear about several auxiliary characters, we do eventually find out what happened to Virginia and who killed the stalker.
It's a well written read. While it may not be Dame Agatha levels, Miss Christie also was much more interested in the mechanics than the emotions. Given this is series mystery, the emotional bonds help give this some oomph.
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Stone Fruit Blues
I recently checked out André Aciman's Call Me By Your Name after seeing the movie. Mainly because I enjoyed the movie, and was curious as to how the source material functioned.
The book is narrated by Elio, a young man living in Italy with his expat parents. His father is a professor of of some kind, who always has summer residents come in to work on things related to Italian projects. When the book starts, th enew residency has started with Oliver, who teaches at Columbia as a grad student moving in while he works on his books about philosophy and getting it translated into Italian.
We learn more about Elio than we ever do about Oliver, which again makes sense, since it's all told from Elio's narration. Which also means we have to deal with Elio's adolescent angst and random fantasy throughout. We observe the games Elio plays trying to draw affection from Oliver, and we see Elio as he flirts with Marzia.
Quite frankly, Elio seems to be very fluid in his expression of sexuality and awakening, although it would appear most of his attraction is for Oliver, given how often he sneaks in to Oliver's room and plays with his wardrobe.
When the two finally consummate their relationship, it appears to be very near the end of Oliver's 6 week residency and after a lot of apprehension on the older Oliver's part. They wind up going to Rome together before Oliver flies back to the states, which leads to new situations and more awakenings from Elio.
In the end, we find out that Oliver is marrying a woman in the states, although Elio tracks him down twice later in life to reconnect.
It's an engaging read, even if parts of it are quite difficult to get through, due to reawakening old angsts long forgotten in the mists of past regrets. Or for that matter, some of Elio's experiments, none of which I will go into in this space. However, if you saw the movie, there are two scenes that stick out and are indeed in the novel with a bunch of extra emotion in them.
The book is narrated by Elio, a young man living in Italy with his expat parents. His father is a professor of of some kind, who always has summer residents come in to work on things related to Italian projects. When the book starts, th enew residency has started with Oliver, who teaches at Columbia as a grad student moving in while he works on his books about philosophy and getting it translated into Italian.
We learn more about Elio than we ever do about Oliver, which again makes sense, since it's all told from Elio's narration. Which also means we have to deal with Elio's adolescent angst and random fantasy throughout. We observe the games Elio plays trying to draw affection from Oliver, and we see Elio as he flirts with Marzia.
Quite frankly, Elio seems to be very fluid in his expression of sexuality and awakening, although it would appear most of his attraction is for Oliver, given how often he sneaks in to Oliver's room and plays with his wardrobe.
When the two finally consummate their relationship, it appears to be very near the end of Oliver's 6 week residency and after a lot of apprehension on the older Oliver's part. They wind up going to Rome together before Oliver flies back to the states, which leads to new situations and more awakenings from Elio.
In the end, we find out that Oliver is marrying a woman in the states, although Elio tracks him down twice later in life to reconnect.
It's an engaging read, even if parts of it are quite difficult to get through, due to reawakening old angsts long forgotten in the mists of past regrets. Or for that matter, some of Elio's experiments, none of which I will go into in this space. However, if you saw the movie, there are two scenes that stick out and are indeed in the novel with a bunch of extra emotion in them.
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
This is the end, my only friend the end
A day late on this one (had some dental work yesterday and wasn't up to much of anything), but I did finally finish Scourged, the final book in Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles.
Again, we're following three major characters, Atticus, Granuaile, and Owen as Ragnarok begins. Well, actually, before Hel and Loki emerge, we first have to clean up a few dangling plot threads, like Granuaile finishing taking out the vampires of Poland before being shipped off to Taiwan to fight the Yama Kings along side Sun Wukong, and Owen putting out fires (literally) as different events as the elementals call to him.
Atticus himself first takes care of the World Serpent off Ireland's coast, the heads to Sweden where Loki and Hel are supposed to emerge. And they do. And we get a fairly decent fight between all the Western pantheons vs the armies of Niflheim.
I'll say again, while he captures the spirit of most of the Norse pantheon, his big bad, Loki falls flat. Also, by spending most of Ragnarok focused on plots to take out Hel, one gets the impression that we're missing something bigger and grander in scale.
On the other hand, it didn't end as I thought it would, which was a nice surprise.
Again, we're following three major characters, Atticus, Granuaile, and Owen as Ragnarok begins. Well, actually, before Hel and Loki emerge, we first have to clean up a few dangling plot threads, like Granuaile finishing taking out the vampires of Poland before being shipped off to Taiwan to fight the Yama Kings along side Sun Wukong, and Owen putting out fires (literally) as different events as the elementals call to him.
Atticus himself first takes care of the World Serpent off Ireland's coast, the heads to Sweden where Loki and Hel are supposed to emerge. And they do. And we get a fairly decent fight between all the Western pantheons vs the armies of Niflheim.
I'll say again, while he captures the spirit of most of the Norse pantheon, his big bad, Loki falls flat. Also, by spending most of Ragnarok focused on plots to take out Hel, one gets the impression that we're missing something bigger and grander in scale.
On the other hand, it didn't end as I thought it would, which was a nice surprise.
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