December Books Catch Up 1
10 books I read earlier this year and my one-item-a-day posting plan has caused a backlog.
****
1. Horse Under Water
After the shenanigans of The IPCRESS File our (unnamed) protagonist is given the job of overthrowing the government of Portugal. There’s a sunken U-Boat off the coast and it’s believed to contain forged currency from the war, which can be used to finance a revolution. Our protagonist has to go to diving school, deal with some bureaucracy in London, then take a team out to dive there without disturbing anyone.
They disturb people. For reasons to do with the U-Boat there are a loosely connected bunch of criminals, fascists and wartime-traitors in the area. This inevitably leads back to London where they have connections at the highest levels. Meanwhile they’ve hired the best diver in Europe, an Italian, whose greatest exploit was in the war, swimming into Gibraltar harbour to mine ships.
It's a bit complicated and people keep exposing secrets to hide others. Several people get killed, slightly haphazardly. Lots of people have second identities or are double-agents. And there are old-school fascists working in the modern, post-war world. Most of the action takes place in Portugal, still under the rule of Salazar.
Read This: Complex and stylish 60s spy thrills
Don’t Read This: Despite using fascist threats it doesn’t
think very deeply about them
****
2. The Tombs Of Atuan
Ahra is the empty, the eternal priestess of the Nameless Ones. They have dwelt amongst the tombs since the first men, perhaps before then. The temple to the twin gods is newer, and newer still – four or five lifetimes – the temple of the godking. Once the kings of the Kargish Lands came here to settle disputes, but now, united under the godking, it is something of a backwater.
But Ahra was Tenar once before they came to find the reborn priestess. And names have meaning in Earthsea, names are magic. So when a stranger appears in the labyrinth under the tombs, Ahra will have to decide who she serves, and what the treasure is worth.
The second Earthsea novel, in which Ged, having come into his power, decides to try and recover a missing rune, the rune of Binding which will bring peace, or so he hopes. But he bites off more than he can chew and only by saving another can he save himself. A tomb raiding fantasy adventure, but one that twists and turns in unexpected ways from start to finish.
Read This: A fantasy about resisting the darkness and
setting yourself free
Don’t Read This: The tombs are the most depressing place
imaginable
****
3. The Mummy
This 1827 novel is set in 2126, 300 years after it was written. England is under an absolute monarchy (apparently there was a revolution but having achieved the state from News From Nowhere the people decided they’d rather have a king. As the last prince doesn’t want the throne, his daughter volunteers to be queen. Also they’re now Catholics for some reason), which guarantees their freedom. Sir Ambrose, his friend the Duke of Cornwall, and his son Edric receive news from abroad; Ambrose’s other son Edmund has won a victory over the Germans. (The message comes initially by “telegraph” – semaphore – with a fuller letter being fired by steam-cannon relay). With him home, the long-anticipated marriage of Edric and Edmund to the daughters of the Duke, Elvira and Rosabella can take place.
They refuse, Edric is thrown out and travels to Egypt in a balloon with a scientist to revive a mummy – Cheops (Khufu) as it turns out. Cheops revived, the mummy escapes, gets in the balloon, returns to England and accidently kills the queen, leaving Elvira and Rosabella as the chief candidates for the throne. Cheops goes into hiding and offers sage advice to various characters. The politics gets a bit complicated.
Edric and the scientist are arrested, escape, and flee, eventually becoming shipwrecked in Spain. Spain is undergoing a civil war, and they join the King of Ireland who is trying to restore a king to the throne (in brief, Spain conquered a lot of Africa, moved the capital to the new territories and old Spain revolted becoming a republic).
All this moves along fairly well for about a chapter at a time before coming to a screeching halt, sometimes with weird hilarity (a court case where briefs are fed into automaton lawyers to be read), sometimes with “weird” “hilarity” (in a bit of “satire” about universal education the lower classes are all pedants and use long convoluted phrases). It’s a reaction to Frankenstein, to the Egyptian craze, to the revolutions and the restoration of monarchies after Napoleon, and to various technologies. There’s some wild speculation, some misunderstood science and a few canny predictions (the women of the court have given up wearing stays and skirts, instead having loose trowsers and drapery).
Read This: For a bit of early 19th century science
fiction
Don’t Read This: It’s (misunderstood) Egyptian flavoured
Frankenstein fanfic
Out Of Copyright: And available online
****
4. The Bonehunters
After defeating Sha’ik and her rebellion in House Of Chains, the Malazan 14th Army, the eponymous Bonehunters, are on the trail of Leoman Of The Flails and the remnants of the army of the Apocalypse. They track him to the city of Y’Ghatan where he lays a grotesque trap, at a place where the Malazans have previously faced disaster. Tavore Paran, the Empress’s Adjunct, still refuses to accept help in command, but the army is coming to understand and maybe even trust her.
But that’s not the only disaster to befall the Seven Cities. Poliel, goddess of disease, has joined the House Of Chains and plague has hit the subcontinent. As the non-Bonehunter characters make their way across the land they discover abandoned cities and dying lands. Ganoes Paran finds himself taking command of the other Malazan army, Dujek Onearm’s host, in order to get into the city where the goddess is incarnate, putting her down with a shard of otaral, the magic suppressing metal.
He's got that from the previous Imperial Adjunct’s sword, which is broken when he pays a debt as part of an expedition into the realm of death. Though not the regular realm, but one beyond it, where he unleashes the Hounds Of Darkness to hunt down the first monstrous shapeshifter which has in turn been released by the Nameless Priests, in an effort to restore balance. This bit gets a bit complicated, maybe even contrived, though forgivable for the bit where he impersonates the poorly named Captain Kindly by beating up another captain and her guards, then blames her for it, and this is generally considered too nice for the real Captain Kindly, one of the comedy side characters in the 14th Army.
Avoiding the plague, the 14th Army attempt to sail back to Malaz island, via a rarely traveled route. On the way they meet Tiste Edur, whose fleets are exploring, trying to get hold of two big magic thrones and also challengers to fight their emperor (see Midnight Tides for a proper explanation). Icarium Jhag, another unstoppable force unleashed by the Nameless Priests, has his handler replaced, and is taken up by the Edur, as is Karsa Orlong, an unstoppable force who has sort of joined up with the House Of Chains but is instantly off doing his own thing which everyone except possibly the Crippled God is left aghast at.
The various plotlines either limp to a resting point or actually end, leaving the Bonehunters to return home to Malaz City. There the Empress is waiting and also traitors, assassins, magic, characters who have been talked about but not seen, as well as important choices. Tavore is loyal to the Empress, but also to the Bonehunters and exactly what they are going to do, and what they are fighting for is being questioned.
We don’t get more answers, but we do, finally, start to see how things match up. What Midnight Tides was about, how the Crippled God is binding together people and movements across the world, even as powerful people and ascendants move around. How the Bonehunters, who keep encountering strangeness and even disaster, come together as a force to be reckoned with.
A high fantasy novel that just about hangs together on its own though I would not recommend it as such as several (re-)introductions are very sketchy.
Read This: The 10-volume series is starting to stitch itself
together. You’re past the halfway mark! (By word/page count the 50% mark is
passed somewhere towards the end of this book)
Don’t Read This: You are utterly confused by this, either
because you’ve not read the previous volumes or you have but have forgotten
what happened
****
5. Thud!
The anniversary of the battle of Koom Valley is coming, when the dwarves ambushed the trolls, or the trolls ambushed the dwarves, or both ambushed each other. It’s a flashpoint for tensions between them. And this time Ankh-Morpork, with sizable communities of both, is feeling the trouble.
One of the rabblerousers is a dwarf Grag, a keeper of dwarf law and tradition. When he turns up dead Sam Vimes and the Watch insist on investigating, despite the dwarf attempts to claim mining law. It becomes clear they’ve been digging under Ankh-Morpork looking for something.
There’s politics involved, and also information technology (Vimes realises that several of his questions can be answered if he read the reports he had – if he’d had time and known what was important in advance). There’s a vampire in the Watch, and also Lord Vetinari has sent an auditor. Meanwhile he’s a new father, with all that entails, and there’s something in the dark of the mines, something summoned by betrayal and murder.
More of a straightforward thriller than most Discworld novels, there are some sharp examinations of tradition and how hard it is to break it. Despite the best efforts of those in power. Because of the best efforts of those in power.
Read This: Some very funny scenes of policing mixed with a
quite dark attempt to keep a secret
Don’t Read This: If you want ethnic strife there’s plenty of
non-fiction
****
6. Obelisk Gate
A sequel to The Fifth Season. The Seasons (capital S) are times when the world (the Stillness) becomes hostile to life, usually as a result of tectonic activity. At the end of the last volume a new Season started when Alabaster opened a rift under the Imperial Capital. Now he and Essun are in the underground geode-community of Castrima, which is friendly to orogenes, the earthquake/energy manipulators.
But this volume is almost as tricky as the first, which had multiple timelines and points of view, each shedding light on one another. Essun’s husband and daughter, also an orogene, have survived and found their way to a place where she can be trained – though her father thinks she can have orogeny removed. Alabaster has things to teach Essun, about another power beneath orogeny, one that they call magic. There’s a missing moon they might get back, and the obelisks, flying stone-gems, can be used to get it back. Perhaps.
But the last time they were used was to create the rift, and now there is a Season and no Empire, it’s every community for itself. Castrima is short of meat and protein, and an army is coming to kill the orogenes. And the stone eaters are active with their own, unfathomable reasons for doing… things.
Read This: To learn the deep secrets of the world of the
Stillness
Don’t Read This: You never got into The Fifth Season, this
is not an easy jumping on point
****
7. The Farthest Shore
Sparrowhawk, whose true name is Ged, brought back the Rune Of Binding, the lack of which caused strife, and prevented a king of Earthsea (see The Tombs Of Atuan). But that was fifteen years ago, there is still no king, and strife and unrest continue.
And worse. When the Prince of Enlad tries to speak the spring blessing there is no power in the words. He sends his son, Arren, to Roke, to speak to the Archmage of Earthsea. The Archmage Sparrowhawk.
The two set sail to the South Reach, where rumours of strangeness have come from. The magic has gone out of the world, and with it all virtue. People don’t work, their harvests fail, they prey on each other.
They have made an unconscious bargain, or a semi-conscious bargain for those with magic. To live forever in a half-life, rather than face death. Someone has opened the door between the living world and the dead, the dry land beyond the stone wall.
Arren and Sparrowhawk must travel across Earthsea, to the edge of the world and beyond, past dragons and murder and face the king of the Dead. Who is a necromancer that Sparrowhawk encountered before. The first trilogy of Earthsea novels concludes with Ged, again, facing death and the unbeing that exists when it is denied or let into the living world.
Read This: The classic, first Earthsea trilogy comes to a
conclusion with the Deed Of Ged bringing life back to the world, after also being
the cause of the troubles (indirectly this time)
Don’t Read This: It’s a bit morbid and having a king come
and solve things is a bit… well you know
****
8. Funeral In Berlin
The third of Deighton’s 1960s spy novels, this concerns the proposed defection of a Russian scientist, while he is visiting East Berlin. It is being brokered by Johnny Vulkan, a member of the intelligence community in Berlin, who is employed by our protagonist’s department. It is also being sponsored by Hallam at the Home Office. Complicating matters is the affable Colonel Stok of Soviet Intelligence (who was transplanted into ITV’s recent adaption of The IPCRESS File).
There are some very specific requirements for the (false) documents for the defection. Stok seems to have given his blessing to the defection, which is suspicious; as our protagonist attempts to learn more of what’s going on Stok keeps appearing. This learning more of what’s going on involves digging into WW2. The documents required are in the name of Broum, who was real. A Sudeten-German from Czechoslovakia, he was employed as a translator in France, murdered a collaborator while associated with the resistance and died in a concentration camp. Except that none of this adds up when looked into.
The glamourous and gloriously named Samantha Steel makes an appearance, an American working for the Israelis, another twisty plot. They have an interest in ex-Nazis of course, but perhaps there is more.
Read This: A complicated clever spy thriller with wonderful
sense of time and place
Don’t Read This: The cold war is over, and the chapters from
different people’s points of view only serve to obscure
****
9. Making Money
Moist von Lipwig is back. He makes the post office work and now he’s almost bored. Especially when his fiancée Adora Belle Dearheart is away, as she is, on Golem Trust business. So he takes risks, climbing the outside of the post office and even getting into extreme sneezing.
Ankh Morpork’s banking is archaic and the Patrician needs money. Moist’s innovation of stamps are already being used as a de facto currency by some. Backed by the post office’s promise to deliver letters. Perhaps, the Patrician muses, he might be interested in helping out the bank.
The Royal Bank Of Ankh-Morpork is in private hands, controlled mostly by the Lavish family. In fact controlled by Topsy Lavish, the widow of the previous chairman, and also by Mr Fusspot his beloved dog. After Moist refuses any role, she dies, leaving all her shares to the dog, making the dog chairman, and Moist the dog’s guardian, making him deputy chairman. He immediately invents paper money, convinced that gold is not inherently valuable (it’s the work the city does that makes it valuable).
Anyway there's a lot of economic theory that just happens to coincide with the ancient buried golem plot. Two plotting Lavish children, one of whom is weird, the other just entitled. Moist and Adora’s relationship is interesting as, although we’ve had Pratchett characters shagging, and in love, and being together, these two feel as though they are lusting after each other as much as they enjoy each other’s company.
Possibly more interesting than the first Moist novel, and another Ankh-Morpork-but-not-Guards one with Pratchett putting some solid 20th century banking into the city.
Read This: Some funny stuff, some interesting economics and
another baroque plot.
Don’t Read This: Conning people and courting danger for fun
is not amusing
****
10. Reaper's Gale
The Bonehunters from The Bonehunters (above) arrive in the newly conquered Lether Empire from Midnight Tides. After a period of consolidation under the Tiste Edur and their new, unkillable, maddened emperor, the Empire is back doing what it does best – seizing land from nomads under dubious pretences and grinding down the poor and opposition to the regime.
The Adjunct, no longer Adjunct, and her army, no longer Malazan, have a plan, which is flawed. To send in the Marines to take out Tiste Edur and destroy their authority and allow the Lether to rise up. But the Lether have absorbed the Edur almost seamlessly, the Marines find themselves scattered, threatened with destruction.
Power calls to Power is a truism of the series, and the Emperor with his cursed sword draws elder gods and stranger beings, as well as challengers to fight him in the arena. Included amongst them are Icarium Jhag, the amnesiac Lifestealer, being sent by the Nameless Cult as a weapon, and Karsa Orlong, who has both accepted and rejected his role in The House Of Chains and the plots of the Crippled God (the cursed sword is definitely part of the Crippled God’s plan).
The previous forces working against the empire are still there, forced underground by the Edur, allowing new, more obviously malevolent organisations to emerge. The Liberty Consign, made up of the richest, who are provoking wars to makes profits. The Patriotists, a secret police who are working systematically through sections of society eliminating subversives, and have reached the academics. And the Chancellor, still in place, more powerful than ever with an insane emperor, helping both.
Also various characters, legendary and otherwise, dead and alive, moving around the edges. It’s all got very involved, as might be expected seven volumes in, though a handful of storylines do come to a (probably) final end.
Read This: We are determined to discover, at the very least,
what the deal with the cursed sword is
Don’t Read This: There’s still three more volumes, the
longest yet, and no, we don’t know what the Adjunct’s deal is yet
Comments