“Bridge of Birds” by Barry Hughart

“Bridge of Birds” is the first story in the “Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox” by Barry Hughart.  This was the book that Patrick Rothfuss raved about on his blog when he promoted the Humble Bundle sale I spoke of in a previous blog post.  To be honest, it took me a while to get into the story, but I think that was because I am unfamiliar with Chinese customs and mythology.

This is the story of a simple peasant boy from a small village in China who went on an adventure to save the children of his village.  He lived in the village of Ku-fu in the valley of Cho, and their main industry was silk manufacturing.  Every year, during the harvest, they have a specific set of rituals to ensure prosperity.  However, on this particular year, the harvest was going so well, until it completely and utterly failed.  And every child between the ages of 8 and 13 also fell terribly ill.  Number Ten Ox, so named because his birth order and strength, was sent to the local city to hire a wise man to cure the children.  The only one who bothered to listen to his story was Li Kao.  His surname is Li and his personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in his character.

Li Kao turns out to be a degenerate and and drunk, but he is also brilliant.  He quickly figures out the cause of the illness, the two village wealthy men poisoned the leaves that the silk moths ate.  And he soon figured out that the only way to cure the children was to find the Great Root of Power.  The most powerful of Ginseng roots, which is owned by the evil Duke of Chi’n. Thus begins Number Ten Oxes adventure of a lifetime.  They uncover secrets and mysteries and legends.  Number Ten Ox falls madly in love with a plain looking girl with a heart of gold.  Or rather, a heart of Jade and Pearls.

I will tell you I was genuinely surprised at the final plot twist.  I knew everything would wrap up in a neat bow, because that was the shape of the story.  But the how of it was truly alluring.  I am already beginning the next story of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, “The Story of the Stone,” and I expect it to be equally enthralling.  This is why: the very things that made “Bridge of Birds” so hard to get into are what made it so wonderful.  It was refreshing to read something so completely different than what I am used to.

“The Slow Regard of Silent Things” by Patrick Rothfuss

I have a confession.  This is not the first time I am reading this book.  But it is the first time I am reading this book since starting this blog.  “The Slow Regard of Silent Things” is actually a novella, and it is about my favorite character from Rothfuss’ ‘Kingkiller Chronicles’ series.  This story is six days in the life of the enigmatic Auri.  Auri lives under the University, in a place forgotten by time, but discovered by her.  She calls it the Underthing.  We do not know much about Auri’s past, but we do know she was once a student at the University, but she has since ‘cracked.’  She is not all right in the head, you might say a little crazy. Perfectly harmless, though.

We first meet Auri in “The Name of the Wind,” a story told through the eyes of a man, Kvothe.  Kvothe is the person who gave Auri her name.  Names are very important in this universe, and hers is like a flower unfurling in her heart.  In this world, if you know the name of something, if you truly understand a thing, or a person, you can control it.  These are not ‘calling names,’ but the true names.  In this novella, we get the idea that Auri’s original name turned against her.  She speaks of the days before ‘him’ as dark, these days before he gave her her name.  I should mention, Kvothe’s name is never actually stated in this entire story.  But it’s not that hard to figure out who she means.  She has only one human companion.

This story answers many questions, but it also opens up a whole new batch.  Or rather, now I know which questions to ask.  From Kvothe’s perspective, he could only tell us what he gleaned from observing Auri.  He was never allowed to ask her anything remotely resembling a personal question, so he relied purely on his powers of deduction.  For instance, he never knew that the blue-green glowing light that Auri used has a name, Foxen. But now that we see the world through Auri’s eyes, we can start to ask deeper questions.

This story starts with Auri waking up and knowing that he will be coming to visit in seven days.  It doesn’t tell you how she knows, but she is certain nonetheless.  She gathers from the amount of light seeping into her room that it is a finding day.  I am not sure what makes one day better for finding than another, but this seems to be a ritual.  She wakes up, looks around, and she knows what kind of day it is.  She does not know exactly what she will be doing on any given day, but she knows the shape of the day.

The closest thing resembling a plot to this novella is that Auri must find him a present.  He always brings her things when he visits, so it is only polite to reciprocate.  But this is in no way her driving force. She gets sidetracked constantly, and she has all sorts of responsibilities.  Like making sure her blanket never touches the ground.  And fixing the problems in the newly discovered places she found.

On her first day, she dived into a deep pool and found a brazen brass gear.  It is full of secrets and love.  But Auri has a difficult time finding the right place for it.  This brass gear is the closest we come to another character in the entire story.  It calms her down when she falls into a panic attack, and it helps her discover what her gift for him should be.  She knew instantly that it was full of knowing and calm, and we discover that she was right.  Auri sees the world differently than anyone else.  She sees the true shape of things.

She also feels pain. She feels the deep gut-wrenching, breathless pain of a full blown panic attack.  I have never read anything that so completely describes that experience.

“She heard the sound of things she normally couldn’t hear…The nameless empty everything was clawing at the fraying edges of the walls. Even Foxen wasn’t even nearly. The stones were strange. The air. She went looking for her name and couldn’t even find it flickering. She was just hollow in. Everything was. Everything was everything. Everything was everything else. Even here in her most perfect place. She needed. Please she needed please…”

That is just a piece of her attack, and I have been there.  As Patrick Rothfuss wrote in his author’s end note, “This story is for the slightly broken people out there.  I am one of you. You are not alone. You are all beautiful to me.”  This might not be a traditional story.  There is no hero, there is no real plot. There is nothing flashy.  It’s a true story. It’s my story.

“Patterns in the Dark” by Lindsay Buroker

This is the last ‘Dragon Blood’ book that I am reviewing, even though it ended on another cliff hanger, and I want to know what happens next.  I enjoyed the book, but I hate cliff hangers.  The only purpose they serve is to get you to read the next chapter, or in this case, to buy the next book.  I have hated cliff hangers ever since I went through my Dan Brown phase.  His writing was god awful, but I kept reading because I needed to know what happened next.  How does the protagonist survive the fall off the building?! OH NO!  Buroker is not a bad writer, but her reliance on the cliff hanger suggests poor judgement.

“Patterns in the Dark” picks up where “Blood Charged” left off, this time through the eyes of Ahn and Tolomek. They are searching for the source of the dragon blood and Tolomek’s sister, Tylie.  Somehow Tylie is mixed up with the Cofah conspiracy, which seems like a humongous coincidence. But you always need to use a heavy dose of suspension of disbelief, especially in the fantasy genre.

Meanwhile, Tolomek’s insecurities about his relationship with Ahn are showing.  He fears his feelings are not completely reciprocated, and he is jealous of Ahn’s commanding officer, Colonel Zirkander.  Ahn recognizes that she used to have a crush on her boss, she even admitted it in “Deathmaker,” but doesn’t know how to get Tolomek to see it that it is all in the past.  We learn a little more about her back story, how her father is a world famous assassin, and he trained her to follow in his footsteps.  Papa Ahn did not allow much room for emotion when she was growing up, so she struggles with the right words when Tolomek professes his love for her. This tension culminates in a confrontation halfway through the book, but then gets solved easily.  After the confrontation, Ahn suddenly knows how to express her feelings, if not verbally, at least physically. And then verbally.

However enjoyably my excursion into the “Dragon Blood” collection, it is time to move on.  I recently acquired 22 ebooks by donating to a wonderful charity through Humble Bundle. I learned about it on one of my favorite author’s blog, Patrick Rothfuss. So it will take me a while to work my way through those books.

“Deathmaker” by Lindsay Buroker

During this second installment of the ‘Dragon Blood’ series, my kindle broke!  It was devastating because I loved that thing.  It has taken me to so many wondrous places.  Fortunately, my dad had given me his old kindle touch a few months ago.  I haven’t been using it because I tried it once, and the touch screen irritated me.  But now I have to switch over, and I have to say, now that I am used to the navigation controls, I like the touch.  But on with the story…

This book has left Sardelle and Zirkander behind, in favor of Lieutenant Caslin “Raptor” Ahn and Tolomek “Deathmaker” Targoson.  Ahn is a fighter pilot in Zirkander’s squadron.  An expert marksman because she was trained by the best, her father, an infamous assassin.  In “Balanced on the Blade’s Edge” we get a hint to Ahn’s current predicament: her flier has crashed and she is presumed dead.  She is very much alive, but a prisoner of war, held by the Cofah.

Tolomek has the reputation of Dr. Mengele.  His gaseous concoction has been used to murder two towns, one in Iskandia – Ahn’s home country – and one in Cofehre – his own home country.  He is cast out of his own society and forced to live among pirates, the only people who would have him.

Ahn and Tolomek are forced into the same prison cell, and although they each have their reasons to despise the other, they must work together to escape.  They do this relatively quickly, but Ahn just trades captors from the Cofah to Tolomek’s pirates.  Although he seems to want to free her still.

There is excellent character development in this story, or at least a great unfurling of the characters. At first, Tolomek seems like the ultimate evil genius, out of touch with reality. But we eventually get the full story of why he created the things he has, and although this proves a certain amount of out-of-touch-ness, he loses the evil and gains a misguided.  We never see him kill, which helps prove his motives.

Ahn is great.  She never gives up on her situation.  She is resourceful and creative in a very MacGyver sort of way.  At one point she uses a hammock to create a net trap for one of her guards. She accepts Tolomek’s help, but is wary every step of the way. She never relied on him to escape any of her confinements.  And she proves to be highly skilled at the things she knows.  I enjoyed the second installment of “Dragon Blood” just because her Ahn.

Romance ensues in this book too, which sort of annoys me.  I enjoy a good romance as much as the next person, and actually enjoyed the one between Ahn and Tolomek over Sardelle and Zirkander.  However, Buroker used the same “Romeo and Juliet” with a happy ending type romance in both books.  Opposites from warring societies, falling hopelessly in love. It’s classic, but unoriginal times two.

“The Curious Affair of the Dead Wives” by Lisa Tuttle

Lisa Tuttle is a name I sometimes hear or read about when discussing contemporary fantasy authors.  I have never actually read anything by her before this point, but I had high expectations, considering the company she is usually mentioned with.  Unfortunately, I was disappointed.  This short story is included in George R.R. Martin’s anthology “Rogues.”  Which further raised my expectations.  I loved GRRM’s
“A Song of Ice and Fire” series, better known as “A Game of Thrones,” and I expected him to gather only amazing stories for his anthology.

This is a Sherlock Holmes-ian type of mystery.  With Holmes played by a man named Mr. Jesperson, and Watson played by a woman named Felicity Travers.  The whole story is told through the POV of Ms. Travers, a feminist living in Victorian Era England.  She certainly has her own ideas about feminism, and that is wonderful.  But If I wanted to read an analysis of how women were regarded in that time and place, I would have read an essay.  Instead she goes on about how Mr. Jesperson’s mother is almost certainly judging her, although she would never say such a thing out loud.  And how she felt bad to assume that another working woman was a secretary, instead of the full fledged partner she was.

The problem is, when I am reading literature, I want to see strong, beautiful, capable women.  I want them making decisions and problem solving, and not relying on a man to rescue them.  I want to see real interactions between two strong women, which does involve a certain amount of judging.  That’s just reality.  But I don’t want to read a manifesto.  The story, and the characters, and the feelings that the characters have and express should be enough.  I can fill the thesis in myself.  I don’t need it spoon fed to me.

“Balanced on the Blade’s Edge” by Lindsay Buroker

This is the first book of “The Dragon Blood Collection” by Lindsay Buroker.  I found this series on Amazon, and thought it looked interesting.  It did not have many reviews, but they were all positive, and it is a fantasy book written by a woman.  Something of a rarity. I am always on the lookout for strong female leads, and this book did not disappoint.  The two POV characters are Sardelle Tarushan, a 34 year old sorceress who has been trapped in stasis for 300 years, and Colonel Ridge Zirkander, a ‘fly by the seat of his pants’ fighter pilot. Romance obviously ensues.  But there is more to the story than that.

Sardell’s main objective in the book is to rescue her sword, a soulblade that she was bonded to since becoming a full-fledged soceress.  Her soulblade, named Jaxi, contains the spirit of a teenage girl, is trapped deep within a mountain.  A mountain being mined for valuable ores and under tight watch by an enemy military.  Ridge is the new commander of the whole operation, and comes from a culture that kills anyone with a hint of magical ability.  It is a very Romeo and Juliet romance.

This book is written extremely well.  There is a great balance between the hero’s journey and the hero’s romance.  And it’s nice to read a romance that is based on more than just looks.  I mean, both Sardelle and Ridge are attractive based on their descriptions.  But there is also a mutual respect and rapport that develops between the two, before and canoodling ever happens.

“Red Country” by Joe Abercrombie

“Red Country” is one of the stand-alone sequels to the “First Law” trilogy, which, for those of you who have been keeping up with my blog, I just finished.  There are two main POV characters, with a few extra added here and there when needed.  This creates a tighter storyline that is a lot easier to follow.  Shy is the eldest child of three, and since her mother died, she has taken it upon herself to take care of her two younger siblings, Ro and Pit.  She does have a father-like figure in her life, but as she says multiple times, he is not her father.  He’s just some big Northerner man who helped raise her.  Temple is a lawyer for the Company of the Gracious Hand.  Or, I should say, currently he is a lawyer.  But he has some experience in other trades, like priest, or carpenter, or whatever was easiest at whatever time of his life.  He is a self-titled coward.  He always chooses the path of least resistance, even when his conscience is yelling at him.

The novel starts with Shy in town selling her crop with Lamb, her not-father father-figure.  When they return to their farm, they find it burned down.  Their friend, who was watching the kids, is hanging from a tree, and Pit and Ro are missing.  There is no trace of them anywhere, so they figure they were stolen.  Thus they embark on a journey to the Far Country to rescue them.  And along the way, Shy learns things about her nine fingered father that she never wanted to learn.  And he never wanted her to learn.  Lamb, appropriately named, as someone who knows him said, because he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  He’s not so submissive as he has led Shy to believe.

Meanwhile, Temple’s conscience gets the better of him, so he takes the path of resistance for once in his life, and flees the company.  He barely survives an attack in the wild, and gets rescued by Shy.  She ostensibly saved him for a fee, and it takes him the entire trip to the Far Country to pay her back.

This is a book of hope and betrayals.  People love and hate, sometimes the same people.  Sometimes at the same time.  Twists and turns abound.  We meet old friends from “The First Law” trilogy.  Sometimes by a different name, but still recognizable.  A great read.

But we see Logen Ninefingers again.  And there is no Ferro.  He has obviously given up on her.  We never get a Logen POV, so we never know if he still thinks about her.  But I do.  I miss her a lot. But Shy is great too!

“Last Argument of Kings” by Joe Abercrombie

And so I finish this ravishing series.  And might I say the end was a disappointment.  While I was not expecting ‘happily ever after’ for anyone, I was hoping for, well, hope.  It was a dismal end to a great story. And the questions I cared most about were left unanswered.  For example, Logen Ninefingers and West share a terrifying ability.  They both suffer headaches and then fly into a mindless rage.  It sounds like pseudo-PTSD, but there seems to be a mystical element to it.  And also a genetic component, West’s father seems to have suffered the same ability.  But it can’t be PTSD, because the first time it happened to Logen, he was still a happy Northerner child.  So what is it?  Alas, I do not know.

The book is filled with ups and downs, and surprising ups and worse downs. Both Jezal and Logen are named kings of their respective countries, but only Jezal seems to be able to do any good about it.  Jezal is probably the only character in the entire book with any significant amount of character growth.  He starts off as a stereotypical playboy miscreant, and turns into a benevolent king, beloved of the masses.  The same masses he spat upon at the beginning of the book, that is, when he actually deigned to notice them. Logen attempts character growth, but he falls back into his murderous ways as soon as he is among his Northerner brethren.  Ferro is still Ferro, but perhaps is not so murderous as she once was.  If she can Identify with a would-be victim, she might let them go.  Maybe that is significant character growth, for her.  Glokta is much the same as well.  He does save two lives by the end, but he does not show any signs of changing his torturous ways.

All in all, I give this book a big thumbs up, despite the depression.  Maybe I’m a little bit masochistic that way, but I love books that explore the greys in life.  And in life, there are no happy endings, so why should there be ones in books?  Maybe some people read to escape reality, but I read to explore reality.  I read somewhere, or heard somewhere, that people who read are more likely to be empathetic.  It has something to do with the fact that readers are constantly putting themselves in another person’s shoes.  They are constantly see the world from a different perspective, and this gives them the practice to do so in real life.  And for that to be effective, we can’t always get our happy endings in our books.  Suspension of disbelief only takes us so far

Some people might think that the portrayal of women in this series shows Abercrobie’s misogynistic self.  I disagree.  The women are certainly few and far between, and they are not treated fairly, but this is a misogynistic world that they are in.  All of the POV characters are fighters, or once were.  In this world, women are not in the military, so a fighting woman would be very rare to come by.  Yet we have Ferro, my favorite spitfire.

The other major women in the series, Ardee, Cathil, Vitari, and even Terez are beautifully complex women, even if their characters are not explored deeply.  Ardee is a lonely, selfish, drunk.  Full of self-loathing, but a good heart underneath it all.  Cathil has been hardened by life, and takes life and opportunities as they come.  Vitari has a great self-preservation instinct, is a loving mother, and a brutal enemy.  Terez has known since she was a child that she would be married off for the betterment of her country, but she never accepted her fate.  Not until her true lover was threatened did she show her true passion and selflessness.  She was willing to do literally anything to protect her love.  They are not perfect angels, and they are not evil spinsters.  They are something in between, just like the men in this series.

“Before They Are Hanged” by Joe Abercrombie

Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he’s lost.  In this book, he embarks on a journey with an eclectic group of companions to find a mystical rock at the edge of the world.  With him are Ferro, a ferocious fiend from the south.  Full of hate and blood and death.  Jezal dan Luthar, a pompous and pampered rich kid, recent winner of the Contest (Adua’s version of an important fencing match), Bayaz, the First of the Magi, full of secrets and stories.  Malacus Quai, Bayaz’s apprentice.  A seemingly weak and weak-witted man, but I am not convinced.  He seems to survive a lot of life or death situations with pure chance.  Last last of Logen’s companions is their guide, their Navigator, Brother Longfoot, of the illustrious guild of the Navigators.

These six companions travel to the edge of the world and back, facing the harsh elements, attack from the locals, and the ancient and cursed city of Aulcus.  Ninefingers strikes up an unlikely tryst with Ferro.  They comfort each other, but her past pain and experience as a sex slave make it a relationship doomed from the start.  Meanwhile, Bayaz is constantly lecturing Jezal about what a good king should be like and do, which seems utterly pointless because Jezal is no where in line for the throne.  And Malacus Quai watches over all the events with increasingly suspicious eyes.  Bayaz reeks of deception, and Quai is finally catching on.  Each member of the party has been carefully selected for a specific purpose, and he is not keen on sharing the whys or the whats of it.

Meanwhile, up north, Colonel West is wandering the north at the mercy of Logen’s old crew.. They are searching for Bethod’s army and then the Union’s army to join up with them and help.it’s a hell of a journey in the snow and West is lucky to have made it out alive.  Not everyone does.  When they finally find the Union camp, they dig in for a battle. But Bethod has found allies with the unlikeliest of beings, Shanka.  Flatheads.  Inhuman beasts with no mercy and no brains.  They exist only to reek havoc and carnage.

In the south, Sand dan Glokta, Superior of the Inquisition is having no more luck.  He is sent down to hold Dagoska, the only Union held city on a continent ruled by Gurkhul.  It is a lost cause and he knows it.  He is told to find out what happened to the previous Superior of the Inquisition, root out the traitors, and increase the defenses of the city.  None of these tasks are easy because Dagoska is a city of bureaucracy run by merchants.  Meanwhile, the Gurkhish are coming.  No one thinks they can last a week under siege, but they manage over a month.  At the end, Glokta is convinced he will die, and digs in for his final moments.

This book is full of bad people with bad options and making bad choices.  Everyone’s hands are covered in blood, and its not a question of who’s good and who’s bad.  The quote at the start of Part II of “The Blade Itself” says it well.  “Life – the way it really is – is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse,” Joseph Brodsky.  That is a highly depressing outlook on life, but perhaps accurate in this series.  All the good guys are of dubious moral character.  It’s really a matter of perspective.

I would love to see more women represented in this book, but the one’s that Abercrombie does give us are great combination of strong and flawed.  They are each highly distinct from each other, well thought out characterizations.  Unfortunately, Ardee practically is never mentioned, except in Jezal’s daydreams, and Cathil meets an unfortunate end as  soon as she really gets interesting.  But all three of them are living in a misogynistic world, and figuring out their own ways of dealing with it.

I’m almost done with the last book, and I desperately want to know what happens, so that’s all I can say for now!

“The Blade Itself” by Joe Abercrombie

“The Blade Itself” is the first book of Joe Abercrombie’s ‘First Law’ trilogy.  I chose this book/series as my next adventure because I read a great short story by Abercrombie in George R.R, Martin’s (GRRM) “Rogues” anthology. That story happened to take place in the same world, but as far as I can tell so far, it has no bearing on the trilogy. I am already halfway through the second book of the trilogy (“Before They are Hanged”), which should give you some indication of how much I am enjoying the series.

It starts off confusing, and Abercrombie did not feel like including a map to help guide the reader. I find this annoying, because even if it were a bad map, it would at least give me some bearings.  For example, Patrick Rothfuss included an undetailed (and possibly inaccurate) map with his ‘Kingkiller Chronicles’ series.  But at least it gives the reader an indication of what the major kingdoms and landmarks of that world are.  I managed to find a map on Deviantart that is supposed to be a fairly good map of the ‘First Law’ world, and the thing that most surprised me was the fact that the Agriont was an island.  That was probably indicated in the book, but I am a visual learner, and this map helped me understand the world on a much deeper level.

So after you get passed the initial confusion of no map, and you get to understand the different Point of View (POV) characters, “The Blade Itself” is an enthralling read.  One of the POV characters is a torturer.  Thing Guantanamo Bay style torture.  Or Abu Ghraib.  And you feel sympathetic for this man, Sand dan Glokt.  He was the victim of torture for 2 years, and after he was finally released, he returned home to friends and family who did not want anything to do with him.  He was a soldier unable to soldier.  But he learned how to torture most skillfully as a POW, and turned to that for a career.  We get so inside his mind, and his pain, that we forget that he is intentionally torturing false confessions out of mostly innocent people.

Logen led men into battles, killed more men than the plague, and burned several villages to the ground.  He is not a man to mess with.  In his mind, he says he put that life behind him, that he is reformed.  But we do not know the reason why he has changed his mind.  And we see him get into fight after fight.  He lost control, seemingly a mystical loss of control, but who knows?  And still, the sympathy is still there.  I am rooting for him, and I am rooting for Glokt; even thought I am firmly opposed to murder and torture.

Abercrobie has a gift for showing the humanity of seemingly evil characters.  The only writer that I have read who is better at this is GRRM.  GRRM is truly a master of the greyness between good and evil. And this is definitely a theme that is used more and more among contemporary fantasy writers.  Fantasy has long been a genre of absolute good versus absolute evil.  Frodo/innocence versus Sauron/evil.  Love versus hate.  God versus Satan.  It is refreshing that the genre is evolving past absolutes and making the fantastical real. I’ll be back soon when I finish “Before They are Hanged.”