Don't Worry, the Panther Lives
So, I’m currently reading a “novel” that turned out not to be a novel. It’s being marketed correctly, I just got the wrong information with the review copy. But as a note, your collection of interconnected stories that run in rough chronological order is still a collection, not a novel. (This also means it’s not eligible for awards in the novel category, but I’m inclined to blame the publishers…Penguin Random House. Sigh. Review of that one to come.
Here’s the couple I managed to read last week:
Review: Heretic by Gregory A. Wilson
CW: Injury to animal
The last volume of Gregory A. Wilson’s Gray Assassin trilogy ends it on a solid note. This trilogy is a thinly-veiled attack on the Catholic church, but the Catholic church of, you know, the Spanish Inquisition. With fantasy assassins.
Our ex-assassin protagonist, cynical and older and starting to learn to make friends (and maybe a hint of romance) has tracked part of his old Order to a cosmopolitan trade city.
My favorite character (other than the cat) is the newly-introduced Nusraheen, who is beautifully written and reminds me of the movie Aladdin. Unfortunately, I’m afraid he may be a bit of a stereotype. Am I allowed to love him anyway?
The plot is mostly a series of attempts and counter attempts and eventually resolves into a heist/dungeon crawl novel, which I’m fine with. He does introduce more new elements than I like in a third volume, but the ending is satisfying and surprisingly gentle for what happens.
And leaves the door open for another trilogy, albeit likely with a different protagonist.
Review: Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds
The sequel to The Prefect (now re-released as Aurora Rising) is very much the same. To recap: Yellowstone’s Glitter Band is a ring of 10,000 habitats of varying size and design, all of them tied together by cybernetically-mediated direct democracy. Everyone votes on everything, but not necessarily consciously.
Having created this form of government, Reynolds sets out to break it in many ways. The first book gave us Persistent Vegetative State (where everyone is in a coma), Voluntary Tyrannies (where people agree to live under a totalitarian regime in a kind of governmental full time submissive situation), people who vote professionally…
The second book is broader. It poses the question of secession and whether habitats should be able to opt out. At the same time, it’s also a thriller and a police procedural…in a world where you can root for the cops because they bear no resemblance to Earth’s law enforcement officers, although that doesn’t mean they’re perfect. They’re not shooting Black people for being Black, at least (Of course, in typical old white SF writer fashion, Reynolds gives us little in the way of ethnic details).
It's vintage Reynolds…none of the characters are particularly likeable. It’s a bit more cyberpunk, with some significant exploration of identity.
And it’s a lot of fun.