Part of the Vorpatril Alliance...

...and a traitor!

Yeah, I couldn't think of a better title. I fail. Epically. I got Captain Vorpatril's Alliance for Christmas, read it that night. Now I'm writing about it. I really enjoyed it. I think people have been requesting an Ivan book since Memory, and Bujold doens't disappoint. The novel is fun, interesting, and Ivan finally meets a woman who combines charming and lazy in equal measures, just like himself. As a couple, I can actually see them working better than many of Bujold's pairings, for the simple fact that neither one of them makes much any real demands on the other. Instead, they just enjoy the other's company.

But as much as I enjoyed Vorpatril's Alliance while I was reading it, upon reflection the book comes off as something of a disappointment. I know, I know, I'm far too negative. The book was good...but it could have been great. It's so frustrating sometimes, to see a work's potential and then realize how far it fell short.

One of the reasons for my discontent was the simple fact that Ivan doesn't save his lady love. The Barrayaran Empire does, shielding her from attack. Maybe Ivan is brave to involve himself in the affair in the first place, but basically anyone willing to make a false oath of marriage for the Vor Green Card could have done almost as much. It's not Ivan's courage or wit that ultimately helps him prevail, it's his connections. Not the most satisfying of victories, in my opinion.

My other problem is a pattern I've noticed with Bujold's later works. Her bad guys kind of suck. I mean, they didn't use to. But these days, the antagonists of the heroic Vor scions of Barrayar tend to be very desperate amateurs, only made dangerous by their inexperience and blind luck. The desperate Ba of Diplomatic Immunity, the bumbling conspirators of Cryoburn both kind of sucked. You'd think a ruthless Jacksonian House would be a little more deadly, but you hardly see them at all. They manage to send a few fifth rate thugs after their prey, but those guys can't even aspire to incompetence. You'd figure that Jackson's Whole would have some first class assassins available for hire, even if Bujold doesn't want to show the figures of the House itself.

Bujold's heroes deserve better villains.

The Name of the Place...Is Babylon Five!

Babylon Five was a great science fiction show. It has a few problems, of course, but it remains my favorite TV show that happens to take place aboard a space station. As a writer, I admire the way the show's creator foreshadows events and creates relatively painless outs for his characters, should the actor stop playing them. And it even tricks you: some of the people who you think are sympathetic turn out not to be, and vice versa.

But getting into the show was difficult. When I was younger, my older brother heard about how great the show was and checked out a few discs from the library. I watched it with him. Neither of us had much interest in getting the next set of discs. Later, in college, I borrowed the DVDs from a friend and got a few episodes in before giving up again. But still, everyone talked about how good the show was...was everyone wrong but me? I mean, it wouldn't be the first time. The occurrence seems to be getting more and more common, actually, as I get crazier.

But finally, I said "Fuck It" and forced myself to watch the entire season one. The end of season one made me want to watch season two, the season where Babylon Five actually starts becoming really good. The introduction of a new character helps that, but it's also the point in time where things finally start happening. The entire first season was foreshadowing and build-up. I'm amazed the show stayed on the air to reach that point though.

My friend had also heard about how good Babylon Five was, largely from me, but from a few other sources. I lent him the DVDs I have, but he could never really get into it, and to be honest, I don't think he'd have the patience to get past the first season. Not with things like Game of Thrones competing for his attention.

And the first season is interesting to watch the second time, to spot all the foreshadowing, it's a major impediment to the show. So I've created a list of the Must Watch episodes of Babylon Five, to get my friend into Season Two with minimal pain. Here are the episodes.

Episode One, Midnight on the Firing Line: The first episode. Provides a decent introduction to the Narn-Centauri conflict, as well as most major characters.

Episode Six, Mind War: The first real introduction of the evil PsiCorps. Also the first introduction of Bester, my favorite villain of the series.

Episode Eight, And the Sky Full of Stars: This is the questionable inclusion. I've tried to make certain that whatever episodes I picked were both entertaining and useful to the viewer of Season Two. This one isn't that entertaining, but the information it provides merits its inclusion, specifically the Mimbari War and Sinclair's role in its end.

Episode Thirteen, Signs and Portents: Also the name of the first season. The single most important and entertaining episode of Season One, IMNSHO. Centauri intrigues, and the first glimpse of the major antagonists of the series.

Episode Twenty, Babylon Squared: I love the second part to this episode, so it merits inclusion just for that purpose. Not strictly necessary, but determining the fate of Babylon Four is kind of important.

Episode Twenty Two, Chrysalis: The last episode. The point where the shit starts to hit the fan.

An important two part episode might be Voice in the Wilderness, but it's long, boring, and not much happens. Basically, I can summarize it for my friend by saying "The planet near Babylon Five has a superweapon, and they might be able to control it "when the time is right."

I Have Returned

Like a certain four legged robot psionic space monster with legendary path-finding. More posts to follow in the new year.

There Is A Slight Flaw In My Character...

My apologies for not posting more often on this blog, but I've been kept fairly busy with my job and my NaNoWriMo writing. I definitely plan on writing my thoughts about Captain Vorpatril's Alliance as soon as I get the chance to sit down and read it, but I'm still working my way through two non-fiction books I picked up at the library. On a side note, The Thank You Economy, by Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk, was fairly good about social media marketing and customer engagement, if you're interested in that kind of thing.  The dude knows his wine too.

I would post more, but as the title says, there is a slight flaw in my character.

Which brings me to the actual, short subject of this blog post, a book that is criminally under-appreciated and an amazing read. That book is Bridge of Birds, by Barry Hughart. It's a fantastic novel of an Ancient China that never was, starring a kind-hearted and over-muscled villager who becomes the sidekick of a venerable, roguish detective in a quest to find a cure for the village's poisoned children. It's fantastic.

I first encountered the book due to John Rateliff's Classics of Fantasy series, which I'm going to admit had some real stinkers in the list. Bridge of Birds is a winner though. I even tracked down one of the sequels to the work, Eight Skilled Gentlemen, which was sadly not as good.

Read Bridge of Birds.

Writing a 50K

This post is about NaNoWriMo, or the National Novel Writing Month. You've probably heard of it. I love Nanowrimo. It's fun and exciting to commit yourself to writing the first draft of a book in just one month. Nanowrimo is in fact one of the reasons that November is my favorite month of the year (others: my birthday, first snowfall). And this month my friend Tabor is writing his own novel for November, so I have someone to compete against. The best part of any competition, though, is winning it. :)

Another reason I like Nano is because I think it shows that people are creative. Inherently creative. Maybe people suck at the craft of it, about writing down their ideas and transforming them into cohesive plots, but they have ideas. And that's fun. I don't think you'll find many uncreative children, but somewhere people learn to suppress their creative spark. To hell with that.

There is one thing I don't quite get about NaNoWriMo. The community. I go to the NaNoWriMo website to put in my word count, of course, and I like getting free goodies at the end of the month...but I don't get the community that surrounds it. Especially since they're always asking for donations. What exactly are your costs here, other than running a high traffic website (a problem that would seem to have an obvious solution)?

Now I'm sure that the people are great, nice people. People who like books and stories. People who aren't afraid to say "Fuck it, I'm writing a book," and then proceed to do just that. But between the forum posts, community meet ups, and write-a-thons, I'm not all that surprised that most people fail to finish their book. I think people are more interested in talking about their book and writing than actually sitting down and slamming your face against the keyboard until something comes out.

Sadly, I'm a little behind right now, for various reasons. The book I've chosen to write is called City of the Damned, a kind-of sequel to my fantasy novel No More Kings. Well, it has some of the same characters, anyway, although both the main characters are new. Competing against me is Tabor's The King's Fool, which I would describe as a Game of Thrones-esque power struggle from the perspective of the cunning court jester.

Time to get back to work. 

Order of the Skull, Parting Thoughts

This will be final post about my friend J.E. Tabor's second novel (draft), the Order of the Skull. This is the first time I've really gone through a book, picking it apart and deciding what I like and what I don't. Normally I read books to be entertained, to enjoy the story, not to exercise my incredible powers of negativity to drain all enjoyment out of the printed word. Fortunately, Tabor doesn't really mind it all that much: our friendship began in the fires of adversity (Freshman Theology), and can weather my blog posts. :)

First of all, I enjoyed it. I think it was better than his first book, One Man's Freedom Fighters. In truth, it's probably not as marketable, since the genre he picked is fairly unusual. Not that Tabor stays particularly close to his chosen genre though; I think Tabor's familiarity with pulp is generally limited to Indiana Jones, Sky Captain, and Spirit of the Century. I'm fairly certain that he could rewrite it to take place in present day without too many difficulties, other than losing his enjoyable historical references and the nods to the social attitudes (i.e. racism) of the day.

His characters need fleshing out. There's some nods to depth and backstory, but there doesn't seem to be a lot direct or indirect importance to them, other than the knowledge that Hawkins can shoot like a million people a second with a revolver. Carson and Calloway have potential to have their backstories more fully explored, and perhaps tied to the events of the novel in some way. Emily Carson also starts off as a capable, self-assured young woman before fading into a hostage and love interest. Sister Cecilia doesn't do much of anything, really, other than provide convenient info, and dump acid on someone (always a fun party trick).

Speaking of characters, they lack motivation. They end up getting involved because of some vision quest and vague feeling about the end of the world, driving them to pursue a dangerous secret society across the country. They seem to act almost solely because THE PLOT DEMANDS IT. And they still feel inherently reactive, almost more like the protagonist of a video game than a novel. They might want to stop the bad guy, but they pick up the quest from the Native American shaman with an exclamation point over his head.

The bad guys feel kind of weak, a little generic and poorly-formed. Eigenstulf, while having a great name, has only the motivation of wanting to end the world because the Great War was hell. Yet there's no passion there when he speaks, nothing to make me believe that he's anything other than an antagonist to be killed. And as I mentioned, the Seven Deadly Sins of the Order are kind of weak for a bunch of guys who sold their souls and practice black magic. And the fight scene between Hawkins and the Sins is so sad it should be ashamed of itself (I'd expect six ordinary guys to put up more of a fight against Clint Eastwood in a Western).

One idea I had is that maybe the protagonists should be the ones with the skull, and the bad guys are trying to recover it. And give them each one goal they want to accomplish. Maybe Carson is investigating the deaths of her parents or something. Perhaps Calloway already knows something about the Order and wants to stop them. Hell, maybe he was a member before it all got too dark and crazy. Something like that.

Also: make things more awesome. Turn the dial up to eleven. Don't just have the good guys and bad guys pass through town. Have them change the whole fucking city. Make the disease in Saint Louis directly the work of the Order. Don't have a fight in between train cars, where ordinary people might fight...bring the action on top of the cars, or under, or clinging from side to side. Defenestrate the bad guys with well-placed kicks. If Hawkins is some kind of magician with a gun, maybe Carson is good enough to race her automobile professionally. Maybe Calloway isn't just a bad cheat and worse liar, but a true Magnificent Bastard sidekick. This wouldn't work if Tabor had picked a different genre, of course, but if you've decided to write a pulp adventure story, why not make it over-the-top?

Order of the Skull: Eleven and Epilogue

Tabor brushes over the task of Calloway finding Eigenstulf, and manages to track down his exact location within a sentence of the start of the chapter. I kind of thought it'd be harder. Dirk manages to bring up his backstory again, but it's never really touched on in the future. In fact, none of the characters really draw upon any of the stuff from their past. For example,we never see Carson's aunt and uncle in this entire story. As a reader, I get the feeling that more might be going on, but Tabor was in a rush to finish this draft and never bothered to fill out some of the details.

Calloway decides to take out Eigenstulf alone, with all the logic of a character deciding to stay behind and "hold them off" for all the time it takes twenty armed men to kill one (i.e., three seconds). There's a reason that Sister Cecilia supports his plan, though. And the problem with this scene, Calloway going off to face Eigenstulf, is that as a reader I know it isn't going to work. Especially since the fact they have one gun between them seems to be a problem easily remedied...in a few years, you could purchase Thompsons from Sears for twenty bucks. (They don't sell submachine guns these days...I asked).

Then we get the cool reveal that Sister Cecilia is actually possessed, when a gift from Emily Carson burns her flesh. Neat! Hawk and Emily head off to go kill Eigenstulf, and find themselves in another hostage situation, with Hawkins threatening the skull, while one of his friends is menaced. This feels a little tired. Especially since I don't know any reason why Eigenstulf (or any of the Order) would keep their little McGuffin bones in such easy to reach locations. Voldemort didn't exactly keep his Hocruxes in the trunk of his car, you know? Why not drop it off in a safe deposit box, or bury it underground in a safe, or hide in a hidden oasis guarded by a giant invisible spider (anyone know which story I just referenced?)?

Hawkins proves immune to some of Eigenstulf's magic, however, due to ignorance about his true name. I've read a very similar scene in Lies of Locke Lamora, although I know for a fact that Tabor hasn't read that particular book. An interesting bit of congruence, but for the reveal I think it needs a little more build-up. Their duel after this little reveal seems kind of forced, though, almost as if Mal and the Operative fought for another few minutes after the nerve strike fails. I think it would have been better pacing if Hawkins finished Eigenstulf then and there.

Here's a nice bit of dialogue near the end of the book, as the characters discuss the fate of the once-feared Order of the Skull:

“What, the secret society? Well, they have no leadership, and their base of operations has
been destroyed. I think that if anything will stamp them out, that would be it. I think from now
on the Order of the Skull will be relegated to a rich boy fraternity playing at occult and
superstition. Even so, I wouldn’t rule out another apocalyptic cult waiting in the wings, ready to
take advantage of void. I don’t think anything will ever change that.”

So true, so true. And the story quickly brings us the epilogue, with Hawk returning to get his money from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Oh, yeah, that motivation, that I as a reader had completely forgotten about (well, not really, but most people would have, I think). I think it would have made Hawk and Dirk more likeable if they ended up not taking the money, but instead finding some other purpose in life than drifting. Hawk and Dirk end up talking about going into business together; then they get into another brawl. One thing is that I'm not entirely certain if Hawkins and Calloway ever really liked each other that much. They had a very caustic relationship. And the hero doesn't end up with the girl, with Hawkins and Carson going their separate ways off-screen. That's kind of disappointing. Still, the ending does make me smile, which is always nice.