A Desolation Called Peace (Martine)
Mar. 31st, 2021 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI am still here! A little swamped until (at least) Easter with a couple of commitments (including the super totally optional self-imposed one of getting the kiddos to make a music video for church -- I did it last Easter and Christmas and, well, we're still not going to church, so).
But in the meantime my hold on A Desolation Called Peace came in from the library, and I read it, and I have a lot of feelings about it that boil down to... eh, it was fine. Which -- if you remember my breathless (spoilery) this-was-an-amazing-book reaction to A Memory Called Empire -- is, while not a negative review, not what I had hoped for either.
I think the big problem that I had with it was how all the characters sounded fairly similar in voice, which bothered me because the whole point of the first book, and a major theme of the second, is the culture of the Teixcalaanli vs. the culture of the little nation-entities it was trying to engulf, like Lsel Station, and how they were different. So I would have expected, when we were in the head of a Teixcalaan, for it to sound different than being in the head of a Stationer (which we were for the entire first book). The culture is different, the assumptions are different, the way they react to things ought to be different! And there was a little of that, but it seemed almost perfunctory, added-on -- oh, right, we need a mention of poetry, we haven't had one in a while, here you go. Mostly being in the head of a Teixcalaan seemed very much like being in the head of a Stationer, or being in the head of an Earth human Euroamerican, which just bugged me.
(I'm trying to remember places this kind of thing is done well -- I felt this way about Ann Leckie's Ancillary books; the Imperial Radch really is a different kind of culture and mindset, plus which ship-culture is its own thing. And the other one that's coming to mind is John M. Ford's The Final Reflection. His Klingons do have a truly culturally different and often terrifying-to-a-Terran mindset, while still being entities one can sympathize and even empathize with. Please give me other examples, because now I'm in the mood for this.)
And it did kind of make me like Empire not as well in retrospect. Allhamsterwoman's (spoilery) critiques of Empire and how the worldbuilding felt shallow, I was willing to handwave at the time because I was able to headcanon deeper worldbuilding for her examples, but now... I'm kind of coming over to that side, because it really felt to me like Martine hadn't done the worldbuilding work to be immersed in a different worldview, and I can't handwave POV.
The plot management was kind of weird -- the big reveal of this book was basically given away in the preface (and in interludes after that so it's not like I could forget it), so when our characters figured it out, I was kind of like "that's nice, but we readers already knew that?" It's not Martine's fault, I guess, that we live in a post-Ender's Game world, but the reveal was also not all that earthshattering, even if it hadn't been telegraphed from literally page one -- I think she was trying to make it less of an earthshattering plot point and more of doing something interesting in weaving the themes of communication and the Other and what it means to see the Other as human, but it just didn't work for me because I was so frustrated by everyone sounding the same. (And, say what you will of Card -- and there are many things you can say of Ender's Game -- he did it better there.)
Also, the part with Twenty Cicada, which I didn't see coming, fell flat too because instead of being immersed in the moment, I was like "...would that actually work?? It seems like there should be, like, fifteen different reasons why that wouldn't work!!" I think I needed just a little more handwaving there as to why Twenty Cicada might reasonably have thought it would work...
Also. The italics. Are even worse, if that is possible, in this book than in its predecessor. I was complaining to D about this, and demonstrated by opening to a completely random, non-pre-selected page and pointing at all the italics on that page. (There were a lot!) The fact that I could confidently do this is, GAH, where was the editor in this? I mean, I definitely empathize. in everything I've ever written, including these DW posts, I actually have to go in afterwards and remove at least half of the italics I've put in (you have no idea how much I'm restraining myself from italics right now), but... at least I actually do remove (some of) them. Also, this played into everyone sounding the same. The eleven-year-old kid uses tons of italics, yeah, that even makes sense! The risk-seeking Stationer-Ambassador, maybe. The middle-aged career military admiral? Mmmmmph. What I'm saying here is that Martine had an easy chance to make the style reflect the character, and she didn't take it -- and that is a microcosm of all the other problems I had with the book.
This makes it sound like I didn't like the book, and I liked it a lot! It was certainly an entertaining space romp and I had a great time reading it. As in Empire, all the characters are interesting and even likeable. And (especially after we got through the setup portion of the book) her writing has got tons of narrative drive, which I loved, and I ate the book up rather quickly. And I continued to love that algorithms are a Thing in her books! And it's interesting to read this in conjunction with the Gap series (still reading!) -- Donaldson thought he was being all inclusive -- and he was, for the 90's! -- by having (always "heartbreakingly beautiful") awesome kick-butt female captains (who, interestingly, always, always are answering to some male authority figure). But it's so cool to have female characters who are in various different positions of authority and also aren't always, well, one body type :P
But, yeah, I wish Desolation had been more than it was.
But in the meantime my hold on A Desolation Called Peace came in from the library, and I read it, and I have a lot of feelings about it that boil down to... eh, it was fine. Which -- if you remember my breathless (spoilery) this-was-an-amazing-book reaction to A Memory Called Empire -- is, while not a negative review, not what I had hoped for either.
I think the big problem that I had with it was how all the characters sounded fairly similar in voice, which bothered me because the whole point of the first book, and a major theme of the second, is the culture of the Teixcalaanli vs. the culture of the little nation-entities it was trying to engulf, like Lsel Station, and how they were different. So I would have expected, when we were in the head of a Teixcalaan, for it to sound different than being in the head of a Stationer (which we were for the entire first book). The culture is different, the assumptions are different, the way they react to things ought to be different! And there was a little of that, but it seemed almost perfunctory, added-on -- oh, right, we need a mention of poetry, we haven't had one in a while, here you go. Mostly being in the head of a Teixcalaan seemed very much like being in the head of a Stationer, or being in the head of an Earth human Euroamerican, which just bugged me.
(I'm trying to remember places this kind of thing is done well -- I felt this way about Ann Leckie's Ancillary books; the Imperial Radch really is a different kind of culture and mindset, plus which ship-culture is its own thing. And the other one that's coming to mind is John M. Ford's The Final Reflection. His Klingons do have a truly culturally different and often terrifying-to-a-Terran mindset, while still being entities one can sympathize and even empathize with. Please give me other examples, because now I'm in the mood for this.)
And it did kind of make me like Empire not as well in retrospect. All
hamsterwoman's (spoilery) critiques of Empire and how the worldbuilding felt shallow, I was willing to handwave at the time because I was able to headcanon deeper worldbuilding for her examples, but now... I'm kind of coming over to that side, because it really felt to me like Martine hadn't done the worldbuilding work to be immersed in a different worldview, and I can't handwave POV.The plot management was kind of weird -- the big reveal of this book was basically given away in the preface (and in interludes after that so it's not like I could forget it), so when our characters figured it out, I was kind of like "that's nice, but we readers already knew that?" It's not Martine's fault, I guess, that we live in a post-Ender's Game world, but the reveal was also not all that earthshattering, even if it hadn't been telegraphed from literally page one -- I think she was trying to make it less of an earthshattering plot point and more of doing something interesting in weaving the themes of communication and the Other and what it means to see the Other as human, but it just didn't work for me because I was so frustrated by everyone sounding the same. (And, say what you will of Card -- and there are many things you can say of Ender's Game -- he did it better there.)
Also, the part with Twenty Cicada, which I didn't see coming, fell flat too because instead of being immersed in the moment, I was like "...would that actually work?? It seems like there should be, like, fifteen different reasons why that wouldn't work!!" I think I needed just a little more handwaving there as to why Twenty Cicada might reasonably have thought it would work...
Also. The italics. Are even worse, if that is possible, in this book than in its predecessor. I was complaining to D about this, and demonstrated by opening to a completely random, non-pre-selected page and pointing at all the italics on that page. (There were a lot!) The fact that I could confidently do this is, GAH, where was the editor in this? I mean, I definitely empathize. in everything I've ever written, including these DW posts, I actually have to go in afterwards and remove at least half of the italics I've put in (you have no idea how much I'm restraining myself from italics right now), but... at least I actually do remove (some of) them. Also, this played into everyone sounding the same. The eleven-year-old kid uses tons of italics, yeah, that even makes sense! The risk-seeking Stationer-Ambassador, maybe. The middle-aged career military admiral? Mmmmmph. What I'm saying here is that Martine had an easy chance to make the style reflect the character, and she didn't take it -- and that is a microcosm of all the other problems I had with the book.
This makes it sound like I didn't like the book, and I liked it a lot! It was certainly an entertaining space romp and I had a great time reading it. As in Empire, all the characters are interesting and even likeable. And (especially after we got through the setup portion of the book) her writing has got tons of narrative drive, which I loved, and I ate the book up rather quickly. And I continued to love that algorithms are a Thing in her books! And it's interesting to read this in conjunction with the Gap series (still reading!) -- Donaldson thought he was being all inclusive -- and he was, for the 90's! -- by having (always "heartbreakingly beautiful") awesome kick-butt female captains (who, interestingly, always, always are answering to some male authority figure). But it's so cool to have female characters who are in various different positions of authority and also aren't always, well, one body type :P
But, yeah, I wish Desolation had been more than it was.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-02 05:23 am (UTC)I have read Provenance and liked it very much! And yes, they were very different.
Hmm, I have bounced off Becky Chambers in the past, but it is probably time to try again :D
no subject
Date: 2021-04-02 03:40 pm (UTC)Hmm, I have bounced off Becky Chambers in the past, but it is probably time to try again :D
If you bounced off 'Small Angry Planet' -- I have a, uh, complicated relationship with that book (see icon), but I was impressed enough with Chambers's worldbuilding that I kept on reading the series, and I think book 2 (Close and Common Orbit) is a much better book (structurally, thematically, etc.) than Angry Planet, and book 3 is definitely an unusual book, but I also liked it a lot. I feel like Chambers leveled up as an author with every subsequent novel in the series (looking forward to book 4 shortly), which has been pretty cool to see, and when Wayfarers won the series Hugo last year, I was actually pretty pleased. ETA: Oh, and I meant to say, I think they can actually all be read as stand-alones, although book 2 does spoil a major emotional beat in book 1, if one cares about that.
I know you read the non-Wayfarers novella for Hugo homework and didn't care for it much, but I never made it past the first page on that one (not that I hated it, just, it was 2020) so I don't have any kind of useful data point on other books relative to that one.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-03 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-03 05:43 am (UTC)But also, I do think A Close and Common Orbit is worth reading with no external drivers for it, if you'd rather not wait a full year :) (I like book 3, Record of the Spaceborn Few, also, as I said, but I do feel like it's probably better not to start with that one, and I know of a fair number of people who like Chambers's work who did not like book 3, so I feel like book 2 is the surest bet, currently.)