Family, grief, danger, courage, hope, death, and relief. All of this in 18 pages.
Amund is Barrandal’s sheriff and when the log palisade around the town is taken by a slide and bandits sow murder and mayhem in the area, it is Amund’s duty to find a solution – no matter the dearth of people from whom he can choose.
I enjoyed the way Ross Dupree managed to allow us a glimpse of the many lives of Barrandal and its surrounding area without detracting from the whole. If you’ve got it, you’ve got it, and Mr. Dupree does.
Earth’s Lament is a serial that is both fantasy and science fiction. I love it when an author defies convention and writes the way they want not the way tradition demands.
Old Earth and the one with all of the fantasy creatures are somehow conjoined through an inter-dimensional bridge. This joining of the two earths has created a unit called Mirth.
The people from old Earth seem to have willingly had their memories replaced – except for a few rebellious humans like Jazz.
Jazz is a Monster Collector. It would be unfair to say that she does her job on her own. Her helper is a demon she calls Ship because a demon possesses her ship. Without Ship, Jazz would be toast – burned at that in this short story called Crash Down.
When Jazz utters these words:
“Besides, what could be more boring, self-effacing, and eventless than tracking a lost dog for one of the Welmont elite?”
you know something is bound to happen. Guaranteed!
Off Jazz and Ship go on a tail chasing, ship shooting, dragon, and pirate filled adventure.
What Catherine M. Wilson describes in When Women Were Warriors is a society that may or may not have existed. A matriarchal society is a society where women rule and inheritance goes through women. A Hero’s Tale is supposed to be set in Great Britain ca. 1000 BCE (late Bronze Age). In fact a bronze knife holds a pivotal role in A Hero’s Tale.
For the average person (as we see with the forest people) tools and weapons would have been largely made of stone/flint (such as arrow heads and spear heads). Warriors would have invested in bronze swords and bronze arrow/spear heads although most would probably not have been as fancy as this sword. More nerdy stuff below.
Ms. Wilson keeps on stringing words together in a manner that creates music in my head.
I have had three teachers in my life that have taught in the manner Maara seems to teach Tamras. Two were in school and one has been in my personal life. The relationship of teacher/student – master/apprentice is a tricky one. An apprentice wants to become as proficient as the master and excellent masters want their students to learn as much as it is possible for the masters to teach. Maara has an ability to impart her knowledge without holding anything back yet pacing her delivery to fit Tamras learning speed. I guess you could say Tamras is the ideal student. She wants to understand and acquire whatever skills Maara sees fit to share. To do that Tamras needs to learn to think for herself. Perhaps that is the most important lesson Maara shares with Tamras.
Tamras’ ability to see past the surface of people and things is not a talent she got from Maara, rather it was one Maara helped Tamras unfold. Seeing beneath the surface of herself was more difficult and at one point in A Hero’s Tale Tamras’ lost herself to appearances. Losing ourselves to the Abyss is a point a great many of us end up at one or more times in our lives. Finding our way out can seem beyond our abilities. Tamras did not even know if she wanted to find her way out. Some people end up letting the Abyss take them. Tamras did not. Her coming back was a choice that was aided by others. Many times in our lives that is the way it is for us. We need others to guide us back from the edge or the canyon and on to safe ground again.
Tamras learns a great deal about Virtel and her past and this opens up for an understanding of Virtel’s actions. The baggage we bring with us from our childhood is incredibly difficult to set down and rearrange. At least it has been for me. All through my life I have had to take that backpack off my back and rearrange its contents to make it more comfortable. I keep on adding to it and removing contents. Virtel has not yet reached that point in her life. Perhaps the meeting between her and Tamras at the pass will turn out to be one of Virtel’s learning moments. I hope so.
Elen’s canyon kingdom reminded me of some of Norway’s inaccessible places. This setting has to be somewhere in Scotland. Not knowing the British Isles all that well, I do not know where you would find such a difficult to access valley. With only a thin footpath from the hills into the valley and a dangerous water-way out it would seem to be a defensible place. If only it had been wide enough to have farms to keep the community alive during a siege things might have turned out differently for Tamras and Maara.
Elen is an interesting character. She seems to be stunningly beautiful. Enough so that men and women are distracted from their own goals. In addition, Elen seems to have some kind of ability to hypnotize or influence people’s thoughts so that her goals become theirs. A trance-like state seems to be what all who oppose her end up in. I imagine that would be a handy tool.
As with Elen’s ability other paranormal/supernatural abilities in people are present in When Women Were Warriors. These talents are for the most part just an increase in various talents that people generally have. Tamras’ ability to understand others seems to be one such boosted talent. She has always had it. During the story Tamras seems to become more aware of having it, but it does not seem as if the talent is anything she has much control over. I cannot tell if Elen’s ability is something Elen controls or if it is just a talent that she uses because it happens to be part of her.
Tamras manner of dealing with Elen is interesting. Alas, I cannot share it here. But it is fascinating to watch all the same.
Ms. Wilson brought her characters and areas alive for me. I do not see strings of words in pictures in my head but as sound. Why that is, I do not know nor do I care. But I care very much about having experienced the music of When Women Were Warriors. The Warrior’s Path is on permanent free offer.
Cover photo by Donna TrifiloSometimes an author strings her words together so beautifully that I want to weep at the music that fills my head. Catherine M. Wilson has managed to keep the moll of The Warrior’s Path so finely tuned throughout A Journey of the Heart that my chest hurt from the notes within. And yet there is nothing new and especially unique in the When Women Were Warriors serial.
One thing is different. In this serial both men and women are warriors and Tamras’ society is matriarchal. In neighboring countries that is not so. Ms. Wilson shows us that a matriarchal society is as full of contradictions as any other society. One of the characters, Virtel – the “baddie”, is aggressive and warlike. In A Journey of the Heart we get the impression that Virtel is ambitious to the extent that she is willing to hurt her leader, Merin. Sparrow, her apprentice, shows us a Virtel who might not be as one-dimensional as Tamras thinks of her. Maybe even life is not as one-dimensional as Tamras would like it to be.
We get to see how sometimes grief/regret has the ability to draw a person closer to death. According to Ms. Wilson her story is set around 1000 BCE. At that time life was precarious and death was no stranger. I imagine the will to live would have been even more essential than it is where I live.
Ms. Wilson shows how having a safe and loved child-hood, such as Tamras has had, gives one insulation in the growing up process. Both Sparrow and Maara show us the faces of what not having that in our lives can be like. However much we might want to deny it, we are probably very much products of the lives we have lived. If we grow up as slaves not owning even ourselves and live in constant fear, well, that produces a person vastly different to one with a childhood where you know you are valuable and loved and where you also have what you need to survive.
In fact. When Women Were Warriors is full of situations that have no simple answers. Maara functions as Tamras’ teacher in both the physical aspects of being a warrior and in understanding the ways of the world. Nothing is easy.
One of the things I really liked about A Journey of the Heart was the way Tamras had to learn how to use a bow and arrow step by step. There was none of this “all of a sudden an expert”. This is what every apprentice has to learn. Easy routes to mastery are non-existent. Me, I want to have mastery right away. I want to understand everything immediately without having to work for it. For some strange reason that never happened. Bummer!
When Women Were Warriors is a serial. You will have to read The Warrior’s Path in order to get anything out of Journey of the Heart. It just so happens that The Warrior’s Path seems to be on a permanent “for free” offer.
Into the Valley is supposed to be E. David Anderson’s first installation in the Triton series. I believe Into the Valley is Anderson’s first published work. It does not show in its presentation and substance. Into the Valley is an engaging story including elements from Greek mythology and steam-punk (although it might be science fiction instead??).
Every once in a while we make choices that change our whole lives. Lieutenant Aurelian made three of them: Firstly, he escaped his home-island of Akkahellonia. Secondly, Aurelian chose to ignore the advice of the Lighthouse Keeper and his last choice was to dive into the river rather than going across the bridge.
By jumping into the river Aurelian postpones his first meeting with Lord Abraham. Lord Abraham has lovely machines that suck the life out of other people and transfer that life to him instead. Because of his jump into the river Aurelian understands what is going to happen to him before it actually happens.
Aurelian is the kind of young man who believes that one should never give in to whatever life throws at us. Sometimes I am like that myself. At others not at all. How people manage to keep going at all times is beyond me. I know people like Aurelian and I have often wondered how they find the gumption to keep on trying.
“Aston is not what your first choice for a hero would be. He doesn’t fit the stereotype of the (as my favorite label from the “Firefly” series indicates) “big d*** hero” like most in the genre do. He’s the everyman who just happens to get into more than his fair share of tricky situations“
In Seekerthis is how Aston describes himself as well. Aston’s way of making money is as a scavenger pirate and cargo transporter. That means that he cleans up after the pirates if he comes across one of their kills. Not an unknown occupation in today’s world either. Although here we probably just call it the way business is done.
Both Aston and the Seeker are prey to a freelance operator who happens to be the system’s law enforcement service provider. Whoop, dee, doo. Naimakeeda (the seeker) is in as much goo as Aston himself. With his arrival she sees the light at the end of the tunnel appear knowing that it is not a train. I guess there must be some advantage to not being able to avoid knowing what is going on inside people’s heads.
Seeker is a space opera with most of its focus on characters. The one bit of tech that we kind of get to know about is “Jeanie”. Other than that the novella is an adventure story for young adults with pirates that you see and pirates that you do not see. The biggest pirate of them all is the man who is supposed to uphold the law. Tsk, tsk, corrupt politicians – whoever heard of such a thing???
This is a light and easily accessible read in the form of a short-story/novella.
Jon Jacks has written his story in first person and it took a couple of pages for me to settle into this uncommon style of writing. Wyrd Girl is written in British English.
Ghosts, ghasts, the nyxt, after-life, the under-world, possessed. Being able to see and communicate with the other-world has never been usual practice in the world. Not even the world of Twice Hadday. Zoofelt, Dunnstedt & Ernst Advertising are the go to people in the area of life/death.
Twice/Tracey/Trace came into contact with ZDEA after she and her boyfriend, Chris, had witnessed the death of one of their couriers. Or was that really how Twice came into contact with them. As the story unfolds we discover that Twice’s world is seldom as clear-cut as we might at first think.
There’s something more powerful, more frightening, than all these things.
Something that could tear every connection apart with an angry squint of an eye.
We only get to know people through Twice’s point of view and are therefore limited in our knowledge by what she focuses on.
Wyrd Girl is clearly meant for young adults (or new adults as Jon Jacks calls them). Mr. Jack’s writing is highly accessible and strange and interesting. I believe I have become a fan.
Seven years old. That is how old poor Paige is when the angels take her from her mother and sister and do medical experiments on her. Seven years old is how old Paige is when Penryn manages to rescue Paige and seven years old is how old Paige is when she sees the rejection of her new self from her sister and others. The only one who accepts Paige as she is happens to be her schizophrenic mother. Seven years old. Seven years old.
Paige’s story is the one that affects me the most in World After. Paige’s story is the one that causes my mind to ponder the concept of rejection and how rejection creates invisible wounds in an already visibly wounded body. And Paige’s story is the one that brings to mind the many people out there who have been changed visibly and invisibly themselves. How do I meet them? Am I one of them? How many wounds can a person bear before they become lost?
Penryn and Paige’s mother is a paranoid schizophrenic. Except in The End of Days serial many of her paranoias are real. Now the monsters are here and doing their best to off humanity. My grandmother was a paranoid schizophrenic. From what my father has told of his childhood Susan Ee‘s description of how a paranoid schizophrenic can appear to others seems right on the dot. The pain of the fear a person carries in such a condition is incomprehensible.
Penryn feels guilty at not being able to accept Paige as she is. I believe that is probably a common feeling when a person comes back changed from an accident or war or disease. After all, the person we loved seems to have disappeared. Perhaps they have. Perhaps we just need to see past the wounds and scars. Penryn is only 17 and 17 is awfully young to have experienced what she has. So Penryn carries wounds of her own, although hers are invisible. Her childhood and the responsibilities she ended up with, the first days after the world ended and having an angel steal her little sister would threaten to destroy a person. In part it does. But not completely. Penryn finds short-term solutions to deal with her inner wounds and a way to hold on to hope.
Penryn And The End of Days serial is a difficult serial to read for an old woman due to Susan Ee’s amazing writing. This is definitely a serial I recommend, painful as it is.
The Elementalist is very much an adventure story with earth, wind, fire and water elementals being summoned by trained elementalists. We also have pirates (or privateers as they prefer to be called themselves). I have never really understood the distinction, for what they do tends to be the same. But these pirates are good pirates, at least what we see of them. In addition, we get fighting of the sword and magic kind and a little love and betrayal. All of it is told with a twinkle in the eye and maybe a few winks here and there.
Poor Barin Elicerio! He’s not certain exactly what it is he is supposed to have done, except that he has been accused of consorting with spirits of a malignant nature. Barin is pretty confident he has not done so, but the evidence points straight at him. Barely avoiding the death sentence (who wants to sentence to death the star elementalist), Barin is instead exiled to his birth town forbidden the practice of elementalism. And that is a pretty harsh sentence to serve for a person who practically eats, drinks and breathes elementalism.
Strange things begin happening in Barin’s life. First comes the strangest storm the sea-side village has ever seen.
Barin knew the sea. He had grown up in this village; his father had been a fisherman. He knew about the winds, the tides, and the dangers of the sea. He knew that if the wind blew from the north, as id did now, then the sea in the small protected harbour should be calm…. Far below, powerful white-crested waves tossed the moored boats about like toys….
The wind whipped at them from all directions. The rain and sea spray glowed eerily in the milky light from the small lighthouse. Out of the darkness came snatches of the fearful cries of fishermen, carried on the gusts of wind that threatened to throw everyone into the raging sea.
To the rescue men, to the rescue. Some of the fishermen are saved from the wrath of the waves but not all. What Barin does during the storm changes the attitude of the villagers toward him. Or perhaps their eyes are opened to their own folly. Strangewort, the town Elder, finally accepts Barin, thus opening up the way for the rest of the village to begin treating Barin like something other than a pimple under the skin.
Then another boat fights its way to land having saved several fishermen from certain death. Privateers led by Captain Glib turn Barin’s life up-side-down. All of a sudden Barin finds himself breaking the edict of the Tetras and on the run trying to figure out what on earth is going on.
Courage is a strange thing and we find it at the strangest times and in the oddest places. Barin finds his courage when his journey to figure out why the elemental spirits are behaving the way they do begins. He continues having to drag it out, facing his fears and learnings. Perhaps the most courageous thing any of us does is face ourselves and admit that what we have been taught is only partially true. Barin gets a lot of practice doing that in The Elementalist.
A fun adventure taking us into the land of possibilities. I would say the starting age for The Elementalist would be from 8 to 10 years old.
I admit it. The whole Magnificent Devices serial sent me off on tangents of exploration causing me to spend about as much time exploring as I did reading the novels. I become overwhelmed by curiosity when I sit down to write some reviews and find that I “just have to” see what I can dig up about whatever it is that sets me off. Below are some more links.
Did you know that there was actually a Dunsmuir that was the richest man in Canada at the time Adina Shelley placed the Earl of Dunsmuir there? You didn’t? I’m shocked. Well now you do. That Dunsmuir (James) was machinist, entrepreneur, industrialist, politician, and lieutenant governor. I’m thinking someone must have looked into the area before she wrote her novel. Not mentioning any names or anything.
Not only the US was a place of “Wild West” during the European invasion. People had to be killed and one-sided treaties signed. I am reworking my review on Zane Grey, going into more detail, and man is it ever depressing. Canada’s Wild West mirrors the US Wild-West in many ways. Humans are the same wherever we invade.
In Brilliant Devices Queen Victoria and her spy Isobell Churchill work for the protection of the Equimoux. In our history, Queen Victoria did no such thing. She probably would have put you in Bedlam for even suggesting such a thing. That Davinia and John Dunsmuir are on their side is something Isobell Churchill does not know. I wonder why the Queen did not tell her.
I like the beginning of Brilliant Devices when Lady Claire Trevalyan, Mr. Andrew Malvern, Ms. Alice Chalmers, the Mopsies, Tigg and Jake pull off a miracle using the invention of Andrew, Claire, Tigg and Dr. Craig. It is fun the way Shelley Adina throws in little technical challenges along the way for the gang.
Claire and her little flock are as always ingenious and independent. The Mopsies are as obedient as always, spying for Claire whether she wants them to or not. I wonder at Claire’s reticence, considering how often the Mopsies have come in handy. I guess Claire struggles with her own prejudices and her own fears, constantly forgetting that her charges have been exposed to dangers long before Claire entered their lives. All four charges prove their abilities several times.
Alice Chalmers is another character I like. She turns up in Magnificent Devices saving Claire three times and Andrew once. Alice continues her life-saving in Brilliant Devices. Both the Dunsmuirs and Graf von Zeppelin are impressed by her inventiveness. Her role is not limited to one of invention and rescue but also functions as an addition to the personality of Brilliant Devices.
As with the other three novels in the Magnificent Devices serial Brilliant Devices is a fun and adventurous addition giving me a few hours of fun.
Steampunk opens up to a lot of wondering about the practicality of the ideas put forward. Some of those ideas are possible to look into for a layperson like myself. The idea of a personal zeppelin like the one the Dunsmuirs take on their transatlantic trip is one such idea. I discovered there is quite a bit of information on zeppelins out there on the net (see some links below). My questions were answered.
Who should appear on the Lady Lucy but Rosie the hen. Yes, Rosie the hen. That must be one incredibly smart hen who has managed to gather to herself a network of conspirators willing to sneak her onboard as a blind-passenger. I never knew hens were good at networking. Now the only person the gang is missing is Snouts – left at home to make certain the less known gang-members stay loyal to the Lady of Devices.
Magnificent Devices brings us a step away from James Sewyn saving Claire from the dreaded prospect of marriage with the villain. Being a noble probably means that you have been involved in the grayer areas of life – or at least your ancestors have. In Lord Sewyn’s case, James is the crook / villain / rapscallion. Lady Claire is the black sheep of her family and as such not really able to protest James’ high-handed methods. But she does, feeling there is a difference between going for the rival gang or your fiancée and friends. Personally, I agree with her.
We find Lady Claire Trevalyan and her new family safe and sound on board the Lady Lucy at the beginning of Magnificent Devices. The Mopsies, Trig and Jake seem to have explored the airship and have already made a place for themselves in the hearts of the crew. Both boys have developed their talents further. We already know about Trig’s engineering skills and now find out about Jake’s navigational ones – until he is thrown out of the Lady Lucy by Ned Mose.
Ned Mose is a pirate of the piraty kind. I like him. There is nothing swashbuckling about him at all. Instead he rules his crew with an iron fist (literally). His arm is a work of art made by his step-daughter Alice Chalmers. When Ned Mose captures the Dunsmuirs and the flock, we are brought to the Wild West. In fact, we end up in a desert town ruled by Ned Mose and he is not a gentle ruler there either. I believe he might be defined as a “bad egg”. Whether Lady Claire is going to be able to defeat Mose is a good question.
We meet both men who want a piece of Claire in Magnificent Devices. Another one comes on the scene in the form of Captain Hollys. He seems to have fallen for all the qualities that Lord James Sewyn despises and that Mr. Andrew Malvern is not completely aware of. But we aren’t looking at any kind of love story in the Magnificent Devices serial. These are only small parts of the story that act as a spice to the whole. Claire is more than busy enough trying to get out of all the sticky situations she lands in while trying to remember her manners. It is funny how she holds on to them in the strangest situations. Somehow they seem to act as a buffer for Lady Claire’s ability to be courageous.
Magnificent Devices is a fun and lighthearted read with plenty of action and adventure.
She was thankful that at least Snouts, Tigg, and the Mopsies followed her lead without coercion. Since she had lost her home in the Arabian Bubble riots and fallen in with this street gang that was no more than a rabble of desperate, hungry children, they had taught her how to survive – and she had taught them how to thrive.
Between lessons in reading and mathematics, they rehearsed new and confounding hands of Cowboy Poker, the current rage they had fabricated in the drawing rooms and gambling halls of London. Those with a bent for chemistry and mechanics assisted her in the assembly of her devices. Food appeared on the table with heartening regularity now, and they all had more than one suit of clothes each. Even Rosie, the hen she had rescued, who ruled the desolate garden behind the cottage with an iron claw, had begun to put on weight.
And to top it all, tomorrow she was to begin employment as assistant to Andrew Malvern, M.Sc., Royal Society of Engineers.
The fascinating thing about steam-punk is that a lot of it has nothing to do with the magic / supernatural / paranormal world. Instead our main characters tend to be engineers. Engineers, who would have thought it? But in reality it is the engineers who make our modern world go around. So too in the world of Lady Claire Trevelyan. Sure, it is an alternative world but I imagine it isn’t too far off in its descriptions of the London of Queen Victoria.
As we saw in Lady of Devices, the main goal of an upper-class woman was to marry and bear her husband an heir. Once you were married your life became your husband’s – a form of slavery where nothing was owned by you – not even your name. Lady Claire did not want marriage and due to her father’s unfortunate investments she did not have to worry about anything but keeping herself alive.
Claire is moving on from the loss of her father and her family’s wealth. She has proven that she is more than just a girl ready for robbing and is now running her own gang on the poorer side of town. Perhaps her gang does not consist of the most frightening people in the world but this gang of children is filled with smart people who make the best of what life they have. As such Claire has proven herself a great addition. Her interests were never really with the trappings of wealth but with the opportunities her wealth gave her to explore and invent. Now her inventive abilities are reaching greater heights as she has to make do with a whole lot less while keeping the other gangs away and keeping the “right people” from knowing what has become of her.
Being a 17-year old girl in this new world of hers is proving to be somewhat of an advantage. She is often underestimated and is able to get away with a great many things a young man her own age would not. Her gang is also often underestimated. Many of them are so young others think of them as inconsequential – to their own detriment. Lord James Sewyn is one such fool.
Lord James is very much set against her employment with his partner Andrew Malvern of the Royal Society of Engineers. He feels it is extremely improper for a young lady to work with such indelicate work as an assistant to an engineer would be. A woman of nobility might work as a governess if need arose. Therefore, Lady Claire’s supposed work as governess to five children is much more appropriate. On the whole Lord James Sewyn finds Claire too independent and brainy for his own taste. If he knew that Claire was in fact the infamous Lady of Devices Lord, James would throw a hissy-fit. As would the rest of the proper set of society (especially her mother).
No fun being a woman in Victorian England, even for the nobility. One middle-class woman we get to know something of and who happens to have immense importance to the discoveries of Claire Trevelyan and Andrew Malvern is Dr. Rosemary Craig. Dr. Craig’s own inventions had threatened the wealth of others to the point that they had her committed to Bedlam and burned what they could find of her papers and inventions. A woman actually risked being sent to Bedlam for the social transgression of being smarter than a man. Too bad for these wankers that Lady Claire happened to have what appeared to be the result of one of Dr. Craig’s inventions.
I like it when stories are told with dialects and voices that could be believable. There is also something about English without contractions that is incredibly appealing. I had fun with Her Own Devices and Shelly Adina’s writing. What we get is a delightfully light and easily read novel with cleverly hidden depths and commentary.
You could probably start reading The Bastard Cadre series with The Lord of Frake’s Peak. That is because it goes back to the story of the early days of the reign of Lord Obdurin. As long as you don’t mind the spoilers as the beginning of the novel you should be fine. The only problem with doing this is that you would be reading the best first because Lee Carlon‘s writing has gone from one bastion to the next during these four novels.
I am fairly certain the gods aren’t gods. After I finished reading The Lord of Frake’s Peak I knew that the “whatever they are – not gods” had done all they could to keep humans in ignorance. The Cleansing that had occurred three years before the beginning of The Lord of Frake’s Peak seems like something they would do to keep their secret safe because they felt some person had come too close to the truth. I’m still not clear on whether there are any female gods or if there are genders at all. Whatever the case is there, these so-called gods seem to be amoral beings playing the world and humans for what they can. People like that stink. That is my completely unbiased (snort) opinion.
Lord Obdurin is only one of the many chosen running about doing the gods’ deeds. His god is Rhysin. To become a chosen Lord Obdurin had to get the heart of Rhysin from his predecessor, Lord Benshi. Something terrible seems to happen over time to all of the Chosen. Part of the amorality of the gods seems to enter them and they go from being whatever type of person they used to be to taking on part of the nature of the god. If that is the case, Rhysin must be a brute. Lord Benshi became one and his sons paid a terrible price for it.
Vincent d’Rhyne is the only surviving son of Lord Benshi. He wants nothing to do with Rhysin but is not able to tear himself from the place he grew up. Lord Obdurin spared Vincent for some reason only Obdurin knows when Lord Benshi died. Vincent feels only relief at having his father out of his life. Of the two, Vincent feels that Lord Obdurin is the best alternative. Having read all four installments of The Bastard Cadre I find myself unable to give a clear answer as to whether Vincent trusts in vain.
Trust might be the wrong word, but it seems pretty close to how Vincent feels toward Lord Obdurin. It is as if Vincent trusts that Obdurin will keep him from reaching for the gods. But the reach of the gods might be longer than any of the inhabitants of Carlon’s world might know. Perhaps they are all just part of a huge video game.
Life sometimes feels like that. The joke has been on Vincent so many times that it is becoming more and more difficult for him to remember that life is just a big joke. His ability to stay in the present fluctuates. Considering how traumatized Vincent it is a wonder that he manages to stay there at all.
At the outset I want to make you aware of the British English / Scottish English phrasing and spelling in Wolves and War. NOT American English!!! Because of the sometimes young phrasing, I feel Wolves and War is meant for young adults and up. While harsh at times the violence is not descriptive. There is some romance, but it is about as innocent as romance can get. What you do need to remember (sort of a warning) is that Wolves and War is about war and war is anything but nice.
On to the fun stuff.
I really enjoyed Wolves and War. At times I hurt because of the terrible changes to the lives of some of the women and children. War’s nature is gruesome. I have NEVER experienced it myself and am speaking solely as one who reads and listens and watches. What amazes me time and again is what people are willing to put up with if the alternative is death. Often I have wondered why people choose to live rather than kill themselves when their lives become so miserable. Some of the lives on the Southern Continent end up being what I would call gruesome. Yet, somehow life is chosen. Why?
Wolves and War does not answer my why. In fact, it leaves me there with my questions. Ms. Rae has done a brilliant thing in doing that because I do not really want another person to answer all my whys. I don’t even need there to be an answer to my whys.
Wolves and War is a space opera type of Science Fiction – character and world-building is more important than technology.
When the Argyll has to land on the Northern Continent the crew and settlers have to abandon ship before it sinks leaving them without most of their doodads (I know, an extremely technological term). Until war comes to the Northern Continent life is somewhat easier there than on the Southern Continent and the lack of metals is compensated by making tools with a metal-like hardwood. Necessity is the mother of invention even if that invention is a re-invention of old earth weapons. Their smith makes swords, shields, helmets, armour, crossbows and something he calls a contrap:
… was able to fire pre-loaded arrows a fair distance and thirty at a time. The arrows were loaded into a wooded frame he called a magazine that was placed on the main frame of the contraption itself. The firing mechanism was spring-loaded and the magazine was drawn back and then loosed. Distance and trajectory could be altered by the manipulation of wheels and cogs.
All of this preparation would have been impossible without the Aboriginals of the planet of wolves. The Lind are great hulking beasts about the size of a horse but with the look of a wolf about them. They are furry, snouty and have paws. Somehow both the Lind and the Larg of the Southern Continent have developed telepathic abilities along with the ability to form words. The word thing made me think that their snouts must be formed differently from a wolf’s.
What interested the Linds at first about the humans is how humans use their hands and the seeming connection some of the Lind have with some of the humans. Being able to communicate via mind and words is essential in making the humans believe that the Lind are sentient creatures.
Tara is the first human to meet a Lind. Kolyei is a Lind that feels a connection with Tara. Tara is not alone in this ability. On the Northern Continent Tara and Kolyei and Jim and Larya are the two vadeln pairs we get to know most. Tara is only 12 at the time she and Kolyei meet while Jim is in his 40’s. Their Lind bond-person is pretty well matched age wise and this is a good thing as these bonds seem to be for life and so deep that one part does not wish to live if the other party dies. A lot of animal-human bond stories seem to have this as the down-side of bonding. On the up-side is an understanding of the other race’s traits and language along with a deep sense of being loved unconditionally.
I enjoyed the way Ms. Rae tried to not sugar-coat anything for me as a reader. Granted, the fighting was not as gory as fighting really is, but it did not have to be for me to understand the costs of the war between the Southern and Northern Continents. She also did not try to hide the problems that would arise with 20,000 male prisoners escaping into an environment where females are on the run and only 300. When the leader of the prisoners is unscrupulous, well – things go as they pretty much have to go.
Being a colony vessel, the Argyll crew and passengers did not have the same dilemmas nor the same type of people to work with. Without a doubt, that is where I would have wanted to be. Both the North and the South end up with aliens and a landscape that fits with the humans landing there. Any other option would have seen the humans from the Argyll killed and possibly the Lind of the Northern Continent in pretty bad shape as well. As a reader I am glad Ms. Rae chose as she did.
Our Lady of Wolves adds itself to the list of bleak stories I have been reading ever since I discovered folk-tales way back in my childhood. Bleak and grim stories about people having to deal with the harsher sides of life, some of them quite horrible. Like the decimation of Kelly’s village. But life is like that. Sometimes there are no happy endings, only less worse ones.
Kelly’s faith in her Lady of Wolves was rewarded albeit differently from what she had thought but in line with Kelly’s prayers. A wonderful story about 26 pages long showing us desperate moments in a bunch of desperate people’s lives.
humanitysdarkerside 