Palatial Reviews of Justice
Oct. 19th, 2014 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
So the one good thing about the gym is that it's really helped my reading move along. I've cleared two more books and both of them were pretty good.
The first was The City of Palaces by Michael Nava. This is a historical novel, first in planned quartet that covers the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920ish). This first book covers the years prior to the Revolution under the dictatorship of Diaz and ends just after Madero is ousted and killed by Huerta (1897-1913).
The book centers on Miguel Sarmiento and Alicia Gavilan. He's a doctor who's recently returned to Mexico from Spain and she's the youngest daughter of a proud Mexican family who lost her looks to smallpox and now works with the poor in Mexico City...of which there are many. They meet at a prison where Miguel is visiting his radical father and Alicia is helping a young prisoner give birth. Despite their differences, the two fall in love and after weathering the fierce scrutiny of Alicia's family, they are wed and settle down to raise a family and make a difference in Mexico.
The writing is rock solid. Landscapes and characters are all well-rendered and people have complex interactions. While the protagonists may be fictional, a great deal of research has clearly gone into this and both Miguel and Alicia meet up with various historical personages. And those meet-ups are quite plausible and not shoe-horned in (which can be a real pitfall for these types of novels). Just a solid book and a love letter to Mexico and her people.
The book also has me thinking about some larger issues in historical fiction. Miguel is an atheist and Alicia a devout Catholic but both are extremely liberal-minded and progressive. There's a B-plot involving Miguel's gay cousin and Miguel's eventual acceptance of homosexuality (Alicia shows a great deal more compassion from the start). All of this though, seems surprising given the huge amount of casual racism and classism present in the society.
Obvioulsy there were progressive, liberal-leaning people in 1900 -- these ideas about social justice don't just spring fully formed in the 1960s, but that kind of tolerance still strikes me as "wrong" for a period piece somehow. Like an author doesn't want to alienate a modern audience with characters whose sentiments don't mesh with the modern world or that their heroes can't be on the wrong side of history.
But I also think that in this book that isn't the case. That in this book, progressive heroes are meant both to challenge this idea that everyone in the past was a racist asshole and also to show that even when intolerance was the norm, there were people, not isolated visionaries, but groups of people who recognized the injustice going on all around them and worked to fix it as best they could. The heroes of Palaces don't enact any sweeping changes but they try to do what's right and help people where they can.
Anyway, the book jostled my comfortable expectations and gets a bonus point for that.
From the near past to the far future. I just tore through Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie. This is the sequel to her wonderful Ancillary Justice from last year. We pick up the story of Breq. Once she was the AI for Justice of Toren and she was the ship and hundreds of Ancillary troopers. Then she got blowed up and only one Ancillary was left. At the end of the last book, Breq discovers that the ruler of humanity's largest empire is having something of an identity crisis between her multiple selves and a civil war is brewing.
This book, having been made Fleet Captain and assigned a ship, Breq's been sent to Athoeki system to watch over the system there and prevent trouble from showing up. Obviously trouble does show up and it's mostly in the troubled history of Athoeki. Breq has a lot of buried past to dig up and sort out.
This book was a lot more...small scale than it's predecessor. Breq goes to the system and stays there. No world-hopping adventure, just Breq observing what's going on around her and trying to work out what's really going on. I was actually reminded a bit of Nero Wolfe mysteries where Nero simply sits at home and solves the crime. Breq is actually a fair bit more mobile, but there's still a watch-and-wait attitude that's interesting. Putting Breq at the center lets you watch the other characters swirling around her and while they're not the most complex of characters they are fun to watch bounce off one another.
Ms. Leckie continues the custom of having Breq use "she" as the only pronoun for people. In the original book it was explained that as an AI from a matriarchal society, Breq simply didn't have a good grasp on human gender and defaulted to she unless she was absolutely certain. In this book, there's not even that much explanation. As always, it's a delightful change of pace. You know that some of the people Breq speaks with are male, but Breq's descriptions are vague enough that you can't easily work it out and so...everyone is pretty much female.
In general, Breq seems like an artificial intelligence. She's very perceptive and smart, but it also feels like it's an intelligence that comes from long observation of humans and not an emulation of them.
Anyway, a bit slower-paced and closer to home, but the book is an engaging read and I'll be curious to see more.
later
Tom
So the one good thing about the gym is that it's really helped my reading move along. I've cleared two more books and both of them were pretty good.
The first was The City of Palaces by Michael Nava. This is a historical novel, first in planned quartet that covers the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920ish). This first book covers the years prior to the Revolution under the dictatorship of Diaz and ends just after Madero is ousted and killed by Huerta (1897-1913).
The book centers on Miguel Sarmiento and Alicia Gavilan. He's a doctor who's recently returned to Mexico from Spain and she's the youngest daughter of a proud Mexican family who lost her looks to smallpox and now works with the poor in Mexico City...of which there are many. They meet at a prison where Miguel is visiting his radical father and Alicia is helping a young prisoner give birth. Despite their differences, the two fall in love and after weathering the fierce scrutiny of Alicia's family, they are wed and settle down to raise a family and make a difference in Mexico.
The writing is rock solid. Landscapes and characters are all well-rendered and people have complex interactions. While the protagonists may be fictional, a great deal of research has clearly gone into this and both Miguel and Alicia meet up with various historical personages. And those meet-ups are quite plausible and not shoe-horned in (which can be a real pitfall for these types of novels). Just a solid book and a love letter to Mexico and her people.
The book also has me thinking about some larger issues in historical fiction. Miguel is an atheist and Alicia a devout Catholic but both are extremely liberal-minded and progressive. There's a B-plot involving Miguel's gay cousin and Miguel's eventual acceptance of homosexuality (Alicia shows a great deal more compassion from the start). All of this though, seems surprising given the huge amount of casual racism and classism present in the society.
Obvioulsy there were progressive, liberal-leaning people in 1900 -- these ideas about social justice don't just spring fully formed in the 1960s, but that kind of tolerance still strikes me as "wrong" for a period piece somehow. Like an author doesn't want to alienate a modern audience with characters whose sentiments don't mesh with the modern world or that their heroes can't be on the wrong side of history.
But I also think that in this book that isn't the case. That in this book, progressive heroes are meant both to challenge this idea that everyone in the past was a racist asshole and also to show that even when intolerance was the norm, there were people, not isolated visionaries, but groups of people who recognized the injustice going on all around them and worked to fix it as best they could. The heroes of Palaces don't enact any sweeping changes but they try to do what's right and help people where they can.
Anyway, the book jostled my comfortable expectations and gets a bonus point for that.
From the near past to the far future. I just tore through Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie. This is the sequel to her wonderful Ancillary Justice from last year. We pick up the story of Breq. Once she was the AI for Justice of Toren and she was the ship and hundreds of Ancillary troopers. Then she got blowed up and only one Ancillary was left. At the end of the last book, Breq discovers that the ruler of humanity's largest empire is having something of an identity crisis between her multiple selves and a civil war is brewing.
This book, having been made Fleet Captain and assigned a ship, Breq's been sent to Athoeki system to watch over the system there and prevent trouble from showing up. Obviously trouble does show up and it's mostly in the troubled history of Athoeki. Breq has a lot of buried past to dig up and sort out.
This book was a lot more...small scale than it's predecessor. Breq goes to the system and stays there. No world-hopping adventure, just Breq observing what's going on around her and trying to work out what's really going on. I was actually reminded a bit of Nero Wolfe mysteries where Nero simply sits at home and solves the crime. Breq is actually a fair bit more mobile, but there's still a watch-and-wait attitude that's interesting. Putting Breq at the center lets you watch the other characters swirling around her and while they're not the most complex of characters they are fun to watch bounce off one another.
Ms. Leckie continues the custom of having Breq use "she" as the only pronoun for people. In the original book it was explained that as an AI from a matriarchal society, Breq simply didn't have a good grasp on human gender and defaulted to she unless she was absolutely certain. In this book, there's not even that much explanation. As always, it's a delightful change of pace. You know that some of the people Breq speaks with are male, but Breq's descriptions are vague enough that you can't easily work it out and so...everyone is pretty much female.
In general, Breq seems like an artificial intelligence. She's very perceptive and smart, but it also feels like it's an intelligence that comes from long observation of humans and not an emulation of them.
Anyway, a bit slower-paced and closer to home, but the book is an engaging read and I'll be curious to see more.
later
Tom
