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rachelmanija Feb. 25th, 2018 12:30 pm)
rachelmanija Feb. 25th, 2018 12:30 pm)I’ve burned out on epic fantasy in the last couple years. Pretty much everything I’ve tried has struck me as too grimdark, too bland, too dull, too imitative, or good but not appealing to me. I can’t remember the last epic fantasy where I made it to book three, and I often didn’t even make it to chapter three. But this book made me remember why I used to like epic fantasy, and I grabbed book two of this one before I’d even finished book one.
It has a fairly typical plot – an evil and expansive empire is trying to take over the world, and a motley band of people are trying to stop it – enlivened by likable characters (about half female, in many roles), strong storytelling, and super-awesome-cool worldbuilding. It’s a war story and contains non-graphic torture, rape (present but not pervasive), and killing. But the inventive exuberance of the worldbuilding made it a really fun read. It felt like the author was enjoying the hell out of telling the story, and that sense of playfulness came through overall even though a lot of the actual content was fairly dark.
The characters are actually more important as the worldbuilding as far as I’m concerned, because I can think of a lot of authors who do great worldbuilding but I don’t read their books because I don’t care what happens on that supercool world. However, I’m going to talk mostly about the worldbuilding because it’s so different and fun.
Giant bug warning! If you are deeply freaked out by bugs to the point where you don’t even want to hear about fantasy bugs, stop reading here. Also, never read this series. I personally do not like many bugs in real life and cannot even look at photos of gross bugs, but I really enjoyed these bug-based books and did not find the bug descriptions squicky or unpleasant.
In this world, the square-cube law does not apply and giant bugs walk the earth. Early humans were no match for praying mantises the size of Clydesdales and so forth, so they survived by mystically aligning themselves with the Platonic ideals of specific insects to attain insect-based powers.
Thousands of years later, the giant bugs are still around, but all humans are various types of insect kinden, which means they’re basically human but have powers, attributes (or at least common stereotypes or cultures), and sometimes physical alterations based on their insect. The powers are called Arts; with some races all of them have them, but in others only some or most members can access them, or there’s some Arts that are universal but others that are more rare, etc. For instance…
Fly kinden are three feet tall, stereotyped as being feckless thieves, and can materialize temporary wings to fly. (The temporary wings is a common trait, and a power I’ve never come across before.) Scorpion kinden are gigantic, white-skinned, and have tusks and talons. Ant kinden are telepathic within their group, are supposed to be good soldiers (as opposed to being good duellists) and have city-states that are in a constant state of war, and have different colored skin depending on where they’re from. Moth kinden have white eyes, can see in the dark, use magic, and used to rule the world before their slaves, the Beetle kinden and others, started building machines and overthrew them. These are all just broad outlines; the kinden have way more complexity than that, and it’s clear very early on that the personality trait stuff is a combination of outsider stereotypes and cultural values, not “all Fly kinden are actually, inherently dishonest.”
So, the insect kinden: how fucking cool is that? I spent the entire book in a perpetual state of “Yes, yes, tell me more about Butterfly culture! Details on the Slug people please!”
The last big bit of worldbuilding is that all people are either Apt or Inapt. This generally divides by kinden, but there’s exceptions. Apt means you can use machines and tools, but cannot use or comprehend (or even, often, believe in) magic. Inapt means you can use magic, but cannot use or comprehend machines or even many tools. This is basically a literalized metaphor for worldviews in terms of historical eras: imagine a person from a society that has just discovered the use of fire interacting on otherwise equal terms with a person from an Industrial Revolution society. If you try to logically define what constitutes a “machine” based on what it does or how it’s constructed, it doesn’t make sense; you have to just roll with what’s considered a “machine” in the world of the book.
If you can roll with the premise, it gives a very different flavor to the standard tech/magic divide. The steampunk element is really enjoyable. Guns are all called something-bows, like nail-bows, air-bows, etc. One character is making a gun that works by pumping compressed air, walking vehicles seem more common than wheeled ones, and there’s a bit where a character is discussing some improvements he came up for a machine, and when I realized what he’d invented, it was SO COOL – a very old-school “ah-ha” moment that I hadn’t had in a while. If you like the Steerswoman series, you are liable to like this.
So, the actual story! Chapter one is more of a prologue, in which a small band of friends fights a losing battle to save a city from the invading Wasp army. Nearly twenty years later, one of the few survivors, now a fat, middle-aged Beetle kinden scholar named Stenwold Maker, has been trying in vain the entire time to get other city-states to believe that the ever-encroaching Wasps are going to take over the world. To this end, he’s been training young people as spies.
Most of the story involves a few of those young people when they go on their first mission, which comes about prematurely and for which they are seriously unprepared.
My favorite is Cheerwell “Che” Maker, Stenwold’s niece who is an absolute sweetheart with an inferiority complex due to being a lousy fighter, unable to use her Art to fly (which is not common for Beetles, but she really want to), overweight and clumsy, not the best at complex plotting or smooth social interaction, and generally an ugly duckling. This is exacerbated by having been brought up with my other favorite, her foster sister Tynisa, a Spider kinden who is gorgeous, a brilliant swordfighter with an alarming taste for blood, and very comfortable twisting men around her finger to extract info (and murdering them, if called for.)
Spoilers below. Feel free to discuss the events of this book in comments.
I liked Salma at first, but am not crazy about his pursuit of Grief in Chains/Aagen’s Gift. I’ll cut him some slack if he really is enchanted, but it seems a bit sketchy. Ditto Totho. DUDES. THEY’RE JUST NOT INTO YOU.
It’s possibly unfair of me to be annoyed at Salma chasing a woman around to rescue her and also get her to fall for him when Acheos did sort of the same thing, but Acheos just feels less sketchy about it. I also really loved the scene where Che flew. Anyone who gives Che nice things is all right in my book.
We saw very little of Grief in Chains/Aagen’s Gift, but what we did see was disproportionately intriguing. I’m hoping she will be a major character and we’ll get some of her POV. I’m guessing the name changing has to do with a cultural emphasis on change, which makes sense for butterflies. I’d love to see more of that too.
Finally, I am getting a bit suspicious of just how dead-set everyone seems to be against believing that the Wasps are going to conquer them. I can believe that governments are stupid, but it’s a little fishy. I am wondering if there’s some magical manipulation going on.
I have been warned that the series gets more dark and tragic as it goes along, but does not do the thing where people trying to do the right thing are shown by the author to be naïve morons. If you’ve read the series, please don’t spoil me beyond that, or for any specific events beyond this book. I have not been spoiled for it and want to stay that way.
It has a fairly typical plot – an evil and expansive empire is trying to take over the world, and a motley band of people are trying to stop it – enlivened by likable characters (about half female, in many roles), strong storytelling, and super-awesome-cool worldbuilding. It’s a war story and contains non-graphic torture, rape (present but not pervasive), and killing. But the inventive exuberance of the worldbuilding made it a really fun read. It felt like the author was enjoying the hell out of telling the story, and that sense of playfulness came through overall even though a lot of the actual content was fairly dark.
The characters are actually more important as the worldbuilding as far as I’m concerned, because I can think of a lot of authors who do great worldbuilding but I don’t read their books because I don’t care what happens on that supercool world. However, I’m going to talk mostly about the worldbuilding because it’s so different and fun.
Giant bug warning! If you are deeply freaked out by bugs to the point where you don’t even want to hear about fantasy bugs, stop reading here. Also, never read this series. I personally do not like many bugs in real life and cannot even look at photos of gross bugs, but I really enjoyed these bug-based books and did not find the bug descriptions squicky or unpleasant.
In this world, the square-cube law does not apply and giant bugs walk the earth. Early humans were no match for praying mantises the size of Clydesdales and so forth, so they survived by mystically aligning themselves with the Platonic ideals of specific insects to attain insect-based powers.
Thousands of years later, the giant bugs are still around, but all humans are various types of insect kinden, which means they’re basically human but have powers, attributes (or at least common stereotypes or cultures), and sometimes physical alterations based on their insect. The powers are called Arts; with some races all of them have them, but in others only some or most members can access them, or there’s some Arts that are universal but others that are more rare, etc. For instance…
Fly kinden are three feet tall, stereotyped as being feckless thieves, and can materialize temporary wings to fly. (The temporary wings is a common trait, and a power I’ve never come across before.) Scorpion kinden are gigantic, white-skinned, and have tusks and talons. Ant kinden are telepathic within their group, are supposed to be good soldiers (as opposed to being good duellists) and have city-states that are in a constant state of war, and have different colored skin depending on where they’re from. Moth kinden have white eyes, can see in the dark, use magic, and used to rule the world before their slaves, the Beetle kinden and others, started building machines and overthrew them. These are all just broad outlines; the kinden have way more complexity than that, and it’s clear very early on that the personality trait stuff is a combination of outsider stereotypes and cultural values, not “all Fly kinden are actually, inherently dishonest.”
So, the insect kinden: how fucking cool is that? I spent the entire book in a perpetual state of “Yes, yes, tell me more about Butterfly culture! Details on the Slug people please!”
The last big bit of worldbuilding is that all people are either Apt or Inapt. This generally divides by kinden, but there’s exceptions. Apt means you can use machines and tools, but cannot use or comprehend (or even, often, believe in) magic. Inapt means you can use magic, but cannot use or comprehend machines or even many tools. This is basically a literalized metaphor for worldviews in terms of historical eras: imagine a person from a society that has just discovered the use of fire interacting on otherwise equal terms with a person from an Industrial Revolution society. If you try to logically define what constitutes a “machine” based on what it does or how it’s constructed, it doesn’t make sense; you have to just roll with what’s considered a “machine” in the world of the book.
If you can roll with the premise, it gives a very different flavor to the standard tech/magic divide. The steampunk element is really enjoyable. Guns are all called something-bows, like nail-bows, air-bows, etc. One character is making a gun that works by pumping compressed air, walking vehicles seem more common than wheeled ones, and there’s a bit where a character is discussing some improvements he came up for a machine, and when I realized what he’d invented, it was SO COOL – a very old-school “ah-ha” moment that I hadn’t had in a while. If you like the Steerswoman series, you are liable to like this.
So, the actual story! Chapter one is more of a prologue, in which a small band of friends fights a losing battle to save a city from the invading Wasp army. Nearly twenty years later, one of the few survivors, now a fat, middle-aged Beetle kinden scholar named Stenwold Maker, has been trying in vain the entire time to get other city-states to believe that the ever-encroaching Wasps are going to take over the world. To this end, he’s been training young people as spies.
Most of the story involves a few of those young people when they go on their first mission, which comes about prematurely and for which they are seriously unprepared.
My favorite is Cheerwell “Che” Maker, Stenwold’s niece who is an absolute sweetheart with an inferiority complex due to being a lousy fighter, unable to use her Art to fly (which is not common for Beetles, but she really want to), overweight and clumsy, not the best at complex plotting or smooth social interaction, and generally an ugly duckling. This is exacerbated by having been brought up with my other favorite, her foster sister Tynisa, a Spider kinden who is gorgeous, a brilliant swordfighter with an alarming taste for blood, and very comfortable twisting men around her finger to extract info (and murdering them, if called for.)
Spoilers below. Feel free to discuss the events of this book in comments.
I liked Salma at first, but am not crazy about his pursuit of Grief in Chains/Aagen’s Gift. I’ll cut him some slack if he really is enchanted, but it seems a bit sketchy. Ditto Totho. DUDES. THEY’RE JUST NOT INTO YOU.
It’s possibly unfair of me to be annoyed at Salma chasing a woman around to rescue her and also get her to fall for him when Acheos did sort of the same thing, but Acheos just feels less sketchy about it. I also really loved the scene where Che flew. Anyone who gives Che nice things is all right in my book.
We saw very little of Grief in Chains/Aagen’s Gift, but what we did see was disproportionately intriguing. I’m hoping she will be a major character and we’ll get some of her POV. I’m guessing the name changing has to do with a cultural emphasis on change, which makes sense for butterflies. I’d love to see more of that too.
Finally, I am getting a bit suspicious of just how dead-set everyone seems to be against believing that the Wasps are going to conquer them. I can believe that governments are stupid, but it’s a little fishy. I am wondering if there’s some magical manipulation going on.
I have been warned that the series gets more dark and tragic as it goes along, but does not do the thing where people trying to do the right thing are shown by the author to be naïve morons. If you’ve read the series, please don’t spoil me beyond that, or for any specific events beyond this book. I have not been spoiled for it and want to stay that way.
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Reading Rachel's review above, I'm kind of wondering if Tchaikovsky was thinking to himself: "I really love bugs, but maybe people won't be interested if I just write high fantasy with bugs. So maybe if I make it about humans with characteristics of bugs?" I dunno, maybe I would actually rather it had just been about bugs?
In this world, the square-cube law does not apply
What. Is this actually physically/mathematically reasonable? I suspect not, but will think about it more. Wouldn't a simpler solution have been to have large insects develop a better circulatory system and some inner support structures analogous to skeletons? I at least hope the absence of the square-cube law also affects technology.
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And yeah, my biggest issue with this books was this in a nutshell: DUDES. THEY’RE JUST NOT INTO YOU.
Why. Why is this so difficult to understand? *facepalm*
My other issue is the overwhelming heteronormativity, which. Phew. Gets a bit tiring after a while. (Come on Tchaikovsky, you're going to tell me the Spiders aren't all hella bi? What.)
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The bugs are SO GREAT. The giant moths you can ride and attract with fire circles! Che picturing them shaving the moths for moth-fur blankets!
I wish there was a little more visual description, actually. The actual bugs are nicely described, but I want to get more specifics on exactly what the people look like. Like, Tynisa is beautiful, but what is considered beautiful? The times when he does describe people more, like the gray-white swirly skin of the gangster she sleeps with, is really cool.
Re: Apt/Inapt: I am trying not to think too hard about stuff like "But if you can use a sword you should be able to use a lever because they are both cylindrical objects that exert force on things" and "How the hell can Inapt people forge swords, make clothing, or carve in stone without using tools of more complexity than a lot of the stuff they can't use?'
Also, I wish I knew more about what they're eating. Or maybe I don't.
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I'm usually fairly bad at parsing visual descriptions anyway, so I'm happy I mostly know what Che and Stenwold look like, and Tynisa's... blonde? I think that's mainly it.
Will be interesting to hear what you think of the Apt/Inapt thing a bit further in, if seeing more of the world helps it make more sense, or if it just remains something not to think too hard about.
Yeeah, what are they eating? Standard fantasy fare? They drink wine from bowls in the Lowlands, I think, and they eat... Good question. Wonder if bugs feature in the cuisine?
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I don't mind a spoiler for this, so tell me... are there cockroach kinden? Centipede kinden? Firefly kinden?
There is hot chocolate and wine, and some nasty-sounding acidic liquor. I think that's all the details I've seen on food. And I think a mention of "candied small insects." I bet the staple foods all come bugs or are bugs. It's bugs all the way down.
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