Books Read This Week: Game of Thrones (George R R Martin) 7/10, Academe's Fury (Jim Butcher) 6/10, Consor's Fury (Jim Butcher) 6/10, Captain's Fury (Jim Butcher) 6/10, Torch of Freedom (David Weber and Eric Flint) 4/10
I've been on holiday this week, so I've had a little more time for reading, and as I'm trying to relax, the books I've been reading are a little lighter than usual. Graham Greene used to say his books fell into two classes; novels and entertainments. Of the five books here, only Martin's Game of Thrones rises to the level of a novel; Torch of Freedom barely classes as an entertainment.
It is also interesting that all five books can be described as X IN SPAAAAACE!; we have Game of Thrones, the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire series; this is the Wars of the Roses WITH DRAGONS!, Academe's Fury, Consor's Fury and Captain's Fury are the next three books in the Codex Alera series; the Roman Empire WITH WIZARDS! and Torch of Freedom is one of the more recent books in the Honor Harrington series; Hornblower IN SPAAAACE!
The fact that each setting can be classified so simply, and with such direct reference to history is a clear indication that none of these books are A-list fiction. The best writers in science fiction look forward, and those in fantasy look sideways; a knowledge of history is always appreciated, and certainly a good writer should take inspiration from history, but I don't like it when they just copy wholesale. For example, the Rohirrim in the Lord of the Rings are certainly heavily inspired by the Anglo-Saxons, but they are not Anglo-Saxons. Similarly, the cut-throat politics in Frank Herbert's Dune are clearly based on that of the Holy Roman Empire, but the Padishah Emperor's Court is not that of the Habsburgs. This is not to say that you can just pick and mix bits of history, mash them together and hope to get something believable; this is the mistake Margaret Atwood makes in the Handmaid's Tale.
Let us consider the books individually. Game of Thrones has just been adapted into an HBO series, of which I was lucky enough to catch the first episode on Monday. The book opens (roughly) with the end of the reign of the fantasy equivalent of Edward IV; the heroic warrior king is, fifteen years after he seized his kingdom, old, fat and debauched and heading for an early grave. His in-laws scheme to keep his son on the throne, and his brothers scheme to keep him off. The only real change here is that we're rooting for the political equivalent of Richard III against the Woodvilles - exactly the opposite of the perspective typically taken in popular history (although this is primarily due to Shakespeare's influence). Our primary sympathies are with the Starks; Lords in the North - much like the Percies in real life and (I fear) with a similar knack for picking the wrong side in civil war. I would predict that ultimately the Starks will make common cause with the Targaerians - the family of the old, deposed kings - but that's primarily because I'm applying my historical knowledge to the books. I like reading about the Wars of the Roses, which is probably why I enjoyed Game of Thrones so much. I keep expecting a character to shout "God's Blood! Thy father slew mine and I shall slay you!" (compare: The Princess Bride and Lord Clifford).
The book also demonstrates that once you've deposed one king, every yahoo with a sword and a great-aunt who so much as touched a throne thinks they can become king as well. This is something you can see both in the Wars of the Roses and the Ottoman Empire and was ultimately one of the reasons for the development of primogeniture in Western Europe; sure it occasionally means that your head of state is a drooling imbecile who can't tie his own shoelaces or chew food, but at least it saves you from having a huge civil war every time the king pops his clogs. And besides, by the time the inbreeding is severe enough to stop your monarch tying his shoes, he's usually too dim to breed as well.
Jim Butcher's Codex Alera is much less subtle than the Game of Thrones; much more fighting, much less political manipulation. That said, it's not a bad series - I just think it a pity that after calling his hero Octavian ('Tavi')*, he then proceeds to make him an actual hero; a leader of men and an expert swordsman. This is something of a disservice to the character of the real Gaius Octavius, who became Augustus Caesar. He was one of the smartest men who ever lived (and the brightest thing he ever did was marry a woman even smarter than him) and at the age of 18 he could run rings round the best and most experienced politicians in Rome. But he was not a heroic man, nor was he a particular good general (he had Agrippa for that). I think the best image of Augustus is a short scene in Gaiman's Sandman; the elderly Augustus reminisces about Cicero; says that he was the last great politician of the Roman Republic (which is true); his companion asks what happened to him, and Augustus says "I had him killed.". A man like that would, I think, make a far more interesting protagonist than the cookie-cutter fantasy hero we are presented with here. Plus, I think I'm unlikely to see Tavi bang his head against a door, whilst rending his clothes and screaming "Quintilius Varus, where are my legions?" (my second favourite image of Augustus - and this on actually happened).
Torch of Freedom is part of David Weber's Honor Harrington series, which was conceived as Hornblower IN SPAAAACE!, primarily, I think, so that his main character could have enemies who were simultaneously French and Communists. It's not a particularly good book - the characterisation is paper thin, and everyone speaks like a thirteen year old. Sometimes Weber manages to inject enough tension and craft a sufficiently interesting story that the fact the characters are almost indistinguishable doesn't matter. Unfortunately, this is not one of those times - primarily because the story sprawls so much. There are dozens of characters, who all sound the same, and it's impossible to care for any of them. Weber has also fallen into the trap (very common with long series) where entire books go by which advance the plot of the series, but are not, in themselves, particularly interesting.
*n.b. When dealing with Romans, if your opponent is named Octavian, you might as well kill yourself now; it's quicker.
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