Early in Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes, a character, when asked about good and evil, remarks, “There’s always good men on both sides of a good question.” Left unspoken is the fact that there are also horrible bastards on both sides of that same question. Given that the book takes place largely during the three-day Battle of Osrung, the latest clash between the Union and the North in Abercrombie’s First Law world, that’s a fairly succinct summation of what the reader’s in for. There will be […]
On Vengeance, Collateral Damage, and Horrifying Eye Prosthetics
Monza Murcatto has spent the last eight years leading a mercenary company to fame and riches during the Years of Blood, a time of open warfare between the city-states of Styria. She and her charismatic brother Benna pay a visit to their patron, Duke Orso of Talins, the most powerful man in Styria, a man who is but a season of campaigning from vanquishing his enemies and becoming King. Unbeknownst to Monza and Benna, Orso sees in Monza a potential rival, as his grandfather leveraged […]
On Atomic Bombs, Samba Music, and Preposterous Intelligence
Teacher. Physicist. Prankster. Ladies’ man. Incomparably brilliant human being. Though not in the same pop culture stratosphere as some of his contemporaries, Richard Feynman is nevertheless one of the titans of twentieth century science. And he’s not too shabby a storyteller, either. His memoir Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman gallivants with great aplomb across much of Feynman’s life, starting with his childhood in Queens in the depths of the Depression. As usually happens with preposterously smart folk, Feynman was a precocious child, skilled in radio […]
On Second Generations, Transparent Jeans, and Incompetent Panopticons
Sci-fi has always been a dirty, filthy genre that no right-thinking author would pursue and no properly-educated reader would allow to sully his bookshelves. At least, that’s what my all English teachers told me. So when proper literary authors dip their toes into sci-fi, it’s invariably interesting regardless of the quality of the outcome. And make no mistake, no matter what the pedigree of the author, this sort of literary sci-fi can run the gamut from amazing (Infinite Jest, certainly, or The Handmaid’s Tale) to […]
On Despotism, Famine, and Glimmers of Hope
Imagine this. You’re a college student from a fairly prosperous family. You know things are starting to go wrong in your country, but your position in life shelters you from the profoundly bad shit that’s going down. You have a girlfriend, but social mores and the difference in your stations mean that the most you’ve ever done is hold her hand during late-night walks down unlit streets. But then, your family begins to run out of money, long after less fortunate people have already begun […]
On Siegecraft, Skaa, and Badass Brunettes
There’s something about watching a fantasy series really hit its stride. No matter how good an initial entry in a series is, there’s always a fair bit of expositional license-plate-making that has to be taken care of, thus there’s always room for growth, for the author to take everything cool about the series and turn it up to eleven. A Storm of Swords immediately springs to mind, as do The Two Towers and Memories of Ice. And now, so too does The Well of Ascension, […]