Book Review – A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold

I wanted to read A Civil Campaign as soon as I read this introduction to a review of the omnibus Cordelia’s Honor:

Lois McMaster Bujold wrote what is quite possibly the most famous, beloved, and awesome science fiction romance ever, A Civil Campaign. A Civil Campaign is a Regency Romance set in space, with manners, fantastic clothes, and awkward dinner parties mixed with cloning, recovery from physical and mental trauma, inter-galactic politics, humor, sadness, glowing HEAs, and much more.

Doesn’t that sound fantastic? Really, why wouldn’t you want to read it?

I am here to report that A Civil Campaign lives up to the hype. I absolutely adored it.

This picks up a few months after the events of Komarr, with Miles back on Barrayar and bound and determined to start courting Ekaterin properly. However, he knows that she’s not all that keen on getting married again, so it’s a SECRET courtship. A secret courtship that he tells absolutely everybody about except for her.

(Don’t worry. He gets smacked for this. A few times.)

Then there’s his brother, Mark. Mark returns home from university with a brilliant scientist (that he may have helped escape from prison), a girlfriend, a bunch of bugs, and a business idea that involves all three.

And during all of this, Miles’s foster brother, Gregor (who also happens to be the Emperor of Barrayar), is getting married, which means that wedding preparations are taking up a great deal of everyone’s time.

It. Is. AWESOME.

I loved the way the various plot threads intersect and the culture clash between the staunchly traditional and conservative Barrayar society and the more progressive Beta Colony. I loved the more serious political plots moving under the romances.

I loved getting to meet Miles’s family: Mark, Ivan, Gregor, and his parents, Cordelia and Aral. Even though I hadn’t read the previous books that built the relationships between these characters, I still got the sense of camaraderie between them all. And I loved seeing how Ekaterin and her son, Nicky, slowly became integrated into the Vorkosigan family.

I loved seeing Miles in love and generally stumbling over himself and becoming his own worst enemy as he tries to do what he assumes is the right thing. (Because it’s what he wants, of course it’s the right thing.) And when he screws it up and it’s identified how badly he screws it up, Miles does apologetic like nobody’s business.

Ekaterin really grows in this book as well. After all the events of Komarr, it’s wonderful to see her come into her own, to stand up against people who want to beat her back into the mold she just escaped. And over the course of this novel, she becomes more than a match for Miles.

A Civil Campaign is much longer than most of the romances I’ve read (400 pages in a hardback), but it never feels that long. With everything that’s going on—the wedding plans, romantic plots, political plots, and business plots—it needs the space. The pacing’s brisk, and I was never bored.

There are so many things I want to talk about in this, but half the fun of the book was the discovery, seeing how all the best-laid plans you learn about in the first few chapters of the book just go straight to hell by the middle of it.

If the idea of a Regency-style romance set on another planet intrigues you, and if the elements from the quote at the beginning of this post pique your interest, then you must add A Civil Campaign to your TBR list. It was such a joy to read. I really couldn’t put it down.

I’d recommend reading Komarr first to get to know Miles and Ekaterin before you jump into this one, but as both are really, really good, you won’t be sorry.

A to Z Challenge – Y is for Yours to Keep

I first picked up one of Shannon Stacey’s Kowalski novels because it was on sale for 99 cents and a reputable source had given it a rave review. I enjoyed the book (Exclusively Yours) with only the most minor reservations, so when the third book was on sale, I snapped it up.

Yours to Keep has a lot of the same things that made Exclusively Yours such a fun read: the family dynamic with the Kowalskis, the fun writing and funnier situations, and some very nice sexual tension.

However, it also has a ridiculous premise, a problem which could have been fixed in five minutes if the heroine had been willing to step up and act like a damn adult. She doesn’t, though, and that marred my enjoyment of the first half of the book, and the rest of it couldn’t quite overcome that initial annoyance.

Sean Kowalski is back from Afghanistan, out of the Army, and ready to enjoy living life on his terms for the first time in over a decade. However, no sooner does he get settled in the apartment over his cousin’s bar than a tall brunette knocks on his door, claiming to be his fiancée. Sean is, understandably, shocked by this turn of events.

Emma, the aforementioned brunette, has told a little fib. Her beloved grandmother, who has been in Florida for the past two years, has been so worried about Emma living by herself that Emma made up a fake live-in boyfriend (specifically, Sean) to give Grandma some peace of mind.

Now her grandmother’s returning to New Hampshire to meet the lucky man. And she’s not just coming back for a few days; she’ll be there an entire month.

Emma wants Sean to play house with her for the month so Grandma will return to Florida satisfied that Emma can take care of herself.

Now, I don’t know about you, but “lying to the cherished grandparent who raised you” does not exactly scream “mature adult,” but hey, what do I know?

As you might be able to tell, having the entire setup for the book predicated on a lie did not sit well with me. Sean’s initial reaction (which was “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA no”) was well-warranted, and even after reading the book I still have no idea why he ultimately changed his mind and went along with it. Because we wouldn’t have a story if he didn’t, I guess?

Regardless, after thinking about it a bit, Sean decides to go along with this heap of crazy because, hey, she’s hot. The problem is, he’s now got to convince his entire family—which includes brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins’ spouses, and cousins’ kids—not to spill the beans to Grandma.

The problem is, I really liked Grandma. We get a chance to spend quite a bit of time in her head and even see her embark on her own little romance, and it’s genuinely sweet. I hated that Emma felt she had to lie about her life to a woman who obviously cares so deeply for her, and it really, really irritated me.

In fact, if a certain plot point hadn’t happened when it did (about 42% of the way through), I may well have put the book down. (In fact, I had told my roommate said plot point had better happen soon—when I was about 30% through—or else I was going to chuck the Kindle.)

The sections with Sean’s family were easily the funniest in the book. As before, the Kowalski clan is a generally loving group, but they’re certainly not above giving Sean hell for this fib.

Plus, the Newlywed-style game all the couples play at a family party about halfway through the book is just gut-bustingly hilarious, as Sean’s cousins come up with questions specifically to trip Sean and Emma up.

Unfortunately, my biggest issue was with Sean and Emma themselves. While I was definitely convinced as to their sexual compatibility, I wasn’t convinced about the rest of their relationship. They spent so much time in their relationship wearing masks for everybody else that it didn’t seem like they’d gotten a chance to really know each other without them.

Not to mention I really, really didn’t like that Emma’s solution to her problem, rather than come clean to her grandmother, was instead to actually LIVE the lie for a month and drag another semi-unsuspecting person into it. Hell, sweetie, if that’s how you solve your problems, no wonder Grandma’s worried about you living alone.

I can tolerate a lot from characters I don’t like if it feels like they’ve sufficiently redeemed themselves by the end of the book. In this particular case, it didn’t happen for me. In fact, it’s a testament to how much I like Stacey’s writing that I was able to continue reading this book even as the main characters were making me facepalm.

This is a difficult book for me to unequivocally recommend. The writing is great, the family is fantastic, there are some very funny scenes, and it really picks up at about the 40% mark. I love that Stacey includes a subplot with another romance, which really gives Emma’s grandmother a chance to shine. But the hero and heroine themselves? Definitely not my cup of tea.

A to Z Challenge – O is for Old Man’s War

This is one of those rare times I’ve picked up a book not because I read the synopsis and it sounded good, but because I enjoyed the author so much on the Internet I pretty much had to buy at least one of their books to support them in being awesome.

I’ve been following John Scalzi on Twitter for the better part of a year and reading his Whatever blog on and off for longer than that. He’s consistently funny, thoughtful, and down-to-earth, and at some point last year I finally decided I needed to, you know, actually read his books.

So I picked up Old Man’s War at the bookstore over Thanksgiving, figuring if I was going to start with his stuff, I was going to start at the beginning.

And I’m happy to report that I might enjoy Scalzi’s science fiction more than his hilarious Twitter posts. And that’s saying something.

John Perry is a man who is ready for a new life. His wife has been dead for eight years, his son has grown up, and so at age 75, John joins the army, specifically the Colonial Defense Force.

You see, humans have started colonizing the galaxy, but we aren’t the only sentient race out there, and habitable planets aren’t exactly plentiful. So we’re in a constant war with other races to expand. And it’s the CDF’s job to protect and defend human colonies from alien invaders.

Old Man’s War starts the day Perry joins the military, and we jump onto the ride with him. He’s a fun and funny narrator with a good sense of humor (sometimes subtle, sometimes less so), perfect for introducing us to the strange new world beyond the borders of Earth.

I hesitate to say too much about what you find, because that’s half the fun of this novel: the discovery process, the revelation of something new with each and every page. Scalzi’s built a great universe for us to explore, and it’s a joy to do so.

I loved the way he had me grinning at one page and then punched a hole in my gut the next. It’s actually amazing how he handled the deaths in the book (because it’s a book about war, this is hardly a spoiler). There was something stripped-down and bare about their descriptions that made them all the more poignant, even without accompanying angst from our narrator.

One of the things I loved most about the book was how easy it was to read. This might sound like a strange thing to praise, but after Endymion and If on a winter’s night a traveler, I was tired of books that stuck me with pages-long paragraphs and detailed descriptions and philosophical arguments to make your head spin.

Old Man’s War did not have that problem, and it was like a breath of fresh air. I practically devoured the book, and it was such a nice change of pace after reading two books in a row that felt like they required an advanced degree to understand.

That’s not to say Old Man’s War skimps on the science or even on the explanations of the technical stuff. But Scalzi (rather brilliantly, I thought) breezes past the how (“You don’t have the math”), giving us just enough to understand what’s going on without getting overwhelming.

Some people have said Scalzi is reminiscent of Robert Heinlein—and being as that I’ve read only one Heinlein book, I won’t argue. However, Old Man’s War reminded me a little bit more of Ender’s Game, only with old farts instead of six-year-old children.

If I had one complaint about this book, it’s that it’s a little more episodic than I anticipated. Perry’s goal is really just “join the army and survive”; there’s not really an overarching story question from what I could peg. But it’s well-written enough and otherwise enjoyable enough that it didn’t bother me too much.

If you enjoy science fiction and you haven’t read Old Man’s War, add it to your list. Hell, even if you don’t enjoy science fiction but are willing to give the genre a go, pick it up. It’s a great read for longtime sci-fi fans and newbies alike.

And while you’re at it, follow Scalzi on Twitter. You won’t regret it.

A to Z Challenge – G is for Grave Mercy

Grave Mercy caught my eye for a number of reasons. A YA historical romance set in the Middle Ages, something I have rarely seen. A secluded convent of assassin nuns. Political intrigue. An absolutely fantastic tag line: “Why be the sheep when you can be the wolf?”

Not to mention a serious-looking girl on the cover holding a CROSSBOW. (See image to the right.)

All of that conspired to get me to pick up the book. But what drew me in and kept me reading was the lovely, lovely writing. This was one of the rare present-tense books that sucked me in almost immediately and didn’t let me go. I absolutely adored it from start to finish.

Fourteen-year-old Ismae is rescued from an abusive marriage and delivered to the convent of St. Mortain, the god of death. There, she is given the option to become a handmaiden of Death, trained as an assassin to carry out Mortain’s work. Ismae jumps at the chance.

After three years of training and apprenticeship to the convent’s healer/poison mistress, Ismae is sent out for her first kill. But these missions bring her into conflict with the mysterious Gavriel Duval, who claims he is trying to ferret out a traitor to the new duchess.

As the convent is also looking for the traitor, Ismae is assigned to be Duval’s mistress in order to gain access to the royal court. Neither of them are happy with the agreement, but Ismae has an additional, secret order: to ascertain whether Duval himself is loyal.

However, all her training can’t prepare her for the numerous political machinations she will face or the new feelings Duval raises in her. And with time running out to secure the duchess’s throne, Ismae will have to rely on more than just her skills to protect her country.

There’s so much I enjoyed about this book that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Ismae has not had an easy life: her mother tried to abort her with a herbwitch’s poison, and as such she has a jagged scar that runs the length of her back. Her father beat her regularly, and then sold her into the marriage she escapes at the beginning of the book.

Her entire life has been out of her control, so when Ismae gets the chance to make a choice for her own future, she leaps at it. I loved watching her grow, as she became more confident in herself and her abilities as Mortain’s handmaiden. She’s extremely devout, but her faith grows and changes throughout the book as well as she prays, questions, and comes to understand more about what Mortain wants from her.

And throughout most of the book, Ismae is the one doing the rescuing, which was so very many kinds of awesome, to say the least.

The romance between her and Duval builds very slowly and very sweetly, and very believably, particularly considering we never go into his viewpoint. They constantly clash throughout the book, as they have similar goals but different ways of going about them. I loved the way they gradually came to admire and respect each other, which provided a lot of delicious angst on Ismae’s part as she tries to keep her head and heart separate and follow her duties to Mortain.

The historical setting combined with the slight twist of fantasy creates a fascinating world for the story. LaFevers weaves them together beautifully, drawing you in to the cloistered life of the convent and the more unstable, treacherous world of the royal court. Her writing style is perfect for this; the narration felt genuine and not once did I come across something that sounded anachronistic or that made me stumble.

At times, Grave Mercy reminded me of a (much) less adult version of Kushiel’s Dart, what with the various political threads, the first person POV, and a main character who acts as a spy in addition to something else. (This is a sign of praise, by the way; I adored Kushiel’s Dart and own the next two books in that series.)

I had minor quibbles with the book—I guessed the traitor very early on, and I think the reveal took a little longer than it should have—but by and large the rest of it was so well done that it didn’t bother me.

If political plots, assassin nuns, the series title “His Fair Assassin,” and romance sound like your cup of tea, then pick up Grave Mercy the first chance you get. It’s such a wonderful, well-written story, and well worth your time.

The Updated Reading List

Now that we’re almost three full months into 2013, let’s see how I’m doing with the actual reading list, shall we?

Fiction:
Endymion by Dan Simmons
Long Lost by David Morrell
If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis
Shadows in Bronze by Lindsey Davis
The Course of Honor by Lindsey Davis
Young Men in Spats by P.G. Wodehouse
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi
Kushiel’s Avatar by Jacqueline Carey
Kushiel’s Chosen by Jacqueline Carey
Shada by Douglas Adams
The Street Lawyer by John Grisham
The Honor of Spies by W.E.B. Griffin
Foreign Influence by Brad Thor
True Blue by David Baldacci
The Passage by Justin Cronin
Komarr by Lois McMaster Bujold
A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold
Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Gone by Michael Grant
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
The Ancient by R.A. Salvatore
The Demon Awakens by R.A. Salvatore
The Demon Spirit by R.A. Salvatore
The Demon Apostle by R.A. Salvatore
The Wind Merchant by Ryan Dunlap
Triple Play by Abigail Barnette
Long Relief by Abigail Barnette

Nonfiction
The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, Her Pirate Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire by Susan Ronald
Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain
Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card
Story by Robert McKee
Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin
Creating Characters: How to Build Story People by Dwight V. Swain
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Recently Added
Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger
Winterblaze by Kristen Callihan
The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross
Beyond Shame by Kit Rocha
Lamb by Christopher Moore
The Dame by R.A. Salvatore (Actually was a Christmas gift for a friend, but he loaned it to me once he finished)
Exclusively Yours by Shannon Stacey
Yours to Keep by Shannon Stacey
Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
Mort by Terry Pratchett
Men-at-Arms by Terry Pratchett
Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
Jingo by Terry Pratchett
Queen of Shadows by Dianne Sylvan

I think I’ve actually done a not-terrible job on reading books I actually own, and a particularly good job of reading more in genres that are not romance. I’ve also managed to hold off on buying too many more books; the one exception, as you might be able to tell, is Discworld. And I don’t really count that because I buy them as much for my roommates as for me; all three of us are kind of in love with the series.

What books have you read lately? Anything worth adding to the TBR list?

Book Review – Endymion by Dan Simmons

I read Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, the first two books in Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos, in 2010, because I was looking to expand my science fiction horizons. (Pretty much the same reason I read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress last year.)

Both were dense, not just in writing but also in subject matter, but they were fascinating stories, though I got the sense I was only grasping about half of what Simmons wanted me to. Though I liked the books well enough and could definitely appreciate the skill with which Simmons wrote, they were hard as hell to get through at times. Once I’d finished them, I figured I was done.

Then I was at the used bookstore and spotted a copy of Endymion, book three of the Hyperion Cantos, and I picked it up and read the first sentence.

You are reading this for the wrong reason.

My attention. You have it.

I bought it and started reading it in 2012. Obviously, it took awhile for me to finish. This is in a large part because I spent most of last year rewriting my WIP not just once, but twice, and at the end of the day I wanted a book I could read quickly and that wouldn’t require me to parse futuristic technological terms and philosophical discussions.

But over the past two months, I’ve sat down and read it. And discovered the rich, multi-layered world I’ve come to expect from Simmons, along with a protagonist I loved in Raul Endymion.

Endymion takes place nearly 300 years after The Fall of Hyperion. Raul is a Hyperion native, working as a guide for hunters that come to the planet, just one of the many jobs he’s had over his 27 years.

By that time in my life I had learned a little bit about sex and much about weapons, had discovered firsthand the power greed has in the affairs of men and women, had learned how to use my fists and modest wits in order to survive, was curious about a great many things, and felt secure only in the knowledge that the remainder of my life would almost certainly hold no great surprises.

I was an idiot.

I love this guy.

Raul is sentenced to death after he kills a man in self-defense, but wakes up after his execution to find he’s been rescued by an ancient old man with a favor to ask. Raul’s mission, should he choose to accept it, is to rescue 12-year-old Aenea from the Time Tombs and keep her safe from the various forces that seek to destroy her. Because Aenea is the new messiah, and her message will shape the course of humanity.

After 300 years, we see how the events of The Fall of Hyperion have affected the formerly interconnected worlds of the Web. Worlds that were one beacons of civilization are now nearly empty, the population dead from starvation or infighting. Worlds that were popular tourist destinations when terraformed have been reclaimed by nature, and the remaining humans there eke out a scarce existence.

Rather than the Hegemony, the prime governing body is now the Pax, which has grown out of the Catholic Church, a religion that was nearly extinct during Hyperion.

The Pax makes use of the cruciforms, cross-shaped parasites that attach to the body and can completely resurrect the host from just about any kind of death. This gave the Church the boost it needed to become a major force in the universe, with billions of people scrambling for the promise of literal eternal life.

And the Pax, with its massive armies and nigh-unlimited resources, is after Aenea.

The book alternates between two viewpoints for the most part: Raul’s, in first person as he transcribes his memories of meeting Aenea, and then Father Captain Frederico de Soya, the Pax captain in charge of Aenea’s capture, in third person present tense.

I by far preferred being in Raul’s point of view, in a large part because it always takes me a bit to get used to present tense. Simmons does it well, but my personal issues with it were still there, enough so that I would groan when I saw viewpoints had switched again. (De Soya himself is a good character, don’t get me wrong, and I liked him, but I had the most trouble reading his sections.)

It didn’t help that de Soya’s sections also seemed to be more crammed with description, like the four solid paragraphs that take up three-quarters of a page detailing the hierarchy of the Church, when the salient bit of information from this info-dump is tucked at the very end of the final paragraph.

I understand adding context and sometimes exposition is required, particularly in science fiction and fantasy novels where you’re dealing with so much new stuff, but damn. Dude, cut to the chase already.

In fact, if there was anything that annoyed me about the book, it was that: the occasional forays into too much description or too much philosophizing. And poetry excerpts. Thankfully these weren’t long, but damn, I hate poetry excerpts in novels. (At least we didn’t go into three pages of Elvish poetry a la Tolkien. Yeesh.)

Generally, I liked Raul better not only as a narrator, but as a character as well. He doesn’t see himself as a hero by any stretch of the imagination, but once he promises to protect Aenea, he sets about doing the best job he can despite the overwhelming odds against him.

He has a sense of humor that comes across in both his narration and his interactions with others (“Bring on the velociraptors!” made me giggle out loud), he and makes an effort to lighten dire situations with a joke, even if it falls flat.

He’s not perfect, and he’s not terribly well-equipped for the job he’s doing. We see his doubts, his fears, and his determination; we see him fall and get back up; we see that maybe Raul is, at heart, the hero he doesn’t believe himself to be.

Would I recommend this book? It’s difficult to say. I’ll almost certainly pick up The Rise of Endymion because I want to find out what happens to Raul, but I don’t have the gripping “must know NOW” sense I did after finishing some other novels (Cinder and Changeless spring to mind). I think that’s because I know it’ll be a tough read, and I have to steel myself for it.

Endymion may not be easy to read, but it is a well-written novel with a rich and fascinating world. If you’re a fan of science fiction and haven’t read the Hyperion novels, I would tentatively recommend them as long as you know what you’re getting into.

I don’t think you have to read Hyperion or The Fall of Hyperion in order to enjoy Endymion (the story is comparatively stand-alone), but it would add much more to your experience if you did.

And if you’re not a science fiction fan, you might want to look for a slightly easier introduction to the genre.