Nightshade have
announced<http://www.nightshadebooks.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=219>the
reprint of An Ill Fate Marshalling for December! Reap the East Wind is
supposed to be out in October, so that suggests that the final Dread Empire
volume might be out in February or so next year! as Mr. Burns might say,
"Excellent!"
It's too bad the publicity copy is so poor, it reads as follows:
"Coming December 2011
King Bragi Ragnorson decides to join Chatelain Mist�s coup against the Dread
Empire. Varhlokkur � the King�s wizard � tries to dissuade Ragnorson from
this chosen path, but only the drum-beat of war is heard. The King�s
Spymaster Michael Trebilcock joins with the wizard to stave off The Ill Fate
Marshaling, to no effect.
Many of the characters from past volumes take center stage, and the climatic
events of this book shake the world of the Dread Empire to its very core,
creating A Path to Coldness of Heart."
Who is this "Ragnorson" and "Varhlokkur?" I assume they got the first one by
glancing at the copy on the back of the Tor edition, which uses a similar
misspelling. The latter, with the "t" missing from Varthlokkur, is just
sloppy. So is using the word "Marshaling" when the book title is
"Marshalling." I checked my dictionary, both are considered acceptable, even
if spell-checkers want the former. Finally notice that "climatic" events are
mentioned, but not "climactic" ones. I tried to send Nightshade an email
about this, but their listed contact email is apparently invalid!
Just finished the Dark War trilogy...
I can see why it didn't sell as well as his later books...
A brief overview:
There is a planet with Meth on it. The Meth are a bit cat like and
matriarchal, mostly because the female of the species are larger and tougher
than the males. Up in the north of the planet there are the barbarians,
then the slightly more civilised folks who live in packsteads... Well,
there are the log houses in the packstead... Well, there are your family in
the log houses....
No, the Meth don't have much of a "we're all Meth together" outlook.
There's you, your family, your log house, your packstead - and maybe the
region where you live. That's it. The packstead next door is under attack
by barbarians? Here's hoping they live. Us help them? Why? It's not us
being attacked. But here's hoping they survive; we'll need their help in
hunting next summer.
In the series there are a number of battles, battles that fall into three
broad categories.
A) A well planned strategy where the battle could go either way.
B) Something that starts off looking like A) but then becomes a "Um, will
anyone survive this one?" situation (hint: don't fall in love with
characters - any character!).
C) Someone gets pissed off and everyone on the other side of the battle
dies. The opposing army dies, then track down the settlement they come and
kill everyone there. Then track down their supporters and kill them too.
Dead, dead, dead - just smack, smack until everyone is dead.
Type A) battles look like the training ground for the Dread Empire and Black
Company novels. Type B) battles look like the training ground for the
climatic battles in those books where few people walk away. The type C)
ones... If Lady (at the height of her powers) ever cut loose, just said
"Right, they are all going to die now" and went out and killed everyone in
her way, then it would look like those "battles". Like if she had command
of the Ten and every scrap of power from her empire when her daughter was
taken and just cut loose - that's what I was thinking when I read about some
of those "battles".
But back to the Meth. The Meth are ruled by communities of Sisterhoods of
Silth (also called witches). The sisterhoods look for psychic talents in
the young. Girls with the talent are recruited (stolen) into the
sisterhood. Any male with the talent is an abomination and destroyed.
Later, as the girls grow into women, well you can't have Silth distracted by
going into heat can you? And if they have litters they might put their own
young ahead of the sisterhood, so all Silth are sterilised. Oddly enough,
some of the most powerful Silth come from the edges of civilisation, where
the communities don't have iron control and miss some of each generation.
Now if a young one with talent isn't spotted and trained then odds are the
talent will just fade away (but maybe her daughters might inherit it).
While the sisterhoods sterilise the best of the females, there are the male
Brotherhoods who handle tech and get their paws dirty. They do the work
that is beneath that of the Silth and take the best and brightest males. Of
course you can't have a member of the brotherhood putting his own family
ahead of his brothers, so they are all sterilised when they join (or when
they reach a certain rank)... Oddly enough, some their brightest and best
come from areas where the brotherhoods don't really recruit much.
Um, I seem to be talking about natural selection and how you shouldn't run a
society... Now where was I?
Oh yes - into this mix there's a young girl (named Marilka) born in one of
the border areas (where it's family, log house, packstead) who has a bright
future ahead of her. Her mother doesn't take her to see the witches when
she should have and there's a couple of people in the long house who thinks
that the girl might have witch powers, but their opinions don't matter. Her
mother is the strongest warrior in the long house, just as her grandmother
had been, and their people have a saying: "Strength goes". As in "You want
trouble with my daughter - then maybe I should rip you into pieces" is how
things can work. Oh, there's tradition and the Wise (old females) who
advise, but a strong huntress can do what she wants - unless what she wants
is to stay warm... For some reason the winters seem to be getting colder
and summers shorter, but who really believes in global cooling? Anyway,
rumours start flying that the barbarians have been united and as the
packstead next door is attacked they send runners to the local community of
Silth. It seems that they have been paying tribute for generations and now
they need that promised protection...
The good news is that Marilka gets recruited by the Silth and begins to make
her way in a world where technology (ground effect vehicles, transport
planes, etc) mix with magic (the Silth use magic to power their
spacecraft). The bad news? Well, the battle doesn't go exactly as planned.
Now here is why I don't think it sold as well as it could have. Are the
below points flaws? Maybe, maybe not, but I can see them hurting sales.
1) It's hard to get the readers to identify with your hero when you're also
using her to explain just how different the Meth are.
2) The names. Marilka, Meth, Skiljan, Upper Ponath - I'm not saying that
aliens have to good Anglo-Saxon names, but after a while the weird names
became a blur.
3) This point is a continuation of point 2: Silths who can use the Dark
Side. While writing this I tried to find out if Vader was called "Dark Lord
of the Sith" in the first series of movies, but couldn't (google failed
me!). The Dark Side was there, and reading about Silths who tap the Dark
Side... Well it broke me out of the world of the Meth and got me thinking
how a Marilka / Vader battle would go.
4) The powers that be on the Meth world are very, very short sighted. As in
"We won this battle! Well, that's it, the war is over, let's get back to our
infighting and... Oh, we're being attacked again? Well it's the same faction
using the same weapons that almost killed us last time, but obviously they
aren't a real threat. Let's keep fighting among ourselves until they make
us fight them. After all, they are only males so they can't be a threat
THIS TIME" - I capitalised THIS TIME because it happens time and time again
and every other time they've proven a threat, but why should we worry about
them THIS TIME?
5) There's "We look after ourselves first" then there's fighting over who
has the coldest places to sleep as the house burns down around... or looking
for the warmest spot to sleep as Global Cooling grips the world. You'd
think that threat of global extinction would get everyone working to work
together - but see point 4.
6) The ending. As I neared the end of the last book I was wondering where
it would go. I mean, this was the last book, right? So how would things
work out and ... Oh.... Then I started to think about a certain type of joke
- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story for details. Not that
this series is like that, but it did have an empty feeling at the end.
7) Lots of unanswered questions. Lots and lots.
8) Was it sci-fi or fantasy? I've read it and I still don't know. That can
be the sign of a good series, but it can also be confusing.
Now there were some great spots in the books - I still laugh when I think of
someone broadcasting: "Look, you were boring so we'll leaving your world
whether or not you say we can leave. Please stop shooting at us or... Now
you've done it. We're sorry we have to defend ourselves and kill the people
who were shooting... and those people who just started shooting. And those
people who were moving into position to shoot. Sorry about having to defend
ourselves this way - we didn't plan on killing all those people. Maybe we
can be friends later?", and there were other highpoints. It was gripping,
it was... It was Glen Cook. An early Glen Cook but still Cook. If he was
to rewrite it I'm sure the series would be different - he has improved his
craft as a writer.
If you're looking for something like the Black Company then this isn't what
you're looking for. If you're looking for a good tale written by Cook in
his early style then this what you're looking for - warts and all.
Richard
Nightshade finally posted the cover to their reprint of An Ill Fate
Marshalling, I added it to my blog, but here's a link to just the image
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-znx5kHUlytY/Ti3oEcZ-95I/AAAAAAAABI4/KBu_SdTuX9o/s…
It's one of Raymond Swanland's best pics yet!
Nightshade also have posted the full cover to Reap the East Wind, another
fine Swanland effort
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RiQEPLBkTvY/Ti3p6EUdTHI/AAAAAAAABJA/Wdjdv-XCxAg/s…
Finally, many of you will have heard that Borders is closing its American
stores (the British ones closed some time ago). I stopped by the one at
Madison Square Garden in NYC over the weekend, and they already had the
first Garrett omnibus on the shelves! Introducing Garrett, P.I. doesn't
officially come out till August 2, but I'm guessing Borders wanted to clear
inventory out of their warehouses, and forwarded everything they had, just
to get it all sold, if possible.
