I was presented this link in a class I’m taking on “World Building in SF/F”: SFSignal Presents: A guide to navigating NPR’s top 100 SF/F books presents a decision tree on how to navigate through the books on the NPR’s top 100 list. I thought it was cool, so I wanted to share.
This chapter is one of my favorite in the novel. Daetrin awakens from near death and is introduced to Kiri, the Marra, our Marra. Kiri begins revealing the relationship between Daetrin and the Marra race, and Daetrin accepts challenge of defeating the Priest-Marra of Cantona.Daetrin awakens in the Honaqa Gorge. A brief exchange between a young woman we don’t immediately recognize and Daetrin takes place, in Greek, and then Daetrin is pushed back in to unconsciousness (to facilitate healing.) The young woman (later to be named Kiri) awakens Daetrin long enough to feed him her blood, then he passes out again. He awakens again, and this time he’s stronger but still severely wounded.
… She had drawn me against her, and her offer was unmistakable. It was there in the scent of her flesh, in the pounding of her blood beneath her skin, so close against my face. I felt the last vestiges of my self-control slipping away into darkness, and I lacked the strength—and the desire—to fight for its return
Who are you?
What are you?
Why?
How many year had it been, since I had last tasted human blood? Even in the Time Before that was a rare occurrence; I would no more have forced that attention upon a woman than I would any other violent hunger. Animal blood had sufficed for me, as it did for most of my kind. And I had forgotten. The intoxication of feeding on one’s own kind. The heady flavor of human life. The feel of a woman’s body in my arms, and the heat of her blood as I drank it in—the scent of her, so very female, which awakened other hungers—the need to hold her, to drink her in, until my body shivered in pleasure, my desperate hunger reduced to mere desire. I had forgotten there was anything like this … and maybe, in fact, I had never known. What human woman could ever have given herself in this way, with so little fear of consequence?
Again Kiri and Daetrin talk. She explains the nature of the Marra and then asks him the nature of his kind. He is embodied (not Marra), she is not. There’s more, but you should read it yourself. A lot of dialogue that gives you subtle hints; Kiri seems vulnerable despite being Daetrin’s healer and protector.
Then, when Daetrin awakes, he is alone.
Terrible emptiness inside me: I convinced myself that it was only hunger, a physical yearning, and had nothing to do with my isolation. It was good to be free of fear for once, with no one to answer to but myself. No aliens to analyze, no humans to deceive, no home to worry about defending. Nothing to save, or abandon. An animal freedom, dream-pure. It was a welcome relief.
Wasn’t it?
And when Daetrin takes the form of a cat (he’s always near his original mass when he shape-shifts) and encounters Kiri, in the shape of a mountain cat.
Which is when I heard the other cat coming. I drew myself back and hissed, an instinctive reaction; hunting cats defend their solitude with vigor. But I wasn’t prepared for what bounded out at me, with such playful enthusiasm that I was knocked back onto my haunches in surprise, all my hostility suddenly deflated.
It was a mountain cat, female, smaller than myself, in that stage of life just past kittenhood. And I would like to say that I knew what it really was because my senses were so keen, or my reasoning so sound. Or because my cat-body could pick up the scent of alienness that surrounded her, or some similarly impressive accomplishment. But the truth was simply that she still had human eyes—the same human eyes—and the chestnut fur with russet tipping, that perfectly matched the shade of her human hair.
The cat psyche is a straightforward thing, infinitely simpler than its human counterpart. In it there is no conflict of id or superego, no wrestling of divergent emotions, no clouding of issues with intellectual complexity. As a man, I would have greeted her return with misgivings, any hint of happiness stifled by my concern over her nature and purpose. And alarm at her shapechanging. But as a cat I was simply glad to see her, my joy unfettered by human concerns. And I think it showed.
She padded near to where I stood, and extended her nose for perusal. I sniffed her gingerly, knowing that feline instinct was wary of any new scent. But her sent was arm, encouraging … even mildly arousing. It circumvented the biochemical channels that warned of danger and left, in its wake, an offer of companionship.
Later, after hunting, they talk again.
“You are feeling better?” she asked.
It occurred to me suddenly that she really didn’t know the full extent of what she’d done. And how could she, when even I barely understood it?
“You saved my life,” I said quietly. With as much gratitude in my voice as that one phrase could contain. And hunted with me, which no woman has done in centuries. Memories arose within me, painful and compelling. Brigid. Bianca. Yolanda. For a moment I was lost, hunting in those other times. Feeling the pain all over again, as fate took each companion from me. And the loneliness—always the loneliness.
The chapter concludes with Daetrin agreeing to follow Kiri to Suyaag, the human capital of Meyaga, once he has freed Cantona from the Priest-Marra.
Concluding this chapter, we end with the following hooks:
Stakes: Free the Cantonan people from the Priest-Marra, learn his abilities, test himself before he proceeds with his fight against the Tyr.
I’ve been a little lax with posting my reviews. I’m going to try to catch up this weekend, get a few scheduled in advance.In this very short chapter, we evaluate a flashback moment. Based on context, it must be Daetrin’s POV. He’s in a church, during an era when there is a Plague.
From a purely informational basis, this page-and-a-half chapter adds nothing to the story. (Really, it doesn’t.) The narrative is historical, it presents a time in the POVC’s life when they are living in a community that has been struck by the Plague. They are trying to establish themselves within the community, and they are faced with a priest who conducts a ritual (communion and consumption of the Body and the Blood of Christ).
Informationally we are presented with:
The timing of the piece is indistinct. There’s a lot of periods when the Plague ran rampant through the world. The was an epidemic in Asia in the late 1800s that even made its way to California via Hawaii. Based on what we know, it would have had to have been late 1800s to early 1900s. The one thing I found when looking up information on the Plague is that it did not reach the same level of severity in Europe that it did in Asia— and because of the lack of specifics we can’t know where we are, or when we are.
What the timefugue does do though is set the mood. We know that Daetrin fell off a cliff and nearly died (it was possible he died, but unlikely… he is the protagonist after all.)
There are thematic similarities between the last chapter and this one. The hostile community. Daetrin’s attempts to fit in (but the conclusion of this chapter says he never fits in). The priest. The chapter moves the mood and pacing from Daetrin’s attempt to flee (and near death experience) to something more claustrophobic. In this scene/chapter, we’re not shown anything outside of the church and we’re told little more. There’s a sense of brooding danger, hidden just out of site.
I’m left with the conclusion that the point of this scene is to draw back from the fast pacing of Daetrin fleeing and transition to a lower paced scene.
Concluding this chapter, we end with the following hooks: None, this short chapter suggests that Daetrin is not dead.
Stakes: None.
A (dare I use the word?) cute kidnapping tale from yester-year. Told during a kinder, gentler era where the bad guys had ethics and morals, Bill and Alex don’t even contemplate killing the monster instead of returning him to his father. When you contemplate that the kid tried to (literally) scalp Bill, I’m not sure I follow the thinking. If the father wouldn’t pay to get his kid back, he clearly didn’t want him that badly and everyone would have probably been happier if Red Chief had ended up in a ditch.
My wife purchased a copy of the book for my Kindle as a(n early) Christmas present. The voice of the story is very strong and a lot of the dialogue says “itinerant criminal” and “minimal education.” They also use words that are intended to make them seem more educated than they are (which only further emphasizes how uneducated they are.) The best part of the writing is how self contained it is. The best part of the story is how it makes you feel sorry for the kidnappers (who you shouldn’t like, or feel sorry for.) It’s short and to the point, and amusing for the entire ride.
In this Chapter, we see the world through the Tyr’s eyes. What might otherwise be considered “a day in the life of” provides meaningful hints about future events. The scene also hints and suggests at themes tied to the title of the novel.This chapter comes in at approximately 900 words. A single scene that depicts the interaction between the Tyr-whole and the Talguth-Tekk (who is also starsha), we’re told that two children have died and that the Talguth must trade Tekk for genetic diversity. The brief scene provides us a look in to the mind of the Tyr-whole,
… One of its Raayat on board the Kamugwa was in the presence of an acceptable human contact, and therefore It used that body as a mouthpiece, even though it was far gone in to season. (Soon, soon. How long must It wait? It needed/ they needed/ a Burning …)
I could make all sorts of inappropriate (out of context) comments here, but I’m not that snarky.
The scene also provides us hints as to the actions and motivations of the Tekk. The Tyr decide that the Talguth-Tekk will transfer to the Domes where eventually the Kamugwa will retrieve her (the Tekk). We’re given a feel for how information passes between the Tyr bodies:
… It consulted Its charts through a distant Kuol, …
and
… It paused, to question its distant contact. …
and
… It accepted the lists from here, and transfered [sic] them into its other brains. …
Lastly, a hint is thrown out about the titular season (it happens midway through the scene, but I’m putting it at the end of my write up for emphasis):
There was no time in the foreseeable future when the Talguth and the Kamugwa could rendezvous. And with summer coming, things would become even more difficult…. [sic, yes, there really are four periods, at least in the kindle version.]
Concluding this chapter, we end with the following hooks:
Stakes:
The starship Theodore Roosevelt is fighting on the far outskirts of a galactic war, its crew made up of retreads and raw recruits. A new first officer reports, Wilson Cole, a man with a reputation for exceeding his orders (but getting results). He’s been banished to the Teddy R. for his actions, but once there he again ignores his orders and again comes away triumphant.
It is when the captain of the ship stubbornly follows orders that Cole knows are wrong that he takes command of the ship and wins a major battle. But victorious or not, the service cannot condone a mutiny, even a bloodless one, and he is brought back to stand trial. But Wilson Cole realizes that a guilty verdict is a foregone conclusion…
This is the first of five proposed novels about the starship Theodore Roosevelt. The next four will be, in order, Pirate, Mercenary, Rebel, and Flagship.
The description of the book (from Goodreads) is actually misleading, because the story doesn’t happen that way. It would be more accurate to depict the story thusly:
The starship Theodore Roosevelt is patrolling the far outskirts of the Republic during a galactic war, its crew the unwanted and untrustworthy, at least from the Navy’s perspective. Wilson Cole joins the ships crew, as a new officer, recently demoted, with a reputation for disregarding his orders (but getting results). Though Cole was banished to the Teddy R., he refuses bad orders and once again comes away triumphant.
When the captain of the ship, stubbornly following orders, does something that Cole knows is wrong, he takes command of the ship to avert the death of millions. But, victorious or not, the service cannot condone a mutiny, even a bloodless one, and he’s brought back to stand on trial. Wilson Cole soon realizes that a guilty verdict is a foregone conclusion…
And you’ve pretty much summarized the book. It’s a fun romp, almost a space opera. The story is really the inciting event for the five-part story; the life of the Teddy R. (and it’s crew.)
Read further only if you don’t mind spoilers.
There is a lot to like in the first book of the Starship series, and I’ll list a few of the things I like. The writing is great (with a few notable exceptions), the humor is enough to make me smile more than once, a lot of the antics in the book are exploited to world build for readers who are not familiar with Resnick’s Birthright Universe (i.e., me). When you reach the end of the book, you get treated to several appendices, one of which is a timeline of his universe (somewhere in the area of eighteen thousand years 72 stories of indeterminate length.) The richness of the universe and its history really comes through in Resnick’s writing, and you can really see the degradation of the Republic’s government towards a government where the will of the people (stupid as they often are) becomes more important than the will of the representatives who are voted in to power.
Which segways nicely in to some of the things that were wrong with the book. Wilson Cole is the consummate hero, but he is also the consummate cynic. His history, and how he got demoted to the Teddy R., is presented in dialogue and narrative description. It’s history, and Resnick is unapologetic in skipping over the inciting events that lead Cole to the titular Starship. Furthermore, there are some fairly gaping holes in the plot and a few obvious failures in rendering natural dialogue. (If you don’t think about them, everything reads smoothly, but once you do it’s jarring.)
Lastly, the climax of the book is political where the first and second Acts of the novel are both action. The result is to cause the quick pacing of the story to grind to a near halt while the protagonists “rot in jai.” Since this is the start of a series, and there are more books to come, I’m willing to forgive. I like Resnick’s voice (as a writer) and Wilson Cole is fun to spend time with.
In this chapter, Daetrin attempts to connect with the Meyagan human settlement of Cantona, with dire consequences.A summary
Foreshadowing: The longer Daetrin remains a wolf, the more wolf-like his thinking becomes. The building, or temple, in the center of town.
Unanswered questions: We’re not certain how long it’s been since the last chapter with Daetrin, but we get some hints. Five days spent traveling as a wolf (since when? since where?) Two days after landing on Meyaga, Daetrin got some information about the humans living on this planet and stole some blankets and shoes (but where is the blanket?) Daetrin has flees (but it’s a passing comment that doesn’t seem to have any relevance.) He managed to do some hunting and skinning pelts from animals (suggesting a lot of time has passed, but it’s not stated explicitely.)
Foreshadowing: Shaving the hair off ones head seem to be the dominant style
Unanswered questions: What is this custom you speak of, “passed’n”?
***
Foreshadowing: Tyr’s eyes.
***
***
This is the first really action oriented scene for Daetrin. The Meyagan locust-rat (which Frederick previously mentioned as “an overabundance of herbivores” had created an ecological imbalance that prompted the Tyr to bring predators) swarms the Cantonan fields and eats all of their crops. Daetrin fights a losing battle, killing hundreds (or thousands?) of the creatures with the Cantonan residents. A few people die who had fallen in the path of the rats. The quantity is dramatically told:
The mangy horde was three or four feet deep, and the Cantona warriors waded through them as through a whirlpool. With long, deadly polearms they scythed through the mass of hungry flesh again and again and again, each stroke claiming half a dozen lives from among those who were struggling to breach the defensive wall. But for each one wounded, there were hundreds more; for each one killed, there were thousands.
and
And finally, when the survivors had eaten their fill and swarmed back the way they had come, through the several gaping holes in the perimeter fence, there was nothing left but a field of pillaged stalkes, and the bodies of those thousands who had lost their lives in the plundering.
That is one mean and lengthy sentence.
Foreshadowing: A dead villager’s face is etched in Daetrin’s memory.
***
Continuity error:
The fallen invaders would serve the colony with their flesh, but for how long? A few hundred animals, against the loss of a whole season’s crops.
This could be explained if of the thousands who died, only a few hundred were in any shape to be eaten. (There was a fire line built and a lot of the rats had swarmed over the fire, being roasted…) However, it’s not made clear why there is a delta between thousands dead but only a few hundred that are edible. (It’s also not relevant to the story.)
***
All about us were people. Perhaps a hundred. Men. Experience had taught me that humans were cruelest when segregated by sex, and the cold feeling in the pit of my stomach became lead. What had I let myself in for?
The last line is repetition for dramatic effect (he’s asked himself that more than once this chapter.)
Foreshadowing within the scene to hint at a Meyagan plant that becomes phosphorescent when it begins to die. Friedman reveals this information a little bit at a time, from Daetrin’s POV, as he struggles to remember the relevant information he overheard. During the “passin’n” ceremony, Daetrin comes to a startling realization:
I knew him for what he was—or rather, more accurately, for what he was not—and for what he had done to the humans here. Because he wasn’t human. Not in any sense of the word. Though he wore a human body, though he played their religious games like a master, the intelligence that shown in those eyes—and the power, the triumph—were from some other source. And that source was fully capable of killing me through our contact, as swiftly or as slowly as it chose. Just as it had with the cloak. Just as it had with God alone knew how many human beings.
Continuity: The Priest doesn’t find him inside the Temple before he escapes.
The priest would know this place, I realized.
The priest would know how to find me.
Only the priest doesn’t.
Complication: Daetrin can’t shape change when he is under the sun-fever that renders him more like humans.
Concluding this chapter, we end with the following hooks:
Stakes: Death.
The air in Theater Intake Facility was humming with geists – ghostly virtual reality representations of people, A.I.s, and even a few of the sceeve, the horseshoe-bat-nosed aliens whose species had invaded the Earth thirteen years ago. Humanity was at war with the main body of sceeve, but a small faction, the Mutualists, had proved to be valuable allies and had given Earth a chance to fight back and avoid total domination.
Ensign NOCK made his way through the entrance foyer in his entirely physically present android body, his suit, as he called it. His current model was a Burberry Eleven. He’d been suited up in the Eleven for close to a year and it had performed in an excellent, if utilitarian, fashion. The suit NOCK really wanted was one of the new Burberry Twelves – who wouldn’t? – but there was no way he was going to be able to afford an upgrade like that on an Extry ensign’s pay.
All of the virtual inhabitants in the foyer seemed overlaid, one upon another, crowded in layers in such a way that no gathering in real life could ever achieve. Definite scaling problems going on here with the chroma representational software. They appeared as drapes of discrete layers of people, and the entrance foyer had taken on what NOCK imagined might be the décor of a harem den – although visiting a girlfriend in the strip club where she worked on Ceres base was as close as he’d ever come to observing such an establishment.
I really enjoyed this short story (at around 9000 words). The universe in which this short story is set is apparently the same as a book that is due to be published in February (next month) entitled “Guardian of Night“
I thought, as long as I’m doing an analysis of the book, and as long as I’ve reached the end of Part One (Act I, for all intents and purposes), I’d take a moment to do a little analysis of the Act.
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