A tree of immense girth grows from a tufted shoot; a terrace of nine levels rises from a clump of soil; a journey of a thousand miles begins under the first tread.
--Laozi, Dao De Jing, ch. 64
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| The Confusion | The Lord of Castle Black | Stardust |
The Confusion, Neal Stephenson (2004), 816 pp (hb).
Speaking of middle volumes, we come to the middle volume of Stephenson's massive (yes, it is massive) Baroque Cycle, wherein Stephenson sets out to tell no less than the tale of the groundwork being laid for our modern age, in approximately 2,500 sprawling pages.
The Confusion is good stuff. I prefer it to the opening volume, Quicksilver. For one thing, Jack Shaftoe sane is a lot more interesting than Jack Shaftoe out of his gourd, as he was for a good chunk of the first book (it appears that his syphlitically induced dementia has been halted, even reversed, by an abnormally high fever. At least, if I read correctly, and am remembering what I read correctly).
Structurally, Stephenson splits this into two narratives (labeled "Bonanza" and "Juncto") which are "con-fused" together: in one, Jack and his motley band of cast-off, eclectic, but highly capable (each in his own way) scalliwags form a conspiracy and head off to capture the legendary gold of Solomon. A very extended odyssey, replete with some fairly fine piracy-on-the-high-seas adventures, ensues. Meanwhile, back at the ranch (i.e. continental Europe), Daniel Waterhouse and Eliza, Duchess of Qwlgm (or however it's spelled) hobnob with the movers and shakers, including the various royal houses of England, France, and proto-Germany, not to mention Leibniz, Newton, and other early 18th century worthies.
This is good stuff, right up through the final couple of scenes, where Eliza's husband (a French noble), and later the Sun King, use the torch Jack is still carrying for her to rather memorably bend him to their will and set the table for the concluding volume. More than worth a read if one likes big sprawling historical epics packed with a metric-ton of erudition and attitude.
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The Lord of Castle Black, Steven Brust (2003), 386 pp (pb).
The middle book of Brust's The Viscount of Adrilankha, following the first book The Paths of the Dead, which concludes with young Zerika returning from the eponymous Paths bearing the long lost Orb, and with this act signaling the end of the Interregnum (none of this will make the slightest sense if you haven't been following the story up to this point).
Castle Black finds ominous forces, most particularly those led by the imperial pretender Kana, amassing against the newly returned Empress Zerika. Her Majesty, by virtue of her possession of the Orb, enjoys an abundance of legitimacy, but rather a dearth of actual military force to ratify her legitimacy. A problem, that.
Meanwhile, Morrolan has made his way into the bounds of the Empire, learned that he is actually a dragonlord rather than a very tall Easterner, and taken up residence in his ancestral desmene. Which just happens to encompass Dzur Mountain. Morrolan's first meeting with Sethra Lavode--to demand tribute, no less--concludes with Morrolan not only still in possession of his head, but with the grant of Blackwand from Sethra. Morrolan sets out ot build a casle (hence the title of this installment), at which site occurs the battle between Kana's forces and Zerika's loyalists that concludes this volume.
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Stardust, Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess (1998), 212 pp (tpb).
Neil Gaiman is, and may well always be, though I have no particular gift in the foretelling line, best known for his landmark graphic novel Sandman series. But he has done other things, as well. Some have been more successful than others, in my opinion--speaking of esthetic success rather than commercial success, here...for instance, American Gods, the 2002 Hugo Award winner for best novel (my opinion: very good, although perhaps not Hugo-winning good. Should be noted, though, that year after year, the Hugo electorate stubbornly refuses to get entirely in tune with my notions of what should win).
At any rate, Stardust is one of those rare creatures, an illustrated novel (although technically, it's short enough that it may really be a novella--I dunno about the word counts, either Stardust's in particular, or the qualifying threshold). It's illustrated by Charles Vess, who memorably collaborated with Gaiman on a couple of his better Sandman stories. I'm not sure how the tale itself would stand without the illustrations--I know there was a paperback version that was published without illustrations--but I do think the artwork really adds something to the experience.
It's a nice fairy tale that Gaiman tells--nice in the sense of well done, pleasing to read, rather than nice as in didactic or resembling inoffensive pablum. It's part quest story, part bildungsroman, part romance, and it's set mostly in the world of faerie, where weird and magical and often scary things can be expected as a matter of course. I wouldn't describe Stardust as gee-whiz, knock-your-socks-off incredible, but it's an enjoyable, absorbing little tale, well worth the time to get ahold of and read.
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