Rat Queens

Here is a little personal story: during my first RPG session we encountered some undead. My character was a warrior: a commoner thug who used to be a highwayman up until he decided to go adventuring with a dwarf, and elf and a wizard. Seeing how he was a country bumpkin all his life, and this was his first big adventure I tried to role-play him being paralyzed with fear at the sight of the walking dead. It did not really go over well with anyone else in the group: everyone else was already in combat mode with dice in hand and they had neither time nor desire to deal with my existential dread bullshit. The dwarf forcibly dragged me outside yelling “You are a warrior, you see walking dead, you hit’em with yer sword!”

This was my introduction to the gaminess of RPG. When the enemy shows up, you ready your weapons and start rolling. When you’re in a tavern, people recognize you as adventurers and give you quests. When you go into a dungeon, there will be a boss fight and loot at the lowest level. Unless you are actually playing a game specifically designed for collaborative narration, the stories that happen at the gaming table will be predictably different from the stuff you might have read in a novel. Because most fantasy novels do not start with five of people armed to the teeth with magic artifacts going into a tavern on an off-chance someone will need a dragon slain, because that’s what they do for living.

The series has no shortage of violence and gore.

The DM of the Rings comic is a brilliant, humorous exploration of this specific clash between a classic book storytelling intersecting with collaborative gaming aspects of RPG. The narrative breaks down, because the player expectations and the game play structure of quests, battles and rewards inherent to the role playing systems. The players are always three pages ahead, always pre-empting and second guessing and always pushing against the boundaries of the story, because of course they are. So if you set out to re-create Tolkien at the gaming table, you are bound to fail. Conversely, going the other way around sometimes works out fine as illustrated by the comic itself.

That is basically the concept behind Rat Queens. It is a fantasy story that might as well have been a dramatized chronicle of your last D&D campaign. It features a genre savvy protagonists, who are self proclaimed “adventurers”, because of course they would be. They start in a tavern (where else) where they start a massive fight (as you do) and get thrown in jail. As a punishment they are given a quest to clear out some goblins from a cave near by, and they shuffle off, grumbling and complaining about insufficient loot prospects of the whole endeavor.

No, seriously. This page is like a visual representation of a critical hit table.

DM of the Rings is a cynical, and humorously jaded deconstruction of bad campaign, where neither the players nor the GM are on the same page with respect to what they are trying to accomplish. Rat Queens is something different: instead of poking fun at the disconnection between structured storytelling and role playing it embraces it. It is a love letter to D&D and the type of collaborative storytelling which happens at the gaming table. It is a faithful reconstruction of a good campaign: one in which both the GM and the players are on the same page, and just want to have fun and pull of a series of wacky hijinks and spectacular heroic battles because that’s what you do.

While the comic is heavily influenced by RPG, it is not particularly interested in saying anything about it. Gaming tropes and structures inform the narrative and the characters but the fourth wall is never broken, and there is very little meta-commentary with respect to the RPG medium. It is just a story about quirky, genre savvy adventurers set in a fantasy universe where there are quests, loot, convenient plot twists and where four person teams composed of a warrior, rogue, cleric and a mage are a common sight. It is a story about quirky, idiosyncratic characters existing in an oddball fantasy universe with familiar rules and tropes. It is fun, funny and occasionally rather clever.

Pleasant diversity, because why not.

It is also pleasantly diverse. The story takes place in the town of Palisade which is a racial and cultural melting pot that is full of all kinds of different people. Fantasy as a genre has always struggled with representation. Despite there being a concrete evidence of people of color being not only present but also often prominent and influential in the middle ages, popular culture usually usually represents medieval Europe as uniformly white and heterogeneous. This carries over to fantasy stories inspired by these period pieces. So we end up with settings where Elves, Orcs and dragon people are a common sight, but people with darker skin shades don’t even exist.

Rat Queens breaks away from that trend and embraces diversity. While it features the usual fantasy races such as Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs and Halflings “Smidgens”, it also draws a healthy number of prominent characters as people of color. Similarly, there are gay characters, because why wouldn’t there be? All of the protagonists, the titular Rat Queens (which is the name they given to their adventuring team – it’s a thing you do in that setting) happen to be women. This shouldn’t really be unique or surprising, but it is because I can’t think of a any other fantasy story which features an all-female cast of heroes.

I would like to direct your attention toward the horned demon puppy in this picture.

Also, Dwarf women grow beards in this setting, and shaving them is frowned upon by Dwarf society. Actually, the whole female beard thing is interesting because it makes an interesting commentary on how our own society polices women’s body hair. It’s not preachy, and it doesn’t hit you over the head with the message. The whole thing is written in a funny, charming way and when one of the heroes shaves her beard in act of defiance and rebellion against stringent, suffocating conservativeness of Dwarf society most readers will cheer her on. But the commentary is there, and it does sink in. It’s somewhat subtle, which is why I mentioned the series can be really clever when it wants to be.

Rat Queens is a fun series, but keep in mind it is not Saga. It is not at that level, but then again, few things are. Still, if you are looking for a light, amusing and occasionally clever fantasy romp heavily inspired by D&D, it is worth picking up. It is also a great example of how you can create a setting that is diverse and which sometimes can make points about social issues without sacrificing your ability to have potty mouthed characters who engage in drunken debauchery in between extremely bloody and violent battles with monsters.

Ocean at the end of the Lane book cover.

After the silliness of following the misadventures of the sons of the trickster god, Gaiman’s latest novel brings things back around to a more serious, almost ominous tone. For all intents and purposes this short novel is a distillation of the modern fairy tale style that the author has been polishing for years. And as such it is almost perfect. While his previous works read as stories set in fantastic fairy tale like settings, this one reads like a genuine article. It is a modern folk tale for people with modern sensibilities, but as strange and fantastical as any old legend would be.

It follows a man who arrives at his home town for a funeral, and is instantly flooded by old childhood memories of certain event that happened when he was very young. He has forgotten all about it, or more likely discarded the memories as some feverish dream or trick of childhood imagination. But seeing the familiar surroundings brings those memories forward and he vividly recalls the time when he tangled with other-worldly forces.

I don’t want to reveal too much of the plot, because part of the fun of the novel is trying to figure out what is going on. Gaiman plays his cards close to the chest and only reveals what is absolutely necessary, allowing the reader’s imagination to run wild. Instead of using already established mythological creatures or entities he seems to invent his own but refuses to name them, instead always referring to them with mundane, earthly names or descriptive epithets. Despite that, these strange beings feel no less authentic and even more ancient than the gods and creatures from his past novels.

The novel is essentially a glimpse into the lives of some primordial Fae beings, older than the universe itself who choose to play humans and live simple, mundane and trivial lives here on Earth. And the more mundane and human they behave, the more mysterious and fascinating they seem because the readers know that there lies an ocean of unfathomable depth below that facade they put up when dealing with ordinary people.

The novel is shorter than the already compact Anansi Boys and this is partly due to the book’s narrow, almost laser like focus. Gaiman’s style is by no means minimalistic, but he describes and reveals just enough information to keep the plot flowing and make things interesting, but nothing beyond that. This storytelling style reminded me of City at the end of Time but with a much narrower, localized focus. He does not go on expository digressions or lengthy world-building dialogs. The rules of his universe are purposefully shrouded in secret and only revealed as the action progresses. This makes it a fast and almost effortless read. In fact the book is hard to put down once you start reading it. Gaiman draws you into his magical world right away, and starts increasing the tension and raising the stakes immediately afterwards.

If you are a Neil Gaiman fan, or would like to see how to masterfully merge a Fae folk legend with a modern setting, definitely pick this book up. I highly recommend it.

The interesting question is: can you write a really good fantasy novel? The answer is yes, you can. It’s been done. Tolkien spent most of his career doing just that. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was his Magnum Opus, and the sheer amount of love and hard work that went into it clearly shows. It became a huge, paradigm changing phenomenon, precisely because it was unique in its own right. Therefore the recipe for great Fantasy is not to crib from Tolkien but try to imitate his technique. You start with a concept and build your setting around it. Tolkien decided to frame his universe around Germanic, Saxon and Norse mythology and folklore. If you want to write good Fantasy you should do exactly that: pick a framework (be it mythology, philosophy or both) and build your setting around it. And he did a really, really good job fleshing out that mythology and making it his own, so the further you get away from it, the better.

Here is an idea crazy enough to work: a Fantasy setting framed around Aristotelian metaphysics. Let’s assume that Earth is the center of the universe and the sun, the moon at the stars rotate around it floating not in vacuum but in a celestial medium known as Aether which is considered the fifth element. Most of earthly matter is composed not of atoms but out of the four remaining elements (earth, water, fire and air) mixed in differing proportions. Nature is theological and there is inherent purpose in all things. The elements coalesce into mountains, lakes and precious metals depending on local circumstances to fulfill one of the finite number of ideal forms which exist separately from matter but is expressed in material substances.

Aristotelian Geo-centrism as core of the setting.

Now that we have this setting, lets add a dash of Hagelian philosophy and say that human mind can influence the form and thus indirectly manipulate the matter around them. What does that mean exactly? Well, it means that if you get sick, it is not because of some virus or bacteria, but because of a mental defect. If you are depressed, plagued by guilt, doubt or madness your body reflects this and you shrivel up and suffer all kinds if ailments. Conversely, if you are confident and believe in yourself your body will over time conform to your self-image and you will grow taller, stronger an more beautiful. Those with exceptional strength of personality will actually radiate outwards and force itself upon those around you. So for example, if you believe yourself to be an exceptional leader you will likely posses an aura that will influence those around you to be more disciplined, obedient and competent at their jobs. If you consider yourself an exceptional warrior those who fight along your side will become more adept, accurate and deadly. Some individuals are born with a special affinity to one of the elements or substances. For example those with affinity to air can build flying ships by imbuing wood and metals with their favored element making them float above the air. Those with somatic affinity can become clerics who can heal you by laying on hands and willing your body to mend. Few truly exceptional individuals have such strong auras that they can influence hearts and minds (and therefore bodies) of entire nations. Thus those living under the rule of a dour hedonistic despot will over time become humorless and selfish themselves, while those serving a happy benevolent master will thrive.

There are air ships and celestial ships that can sail through the aether.

If you think this is kinda interesting, you should keep in mind I did not make this up. This is more or less the setting of Other Songs (Inne Pieśni) by Jacek Dukaj. If there was such a thing as Hard Fantasy this would be it. It is not an easy reading book, and the setup I concisely described above is slowly unveiled and explained over lose to 800 pages. It is part an adventure novel, part fantasy, part alternate history, part philosophical discussion of the Aristotelian/Hegelian philosophy.

Other Songs – Inne Pieśni, cover.

The action takes place in the alternate version of our Earth with alternate physics. Alternate histories often have a clearly defined breaking point after which everything changes. In Other Songs such an event was emergence of Alexander the Great who is described as the world’s first kratistos (from Greek word meaning strongest, noblest, most excellent) whose force of will could influence entire nations. After Alexander there were many others: immensely powerful and influential men and women who have evolved to being more or less living gods. After few centuries of turmoil the earth was neatly divided between the winners. They uneasily coexist constantly scheming, plotting and maneuvering for advantageous position. When a kratistos becomes overly ambitious others may unite and conquer him/or her for his territories. Whenever new kratistos is born he or she must find a niche somewhere in between the existing powers or perish.

The protagonist of the novel is Hieronim Barabelek, an aristocrat and former military strategist whose greatest claim to fame was a heroic last stand against the armies of the Rasputin like kratistos of the Ural mountains known as The Sorcerer. Unfortunately when The Sorcerer himself took the field Barabelek’s will was broken and his army fell. His mind and spirit broken, he shriveled up to half the size and became sickly, shy and melancholic recluse. His marriage falls apart, but years later he is reunited with his children. Barabelek’s son turns out to be an ambitious young man who intends to follow in his fathers’ footsteps and wants to learn military doctrine from the living legend that is his father.

Barabelek is keenly aware of the fact he is no longer the man his son admires. However new responsibilities as a father, and his son ambition influence him to come out of his shell and start taking new risk. Thus he agrees to travel to Africa to take part in a kind of an aristocratic safari cum hunting expedition into uncharted wilderness that exists beyond the civilized form and outside the sphere of influence of any kratistos. In the heart of Affrica the matter seems to lose its form, giving birth to all kinds of chimeras and monsters from flying snakes and rainbow colored zebras to absurd vicious predators made solely out of blood and fire. The true nature of this place is a mystery and a subject of intense theological debate, especially since it is impossible to chart or explore. The deeper you go the more influenced you become by the broken form of the place. Your fingers may fuse together, your teeth may become glass, your eyes may evaporate, etc.. Some say that at the very heart of this disruption lies impossible city populated by impossible creatures. Unfortunately those who went that deep came back irreversibly wrapped and were driven mad so their reports are less than reliable.

Alternate Cover

Barabelek’s expedition goes further than most, and what he finds there changes him forever. Unraveling the mystery of the schism that warps the reality in the heart of Afferica becomes his obsession, which takes him to the moon (the domain of a banished ancient and immensely powerful kratistos) and back. He eventually figures it out…

[SPOILERS]

It’s aliens. But not regular aliens as we know them, because in Dukaj’s world such aliens simply can’t exist. Stars are simply spheres of Aether that rotate around earth – there are no alien planets or solar systems. So real aliens can only come from a alternate reality with alternate physics. The alien minds, much like the human minds influence form of the matter around them, and force it to conform to their alien standards which appear to be incompatible with ours. Their very presence causes our reality to break apart, and wrap in impossible way until it becomes their reality. Almost by definition these aliens are impossible to understand, because understanding them would mean assuming their form, and thus leaving our universe behind.

I’m not saying it’s aliens but… It’s aliens.

Barabelek discovers that the Affrican phenomenon was caused by a small landing party, and that there has been a similar incursion on the moon many decades before. Lunar astrologists have been tracking the movements of the stars, and by observing deviations of their orbits they have theorized that there is an entire alien invasion fleet sitting somewhere beyond the orbit of Saturn. How do you fight reality wrapping aliens? Conventional ways have proven to be inefficient. For example using artillery to destroy the wrapped Affrican jungle failed because cannon balls would turn into birds or spiders, or sand before hitting the ground. The only reliable way to combat the threat seems to be to force our own form and order onto them. This is something only a powerful kratistos could do. But a single kratistos would likely be swallowed up by the invasion fleet without much hassle. So Earth’s only hope for survival is to unite all the world leaders, pack their armies onto air-ships that can sail through the aether and wage war in space, which was never done before. Especially since most of said leaders do not believe the threat is real. Who better to convince them otherwise through plot, intrigue, assassinations and political machinations than brilliant strategist Barabelek. That is, if he can actually get his shit together.

Dukaj’s alternate universe is strikingly original and just bristling with interesting ideas. Just to give you a taste, here are some notable highlights from the novel:

• The moon (just like other celestial bodies) is made mostly out of Aether and Pyr (the fire element) and as such would be uninhabitable. In fact, under normal circumstances things would simply fall of the surface of the moon because gravity is always toward the center of creation. Life exists there only thanks to the influence the banished kratistos Illia, who not only was able to reverse the gravity but made it possible for plants and animals to thrive there. Still, it remains a harsh and unforgiving place. Everything, including the air you breathe is infused with the fire element. So every breath scorches your lungs, everything you touch burns your skin and you can’t even quench your thirst because water will burn just as much. You eventually get used to it, but it is not fun.
• Some of the natives of the moon are born with the affinity to the flame element, and their very blood is infused with it. When they get angry, they pretty much become the Human Torch from Fantastic Four. They are the warrior caste, and they make their battle armors from pure Aether. The main property of the fifth element is that it is in constant motion, so the armor is basically a collection of interlocking plates and ball bearings fine tuned to orbit each other. These armors can be used for defense or offense when the warriors kick the Aether in their gauntlets into higher orbits turning them into chainsaw like weapons.
• One of the many places Barabelek visits during his journeys is a floating city. It was created by a kratistos who was born at the intersection of two major world powers and felt squeezed out by the neighbors. When he hit puberty he ripped out his home town and surrounding fields and villages from the ground Dalaran style and relocated it into the middle of the ocean. Some of the men and women who are born in his aura develop extreme affinity to the air element to the point that their bodies become lighter than the air. The locals call them angels, and they commonly wear silver breast plates, or chains to weight them down so that they don’t get blown off the island by wind.
• How do the characters know The Sorcerer has arrived in town? The spiders start building their webs in the shape of pentagrams.
• Sea battle with a Kraken. Yep. This novel has it.
• Dukaj describes a fight between an Ares (a person with a strong warrior aura) and a Nimrod (strong hunter aura) and it’s absolutely ridiculously brutal. Back in 2006 I reviewed a silly fighting game called Toribash in which the players can mutually dismember each other if they play it right. It’s kinda like that. It’s over in seconds, and there are body parts all over the floor. It’s also worth mentioning that the combat is kindof a big deal and involves rather important characters who got manipulated by bigger players. It’s one of those “oh, crap – I can’t believe this is happening” moments.
• The novel ends with a classic Dukaj mind-fuck. It both gives you closure, but at the same time is open to interpretation. It will definitely leave you scratching your head, and trying to work out the staggering implications of what just happened on the last page.

Other Songs is nothing short of exceptional. Dukaj is primarily Hard SF writer and it shows. The scope and amount of research that must have went into this novel is staggering. I often praised the author for not coddling his readers and expecting them to have not only basic knowledge of basic science and technology, but to be at least moderately genre savvy and fluent in the SF jargon. In Inne Pieśni however he makes sure his setting is adequately explained. There are lengthy digressions and/or dialogues which the characters study or discuss the unique metaphysics of their universe. The style is somewhat reminiscent of Stephenson’s Anathem with it’s scholarly dialogues, but Dukaj is harder and more unforgiving on his characters. His universe is cold, unforgiving and full of treachery. It’s almost as if Anathem and Game of Thrones had a love child.

The novel is pretty hard to pigeon hole and classify. I opened this review by discussing the Fantasy genre because personally I think that’s where it belongs. However it’s not very clear cut. After all, the book contains aliens and at least one large space battle which you could argue are very much SF topics. I guess it depends on how you actually define science fiction. For me the genre has science in the name for a reason. Seeing how Other Songs does not actually involve any real science, but rather a very well executed and interesting system of metaphysics, I’d argue it belongs firmly in the Fantasy setting.

As far as I know there is no English version of the novel as of yet. But if you can read Polish, I highly recommend it. This book will change the way you view Fantasy forever.

Zelazny is a household name due to the unyielding popularity of his anachronistic, heroic power fantasy series Chronicles of Amber. I only read 1 and a half books from that series, and never really thought much of them mostly because they were just that: fantasy. And you know how I feel about fantasy. Don’t get me wrong: Zelazny writes very well, and the series departs quite a bit from the standard Tolkienesque template all fantasy writers have to work of (as this is essentially the litmus test of the genre). It just didn’t do much for me.

I did however, very much enjoy his Lord of Light which is most definitely a work of Science Fiction, even if it reads much like Fantasy. Zelazny was able to seamlessly blend the somewhat exotic (to us Westerners) myths of the Hindu pantheon with a dash of speculative science fiction creating something very unique and awesome. So awesome in fact that many years later Dan Simmons successfully re-used that formula, but using the more familiar Homeric epic as the backdrop. The premise, and for the most part the overall plot arc are rather similar.

Lord of Light

The big difference between the two however is that Zelazny has more style. His omniscient, third person narrator never really breaks character and recants the story as if it was an old legend. He is deliciously ignorant of the SF elements of the story. Only the characters themselves are allowed to break the facade and utter anachronisms or explain technological gadgets. This, in my opinion gives the book an air of mystery as initially the reader is not privy to the inner workings of this world. It is plain that the magic of the setting is not at all magical, that the individuals who call themselves gods are not at all divine, and that the two moons in the sky, and planetary rings suggest visible at night suggest the story is not taking place on Earth at all.

Part of the fun with this book is slowly unraveling the mysteries of the setting, so I wouldn’t want to spoil too much of the plot. It will suffice to say it is worth reading. The characters are rather vibrant and colorful, and you come to enjoy them. Zelazny is a great storyteller an he weaves the plot threads well in a non-linear fashion creating a tapestry of legends and allegories about an enigmatic hero who is sometimes a prince, sometimes an enlightened teacher, sometimes a traveler possessed by demons and sometimes counted as one of the mighty gods who forged the world. Each story is another piece of the puzzle that helps you understand the enigmatic opening chapter in which someone or some thing is yanked out of Nirvana and incarnated into a human body, to aid a conspiracy in plot to topple Heaven.

I should probably also add that the protagonist is actually someone I could easily relate to and identify with: Sam is the last of the Accelerationist. He is the Prometheus of his world: one who aims to advance the technological progress and bring about change at any cost. His ideals mirror those of mine and I would like to think that if I was in his place I’d embark on a similar quest.

If you liked Simmon’s Illium novels, I highly recommend this book. If you didn’t like them, it is still worth picking up, considering it is shorter, more succinct and strikingly different not only with respect to the setting but also to the writing style. It is just a joy to read.

However, in my honest oppinion Miéville shines when he is doing Science Fiction. I absolutely loved his The City and The City and Embassytown novels – both of which were smart, poignant and intriguing – much more than his trademark fantasy books.

The Scar, is another book in the New Corbuzon series – it takes place in the same universe as Perdido Street Statiom but it is not a straight sequel. While it references the events and characters from the first book, it has a whole new cast of characters and a new city.

You see, cities are essentially characters in Miéville’s literature. Perdido had the corrupt, dirty and diverse New Corbuzon. The City and the City had the “cleaved”, space sharing city states. Embassytown had… Well, Embassytown. He spends as much time describing and developing his cities as he spends on his heroes – sometimes more. The Scar is no different – it takes place in Armada – a floating pirate capitol of the world. And as such it is unsurprisingly weird.

The Scar: Book Cover

Do you remember that floating town from Waterworld? It’s kinda like that but times a thousand. It is a gigantic city-state composed of thousands of ships, rafts, platforms and random flotsam bound together into a huge metropolis. Ships are re-built and re-fitted as housing projects, gardens, factories and etc. It is not merely a pirate base but a fully functioning, self sufficient mobile city. It has schools, places of worship, universities, parks, theaters, concert halls, libraries and everything else you would expect in a large metropolitan area. While the city profits from piracy, most of it’s citizens are not actually sailors, and never live their floating capitol. In fact, only those who prove themselves to be loyal and trustworthy are allowed to sail the seas and pillage in the name of their home city.

You see, a large number of Armadans are not natives. While many were born there, more are “press-ganged” captives. Whenever Armadan pirates take over a trade ship, they execute high ranking officers and take the crew and passengers captive. They are then given lodgings and jobs in the city that fit their past professions and skills. They are not allowed to leave, but are otherwise free to live the rest of their life in the city, as long as they abide by it’s laws. For some – like New Corbuzon slaves and criminals “rescued” from being transported to hard labor camps, this is an improvement and they welcome their piratical overlords and pledge their loyalty to them.

Here is the thing about Armada: despite it’s compulsory citizenry, it is otherwise quite democratic and liberal. Instead of being ruled by some despotic pirate king it is divided into independent “ridings” – each with it’s own political system, militia and philosophy. There is a democratic riding, a theocratic one, one ruled by a merchant king, one ruled by a vampire who extracts a “gore tax” from his citizens and etc.. Citizens pay taxes and must abide by the decrees of the riding where they live, but are free to move at any time. Furthermore, Armada has no aristocracy and recognizes no class. All citizens are equal, and their position in the social strata is mostly based on merit. It is a place where vampires can openly walk the street without prosecution, and remade can become respected politicians or administrators.

While ridings quarrel, play political games trying to outmaneuver and out profit each other they never really stoop to physical force or military conflicts. While internally fractured and conflicted the Armada is unified against outside enemies.

Our protagonist is Bellis Coldwine, a New Corbuzon native who is running from the state Militia due to her ties to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin (the protagonist of Perdido Street Station). Isaac is on the lam after the events of the first book, and the state is determined to find him – and so all his friends start to disappear. Rather than risk a close encounter with the New Corbuzon militia, Bellis leaves for the distant colonies. Her plan is to rough it out for a year or two, and then catch a ship back to her home city when things quiet down. Unfortunately, Armada expeditionary force boards her vessel, executes all the high ranking commanders and takes the crew and passengers as captives. And so she becomes an unwilling inhabitant of a strange alien city full of pirates.

And she is not happy. While the prospects of ever leaving the city look bleak, she decides not to give up. She is determined to escape no matter the odds. And the odds improve as she discovers there is something big and nefarious going on in Armada. There is something underneath the city – enormous structures tucked away under the hulls of major ships, camouflaged and obscured by hexes. There are legions of scientists building strange machines, and pouring over ancient texts, searching for something. The rulers of the Armada have some plan, but it’s details are hidden from the citizens.

The Scar has a colorful cast of characters, and reveals a lot of new and interesting details about the “Bas-Lag” setting. Miéville does a lot of world building, introducing new races, new lore and new mysteries to his universe. It is fun and interesting adventure romp. Unfortunately it is nowhere near as poignant and riveting as Perdido Street Station. Part of the problem here are the characters.

Bellis is just not as easy to identify with as Isaac. She is cold, calculating, selfish and proud. She is careful not to form attachments to people, and she makes a point of giving all Armadans the cold shoulder as an act of defiance. Compare this to the New Corbuzon scientist from the first novel who was driven by passion: he was passionate about his work, made genuine connections with his clients and always spoke his mind, even if it offended people. He was a crude, rude ball of passion – driven, ambitious and in love. Bellis is the exact opposite – she is aloof, detached and somber. The side effects are that for her, the stakes are never high. Bellis only cares about herself and so she is never really in danger of losing someone. And when she does lose people, she is more bewildered that she actually misses them, than distraught.

Other characters are no better. Uther Doul is essentially a superhero (or rather a super-powered henchman). Silas Fenec, a spy deals in deception too much to serve as a point of view anchor. The engineer Tanner Sack and his young friend Shekel are the closest we get to actual likable protagonists, but Miéville keeps them in the background and focuses mainly on Bellis.

Granted, you can make a cold, calculating and aloof character interesting. Take the TV-series Dexter for example: he is a bloodthirsty, emotionless sociopath. And yet, when put in a right social context and with right framing devices, the audiences can fully empathise with him. And while he may or may not care about his family, the audience does, and becomes invested in that relationship. The Scar just does not have that.

So to summarize: The Scar is much more colorful than Perdido Street Station, but doesn’t have it’s emotional impact. The characters are weaker, and less identifiable – especially the protagonist. None of the side characters has the pathos of Yagharek – the wingless Garuda exile, and some (like Uther Doul) even take on annoying Mary Sue qualities as the book goes on. It is a weaker book, but for what it’s worth, its still entertaining.

Anansi Boys Cover

While Anansi Boys takes place in the same universe as American Gods, the two books are quite different when it comes to style, mood and pacing. While the later was mostly serious (albeit often light hearted, and humorous) the former is outwardly funny. And it is not really situational humor, or some hammed up absurdism. The humor in the novel stems from Gaiman’s razor sharp with. It’s the way he describes his characters, sets up his scenes and conducts narration. His off-hand observations are so astute, and assembled so meticulously to maximize humorous payload, that you can’t help but grin when you read them.

The story is nowhere near as epic as that of American Gods. Fat Charlie – a very average, very boring and very ordinary man finds out that his estranged late father indeed a legendary spider god Anansi, and that he has a brother he has never met. When charlie tries to reconnect with his long lost sibling, he fails to realize that inviting a trickster demi-god into your life is probably not a great idea. He could for example steal your girlfriend, get you fired, convert your spare room to some some tropical island palace and get you in trouble with the law. And it turns out it is not that easy to kick out an unwelcome god out of your apartment. So charlie seeks help from other gods, which only causes more trouble.

It’s not especially deep, but somewhat thoughtful and cute little story about overcoming adversity, finding love and/or confidence and bunch of other stuff. It’s a quick and enjoyable read. If you want to pick up some light reading, or you just look for a book that is genuinely funny without trying to hard (Gaiman’s humor is subtle but insidious) this is a book for you.

Perdido Street Station Cover

Why do I like Perdido Street Station? Because it is a strikingly imaginative and original book. A lot of times when you pick up fantasy themed steam punk novels (or steam punk themed fantasy for that matter) what you get is Victorian era London with some wizards, Dwarves and Elves forcefully squeezed into the setting. But Miéville’s setting is fresh, and unconventional. He could have easily build the backdrop for his story using the same, tired Fantasy/Steam Punk writers handbook everyone else seems to be using, but he decided not to. He did the opposite: he went out of his way to make his setting to be different.

For one, his New Crobuzon city is not London and does not really resemble it in any way shape or form. It is a sprawling, totalitarian city state existing in a bizarre fantastic world very much unlike Victorian England. The interesting point is that the novel is as much about the city itself as about the characters who inhabit it. Unlike many authors who treat their locations as merely backdrops for their stories, Miéville makes his fictional city one of the main characters. It is a living, breathing place with specific geography, unique architecture, it’s own micro climate and breeds of pests and rodents.

I’m not sure if you have traveled to many big cities – I don’t travel often, but I grew up in one. Each city I ever have visited had a different vibe to it – a specific feel and character. It was something that hangs in the air and permanganate everything. It’s the mixing of the slums culture, the exotic flavors of the foreign quarters and bazaars, the haughty air of the high end boroughs, the ever-present dirt, the smog, the smells, the bird shit on the statures – all of that mixing together to form a flavor specific to that one city. Miéville’s absolutely captures that in his prose. His description of the city’s architectural mess, and it’s people manages to convey this feeling quite clearly. New Corbuzon feels like a real place, while at the same time being outlandish, exotic and fantastic.

Second, while the city is inhabited by many fantastic inhuman races, Miéville avoids the standard Tolkienesque bestiary. You won’t find Elves or Dwarves in New Corbuzon and I’m thankful for that. Not that I have any problem with these standard Fantasy races – they are great for stuff like D&D where they provide you with pre-made character archetypes. But in literature, this often becomes a crutch. When you see the word Dwarf on the page, you already know everything there is to know about this particular character. You know he wears a beard, you know he is probably either a warrior or a smith, you know he loves beer and loud drunken singalong, you know that his favorite weapon is an axe or a hammer, you know he dislikes Elves and hates Orks, you know he is probably honorable and trustworthy fellow, you imagine him having a Scottish accent… The writer does not even have to say one word beyond “Dwarf” and you already will have a firm grasp at who the character is, where is he coming from, his aspirations, morals and etc.. At that point he either has to subvert this archetype, or reinforce it… Either way this is not the best way to create subtly nuanced characters.

Miéville went back to the drawing board and built his fantasy races based on an entirely different set of mythical beasts. He built his insect headed Khepri based on an especially funky member of Egyptian pantheon, his frog-like Vodyanoi on eastern European mythology, his flying Garuda on Indonesian folklore, and his Cactus people on… Fuck… I don’t know – cartoons of cacti with faces I guess.

The point is that these original races are blank slates without any cognitive baggage. They can be described as real people rather than single minded stereotypes. And that’s exactly what Miéville does. He takes a great care not to pigeon-hole his newly created fantastic races. He writes about their culture, their religion and customs but he never tries to define their personalities based on the race.

He lets them define themselves through their actions, the things they say and glimpses at their internal monologues. His characters are interesting and dynamic. They change, they suffer, they overcome adversity – they drive the plot forward rather than being driven by it. They are far from being some cardboard cut-out action hero stand-ins you often see in fantasy. They are not defined by their profession or archetype – they define it.

If you happen to be a fan of Steam Punk, you will likely enjoy this book very much. If not, you still can safely check it out just to see what can be done with this genre. It is thought out, very well written and original novel. It’s definitely worth checking out.