I’m sure you can see where this is going.

I actually would have made it if I hadn’t decided to finish re-reading The Briar King. Three pages from the end — WHOOSH! Instant cloudburst!

So I finished the book, zipped the full-sized hardcover into my jacket, and proceeded to run from Coffee Bean to the parking structure, pausing under overhangs when I found them. There’s a surprising lack of shelter at the Irvine Spectrum, not counting the stores themselves. It wasn’t until I got to the structure that I realized I’d been running with a coffee cup in my hand.

Amazingly enough, even though I got soaked, I managed to keep the book dry!

(Reposted from LiveJournal.)

Julie E. Czerneda — I read the Trade Pact Universe trilogy last year, and I’m about half-way through the stand-alone novel, In the Company of Others, which means I’ve read just over half her novels. That leaves the Web Shifters trilogy and the two books so far of Stratification.

Robert J. Sawyer — since last year I’ve only read two of his books: Rollback and Flashforward (reviewed here). Though I made a point of attending his panel at Comic-Con International in July.

Robert Charles Wilson — Somehow managed not to read anything of his last year.

Greg Keyes — Re-read the first three books of The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, then read the final volume, The Born Queen, after it was released. Received The Hounds of Ash for Christmas, a collection of short stories set in the same universe as The Waterborn and Blackgod, and I got two stories in before I decided I wanted to re-read the novels.

Neil Gaiman — I read The Graveyard Book when it came out last fall (thanks to my brother for sending a signed copy from the SF reading!), but I can’t think of anything else (other than his blog) that I’ve read during the past year.

Other authors/titles I’ve read over the past year: Connie Willis (Bellwether), Robert Asprin (several Myth Adventures books), Naomi Novik (Fifth Temeraire novel, Victory of Eagles), Larry Niven (entire Ringworld series), George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones, sorry, not a fan), JMS (various B5 scriptbooks). Soon I Will Be Invincible (reviewed), Gateway, Night in Times Past, The Flash Companion, plus bunches of comics and tons of stuff online.

It was well worth the wait.

The series is set two millennia after humans, led by Virginia Dare (explaining where the lost Roanoke colonists went), overthrew the demonic race that had kept them as slaves for generations. Virginia had discovered how to harness the sedos power, essentially magic. The last of humanity’s oppressors warned them that the sedos would eventually destroy their world. Of course, no one believed him.

2200 years later, this corner of the world is not unlike Europe in the early Renaissance. Except that the church is based on the sedos, in the person of saints, and its priests walk the paths to harness the sedos powers.

The world is also beginning to rot. Things of nature are dying, human alliances are crumbling, and terrible creatures thought to be myth are walking the earth. There are several factions who claim that they want to save it, but their true goals are suspect, and their methods differ greatly. The various viewpoint characters are thrust into the middle of things without any real sense of what’s going on: a holter, a princess, a novice priest, a knight, a swordsman, a composer and a queen.

One of the things I find so fascinating about this series (as I mentioned when I first read The Blood Knight) is the fact that everyone is acting on partial information. This makes them screw up, sometimes mildly, sometimes horrifically. And there’s a curveball that comes about 1/3 of the way into The Born Queen that turns everything on its head.

I don’t think it’ll give too much away to say that one of the key struggles in this book is for control of the sedos. Even 100 pages from the end, I wasn’t sure which faction would give the world a better chance of surviving.

Music also figures importantly, starting with the second book, where it’s learned that certain combinations of sound can have a profound effect on the human psyche. I found myself wondering whether Keyes had someone set any of the songs to music.

By the end of The Born Queen, most of the major questions about what’s really going on have been answered. Of course, they’re answered in pieces, by different characters with different agendas. The major characters’ arcs reach (mostly) satisfying conclusions, with some finding what they want, some finding what they need, some doing what needs to be done, and some getting what they deserve.

It’s weird to finally be done with the series, which started around the same time as this blog. The first post that I made that wasn’t “Hey, look! I have a blog!” was a review of The Waterborn and The Blackgod, Greg Keyes’ first novel and its sequel. In it, I mentioned looking forward to The Briar King when it came out.

Meanwhile, I’ve been talking about the books* a lot, trying not to drop spoilers in case Katie might read them at some point in the future.  The night I finished book two, I had come home to find her on the couch, reading the first book.  Since she not only reads faster than I do, but has more time on her hands these days, she’s caught up.

It’s nice to really be able to talk about the books, especially since I remember so little of the one we’re both currently reading.

The funny thing is, at this rate, she’ll probably finish the series before I do!

*Greg Keyes’ The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone

I’ve enjoyed re-reading them, though, and while I remembered The Briar King quite well, it’s clear I’ve forgotten enough of books 2 and 3 that it will be well-worth having them fresh in my mind.

Now that I’ve got the final volume here, I think I’ll look for more of those 20-minute chunks of time.

I was hoping to time things so that I’d be done with The Blood Knight just in time to pick up The Born Queen, but I was in the middle of the Trade Pact books and didn’t want to break up the trilogy. Then there was the trip to San Francisco, WonderCon, and New Frontier, and I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to post things while they’re still current.

On a related note, I stumbled across Ringworld’s Children in Borders the other day. I read a lot of Larry Niven in college, mostly the classics plus a few from the 1990s, but after The Burning City bored me to tears—I never finished it, which is rare for me—I stopped following his new releases. I’m going to have to return to Ringworld at some point, though.

Robert J. Sawyer — read the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy a year or two ago, and more recently Calculating God. Currently reading Mindscan. His work tends to be social science-fiction: if X technological advance occurs, or Y scientific principle is discovered, what impact will that have on society? To read: 9 more stand-alone novels and a trilogy. Could take a while.

Robert Charles Wilson — read Chronoliths, Darwinia and Bios within the space of a few months of each other, maybe around 5 years ago. To read: 10 novels.

Strangely enough, looking them up I’ve discovered that all 3 of them are Canadian.

Also: Two authors I’d really like to see more from:

Greg Keyes — I was introduced to his work through his Babylon 5 novels (back when he was writing as J. Gregory Keyes), then went on to track down his own work. The Age of Unreason cycle is also quite good, and I’ve previously reviewed The Waterborn and Blackgod. At this point, I’ve read every novel he’s published. The Born Queen comes out in March, finishing the 4-book Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone cycle, which means I need to start re-reading the first three books next month.

Neil Gaiman — dark fantasy, mythic fantasy, whatever you want to call it. Discovered through Sandman (yeah, big surprise). My favorite of his novels is probably either American Gods or Neverwhere. Need to track down more of his short stories, though.

I’ve previously mentioned that Gaiman and Keyes are the only authors whose work I’ll immediately pick up in hardcover, no questions asked.

Re-reading The Briar King and The Charnel Prince both followed the same pattern: I read half of the book over the course of the week, then finished it on the weekend. I started the new book, The Blood Knight on Saturday morning and basically spent the weekend on the couch reading. About ¾ of the way in I realized acutely that, no matter how fast I read it, there would still be one book left when I finished.

It’s funny, when I first read The Briar King I didn’t like it much. I think mainly I was expecting something less steeped in medieval Europe (based on The Waterborn and The Blackgod). I picked up The Charnel Prince anyway, and liked it much better, and quite enjoyed The Briar King when I reread it.

One thing that’s unusual about this series is that there’s no Merlin figure. No Gandalf to show up in the first few chapters and explain what the Ring is, who wants it, and what has to be done with it. No Moiraine to explain who the Forsaken are, and what it means to be the Dragon Reborn. All the characters are pretty much figuring things out as they go. And they make mistakes—pretty nasty ones in some cases.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that Greg Keyes and Neil Gaiman are the only authors whose work I will buy in hardcover, sight unseen. Looking at Keyes’ website, I realized that I actually own a copy of every book he’s published. There aren’t too many authors I can say that about.

Only 1½ years until The Born Queen…

Now, The Age of Unreason is probably Keyes’ most well-known work to date. (If the title doesn’t sound familiar, chances are you’ve heard of the first novel, Newton’s Cannon). It takes place in an alternate Eighteenth Century in which Isaac Newton discovered the key to alchemy, transforming the world with new technology… and setting off an arms race of sorts. What begins as an alternate history becomes an epic battle for the future of the world, and ultimately of humanity itself.

While I’d recommend someone curious about Keyes’ writing start with Newton’s Cannon, I’d like to call attention to his earliest published novels, The Waterborn and The Blackgod, collectively known as The Chosen of the Changeling.

The world of these novels is one in which there are spirits, or gods, in every place, in every stone or tree, in every forest, meadow, or stream. One of the main characters, a young man named Perkar, eager to prove himself to his family, his clan, and the stream goddess he loves, sets out with his king to negotiate with the Forest God. But Perkar has his own quest in mind, one which he has not thought out as well as he could, but one which ultimately changes the world.

At the other end of the world is Hezhi, a princess in an empire which worships the River as the only living god. According to legend, the royal family are descended from the River himself, and they have powers themselves. But sometimes, as they reach the cusp of adolescence, those of royal blood are taken away, and never seen again. And Hezhi is nearing that age. Her quest is one not of deeds but discovery, as she seeks to learn what happens to those who are taken away, what it means, and what fate lies in store for her.

The Waterborn is Keyes’ first published novel, and is definitely less polished than his later works. Perhaps the hardest part about reading the book is Perkar’s incredible stupidity through much of the book until he finally begins to realize what his mistakes have cost him. However, it does inform the character, and the consequences are explored more fully in the second book.

One thing Keyes excels at is taking his viewpoint characters from opposing societies, ideologies, or allegiances. He is the only author on The New Jedi Order to actually make me root for one of the Yuuzhan Vong, for instance, and he does a good job at keeping Ben Franklin and Adrienne on opposite sides for much of the Unreason series. Here, too, he successfully keeps both Hezhi and Perkar interesting and sympathetic even though it is unclear whether they will become allies or enemies. He takes this ability even further in the second book, which introduces a third character who is clearly opposed to both Hezhi and Perkar, whose motives are definitely villainous, and yet who you can’t help but hope will succeed (at least until he comes into direct conflict with the others).

While The Waterborn is a good fantasy novel in itself, it is The Blackgod which really shines. The first novel manages to tell a complete story, and yet everything in the second novel occurs as a natural consequence of the events in the first. It also presents a third society (culture clash is another thing Keyes is good at), deepens the history of the world, and deepens its mythology. If the first book is about meeting one’s destiny, the second is about finding one’s identity, as many characters face questions of loyalty, independence, and morality.

Lastly, one one the interesting things about the world Keyes has created is that it is not the standard European medieval fantasy setting. The closest analog I could think of to the real world would be the trio of Russian, Mongol, and Chinese, with a dose of Plains Indians thrown in with the Mongols. (Once I realized this, it helped me immensely in trying to decide how to pronounce the Nholish names!)

In summary:
The Waterborn: Good
The Blackgod: Excellent

I know this review has rambled considerably, but at least it fits in with the title!