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I really hate to give up on a book, but sometimes, there are too many other tempting things on the horizon to keep ploughing through an active read in the hopes it gets better. Today I put aside Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling. While I would have liked to have gone all the way to the end before making a judgement, there just over 9 hours still to go on the audiobook and the book has simply not given me enough to power through that.

At nearly 9 hours in (about halfway) my overall feeling towards this book is indifference. Towards the plot, towards the characters, towards the setting. It's very generic fantasy and just doesn't give much to bite onto outside of that. The first half of the plot has some fun adventure elements, but when the mentor-figure, Seregil, becomes incapacitated partway through, the youthful protagonist Alec is simply not enough to carry the story. The second half of the story is more political intrigue, and I can't help but compare it to The Traitor Baru Cormorant which I'm also currently reading, and that comparison does Luck in the Shadows no favors.

Seregil and Alec's escapades are fun, and it's interesting to see the creative ways they go about their tasks, but for me it's not enough to make up for the lackluster plot and detailed but unremarkable worldbuilding.

There's a disappointing dearth of women in the story, although one of the fantasy kingdoms in which the second half of the story takes place has been ruled by a succession of queens for centuries. There is some casual queerness in the story which I liked, but when I looked for more reviews on this to help me decide if it was worth pressing on, I learned (SPOILER) that Alec and Seregil become a couple later on. Given that Alec is barely sixteen at the start of this book, and Seregil is a middle-aged man, I'm just not here for it.

This is the first book of a series (the Nightrunner series), but my general feeling on series is that it's a cop-out to rely on later books to make up for weaknesses in earlier books. Particularly here, where each book gets longer, the author is asking for me to take a lot on trust that this story will get better with time.

I really wanted to like this book, as I really want to like all fantasy novels, but it's just not worth the amount of time investment needed. Also, in general, not looking for stories about adults falling in love with teenagers. Disappointing, but there are other things to move on to.

Crossposed to

books

Current Mood: disappointed

Last night I finished The Twilight Zone by Nona Fernandez, book #9 from the "Women in Translation" rec list. This book was translated from Spanish by Natasha Wimmer.

The Twilight Zone is a nonfiction book, part memoir, part investigative journalism piece by Fernandez, first published in 2016. It concerns Fernandez's study of and memories of growing up under the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. The author is haunted by the traumas of the regime, both those she experienced firsthand and those she heard about from others, and the book in some ways feels like an exercise in simply trying to reconcile those feelings.

Fernandez's book is of course very specific to the Chilean experience, and yet core parts of her incisive commentary about both the absurdity and the cruelty of autocracies rings true around the world. The exercises the regime goes through in its constant quest for self-preservation are both ridiculous and brutal, feelings Fernandez captures in her title. The surrealist sci-fi hit show of the 70s fits very well as a metaphor for the often-flailing yet eminently dangerous police state.

Fernandez does an excellent job of using her prose to say things not neatly spelled out in words. I was reminded of reading The Things They Carried in high school, and how revelatory it seemed to me at the time how the author could use the style of prose to suggest a character's mental disarrangement without simply saying he was deranged. Fernandez's prose stood out to me in a similar way—how she uses the structure of her words to capture the feelings at play.

Equally compelling is the obviously copious amounts of research Fernandez put into her work. She portrays herself as a woman consumed by a quest to find answers about this regime, and it comes across in her work. Names, dates, places, timelines — Fernandez has clearly put in the leg work to piece together the final days of the highlighted victims of the regime as much as can be done.

However, the book never comes across like a textbook. Fernandez ably weaves her research into a compelling narrative. Neither does she ever seek to blur the line between the facts and her imagination—she keeps a clean line between what she knows and what she wonders, or imagines. Nevertheless, the questions and suppositions that populate Fernandez's mind feel regrettably natural for anyone in the aggravating circumstances of a mendacious autocracy. She does an excellent job of showing how crazy-making it is to live under such a government, where you are constantly being lied to in direct contradiction of visible facts, and yet there seems to be nothing you can do but either accept the truth or taste the knuckles of the regime.

I really enjoyed this read. It breezed by and I can absolutely see what a national treasure Fernandez is as a writer! I would love to see if more of her work has been translated into English; she has a wonderful voice.

Crossposted to

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Hesitant to post this on tumblr because I don't want to kick off Discourse but "friendship ended with Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate 3 is my new best friend" is so the mood. BG3 has just been so much more FUN that Veilguard, and I say that as someone who was deeply invested in DA for years. Maybe part of that is just that I don't know enough about BG to know if this latest game has fucked its lore and screwed over returning characters (I know at least one person very unhappy with Viconia Devir's cameo) but I do think it's more than that. BG3 lets you roleplay in a way that Veilguard never does. All of the things you control about Rook in Veilguard--species, appearance, class, background--are essentially superficial. There are some unique dialogue options, but at the end of the day, you're playing Bioware's character Rook, who really cannot deviate from their canon attitude and personality. My first Tav, a tiefling monk who was kind-hearted but ultimately non-interventionist about a lot of things, could not be more different from my other two--a githyanki fighter who preferred to talk her way out of fights, and a dragonborn barbarian Durge who doesn't seek cruelty but nevertheless has left a trail of blood behind her. And all of these are things expressed in game separate and apart from any headcanons I have about them.

Your companions REACT to things! My first Tav had a pretty supportive friendship with Gale; my second barely knew his name; Durge was actually close to him before the Grove slaughter, after which he really wanted nothing to do with her. My first Tav and Wyll almost got together; in the current playthrough, he left the party entirely. Your companions in BG3 have views and beliefs of their own that seriously impact how they view Tav's actions and behavior and that makes the game so much more interesting!

There are things to explore! I let Shadowheart kill Aylin my first run, so meeting her in the second run was a surprise and a delight--and impacted several more quests than just Shadowheart's! I played Veilguard twice, and it really is one and done. If you've played it once, you've seen what it has to offer. Your choices are superficial, your companions are with you no matter what, and for Rook, all endings but one (the one where they themselves go into the Fade) pretty much have the same impact. Despite the amazing graphics and killer character creator and smooth combat, the game is ultimately boring, because it's a roleplaying game that doesn't let you roleplay.

Let's be real Kagha is not materially worse than at least half of the companions. "She threatened a child" Lae'zel and Shadowheart both explicitly approve of not intervening on Arabella's behalf; Lae'zel and Astarion both approve of siding with the goblins which involves slaughtering every child in the Grove; Astarion will kill a dozen or more Gur children to ascend unless Tav convinces him not to; Gale is trying to become a god almost expressly to get back at his ex-lover; Shadowheart kills an aasimar in chains unless Tav convinces her not to and may also kill her own parents in pursuit of Shar's will; Minthara encourages Tav both to embrace their heritage as Bhaal's chosen and to assume control of the Elder Brain...let's not start throwing stones from glass houses

I went into her tumblr tag and should have been expecting the vitriol in there (* ￣︿￣) I get it, she's not likeable, but to act like she's uniquely awful in the game is kind of laughable, even when you're comparing her only to Tav's friends/companions.

In other news, this fanfic has turned me onto the idea of Kagha/Minthara and now I can't let it go.

Below will be fanfic recs for BALDUR'S GATE 3, DRAGON AGE, MASS EFFECT, TOLKIEN, and a few miscellaneous.

Crossposted from tumblr and Pillowfort.

Past fanfic rec lists

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Current Music: Jump Into the Fire; Harry Nilsson

I'm looking for more fantasy and sci-fi, so if there are any titles that pop into mind, new or old, feel free to drop names below!

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