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Faction Paradox #13
Faction Paradox: Weapons Grade Snake Oil
“There she goes. Running flat out. Little Sojourner. Not really dressed for a sprint. Moves pretty fast for a woman of her age though. She’s carrying something. Hard to see from this far away.
Maybe, if we moved a little closer.
Sojourner has a gun in each hand. She swings them, awkwardly as she dashes across the gravel. Barefoot. Her evening dress looks a mess. That backpack looks heavy. There’s a sheen to her dark skin. But, look; it isn’t sweat. It’s blood.
That isn’t a pattern on her dress either. That’s blood too. Her braids are spraying a trail of red in their wake. That’s a lot of blood.
It’s not her blood.
Maybe, if we moved a little closer.
Sojourner has a gun in each hand. She swings them, awkwardly as she dashes across the gravel. Barefoot. Her evening dress looks a mess. That backpack looks heavy. There’s a sheen to her dark skin. But, look; it isn’t sweat. It’s blood.
That isn’t a pattern on her dress either. That’s blood too. Her braids are spraying a trail of red in their wake. That’s a lot of blood.
It’s not her blood.
208 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 10, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 22, 2017
It's been a few weeks since I read this book, and time constraints have not allowed me to write this review any sooner.
For this reason, some of the specific things I may have wished to comment upon while reading the book may have slipped my mind. Nonetheless, here are my thoughts on the book as a whole.
The Faction Paradox universe has fostered some truly wonderful pieces of fiction. In fact, the quality level is so high for the series that when I label "Weapons Grade Snake Oil" as middle-of-the-pack for this property, it is in no way a dismissal.
If this book is more "Head of State"/"Warring States" than "Newtons Sleep"/"Brakespeare Voyage" it only means that it is a very good book and doesn't quite hit the heights of those in the Faction Paradox universe that I feel are among the best novels I have ever read.
Like the best Faction fiction, it is full of ideas. Possibly too many, in that there are so many notions tossed out that I wish would be explored more fully and I often found myself wanting the book to be about some of those ideas rather than the story we were getting.
But then the next great idea would happen, and I'd want to follow that one. And so on, and so on.
Somewhat unusually for the Faction (though hardly unprecedented) this book focuses mainly on fun. It is in nature a 'heist' story, though a unique take on one. Rebellious Faction member Father Christémas has a plan to steal a relic of the time before the anchoring of the thread - an item called the "2nd Second".
To do this, he puts together an unlikely team that includes Faction runaway Sojourner Hooper-Agogo, his own servant Cousin Chaz, and the Time Lo-- er, "Houseworlder" called The Hussar with his own assistant Anne Bonny. There's a lot of double-crossing and conflicting agendas at play, which allows for some very nice character interplay that doesn't unfold as you might expect.
The neatest ideas are not the vaguely-defined concepts like the 2nd Second or Blue Praxis, but concepts behind entire cultures like the cymbiotes [sic - and for a reason] where Sojo comes from, or the gambling society of the Chance Coteries.
My favorites, though, are related to The Hussar and his assistant, real-life pirate Anne Bonny. This estranged Houseworlder has gone through elective semantectomy to have his given name removed - leaving only the title of The Hussar. The implications for the series which Faction Paradox spun off of are quite intriguing.
Also, his relationship with his timeship, the Kraken, is... interesting. Sadly Anne Bonny isn't as good as the red-headed historical character from another Faction novel (the incomparable "Newtons Sleep") but she is interesting enough in her own way. She certainly doesn't get as much exposure as Aphra Behn did in the other book, as she is not as central a character.
Each (short) chapter is given a "Dune"-style quotation at the beginning. Some of these are fascinating; some have the feel of later "Dune" books where Frank Herbert was clearly long grown weary of the necessity he had given himself of coming up with this stuff every few pages. As there are even some real excerpts among the fake ones (I think?) it lends a real authenticity to the world(s) being created.
If there's a particular failure with the book then it is sadly with the heist plot itself - which is central to the book's narrative. The rules are vague, the destination unclear, and the resolution abrupt and deliberately confusing.
I get that this is Faction Paradox and there are things we simply will not understand. But the way it plays out is unsatisfying, underwhelming, and as far as I can tell, not actually set up in any way. (Though I'm happy to be proven wrong on this in subsequent rereads.)
That this bathetic resolution does not damage the book as a whole is a testament to the fact that everything else is not only done well, but is engaging enough that the plot basically is of little interest anyway. I do dearly wish we could have spent some more time with the Bankside crew. I haven't even talked here about Cousin Haribeaux (whose cybernetic nature and nomenclature could lead one to associate him with the Kandyman!) or Cousin Rupert and what they get up to together.
Nor the politics of the Eleven Day Empire, and what Godmother Antigone has planned for Father Christémas. For that matter, Sojo herself and the future of her society would be enough for a complex and satisfactory novel.
All of this stuff being lumped in together means that none of it gets developed fully, but feels instead like existing realities we get a mere taste of before necessarily moving on. "Weapons Grade Snake Oil" is a cruise ship where we barely go on shore before it's time for the next leg of the trip. Sure, we miss the exciting locale we just visited, but there's something just as inviting around the bend.
And I loved all of it.
(3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 if we ignore the distracting typos throughout)
For this reason, some of the specific things I may have wished to comment upon while reading the book may have slipped my mind. Nonetheless, here are my thoughts on the book as a whole.
The Faction Paradox universe has fostered some truly wonderful pieces of fiction. In fact, the quality level is so high for the series that when I label "Weapons Grade Snake Oil" as middle-of-the-pack for this property, it is in no way a dismissal.
If this book is more "Head of State"/"Warring States" than "Newtons Sleep"/"Brakespeare Voyage" it only means that it is a very good book and doesn't quite hit the heights of those in the Faction Paradox universe that I feel are among the best novels I have ever read.
Like the best Faction fiction, it is full of ideas. Possibly too many, in that there are so many notions tossed out that I wish would be explored more fully and I often found myself wanting the book to be about some of those ideas rather than the story we were getting.
But then the next great idea would happen, and I'd want to follow that one. And so on, and so on.
Somewhat unusually for the Faction (though hardly unprecedented) this book focuses mainly on fun. It is in nature a 'heist' story, though a unique take on one. Rebellious Faction member Father Christémas has a plan to steal a relic of the time before the anchoring of the thread - an item called the "2nd Second".
To do this, he puts together an unlikely team that includes Faction runaway Sojourner Hooper-Agogo, his own servant Cousin Chaz, and the Time Lo-- er, "Houseworlder" called The Hussar with his own assistant Anne Bonny. There's a lot of double-crossing and conflicting agendas at play, which allows for some very nice character interplay that doesn't unfold as you might expect.
The neatest ideas are not the vaguely-defined concepts like the 2nd Second or Blue Praxis, but concepts behind entire cultures like the cymbiotes [sic - and for a reason] where Sojo comes from, or the gambling society of the Chance Coteries.
My favorites, though, are related to The Hussar and his assistant, real-life pirate Anne Bonny. This estranged Houseworlder has gone through elective semantectomy to have his given name removed - leaving only the title of The Hussar. The implications for the series which Faction Paradox spun off of are quite intriguing.
Also, his relationship with his timeship, the Kraken, is... interesting. Sadly Anne Bonny isn't as good as the red-headed historical character from another Faction novel (the incomparable "Newtons Sleep") but she is interesting enough in her own way. She certainly doesn't get as much exposure as Aphra Behn did in the other book, as she is not as central a character.
Each (short) chapter is given a "Dune"-style quotation at the beginning. Some of these are fascinating; some have the feel of later "Dune" books where Frank Herbert was clearly long grown weary of the necessity he had given himself of coming up with this stuff every few pages. As there are even some real excerpts among the fake ones (I think?) it lends a real authenticity to the world(s) being created.
If there's a particular failure with the book then it is sadly with the heist plot itself - which is central to the book's narrative. The rules are vague, the destination unclear, and the resolution abrupt and deliberately confusing.
I get that this is Faction Paradox and there are things we simply will not understand. But the way it plays out is unsatisfying, underwhelming, and as far as I can tell, not actually set up in any way. (Though I'm happy to be proven wrong on this in subsequent rereads.)
That this bathetic resolution does not damage the book as a whole is a testament to the fact that everything else is not only done well, but is engaging enough that the plot basically is of little interest anyway. I do dearly wish we could have spent some more time with the Bankside crew. I haven't even talked here about Cousin Haribeaux (whose cybernetic nature and nomenclature could lead one to associate him with the Kandyman!) or Cousin Rupert and what they get up to together.
Nor the politics of the Eleven Day Empire, and what Godmother Antigone has planned for Father Christémas. For that matter, Sojo herself and the future of her society would be enough for a complex and satisfactory novel.
All of this stuff being lumped in together means that none of it gets developed fully, but feels instead like existing realities we get a mere taste of before necessarily moving on. "Weapons Grade Snake Oil" is a cruise ship where we barely go on shore before it's time for the next leg of the trip. Sure, we miss the exciting locale we just visited, but there's something just as inviting around the bend.
And I loved all of it.
(3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 if we ignore the distracting typos throughout)
May 16, 2017
"All this death-cult, goth-wank, slumming-it-with-the-mortals bollocks!"
It takes a special kind of writer to look at Kelsey Hooper — of Sarah Jane Adventures pilot fame — and decide to make her the freaking President of Pluto.
Where previous Faction novel Head Of State briefly alluded to Transmetropolitan, Weapons Grade Snake Oil is a full-on homage to that genre: an outrageous, gory, sexy, over-the-top Troma cyberpunk adventure. And it's delicious. All the gothic pomp of Faction Paradox gets thoroughly mocked and basically thrown out the window, to be replaced by wonderful B-movie sensibilities.
As in all the best Faction stories, there's a strong focus here on identity as a liminal construct. In addition to the thoughts on cloning and re-iteration that have been established in previous books, Bidmead goes for a very classic sci-fi approach in examining the links between enhanced organic beings and their bonded droids. Hooper's deep merging with her cybermammoth familiar is heartwarming and feels truly genuine, while on the other end of the story a renegade Time Lord psychically interfaces with his TARDIS via — ahem, sweaty naked tentacle sex. The whole narrative drips with fun, like a massive love letter to all the weird little corners and nooks of cult sci-fi pulp.
Joining these characters are a small Faction group from the South Bank of the Eleven Day Empire (not as gothy, not as creepy, bursting onto the scene with Geordie accents and a gaudy pink-tinged sky), a Homeworlder Godmother who's just 100% done with everything, and her very doomed assistant. Once all of them have been established, the plot takes a sudden swerve at the halfway point into a heist ploy, with a mythical old Gallifreyan relic as its mystery MacGuffin.
Overall, it's good, it's fast, it's daring, and it establishes some really nice lore. Probably one of the least grimdark Faction books out there — but thanks to its musings on class warfare, bourgeois thievery, capitalist power dynamics and the market value of people and their tragedies, also probably the most Brechtian one.
It takes a special kind of writer to look at Kelsey Hooper — of Sarah Jane Adventures pilot fame — and decide to make her the freaking President of Pluto.
Where previous Faction novel Head Of State briefly alluded to Transmetropolitan, Weapons Grade Snake Oil is a full-on homage to that genre: an outrageous, gory, sexy, over-the-top Troma cyberpunk adventure. And it's delicious. All the gothic pomp of Faction Paradox gets thoroughly mocked and basically thrown out the window, to be replaced by wonderful B-movie sensibilities.
As in all the best Faction stories, there's a strong focus here on identity as a liminal construct. In addition to the thoughts on cloning and re-iteration that have been established in previous books, Bidmead goes for a very classic sci-fi approach in examining the links between enhanced organic beings and their bonded droids. Hooper's deep merging with her cybermammoth familiar is heartwarming and feels truly genuine, while on the other end of the story a renegade Time Lord psychically interfaces with his TARDIS via — ahem, sweaty naked tentacle sex. The whole narrative drips with fun, like a massive love letter to all the weird little corners and nooks of cult sci-fi pulp.
Joining these characters are a small Faction group from the South Bank of the Eleven Day Empire (not as gothy, not as creepy, bursting onto the scene with Geordie accents and a gaudy pink-tinged sky), a Homeworlder Godmother who's just 100% done with everything, and her very doomed assistant. Once all of them have been established, the plot takes a sudden swerve at the halfway point into a heist ploy, with a mythical old Gallifreyan relic as its mystery MacGuffin.
Overall, it's good, it's fast, it's daring, and it establishes some really nice lore. Probably one of the least grimdark Faction books out there — but thanks to its musings on class warfare, bourgeois thievery, capitalist power dynamics and the market value of people and their tragedies, also probably the most Brechtian one.
March 9, 2022
I really enjoyed this book and found it a page turner. I think it was partly just the right book at the right time, as I'd been reading some less interesting, more predictable books recently. This is the first novel I've read based on the Faction Paradox, but I'd previously read a book of short stories (which I found a largely difficult), A Romance in Twelve Parts. Perhaps my enjoyment of the book was assisted by my knowledge that it would be a mix of Cyberpunk sci-fi, with a long and confusing cannon of this world of all powerful time travelers.
If I hadn't done any of previous background googling around the 11 day empire, and timelord lore etc I probably would have found this a difficult read as well. But this has spurred me to read some more Faction Paradox in the future. Lots of fun with the concept of a heist plot, but with timey wimey elements.
If I hadn't done any of previous background googling around the 11 day empire, and timelord lore etc I probably would have found this a difficult read as well. But this has spurred me to read some more Faction Paradox in the future. Lots of fun with the concept of a heist plot, but with timey wimey elements.
March 22, 2020
A lot of fun, I just wanted more of it really, felt like it ended too soon. Cousin Haribeaux, by all accounts literally a giant Haribo teddy bear with a brain and nervous system, was a particular highlight.
September 12, 2017
I really liked it, though I'm not usually a fan of heist stories, kind of hard not to give away any spoilers either, the Kraken has to win some awards for coolest story element
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews