The Not a Book Club Club discussion
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Range of Ghosts
Eternal Sky
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RoG: Part 1 - Chapters 1-6
Mod
So far the most interesting part is the fact that some dude seems to be controlling ghosts.
I'm two chapters and a bit in, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm somewhat familiar with the history of central Asia in the period that she's drawing inspiration from, and I always enjoy the detective work of trying to figure out where things come from. I also have a deep love for horse cultures, so I think I'm the prime audience for this sort of book. The idea of gaining magical powers through neutering and giving up reproduction is fascinating to me. Can't wait to learn more.
Mod
It sounds like it to me, but I'm only partially through the chapter. She mentions that men survive the physical procedure more easily than the women, which would suggest hysterectomy as it is a very invasive procedure, especially at the level of surgical proficiency I assume they're at. I'm not sure what they're doing to the men but she says it is more emotionally difficult, so perhaps a little more than a vasectomy.
Mod
Yikes! seems as if that would make magic pretty rare
A hysterectomy is the removal of a woman's reproductive organs. Definitely an invasive surgery. However, if you are going to lose the ability to reproduce....well castration would be worse because you'd also lose all the fun. (Castration would also be less invasive.) Ha now I have to get that book and read at least the first few chapters! Whoever has it from the library is late turning it in!
Removal of the uterus and ovaries. There are variations on that - some operations leave the ovaries, etc, depending on why it's being done. Used to be done as a method of sterilisation before keyhole surgery hit big & they started simply tying tubes, etc; still done for a variety of reasons - cancer, severe endometriosis, damage in childbirth, etc. If they take the ovaries women go through menopause as the sex hormones are no longer being produced; I've a friend who had to have the procedure young and it was a pretty serious shock to the system.
Fun time with words! You can remember hysterectomy (the removal of the uterus) by also thinking about hysteria (a complaint specific to women, supposedly thought to occur because of the uterus wandering about the body but definitely thought to be a state of unreasonable excitement/nervousness caused by the uterus).
Much more medically advanced than I realised - love the nod to laparoscopy with the long instruments and mirrors & the emphasis on eating soy, which contains high levels of an estrogen-mimic to avoid the effects of early menopause. Natural HRT!
Also I think it might have been a surgery only to remove the ovaries based on her referencing 'her stones.'Right, I'll stop fixating on this now!
If we compared this to our history, I think Temur would be the same generation as Kublai Khan, right?
I made myself a chart (by which I mean I typed three names out), and yep, same generation. Though I keep wanting to think of him as a Temur/Timur/Tamerlane-analog, but that's a whole generation or two later.
I finished this section today and I think I'm the prime audience for this book - I know not everyone else is enjoying it but I'm loving it so far. One of the details that seemed perfect for a book dominated by myth is the sky changing as Temur crosses from his homeland into an area no longer part of the Khanate.
The Three Body Problem ruined that detail for me. I can't think about all those moons existing in the sky without thinking about how they'll rip the whole planet apart.
I'm at the end of chapter three, and I'm done there. It's off to a nice start, but not anything I'm interested in reading these days. Between this and the blurb, I've seen this particular schpiel beaten to death too many times to care anymore. And interesting as the window dressing happens to be, I'm looking for more from fantasy these days.
Mod
I'm probably not doing book 2 though, and at this point I'm not sure anyone besides Robyn may continue on. There have been mostly DNF..Crazy.
Its like Kameron Hurley's stuff; better than most of what's being bandied around the consumer-oriented ends of the genre, but still ultimately kitschy.
The reviews of it on goodreads and amazon are very positive - it has a higher average than most. My hold came in last night, so I'm going to go pick it up after class today. Then we'll see...
Its easy to see why. A year ago I would have devoured this.
I will maybe try to channel my less-fantasy-jaded-self as I read then :)
Mod
For me though I think it's more that the story is just moving too slow.
I've gotten extremely jaded as of late. Still managing to find a book or two here and there that excites me, though, so I can live with it.
Mod
yeah. I've noticed. :)
And that's totally fine. I'm mostly trying to mix it up some. I forget what percentage of my books last year was fantasy, but it was very high.
I read a little of SF and classic here and there, but nothing works as well as fantasy does for me. So I tend to read very little else.
Mod
We were discussing Bear (and this book a little) at my Sword and Laser meetup last weekend. One person had started this book and hadn't finished. It sounded like for many of the same reason that participants of this read have.
And a few of the others had read some of her Sci Fi stuff, but that had mixed reactions (some had liked it, while others didn't), but I don't remember the titles we discussed.
It sounded like for many of the same reason that participants of this read have. I have to admit I'm not really clear on what the reason is beyond Rob's dislike of the pacing (which I get; god knows I had very mixed feelings about The Goblin Emperor for this reason, it just doesn't bother me in this case). "It didn't grip me," is of course a perfectly valid reason to put it down, but I do still wonder what it was, exactly, that didn't work for people. I know I'm the lone liker* of the novel left, so of course I wouldn't get it right away, but I am genuinely curious.
*But maybe Suzanne will like it! I found it very easy to like and I have read SO MUCH fantasy lately.
Robyn, I'm hoping I'm in your camp! The pacing in The Goblin Emperor isn't bothering me at all either - so that's a good sign!
Rob, have you tried anything by Michael Moorcock yet?
It would actually surprise me if Robyn's the only person to like the book out of everyone that's trying it. Bear's a great writer. Kitschy, but hell if she doesn't vividly paint everything she wants you to see.
Mod
Nope.
The Eternal Champion is definitely the book to check out. After that I don't think you'll be short of stuff you really want to read.
Mod
I'm nearly finished chapter 6 and I think it's a bit early to be drawing judgements on the book. By this stage we've only had a handful of visits with each major faction, and I'm still not totally clear who most of them are and where they are at geographically. It's not even clear to me if we're talking "good" and "bad" guys yet (although human sacrifice tends to be a dead giveaway on the part of the al-Sepehr).Notes:
- Temur survives a bloody battle that his side has lost. He retreats towards steppes called the Range of Ghosts, picking up a sturdy steppe pony as a mount. He meets up with a family of fellow refugees with whom he develops relationships.
- Temur's enemy Qori Buqa has enlisted the aid of a powerful sorcerer and his minions to destroy Temur, but it is immediately evident that the sorcerer al-Sepehr is a nasty piece of work with his own agenda.
- A newly-minted female wizard Samarkar recovers from her ordeal and is enlisted by her brother (some sort of city ruler) to plot political advantage in the wake of the battle that Temur was in.
- Temur's refugee group is attacked and his lover is stolen by ghosts. He sets off after them towards the Range of Ghosts (where he was headed anyway??)
We get that there are fantastic creatures: dragons, rukhs (as in roc), ghosts and soul butterflies(?!). The heavens reflect what is happening with the people: each of the Khaganate's heirs seem to have a moon associated with them. And there are at least a couple of sorts of magic, with the wizards of Samarkar's culture and the sorcerer al-Sepehr appearing to be of a different tradition.
We also get a brief glimpse of a couple of different religions, with the pantheist mongol-equivalent culture and the arabic-equivalent culture implying an islam-like religion with veiling and women as property.
Did I miss any important elements?
Crud you're right. Okay, I'm out now.
Mod
I don't think so, Lindsay! There were details of interest to me but that's all the important stuff.
OK, so I see that not a lot of people enjoyed this book! I'm a bit late to the party because I started a bit late but I've actually really enjoyed it. The pacing isn't really bothering me - but it didn't bother me in The Goblin Emperor either so...?
I'm liking it fine so far - but I'm reading at a pretty slow pace.
Looks like I'm one of the few who are enjoying this one. I'm around 8 chapters in. It does move slowly, but I'm enjoying the writing so much that I don't mind. I'm not one of those hard sci-fi purists who gets too bogged down in whether things are actually possible or not, so the crazier fantasy elements (like moons that disappear when characters die) don't bother me. The magic system is very cool - I like how she described it as needing to lose the ability to create life in order for your mind to gain the ability to create magic. I think it's got excellent writing and worldbuilding, well developed characters, and an interesting mix of creative fantasy and well-researched basis in real world history. The anthropology major in me is loving the descriptions of family and clan customs and relationships.
Suzanne wrote: "A hysterectomy is the removal of a woman's reproductive organs. Definitely an invasive surgery. However, if you are going to lose the ability to reproduce....well castration would be worse because you'd also lose all the fun. (Castration would also be less invasive.)"
The book explains that the men who undergo the procedure are still able to perform sexually (the line says something about them still being able to "straighten the branch" if I recall)... so actually none of the fun is lost!
I think the book also mentions that the surgical technology was developed in that world only recently (prior to that you could only gain magic if you were born sterile), so the technique is probably far from perfected and very dangerous, especially for the women.
The book explains that the men who undergo the procedure are still able to perform sexually (the line says something about them still being able to "straighten the branch" if I recall)... so actually none of the fun is lost!
I think the book also mentions that the surgical technology was developed in that world only recently (prior to that you could only gain magic if you were born sterile), so the technique is probably far from perfected and very dangerous, especially for the women.
Yeah I like how it seems consistent with what we know - that its much more dangerous for women, etc. I liked the basically hormone replacement diet they put her on too.And I like the horses :)
Mod
The way you gain magic still fascinates me. Sadly that seems to be the only tidbid of magic that is explained at all.
It's not so much about believably to me, and creating something that's explainable. The explanation can defy our reality. I mean it's magic after all.
I guess Brandon Sanderson has spoiled me on poorly thought out/explained magic.
There's a school of thought amongst some fantasy writers that magic should be inexplicable or it's not actually magic. I believe Neil Gaiman is of that opinion. Personally, I prefer it systemised, but I get there are other ways of looking at it.
Alex wrote: "Fantasy readers give authors one giant leap away from reality...but that's it. Then they expect it to be explainable.We can suspend our disbelief and say "sure, OK, seasons last a few weeks and h..."
It's interesting that you say that Alex because that's one of the things that always bothered me in A Song of Ice and Fire...the whole business of seasons that last years, yet agriculture carries on in cycles as if there are seasons. There is no explanation there about how the plants are cycling without seasons, but I just figured it didn't matter and went on. So yes, in a way it is the author's job to explain and think about all the ramifications, but really, what's important to the story? Some readers are going to notice things more than others right? A few people here wanted more explanation about how the magic system worked; others thought it was fine the way it was. I'm not sure an author can cover every single base and still tell the story the way he or she wants to tell it if you see what I'm saying.
I mean really, I'm probably the only person who read Martin and worried about how the agricultural cycles would work properly with no changes in seasonal temperatures to trigger the plant cycles. :)
Well I'm worried about that now Justine! :)Good points you guys are making about magic systems.
Oh another thing I'm liking so far in this book is the communication plus more between twins. That is kind of cool - and its something I don't think I've seen before - the twin sharing of powers at long distances. At least not something I remember seeing.
I try to approach fantasy without any hard and fast rules about stuff like that - I've read great fantasy in the Gaiman mold where the magic is completely unexplained, and I've also enjoyed books where the magic is, as Lindsay put it, more systemised. It all depends on the story itself - I think explaining the magic would ruin many of Gaiman's stories, whereas giving no explanation for the magic system would render something like Mistborn almost nonsensical. I agree with Gaiman in some regards though, and I've thought the same thing myself when reading books where the author over-explains the magic system to the point of becoming tedious - it drains all the magic right out of the magic.
This books strikes a good balance between explained/unexplained magic for me. The practice of magic has a rudimentary system to it (systems, actually, as there seem to be several), but things like the sky changing after Temur crosses the mountains remain unexplained (to this point at least). Those unexplained elements don't bother me at all - the book takes place in a myth-based world with a pantheon of gods who have shaped and can presumably alter that world according to their own designs. Such a world wouldn't and shouldn't be limited by hard physical science. Also, we see this world through the POV of the characters, who would not have the means to understand these things, so why would we as the reader get an an omniscient explanation as to the workings of their universe?
Rob mentioned being put off by poorly thought out/explained magic. I think there's an important distinction to be made between the two. I'd much rather have magic be underexplained than for a bad explanation to be given (the addition of midi-chlorians to further explain the force in the Star Wars prequels comes to mind).
This books strikes a good balance between explained/unexplained magic for me. The practice of magic has a rudimentary system to it (systems, actually, as there seem to be several), but things like the sky changing after Temur crosses the mountains remain unexplained (to this point at least). Those unexplained elements don't bother me at all - the book takes place in a myth-based world with a pantheon of gods who have shaped and can presumably alter that world according to their own designs. Such a world wouldn't and shouldn't be limited by hard physical science. Also, we see this world through the POV of the characters, who would not have the means to understand these things, so why would we as the reader get an an omniscient explanation as to the workings of their universe?
Rob mentioned being put off by poorly thought out/explained magic. I think there's an important distinction to be made between the two. I'd much rather have magic be underexplained than for a bad explanation to be given (the addition of midi-chlorians to further explain the force in the Star Wars prequels comes to mind).
That is really well said, Andy, I completely agree with you.
Also this is the first part of a three part novel. There's plenty of room left for exposition for things like the different land/different sky thing.
I just finished the first chapter. Intriguing start. There was this part where it sounds like there are tons of moons in the sky, one for every potential heir of the Khaganate, and why they die the moon disappears. The hell. I wonder where Bear comes up with this stuff. At first I thought it might have just been steppe superstition, but then the faux-Islamic dude at the end of the first chapter destroyed thay theory.