Marie Brennan: The Voyage of the Basilisk

Voyage of the Basilisk is the third novel in Marie Brennan’s delightful series concerning the adventures of Isabella Camhurst, Lady Trent, scholar, naturalist, explorer, and student in particular of the fascinating subject of dragons. Lady Trent’s adventures take place within a secondary world that is inspired, in some very obvious ways, by nineteenth century England and Europe, and shares in both the sexist and colonial prejudices of that time, prejudices to which Lady Trent herself is a prime source of resistance.

As the novel opens, Isabella is about to embark on an extended sea voyage on the RSS Basilisk, captained by Dione Aekinitos. Her goal is to study dragons and related species in their native habitats all around the world. Travelling with her are her assistant Tom Wilkins, her young son Jacob, and Jacob’s governess, Abby Carew.

Lady Trent’s voyages take her into the Arctic, where she and Tom necropsy a sea serpent killed by the crew of the Basilisk, attempting to determine if the arctic sea serpents are of a different species than those found in tropical climates. She observes wyverns in the mountains of northern Lezhnema. And across the ocean, in Otholé, she studies the quetzalcoatl, the feathered dragons native to that continent. And in Yelang, she swims with the dragon turtles and ventures into the interior to seek out the tê lêng dragons, one of many draconic and related species known to inhabit that part of the world. In the Broken Sea, she examines komodo dragons and fire lizards.

As she recounts the events of her voyage, through to its truly magnificent and unexpected climax in a sea battle in the Broken Sea, Lady Trent often makes side comments about what the reactions to her exploits have been, often dwelling on the impropriety of many aspects of her adventures. As a woman, unmarried and often unchaperoned (the governess Abby not being the extremely adventurous type, and some of her expeditions being unsafe for her son), Lady Trent faces a great deal of rumour and scandal. Her associate Tom is assumed to be her lover, as is almost every other man she mentions in her dispatches home to the news organisation that has partly funded her world voyage. Perhaps the most scandalous alleged liaison is her growing friendship with an archaeologist she meets in Otholé, who is studying the ruins left behind by the ancient people known as the Draconiand. Suhail is Akhian, this world’s parallel to the Middle East and Muslim cultures, the speculation among those reading her dispatches - which do not quite conceal her appreciation of Suhail’s intelligence and charm - is intense.

The charm of the Lady Trent novels is their close resemblance to the journals of the extraordinary women of our own world, the Hester Stanhopes and Gertrude Bells who explored parts of the world deemed ‘exotic’ by European standards, some if them, like the imaginary Lady Trent, scientists in search of new truths, others simply wanderers with a desire to encounter different cultures - though more often than not, doing so from the perspective of presumed European superiority.

The other aspect of the Lady Trent novels that attracts me - beyond the whole ‘woman who engages in wonderfully transgressive activities like the pursuit of knowledge and a life of adventure and discovery’ thing - is the way that Brennan depicts the way that science was conducted when in its early years. The feeling of the world as an open book with so little known, and the hands-on researches that established the foundations of methods of research and deduction, hypothesis and testing, refinement and correction of earlier theories as more facts are observed. It’s a perfectly imagined look at how the pioneers of intellectual discovery did science.

Hugo Best Series Finalists: Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jackson Bennett

Two of the Hugo nominees for best series - Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives and Robert Jackson Bennett’s Divine Cities - are by authors I’d never read before and had not had and particular desire to read. But in the interests of due diligence, I embarked on the first novel in each series.

Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings, the first book in the Hugo-nominated Stormlight Archives series, is... impressive. The writing is finely honed, smooth, consistently solid in narration, description and dialogue. The characters are interesting, complex, well developed. The worldbuilding is a tour de force of imaginative, carefully integrated detail.

And it bored me. It’s too fond of itself, too precious. And it is very, very long. Someone really needed to take a dispassionate pen and slice about a third of the elegant prose away, leaving a tighter storyline, a more compact narrative in which things happen before you start longing for some action, some new twist to rekindle excitement. It meanders. Beautifully, to be sure, with each scene a set piece in itself, but beauty is not everything. I found that, most unusually for me, whenever I paused in my reading to do something else, I felt no impatience to get back to the book, or curiosity about what would happen next to any of the characters. If I had not been reading this as a Hugo finalist for best series, I likely would not have bothered to finish reading it.

The Way of Kings takes place in a violent and inhospitable world, where energy storms make life difficult, and have strange aftereffects, leaving behind them energy sparks that can be used, harnessed for many things. There are strange creatures, and there is war. The novel winds itself around three main characters: Kaladin, former soldier, son of a physician, natural leader, now a slave leading a crew of ‘bridgemen’ - slaves who carry the wooden bridges needed by the armies of the Alethi to cross the chasm-riddled battlegrounds where they engage their enemy, the Parshendi; Dalinar, highprince, warrior, seer of storm-induced visions and guilt-ridden brother of the former king of the Alethi, who has never forgiven himself for being in a drunken stupour when his brother was assassinated, and now devotes himself to protecting the life of his nephew, the current king, and training his sons to do the same, and trying to fix the problems at his nephew’s court the way his brother’s legacies and his visions tell him to; and Shallan, aspiring scholar, and artist, tenacious and insistent in her quest to earn a place as apprentice to the noble born, and controversial, master scholar Jasnah, though her intent is not to learn, but to steal a powerful artefact in the hopes of rejuvenating the fortunes of her family. They are, of course, connected. Kaladin serves in the warband of Sadeas, a highprince of the Alethi and rival, possibly enemy, of Dalinor, while Jasnah is the sister of the Alethi king, and Dalinar’s niece.

And it only took about one third of the book to show, in great detail, just how talented a natural leader Kaladin is, how guilt-ridden and obsessed with his brother’s legacy Dalinar is, and how very persistent and determined Shallan is to reverse the fortunes of her family. And it only takes just shy of half the book for things to start moving. And even though, finally, Kaladin led his work crew to do something, and Shallan did what she came to do, and Dalinor tried to do something with the situation around him, and they all had consequences to deal with, it really took dedication to read through to the end. And while I did develop some affection for the characters, and once the story started to move, there were some interesting bits, I find I have little inclination to read on in the series. I might look for a synopsis somewhere to see what happens, but I’ve no desire to wade through nine more volumes as slow-moving and over-written as this one.


Robert Jackson Bennett’s City of Stairs was considerably more engaging. Also well written, with interesting characters and situations, it is much better paced and much less indulgent. The setting is the city of Bulikov, once one of the largest cities in the world, still a major urban centre of the former colonial power referred to only as The Continent. Some seventy-five years ago, one of the countries colonised by The Continent, Saypur, staged a successful revolt, followed by its own imperialist drive. Saypur is now the coloniser, The Continent the oppressed colony.

Part of the response of Saypur to its new status has been to completely outlaw all shrines, relics, symbols, and references, written or spoken, to the deities of The Continent - with some justification, as supplication and invocation of these deities can produce miracles, or magic, and it is largely this ability to call on the Divine that gave the Continent its edge in conquering other nations. Ironically, the Continent, despite its imperial history, appears to have been very backward both socially and scientifically, depending almost wholly on the powers of its deities. In fact, it was the death of the Divines at the instigation of revolutionary leader Kaj Avshakta si Komayd that resulted in the collapse of The Continent and the resurgence of Saypur. Since the things created by the Divines ceased to be on their deaths, and much of the greatness of the Continental cities was built through the power of the Divines, much of the physical presence of the Continental culture, from household artefacts to entire cities, vanished when they died, and with them, hundreds of thousands of people living in them.

I feel some sort of commentary on Western colonial imperialism and the role that religion conversion and indoctrination played in subduing and assimilating colonised peoples may be going on here, but it’s not a direct one by any means. Particularly since the Saypuri, now that they are the dominent nation, are quite intent on keeping the residents of the Continent as subjects. There is a real anger among the Saypuri, not just due to centuries of exploitation and slavery, but an existential sense of injustice - why was it just the Continent that benefitted from the power of real divinities? If gods existed, where were the gods who could have protected Saypur?

The novel begins in Saypur-controlled Bulikov, where people resent being forbidden their divinities, and a Saypuri academic (and possible intelligence operative) named Efram Pangyui, who was studying the religious artefacts seized during the conquest of Bulikov and niw forbidden to the native citizens of the Continent, has been murdered.

Shaya Komayd, a Saypuri intelligence operative, has wrangled consent from the Ministry head (who happens to be her aunt; both are descendants of Kaj Komayd) to investigate the murder, at least on a preliminary basis despite her personal bias - Pangyui was a friend of Shaya’s.

As Shaya investigates, she becomes more and more aware that Pangyui’s death was just a small part of a conspiracy among those adherents of one of the Divinities - Kolkan, the most repressive, legalistic, and punitive of the six gods of the Continent - to restore the old ways. And it is possible that Kolkan is still alive.

Shaya is presented as a complex, evolving character with a relevant backstory. She’s both cynical and idealistic, practical and imaginative, highly intelligent and motivated. The other significant characters are equally interesting. Turyin Mulaghesh, the Saypuri military governor of Bulikov - jaded, frustrated, yet courageous and committed to doing the best she can for the people under her authority, Saypuri and Continental alike. Vohannes Votrev, wealthy heir to a Continental family once high in the favour of Kolkan, shaya’s former lover, a gay man in a culture that is fanatically conservative on sexuality, twisted by his family’s religious beliefs but still struggling to bring modern values, and economic stability, to his people. And Sigurd, Shaya’s secretary, bodyguard and covert operative extraordinaire, a lost and deeply wounded man with a dark past, painful secrets, and a devotion to Shaya that is the only thing that keeps him alive.

City of Stairs is a complex and thoughtful story, with many things to say about truth, history, belief, revenge and forgiveness. I enjoyed reading it and look forward to the nexr book in the series.

Robert Jackson Bennett: The Divine Cities

I enjoyed the first volume of Robert Jackson Bennett’s Divine Cities trilogy so much that I had to immediately read the next two volumes, to see where he was going with this fascinating and quite original fantasy world.

The City of Blades, the second novel in the Divine Cities series, takes up some years after the events of City of Stairs. Shaya Komayd is now the prime minister of Saypur, and is barely holding onto power as she tries to enact policies that will bring the Continent into the modern age - and improve life for its people.

The main character of this novel, General Turyin Mulagesh (retired) was governor of Bulikov during Shaya’s time there. And Shaya has used every trick she can think of to bring Mulagesh out of retirement to handle a delicate and dangerous operation. In the region of Voortyashtan, firmer home of the Divine of war and death - and the one most responsible for the cruel behaviour of Continentals toward their colonial subjects - a deposit of a strange metal has been discovered. Not only is it a superconductor of electricity - a new technology among the Saypuri - but it seems to actually generate a stronger current as it conducts. The key question is, is this an unusual, but natural substance, or is it a miraculous one, suggesting that some Divine creature remains active on the Continent.

Something is going on in Voortyashtan, to be sure - the last operative sent to investigate the possible miraculous nature of the strange metal seems to have gone mad, and then disappeared.

What Mukagash finds when she arrives at the military governor’s seat, Fort Thinadeshi in Voortyashtan is a bleak, relatively undeveloped region full of unrest. Voorrya was a deity deply involved with her people - her death wrought perhaps the worst devastation of any of the regions of the Continent on its inhabitants, and recovery has been even slower than in other areas. There are internal struggles between the people who live in the lowland river valleys and those living in the highlands. There is resentment against the Saypuri officials and military forces trying to establish order. There have been violent, possibly ritualistic atrocities committed in the countryside, indications that someone is trying to revive some of the miracles of the dead wargod Voortya. And then there are the Dreylings, a northern people, trading partners of the Saypuri, who are in Voortyashtan to rebuild the great harbour, so that trade and industry can enter and revitalise the region - but that may not be all they are working on. All in all, it’s a volatile mix.

As in Bennett’s first novel in the series, The City of Blades presents us with a number of solid, well-developed characters, many of them women. There’s Mulaghesh herself, a somewhat bitter old soldier who just, at her core, wants to do something that really matters, that adds to the store of good in the world. there’s Voortyashtan’s Saypuri military governor, General Lalith Biswal, with whom Mukaghesh once served, and with whom she shares a horrific memory of a campaign gone so badly wrong that no one in Saypur wants to acknowledge it really happened. And there’s the Dreyling Signe, who is both a source of information and a person of interest and concern in the confusion and unrest that surrounds Mukaghesh’s mission - a brilliant technologist and engineer, who grew up as a poor refugee in Vortyashtan, and is the estranged daughter of Sigurd from the previous novel. And midway through the novel, Sigurd himself appears, now a Chancellor of the United Dreyling States, and acknowledged as the surviving heir of the assassinated Dreyling King, though he has taken no crown and was instrumental in the establishment of a democratic government in his homeland.

In this novel, Bennett engages in a complex discussion about the meanings and purposes of war, of violence. When is killing justified? How does killing, even to save one’s own life, change the killer? What is just in war? How does one decide, and how does one live with the consequences of that decision? Is life a good in its own right, or is it simply the state if moving toward death? Why do we worship war, venerate the killer, remember the violent dead?

Each of the main characters carries memories of committing violence, and their reactions, how the deaths on their hands, are varied. And they come together, through their violent pasts, to play their parts in the mystery of the possible rebirth of a god of war and death, and the legend of a final war that dwarfs all other wars, in a land that respects the act of killing, that venerates the weapons of destruction and memorialises acts of war. It’s a powerful piece of writing, with a powerful and very timely message.

Which leads us to the last installment of the Divine Cities trilogy, City of Miracles. At the end of City of Blades, The only main characters still standing are Turyin Mulaghesh and Sigurd je Harkvaldsson, and both are deeply scarred. Mulaghesh is soon to be drawn into the world of Sapuri politics by Saypuri Prime Minister Shaya Komayd. And Sigurd has seen his daughter killed by Saypuri soldiers, and become a hunted man, wanted for murder. Not even the influence of Shaya and Mulaghesh can clear him this time.

City of Miracles begins 13 years later with the shocking assassination of Shaya Komayd, no longer in politics. And Sigurd comes out of exile to perform one last service for his old comrade, employer, ally, and friend.

But what he discovers when he tracks down the assassin is much, much larger than the death of one woman, no matter how important and loved she was. The gods are dead, or departed from the world, but some of their children, the Blessed, remain. One such child was captured many years ago, set apart, tortured, by those who sought to make if him a weapon. But the events of the years that have followed freed him, and he want revenge, and to be so powerful that he can never be hurt again. And he has learned that killing the other Blessed can make him stronger, perhaps even change him into a God.

What Sigurd discovers is that Shaya spent her final years trying to oppose him, trying to locate and hide the children of the Divine from their brother and would-be devourer. And that Tatyana, Shaya’s own adopted daughter, may be one of the Blessed. With Shaya dead, it falls to Sigurd to protect Shaya’s daughter Tatyana, and the other Divine children Shaya tried to save. And stop the child of darkness from becoming the last and only god.

Sigurd has allies - some old, some new. Turyin Mulaghesh is no longer in her prime, but she is the Minority leader in the Saypuri government, and has some power and influence. And Sigurd discovers the woman who has been Shaya’s ally in her attempts to find and save the Blessed children, and is now Tatyana’s guardian - Ivanya Restroyka, the former fiancee of, and now very wealthy heir to, Shaya’s long-dead lover Vo Votrov. And there is Malwina, a young Blessed girl who worked with Shaya, and who has the gift of manipulating time.

The City of Miracles draws together the various themes that have resonated through the series - questions about faith, loss, grief, revenge, violence, and trauma, and how we as human beings react to them, are shaped by them, and recapitulate them. We have seen so many examples of one trauma begetting behaviours that creates more - from the violent response if a colonised nation taking revenge, to the madness of so many individuals, human and divine, in the face of loss and pain. The tortured become torturers, the colonised become colonisers, the bereft become those who bereave others, again and again, and in the course if this, create yet more pain and violence continuing down through generations. And yet.... the miracle is that there is a way to end the cycle. To let go of the pain. And when that happens, so many things are possible.

A profoundly meaningful conclusion to a powerful work of imagination.

Marie Brennan: In the Labyrinth of Drakes

In the Labyrinth of Drakes, the fourth novel in Marie Brennan’s series concerning naturalist Lady Trent and her life-long study of all things associated with dragons, takes her to the desert country of Akhia to study the mating of dragons and attempt to establish a breeding programme.

War is looming, and one if the keys to victory may well be an adequate source of dragonbone. The bones of these large, aerial creatures are known to be unusually light despite their strength, but they also decay quickly - but in recent years, a method has been found that enables the preservation of dragonbone. The Yelangese have been hunting dragons, collecting the bones, and building an air force - zeppelin-like aircraft with gondolas made of dragonbone. The Scirland Royal Army is determined to build their own air armada, but there are not large dragons native to Scirland. Instrad, they have negotiated permission from the sheikh of the Akhian tribe of the Aritat to hunt and capture the great desert drakes in his territory. If dragons can be bred in captivity, Scirland can have its own source if dragonbone, and its own air force.

Sexism being rampant in Lady Trent’s time, it is actually her associate Tom Wilker who was originally asked to head up the scientific aspect of the project, but his insistence that Isabella be part of the mission has landed them both in a situation that is both rich in opportunities for close observation of the mighty dragons, but also fraught with dangers due to the political instability between the Akhian tribes, and between urban and desert dwellers - an instability that the Yelangese, who do not want to see Scirland with access to unlimited numbers of dragons, are more than willing to exploit.

And, much to Isabella’s delight, she learns on her arrival in Akhia that her companion from the latter stages of her voyage in the Basilisk, the archaeologist Suhail, is the brother of the Aritat sheikh, and closely involved in assisting the Scirlanders with their mission.

As Isaballa and Tom carry out their observations of the mating and egg-hatching behaviours of the dragons, they are kidnapped by enemy tribesmen. An attempt is made to poison them, and a Yelanese agent sets fire to the headquarters of the programme in Akhia. Surviving all of this, with more than a little help from Suhail, they undertake a final exploration into the deepest desert, facing sandstorms and the killing heat of high summer in their search for knowledge.

And in the end, they find, not answers, but data that leads to greater questions, in true scientific fashion. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s as much the love of science in both Isabella and Tom, and in Suhail, who becomes an integral part of Isabella’s life during these events, as it is the heroic woman adventurer, that makes these books so engaging. I’ve marked these books as fantasy, but in a very real way, they are also deeply, delightfully science fictional.