Jo Graham and Melissa Scott: Oath Bound
Jan. 6th, 2016 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe latest (splendid) volume in what is definitely my favourite still ongoing book series. It takes place in January 1936, in Alexandria (which resonated extra deeply with me due to my Yuletide story ), Palermo and Ethiopia, features the series trademark mixture of flying and archaeology mixed with a bit of the occult, and has our heroes encounter what strikes me as the largest number of real life historical figures so far, with the two authors doing an admirable job of not going for the obvious and avoiding clichés which almost every movie, tv series or book trying to do the same fall into.
When Ras Iskinder, old friend of Jerry’s, Alma’s and Mitch’s and an Ethiopian dignitary, was introduced two volumes earlier, I should have guessed the series would use the Italian invasion of Ethiopia later, but I didn’t. Partly because it’s nearly forgotten today, and I am as guilty of this as anyone, when it was actually as horrifying a part of the build up to WWII as the events playing out in the Spanish civil war and then the way the world washed its hands of Czecheslovakia when Hitler invaded it. But Ethiopia (Abyssinia as it was called then) was an African state, and as various characters bitterly observe in this volume, that means the world in various degrees doesn’t care or even approves. (Evelyn Waugh of Brideshead Revisited fame, who was the Daily Mail correspondant at the time and framed this as a tale of civilized Italians versus barbaric Africans, comes in for much deserved disgust in this book.) War might not have started in Europe yet, but war has definitely arrived, and Oath Bound contains a devastating scene where mustard gas is used by the Italians. (Something illegal post WWI, and something Waugh denied to have happened, as opposed to every other eye witness account, including those by the Red Cross.) Since Ethiopia was a member of the League of Nations, its ruler asked for help only to be told no because a) nobody wanted to upset Mussolini, and b) see above re: lack of caring. It’s impossible not to think of contemporary parallels here, btw.
In another (connected) subplot, Jerry’s archaeological quest of several volumes to find the tomb of Alexander the Great has brought him to Alexandria, where he is about to make the discovery of a life time. The Alexandria scenes shine with the authors’ love of the city, and contain some easter egg crossovers to Jo Graham’s Numinous World novels (if you haven’t read them, don’t worry, it’s just an additional bonus but Jerry’s plot completely works on its own). To me, the sequence of Jerry, Willi and Arabian friend making their way through the old Roman and Ptolemaic cisterns of Alexandria additionally brought back the excitement I felt as a child when reading about the big archaeological discoveries. It’s the treasure hunt trope done right.
Meanwhile, the rest of the ensemble starts out in Palermo, where is there is an international flying show they take part in. How this book series manage to get across the wonder and thrill of flying by verbal descriptions continues to amaze me (I definitely couldn’t do that); here, they do so with the ever present edge that both readers and characters are aware these air planes might soon be used in a far less peaceful way. This is also where the gallery of famous and infamous historic personages shows up: Ernst Udet (legendary WWI pilot, model for Carl Zuckmayer’s Harras in The Devil’s General), Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess and someone I hadn’t known about, so I checked post reading whether he was real, and he was: Carl Gustav von Rosen, a Swedish count whose aunt had been Göring’s first wife, but who most definitely did not share his uncle-by-marriage’s views and on the contrary flew for the Red Cross in Ethiopia. Von Rosen in this novel is also a rarity in fiction: a character whose behavior makes our heroes irritated with him for good reason (and isn’t changed into a bosom buddy by the end of the story) but who is firmly on the side of the angels, and competently, too. Think Snape. (Minus Death Eater past.) Meanwhile, Udet is pictured as easy-going, sympathetic (Lewis, who of course is a WWI pilot himself, has some great scenes with him) – but on the side of the devil. Hooray for complicated supporting characters!
Now, Göring and Hess. Hess has only two scenes (in which he gets to be creepy without intending to be, which strikes me as right for pre-flight to England Hess); Göring has more, and again I raise my non existant hat to the authors, because how do you write someone like Hermann Göring without either going into satire (which of course he and the rest of the Nazis more than asked for, and Göring jokes about his penchant for grandiose uniforms were popular even within the Third Reich at the time) or operetta Nazi style clicking of heels and badly accented hissing? You do it the way these authors do. He’s genial in society, with just the barest of hints that there’s something else going on. (Göring was good at being chummy if he wanted to be; after he’d been captured in 1945, the Allied command was appalled at the first photos and movie footage coming in, showing the G.I.s supposed to guard him fraternizing with him all over the place, laughing at his jokes, trading cigarettes etc., and they had to know the blood of millions was on his hands. He wasn’t stupid, either, see appearance at the Nuremberg Trials, which surprised a lot of people who had thought of him as the fat, dumb one.) As a result, his scenes with Alma, Mitch and Lewis are far more chilling and suspenseful than they would have been if Göring had been presented as a yelling, spitting caricature.
(Also: as in the previous book, Oath Bound stays free of another pop culture stalwart, the use of German words (more often than not wrongly spelled in books and badly pronounced on tv) in the middle of English sentences to indicate the speaker is German. This even includes “Führer”; the characters consistently refer to “our leader”, not “our Führer”, which is ever so refreshing.)
Lastly: after her attempt in the previous novel to become respectable (for in character reasons, but it was painful to read about), I was happy to see Stasi throughout being her glorious con woman self in this book, whether it was her improvising when a situation arises where she could meet some actual Russians (which of course would bust her “Russian countess” backstory) or, on one of the novel’s most suspenseful set pieces, her use of her experience as a cat burglar to steal from none other than Rudolf Hess. Stasi: still my favourite. Though I’m fond of everyone else, of course.
In conclusion: when is the next volume due again? I want moooore.
When Ras Iskinder, old friend of Jerry’s, Alma’s and Mitch’s and an Ethiopian dignitary, was introduced two volumes earlier, I should have guessed the series would use the Italian invasion of Ethiopia later, but I didn’t. Partly because it’s nearly forgotten today, and I am as guilty of this as anyone, when it was actually as horrifying a part of the build up to WWII as the events playing out in the Spanish civil war and then the way the world washed its hands of Czecheslovakia when Hitler invaded it. But Ethiopia (Abyssinia as it was called then) was an African state, and as various characters bitterly observe in this volume, that means the world in various degrees doesn’t care or even approves. (Evelyn Waugh of Brideshead Revisited fame, who was the Daily Mail correspondant at the time and framed this as a tale of civilized Italians versus barbaric Africans, comes in for much deserved disgust in this book.) War might not have started in Europe yet, but war has definitely arrived, and Oath Bound contains a devastating scene where mustard gas is used by the Italians. (Something illegal post WWI, and something Waugh denied to have happened, as opposed to every other eye witness account, including those by the Red Cross.) Since Ethiopia was a member of the League of Nations, its ruler asked for help only to be told no because a) nobody wanted to upset Mussolini, and b) see above re: lack of caring. It’s impossible not to think of contemporary parallels here, btw.
In another (connected) subplot, Jerry’s archaeological quest of several volumes to find the tomb of Alexander the Great has brought him to Alexandria, where he is about to make the discovery of a life time. The Alexandria scenes shine with the authors’ love of the city, and contain some easter egg crossovers to Jo Graham’s Numinous World novels (if you haven’t read them, don’t worry, it’s just an additional bonus but Jerry’s plot completely works on its own). To me, the sequence of Jerry, Willi and Arabian friend making their way through the old Roman and Ptolemaic cisterns of Alexandria additionally brought back the excitement I felt as a child when reading about the big archaeological discoveries. It’s the treasure hunt trope done right.
Meanwhile, the rest of the ensemble starts out in Palermo, where is there is an international flying show they take part in. How this book series manage to get across the wonder and thrill of flying by verbal descriptions continues to amaze me (I definitely couldn’t do that); here, they do so with the ever present edge that both readers and characters are aware these air planes might soon be used in a far less peaceful way. This is also where the gallery of famous and infamous historic personages shows up: Ernst Udet (legendary WWI pilot, model for Carl Zuckmayer’s Harras in The Devil’s General), Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess and someone I hadn’t known about, so I checked post reading whether he was real, and he was: Carl Gustav von Rosen, a Swedish count whose aunt had been Göring’s first wife, but who most definitely did not share his uncle-by-marriage’s views and on the contrary flew for the Red Cross in Ethiopia. Von Rosen in this novel is also a rarity in fiction: a character whose behavior makes our heroes irritated with him for good reason (and isn’t changed into a bosom buddy by the end of the story) but who is firmly on the side of the angels, and competently, too. Think Snape. (Minus Death Eater past.) Meanwhile, Udet is pictured as easy-going, sympathetic (Lewis, who of course is a WWI pilot himself, has some great scenes with him) – but on the side of the devil. Hooray for complicated supporting characters!
Now, Göring and Hess. Hess has only two scenes (in which he gets to be creepy without intending to be, which strikes me as right for pre-flight to England Hess); Göring has more, and again I raise my non existant hat to the authors, because how do you write someone like Hermann Göring without either going into satire (which of course he and the rest of the Nazis more than asked for, and Göring jokes about his penchant for grandiose uniforms were popular even within the Third Reich at the time) or operetta Nazi style clicking of heels and badly accented hissing? You do it the way these authors do. He’s genial in society, with just the barest of hints that there’s something else going on. (Göring was good at being chummy if he wanted to be; after he’d been captured in 1945, the Allied command was appalled at the first photos and movie footage coming in, showing the G.I.s supposed to guard him fraternizing with him all over the place, laughing at his jokes, trading cigarettes etc., and they had to know the blood of millions was on his hands. He wasn’t stupid, either, see appearance at the Nuremberg Trials, which surprised a lot of people who had thought of him as the fat, dumb one.) As a result, his scenes with Alma, Mitch and Lewis are far more chilling and suspenseful than they would have been if Göring had been presented as a yelling, spitting caricature.
(Also: as in the previous book, Oath Bound stays free of another pop culture stalwart, the use of German words (more often than not wrongly spelled in books and badly pronounced on tv) in the middle of English sentences to indicate the speaker is German. This even includes “Führer”; the characters consistently refer to “our leader”, not “our Führer”, which is ever so refreshing.)
Lastly: after her attempt in the previous novel to become respectable (for in character reasons, but it was painful to read about), I was happy to see Stasi throughout being her glorious con woman self in this book, whether it was her improvising when a situation arises where she could meet some actual Russians (which of course would bust her “Russian countess” backstory) or, on one of the novel’s most suspenseful set pieces, her use of her experience as a cat burglar to steal from none other than Rudolf Hess. Stasi: still my favourite. Though I’m fond of everyone else, of course.
In conclusion: when is the next volume due again? I want moooore.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-06 09:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-06 10:01 am (UTC)Why I love the Prequels: one of my earliest posts on lj, written post Attack of the Clones, pre Revenge of the Sith.
Revenge of the Sith review, also containing some overall SW meta
My favourite Anakin Skywalker moments, and why those scenes resonate with me
I don't know whether one of these is the post you have in mind? I also can reccommend, not by me, this fantastic Anakin and Vader meta post.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-06 10:09 am (UTC)