Stealing Fire and just one DW remark.
Jun. 20th, 2010 07:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakFirstly, the reason why there won't be a Doctor Who review today isn't because I didn't like the episode - I did! a certain scene involving Amy was incredibly moving, and I practically squeed every moment River was on screen! - but because it was the first part of the season finale, and because of its nature and all the set-up, I'd rather review both parts as a whole next week.
Also I made the mistake of reading some other reviews who did one of my least favourite things, combining praise for the present with slamming of the past, and if, like me, you happen to be fond of the era and the Doctor slammed, that spoils things for you, and not in the way River uses the word.
Meanwhile, there's a novel I've been meaning to review but somehow didn't get around to yet: Stealing Fire byjo_graham.
Like Jo Graham's previous novels, Black Ships and Hand of Isis, Stealing Fire is part of her "numinous world", but can be read on its own merits, if you're not familiar with the earlier books. It starts right after the death of Alexander the Great. The narrator and central character, Lydias of Miletus, is one of Alexander's soldiers. What I find most appealing about the novel is how it deals with grief and with the rebuilding of lives, the way it combines this on the larger scale - the general falling apart of Alexander's empire, followed by the creation of new rulers - with the personal; Lydias has lost his wife, child and the man he hero-worshipped (not Alexander, but in a refreshing twist to the usual Alexander tales Hephaistion) and has to make new sense of his life. So do other characters, notably Ptolemy, the general who will become the first of a new Egyptian dynasty, and Bagoas, the eunuch who was Alexander's favourite.
The older I get, the less patience I have for a certain type of OTPness in both fanfiction and pro fiction, where one romantic relationship trumps absolutely everything in the character's lives, their entire self-value is defined by that relationship, no other relationship (whether romantic or not) can be worth anything. And the more admiration I have for stories that while doing justice to the enormity of loss are about what happens next. About people carving out new lives for themselves, no matter how difficult this is, and reach out to others while doing so. About love or friendship for one not being incompatible with love or friendship for others. Stealing Fire is such a story, and its central setting - Egypt, that ancient country of death and rebirth - is a very fitting location for it.
While the characterisation of characters like Hephaistion and Alexander in the occasional flashback is quite similar to Mary Renault in her Alexander trilogy, there is one refreshing difference: Renault's novels are usually and notoriously lacking of positive female characters (or of more than one per novel). Whereas in Stealing Fire, we get several of them (not surprising with an author whose previous novels had female narrators), all memorable, whether they appear only briefly like Berenice, or Lydias' dead wife Sati, or extensively like Thais the hetaira, Ptolemy's long-time companion. Even the brief glimpse at Alexander's widow Roxane feels more dimensional than Renault's witchlike image. (Plus I like that Alexander is given a reason for marrying her other than oedipal transference.)
The different cultures - Macedons, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians - with their virtues and come across through various characters in a way that feels real and doesn't extol one over the other. At the same time, Lydias doesn't feel like a 21st century man transported into the past; being "only" half-Greek (a fact he keeps hidden initially) and one of the soldiers with a "campaign wife" Macedons like Krateros sneer at, he has a reason for being adaptable and open to other cultures. The city in the process of being built through the novel, Alexandria, the city of the ancient world symbolizing the mixing and mingling of cultures (not always harmoniously, sometimes with violent conflict, but always there), will be his city. Not that Lydias doesn't have his own blind spots; he's endearingly clueless about some aspects of life, which makes him a real, three-dimensional character.
This is a novel where bisexuality - not that the ancient world would have used the term - is the default option; Lydias' crush on Hephaistion, love for his wife and budding erotic friendship with Bagoas are all treated as compatible. What makes the relationship with Bagoas in particular one of the favourite m/m ones I've read in recent years is the equality in it (no hero-worship there), the way they help each other in their new lives, and the sense you get that while the sex is good, they'll still be friends if they should stop sleeping with each other.
All in all, easily one of my favourite novels published this year, and highly recommended.
Also I made the mistake of reading some other reviews who did one of my least favourite things, combining praise for the present with slamming of the past, and if, like me, you happen to be fond of the era and the Doctor slammed, that spoils things for you, and not in the way River uses the word.
Meanwhile, there's a novel I've been meaning to review but somehow didn't get around to yet: Stealing Fire by
jo_graham. Like Jo Graham's previous novels, Black Ships and Hand of Isis, Stealing Fire is part of her "numinous world", but can be read on its own merits, if you're not familiar with the earlier books. It starts right after the death of Alexander the Great. The narrator and central character, Lydias of Miletus, is one of Alexander's soldiers. What I find most appealing about the novel is how it deals with grief and with the rebuilding of lives, the way it combines this on the larger scale - the general falling apart of Alexander's empire, followed by the creation of new rulers - with the personal; Lydias has lost his wife, child and the man he hero-worshipped (not Alexander, but in a refreshing twist to the usual Alexander tales Hephaistion) and has to make new sense of his life. So do other characters, notably Ptolemy, the general who will become the first of a new Egyptian dynasty, and Bagoas, the eunuch who was Alexander's favourite.
The older I get, the less patience I have for a certain type of OTPness in both fanfiction and pro fiction, where one romantic relationship trumps absolutely everything in the character's lives, their entire self-value is defined by that relationship, no other relationship (whether romantic or not) can be worth anything. And the more admiration I have for stories that while doing justice to the enormity of loss are about what happens next. About people carving out new lives for themselves, no matter how difficult this is, and reach out to others while doing so. About love or friendship for one not being incompatible with love or friendship for others. Stealing Fire is such a story, and its central setting - Egypt, that ancient country of death and rebirth - is a very fitting location for it.
While the characterisation of characters like Hephaistion and Alexander in the occasional flashback is quite similar to Mary Renault in her Alexander trilogy, there is one refreshing difference: Renault's novels are usually and notoriously lacking of positive female characters (or of more than one per novel). Whereas in Stealing Fire, we get several of them (not surprising with an author whose previous novels had female narrators), all memorable, whether they appear only briefly like Berenice, or Lydias' dead wife Sati, or extensively like Thais the hetaira, Ptolemy's long-time companion. Even the brief glimpse at Alexander's widow Roxane feels more dimensional than Renault's witchlike image. (Plus I like that Alexander is given a reason for marrying her other than oedipal transference.)
The different cultures - Macedons, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians - with their virtues and come across through various characters in a way that feels real and doesn't extol one over the other. At the same time, Lydias doesn't feel like a 21st century man transported into the past; being "only" half-Greek (a fact he keeps hidden initially) and one of the soldiers with a "campaign wife" Macedons like Krateros sneer at, he has a reason for being adaptable and open to other cultures. The city in the process of being built through the novel, Alexandria, the city of the ancient world symbolizing the mixing and mingling of cultures (not always harmoniously, sometimes with violent conflict, but always there), will be his city. Not that Lydias doesn't have his own blind spots; he's endearingly clueless about some aspects of life, which makes him a real, three-dimensional character.
This is a novel where bisexuality - not that the ancient world would have used the term - is the default option; Lydias' crush on Hephaistion, love for his wife and budding erotic friendship with Bagoas are all treated as compatible. What makes the relationship with Bagoas in particular one of the favourite m/m ones I've read in recent years is the equality in it (no hero-worship there), the way they help each other in their new lives, and the sense you get that while the sex is good, they'll still be friends if they should stop sleeping with each other.
All in all, easily one of my favourite novels published this year, and highly recommended.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 12:30 pm (UTC)Yes!!! You may have sold it to me. Except that Hephaistion will be dead, won't he?
no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 01:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 01:48 pm (UTC)All season I have been coming across both 'this is the WORST DOCTOR WHO EVER! I demand RTD and Tennant return immediately!' and 'this is the BEST DOCTOR WHO EVER! The satanic RTD and that horrible David Tennant are finally gone!' Both of which make me want to bang my head on the nearest wall, unsurprisingly, especially when the two extremes start shouting at each other on the internet.
I sincerely hope that this is not going to become A Thing in fandom, like the traditional feud between Third Doctor fans and Seventh Doctor fans. (Which you must find even more annoying than I do, I imagine, assuming you've ever come across this odd phenomenon *g*.)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-20 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 01:27 pm (UTC)He is indeed - whereas Four abandoned her to languish in a shed for decades and Five and Six never bothered to go back. There's more than one bit in the novels that suggests that the Seventh Doctor likes and admire his third incarnation, as well.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 02:37 pm (UTC)I think you quoted one such bit once in your journal - something to the effect that Seven (not knowing he's going to luck out in the regeneration lottery via Paul McGann) wishes he'd look handsome once, and then remembers Three as dashing. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 01:16 pm (UTC)Ah, yes, one of my favourite bits from The Algebra of Ice. The same conversation where we also find out that Seven has no idea where his accent came from. (Although now that Big Finish has released several audios reuniting the Sixth Doctor and Jamie, maybe he picked up the Scottishness from there.)
Anyway, it mainly seems to be consecutive incarnations of the Doctor that don't get along, which makes sense if you think about what tends to happen to his personality when he regenerates.