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Book description
Book description
There are times when its clear that May is having a blast writing this series and there are moments when, having come up with a complicated future history, she looks at it with vaguely veiled exasperation and says, Geez, now I have to write all this out?One of the ways she seems to be keeping the series fresh for herself is by introducing new characters (or fleshing out ones that were only briefly mentioned earlier) and playing those new characters off the established characters to see what happens. In fact, shes so good at defining her characters and the relationships between them that sometimes she almost forgets that theres supposed to be a plot going on in the background.Here, we start to accelerate forward in time a little bit faster as she introduces us to Scottish lass Dorothea Macdonald, who figures out very early on that she has vast mental powers and also decides she wants as little to do with them as possible, causing her to basically hide them and pretend to be normal, difficult to do when you learn how to read minds and can hear what everyone thinks about you. Shes fated to become the formidable Diamond Mask (which sounds like those ladies who are always trying to seduce and/or kill James Bond) and fall in love with the presumably hard to fall in love with Jack the Bodiless, who has now grown into a teenager, although given that he exists as a floating disembodied brain that keeps forming new bodies around himself, you can be forgiven if its hard to tell how old he is. But at least he doesnt have to worry about acne. And since shes destined to fall in love with him, she does the sensible thing and hates him the first time she even hears about him. Whats a detached cerebrum that only wants emotional support to do?Much of the book is the gradual development of Dorothea from a young lady of about five to what she eventually becomes, with the rest of the subplots sort of dancing around that central focus. Its interesting to read, mostly because of Mays gifts with characterization, but its becoming clear around this point that May isnt so interested in narrative drive as much as simply depicting the human side of the events that make it to the highlights in her history. Its a ground level view of the extraordinary but its like exploring George Washingtons life by using a calendar. Sometimes you just want to skip to the good stuff.To that end the main concerns from the first book are still in play. Humanity is still trying to come to grips with the fact that the Galactic Milieu is about to enfold them into the collective with something called Unity, which chunks of people arent exactly keen on and in fact some of them are so not-keen on it that theyre secretly banding together to form a rebel group that seems to be leaning toward armed insurrection but isnt quite clear. To be honest, the rebel portions of the series have always been the weakest parts for me. I understand the need to move deliberately when youre attempting to separate yourself from a whole slew of alien races that are potentially more powerful than you are, but after two solid books theyre still gathering in rooms debating who they should recruit and agreeing that they should do something soon about this. Out of all the subplots this one feels the most like May is marking time until we get to the foretold Metaphysical Rebellion that Marc is apparently supposed to lead, so she has to keep checking in on it to remind us that she hasnt forgotten about it but clearly nothing is going to happen until the third book. The concept of the rebellion itself is interesting in that May has a number of people who should be protagonists talking frankly about overthrowing the aliens, who have so far been nothing but nice, giving the plot a bit of a subtle xenophobic streak that the book intelligently doesnt call attention to, letting you decide for yourself whether these people are doing it for a good cause or simply out of a misplaced racism.The other big plot is the mystery of who Fury is as he and whats left of Hydra continue to randomly murder their way across the landscape. With the collective of Hydra revealed and gone into hiding whats really left is wondering which of the Remillards is unwittingly harboring Fury (since it becomes clear fairly early that hes a manifestation of a split personality) . . . something that the book takes a stab at revealing at the very end although that by that point the number of possibilities are fairly limited unless you figure shes going to stick Fury in someone random. Fury occupies a bit of a strange place in the series, as a definite antagonist hes the boogeyman that everyone is afraid of even if his impact seems to be limited to a leeriness about his future plans and the tragedies he leaves in his wake. And while hes clear he has a plan its not totally clear what that plan is, unless you want to argue that hes acting like the Joker would without Batman, sowing chaos constantly without any end except pure destruction. With the mystery of who Hydra is settled it saps the concept of some of its power since it becomes a crazy smart person talking to other crazy people who are in its thrall. Their tendency to strike without warning even while basically hiding in plain sight gives the book an off kilter edge at times and while their eventual confrontation with Dorothea almost pushes the book toward a superhero comic, it is at least a dramatic high point.Which is good, because for the most part May is clearly more concerned with the characters as people instead of historical figures and you can nearly sense her wishing that she hadnt set out the fates for the more prominent characters already so it would give her a chance to play with them more. Ol Bodiless Jack himself remains the most fascinating character in the crew, clearly the most powerful and most idiosyncratic, he has a boundless curiosity that belies the tragedy of his life. He remains steadfastly good hearted and yet unpredictable, human but only barely so at times. The scenes with him make the book come a bit more alive, especially as the narrative skips forward in time (mostly to give Dorothea a chance to get older and catch up with everyone else) and you can see his development. He remains the most vibrant and the eventual scenes with Diamond Mask show you why he might frighten her and why she might also warm up to him later (two of the best scenes in the book are when theyre just sitting talking to each other). When she focuses on the characters, even when their traits might become tiresome (despite Rogi being the narrator, he seems to be pushed more and more to the side, set enough in his ways between his functional alcoholism and unwillingness to let anyone into his head that there seems to be nowhere for him to go) the story shines in their interactions, giving the book a family feel, if everyone in your family was a hundred years old.Its that ability to create characters with problematic flaws that acts as the books engine even when its clear that the plot is something that will be dealt with when the book darn well feels like it (that does mean some characterizations get short shrift, notably Marcs Anakin Skywalker like transformation into what will eventually be the leader of the rebellion). Some of this is middle child syndrome, having given us the premise in the first book and unable to give us any dramatic climaxes until the last book she only has to steady the course and get everyone in position. That she does so by centering it around the eventual romance of a reluctant telepath and a boy without a body at least shows some lateral thinking. If she cant juggle all the pieces to give everything the time it deserves it does at least prove that some writing talent and enough imaginative balls in the air can keep you reading at least long enough to want to see how it all ends.
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