Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Mutineer's Moon

Book 16/20

David Weber's Mutineer's Moon

This book is a rarity: the interest to read it was generated by the author himself. I attended PhilCon last year, where Mr. Weber was the Author Guest Speaker. I had actually never read anything he'd written (save one short story in one of the treecat anthologies...title escapes me); the only reason I'd really planned to attend his sessions was to get him to autograph a book for my father (Dad owns every book Mr. Weber has written and thinks very highly of him). I was pleased when the first session actually jarred loose some ideas for my MindWalker Series, but I still wasn't going to convert to an Honor Harrington fan. Whether that comes to pass has yet to be seen, but I can say with some certainty that I am now a David Weber fan - and not just because he wrote a nice autograph for my father (and spelled Dad's name wrong).

I was intrigued when Mr. Weber discussed the character of Jiltanith in his primary session, and I asked Dad if he owned the book. When I was home at Christmas, he handed me the set, and it's been sitting in my To Be Read box since. I was a little nervous about it, because I know he primarily writes military science fiction, and I'm not a military fan - no matter what year/universe you put them in. One interesting character can't beat out a lot of boring strategy and American posturing (as was seen with John Ringo). When the opening chapter spilled an info-dump into my lap that had my eyes glazing over, I was really afraid I wouldn't be able to finish the book. I'm sure that the Echanach (might have misspelled that) Drive is really interesting to engineering geeks, but I could care less how it functions. Luckily, once I crawled through the technical jargon and pretty useless information, the book picked up, and I was hooked.

For once, I had a Genesis story involving more than one man and one woman! *-* The Imperial enhancements were a little annoying (why do science fiction characters always seem to have to be invincible?), but the underlying mutiny and the development of Dahak's "human" personality made up for that. Jiltanith's Old English is grating to read (no, I'm not a fan of Shakespeare, either), but her character is every bit as interesting as his discussion promised. It does help that I know some of her backstory that isn't it the book (the entire series has been re-released as one book with additional material - and I have every intention of picking it up), because it softens her a bit. What really pleased me was Colin: he actually IS an ordinary human being, for all his enhancements. Instead of becoming some kind of uber-human who can do/know everything, he actually has limits, has to think on his feet when everything falls apart, and is subject to extreme emotions. It's refreshing to see a character who isn't so tightly wrapped in control, that he ceases to be believable.

There is a lot of military information present (mostly, in the form of weaponry) that I wasn't familiar with, but I was still able to read and comprehend what was going on. While there were strategies in place, I didn't have to wade through diatribes on why they were necessary, how they were designed to function, or a history lesson on how said strategy allowed Rome to triumph. It was refreshing, and it kept me IN the story, rather than constantly dumping me out. The plug on eradicating terrorism set my teeth on edge, but Mr. Weber did have an explanation in place for how the various groups came to be. Also, this book was first published in 1992, I believe, so it's removed from the everyday media blasts I'm exposed to now.

I really wish more had done with Anu to illustrate his level of madness, because that felt a little light; he was the mastermind of the mutiny, and he's been body-hopping for centuries, but there was only one little clip illustrating his loss of reality - and it wasn't particularly convincing. I don't mind making an antagonist a megalomaniac, but SHOW that he has tripped the fuzzy line; don't have me read other character's coming to that conclusion. Just saying you want to kill people really isn't convincing enough - any old villain can do that; if this man is a delusion genius, then give him a little bit of credit, elevate him beyond simple villainy.

And, lo and behold, even though this is the first book in a series, it ENDED! *-* The untied threads are there, but the major threads were all cleanly knotted, and the ending felt like an ending - it felt as if something had been accomplished. Clearly, a proper series ending IS possible - if the author puts the time and effort into it. *-*
Posted by Andria :: 8:46 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo---------------