RogerBW's Blog

In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, S. M. Stirling 16 October 2020

2008 science fiction, second of the two books of Lords of Creation. The first Mars and Venus landers found breathable air and human life. Forty years later, Jeremy Wainman is on an archaeological expedition looking for a lost Martian city.

The first volume, The Sky People, was spoiled for me by fitting some really interesting ideas into a boringly generic Stirling plot and characters. This one certainly isn't perfect, but it does a rather better job, particularly once we get past the self-indulgent introduction (in which a bunch of science fiction writers, referred to only by their first names which of course the True Fan will know, do things by which they can be recognised, in the context of watching the live feed from the first probe to land on Mars). If this:

"Lookatthat!" Larry cried joyfully.

causes you joy too, well, great. To me, I'm afraid, it smells of a cash-in, of a too-easy triggering of positive associations that this book hasn't earned.

All right, there are still standard Stirling problems, such as that there are only two real people here, our hero and the Martian princess, and I'm not at all sure about the hero for all he has most of the viewpoint time. But the good stuff starts almost at once: unlike the Venusians, these Martians aren't just generic "primitives", they're part of a tradition of continuous civilisation longer than Earth's (as we're often reminded), and they think differently from humans, reflected in everything from the shape of the civilisation (everyone trying to get things done employs Professional Practitioners of Coercive Violence, but those Coercives will change sides readily, if and only if their cause seems hopeless) to their uncompromisingly straightforward language.

"We might already be reveling in our seizure of a valuable ship and cargo, celebrating by absorbing costly essences and engaging in brutally nonconsensual erotic entertainments of a type I find deeply gratifying but which are difficult to arrange on a commercial basis."

There's also a thoroughly biological technology base, lower-energy than Earth's but more able to sustain itself in the absence of a manufacturing and support chain.

All right, the writing is also sloppy, with "nicating membranes" and

The hard and supernally strong stringers of the hull couldn't burn. They /had/ melted and slumped in grayish dribbles and pools against the black of the cabin armor as the blazing hydrogen overcame the fireproofing anticatalyst and blazed like a blast furnace; there had been better than twelve million square feet of it, after all. It must have been like a blast furnace.

(What was it like, then? Was it like a blast furnace? And would't that usually be cubic feet?)

and there are no particular answers to the big questions about what the Ancients (who seeded Mars and Venus with Earth-compatible life in the first place) were like. But the Martian princess actually gets to do things, to the point where it's the hero's job to sit and wait to be rescued for a while. (OK, this is pointed out explicitly for the hard of thinking, but it's still a good thing to have in the book.)

Definitely an improvement on the first book; and I think one could read it without having read The Sky People, since there's plenty of recapping of the important points.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: The Sky People | Series: Lords of Creation

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1