Vampires. In space.

It’s not at all what I expected, but at the same time, kind of awesome. I mean, look how it starts:

You wake in an agony of resurrection, gasping after a record-shattering bout of sleep apnea spanning one hundred forty days. You can feel your blood, syrupy with dobutamine and leuenkephalin, forcing its way through arteries shriveled by months on standby. The body inflates in painful increments: blood vessels dilate, flesh peels apart from flesh, ribs crack in your ears with sudden unaccustomed flexion. Your joints have seized up through disuse. You’re a stick man, frozen in some perverse rigor vitae.

…

Vampires did this all the time, you remember. It was normal for them, it was their own unique take on resource conservation. They could have taught your kind a few things about restraint, if that absurd aversion to right angles hadn’t done them in at the dawn of civilization. Maybe they still can. They’re back now, after all—raised from the grave with the voodoo of paleogenetics, stitched together from junk genes and fossil marrow steeped in the blood of sociopaths and high-functioning autistics. One of them commands this very mission. A handful of his genes live on in your own body so it too can rise from the dead, here at the edge of interstellar space. Nobody gets past Jupiter without becoming part vampire.

This is just a cool concept. The entire idea that vampires are real. The justification that they evolved torpor/hibernation to deal with not out-compenting and wiping out humanity. A natural aversion (leading to seizures) when viewing right angles (like… crosses) that isn’t weeded out because nature doesn’t have many right angles. Super hardy, high processing, great for space travel.

It’s so cool.

And on top of that, we have virtual worlds, the Chinese room argument (with an entire character base on it), normalization of multiple personalities, and all sorts of other interesting people and brains on the trip. Every single one of them is atypical in some way (or multiple ways) and digging into that is a large part of the book.

And we haven’t even gotten to the aliens yet.

All in all, it’s a whole bunch of fascinating concepts all packed into a gloriously dense book. I could see any one of these carrying a novel, let alone all of them. The setting being deep space on (or beyond) the edge of the solar system makes everything claustrophobic, while the flashes of backstory give a bit of time to recover (and explain what in the world is going on with some of these characters).

I really enjoyed it. If any of the above intrigues you, give it a try. I will say though; warning: this is a weird book. Your milage may vary.

Onward!

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“Well,” said Crowley, who’d been thinking about this until his head ached, “haven’t you ever wondered about it all? You know—your people and my people, Heaven and Hell, good and evil, all that sort of thing? I mean, why?”

“As I recall,” said the angel, stiffly, “there was the rebellion and—”

“Ah, yes. And why did it happen, eh? I mean, it didn’t have to, did it?” said Crowley, a manic look in his eye.

“Anyone who could build a universe in six days isn’t going to let a little thing like that happen. Unless they want it to, of course.”

“Oh, come on. Be sensible,” said Aziraphale, doubtfully.

“That’s not good advice,” said Crowley. “That’s not good advice at all. If you sit down and think about it sensibly, you come up with some very funny ideas. Like: why make people inquisitive, and then put some forbidden fruit where they can see it with a big neon finger flashing on and off saying THIS IS IT!?”

The ANTICHRIST is born. ARMAGEDDON is coming! And all that stands in the way (for better /and/ for worse) is an angel/demon best friend combo who happen to /like/ living here.

Oh it’s so good.

I’ve read quite a bit of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, so reading a co-lab between them. Plus, I actually watched the show on Amazon a while back, well before reading this book. From that order at least, it’s one of the particularly faithful and well done adaptations. Both being rather enjoyable.

I really can’t get Michael Sheet and David Tennant out of my head though.

Which is not a bad thing. 😄

It’s a fun ride, political/religious in exactly that fun somewhat blasphemous irreverent sort of way. I enjoy watching the ever increasing highjinks, as more plots get involved. The hundreds of years descendent of the one truly accurate prophetess. The Witch Finder Army–somewhat reduced in manpower. The Four Horsemen–and the dedicated deliveryman who sets them on their way. Plus the Other Four. And of course, the Antichrist himself. All these powers–and no one ever taught him how to use them.

It’s a fun ride. You could do far worse than giving it a go!

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“Those men want to take Laurence from me, and put him in prison, and execute him, and I will not let them, ever, and I do not care if Laurence tells me not to squash you," he added, fiercely, to Lord Barham.

Laurence and the British Government may think that Temeraire was won fairly under the articles of war… but the Chinese aren’t so sure. In an effort to appease them, off Temeraire and Laurence go, halfway around the world to see if they can’t convince them otherwise.

There are a number of parts to really like about this book: Getting to travel the world is neat. The difference of Chinese culture, especially around dragons is fun. I like the idea of basically a Napoleonic era aircraft carrier for dragons. There are other related big beasties in the world as well!

The discussions about slavery, the differences in culture between the British and Chinese, and what that might mean for dragons were fascinating. Especially having read A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians not that long ago, it was interesting to see another take on the same period–especially when we randomly get news that Pitt has died.

And of course, the aforequoted relationship between Temeraire and Laurence. That’s really a great part of the book.

On a downside, it’s a bit less action packed than the first book. We get a couple of big fights, don’t get me wrong, but it’s got a low slower pace. A bit jarring.

Worth a read.

Onward!

Jebi was torn between saying ‘You are embarrassing me’ and ‘I am going to take up my brush and make a painting of you that they will talk about for the next 10,000 years’. They said neither.

A world chock full of the history of China/Japan/China of a hundred years and change ago. Racism, colonialism, occupation, etc.

A major take on artists during war. Both from the main character Gyen Jebi, an artist who fails to pass the examination for the Ministry of Art–and ends up the perhaps much more interesting Ministry of Armor, making magical automata for the government. It’s fascinating seeing a relatively common job turned extraordinary.

And of course, the mechanical dragon on the cover. Arazi. Who is also a philosopher and pacifist, because of course they are. . There’s always something fun about relatively non-human characters like that. Probably the coolest part of the book.

And of course of course, there’s love. The relationship between Jebi and their captors, Vei especially. It’s interesting seeing the people who are perhaps all the more aware of the situation at hand and their relationships with the at times amusingly clueless Jebi.

Overall, an interesting book. I like the magic of the setting and the characters. The ending felt a little weird and weak, but it did wrap up well enough I suppose.

The studio also featured a large wall calendar with cryptic abbreviations, presumably reminders. Also doodles of gears, sprockets, and malformed genitalia, because artists were artists.

Oh that’s quite a conclusion.

“You’re creating hell. And you’re putting yourself inside it.”

NEMESIS-1’s tone was serene. “Hell is the optimal solution.”

In The Outside, humanity found something Outside of the Gods’ influence and managed to tear apart a large part of the world of Jai. In The Fallen, they learned to live with it.

And now in The Infinite, it’s time to learn more about the Gods themselves–what they really are and how they came to be… and perhaps it’s time for the Gods’ reigns to end.

It’s a fascinating story and, in my opinion, perhaps the best of the trilogy. At once, we get answers for just what lead to the world that the characters live in now–while at the same time opening so many more questions. What happened in the 700 years between the earliest and latest points of view in the book? What’s going on in the rest of the universe? And what happens next?!

But so far as this single story, it’s finished and well done. I always do applaud authors able to do that.

Onward!

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