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Oct. 8th, 2009 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI've been (slowly) continuing my reread of Dorothy Dunnett's Niccolo books. In The Spring of the Ram, Nicholas & company (& mercenary troop) bounce off to Trebizond to help defend Emperor David against the oncoming Saracems; in Race of Scorpions, our hero bounces between two siblings who each want him to work for them to help them gain control of the island of Cyprus. Spring of the Ram, while twisty and fascinating and action-packed like all Dunnet, gets frustrating much of the time because it's essentially one massive debate over whether Nicholas's team is going to work together/with Nicholas or not, and he gets shunned for a while, and then he gets un-shunned, and after a while one gets tired of it. Race of Scorpions, on the other hand, is a lot of fun because of how sulky Nicholas is at first, and how much and how often he screws up and how twistily he has to contort to get out of it ("no, seriously, I was only pretending to be on the other side the last three times!") - and the last third, with the siege, is seriously intense.
Other impressions:
- I vaguely remember crushing hardcore on Tobie when I read the series the first time, and I seem to be in danger of doing this again. D: Sulky fictional bald doctors are not usually my type! But even though it is frustrating how it seems like he is deliberately misinterpreting sometimes, I really like how forthright he is about when he does and doesn't trust Nicholas, and how cranky he is, and how he is the kind of person who will hunt Nicholas down across the world JUST TO HAVE THE JOY of quitting the company in person. I also love how he always seems to be the one who gets stuck dressing up as the Loathly Lady when they are doing random Arthurian pageants. (Okay, this only happens once, but it is HILARIOUS.)
- Another thing that is hilarious: the running theme throughout both books of Byzantine emperors batting their eyelids at Nicholas while Nicholas is like "I, I do like you! But not in that way!" Also it is nice that at least one of those Byzantine emperors is not vilified for it, and is in fact pretty much acknowledged as a hot catch.
- I wish and will keep wishing that Dunnett does more with the Charetty daughters. (Also, re: Catherine in Spring of the Ram: I HATE THAT PLOT SO MUCH.)
- I really, really wish Nicholas' African majordomo Loppe was not so often silent, and that we were shown, more than told, his intelligence and importance; I notice him more now than I did on my last read, but it's not enough. (But I do love that he is the group linguist.)
- I like Katelina, and the Katelina scenes in this book especially were very powerful - and I do like all the powerful women behind the scenes. That said, a lot of them are very behind the scenes, and I am SO LOOKING FORWARD to the awesome angry bitter revenge-driven female protagonist of the series. Hopefully her arrival will make up for the amount of cringing I anticipate doing over the African setting in the next book!
Other impressions:
- I vaguely remember crushing hardcore on Tobie when I read the series the first time, and I seem to be in danger of doing this again. D: Sulky fictional bald doctors are not usually my type! But even though it is frustrating how it seems like he is deliberately misinterpreting sometimes, I really like how forthright he is about when he does and doesn't trust Nicholas, and how cranky he is, and how he is the kind of person who will hunt Nicholas down across the world JUST TO HAVE THE JOY of quitting the company in person. I also love how he always seems to be the one who gets stuck dressing up as the Loathly Lady when they are doing random Arthurian pageants. (Okay, this only happens once, but it is HILARIOUS.)
- Another thing that is hilarious: the running theme throughout both books of Byzantine emperors batting their eyelids at Nicholas while Nicholas is like "I, I do like you! But not in that way!" Also it is nice that at least one of those Byzantine emperors is not vilified for it, and is in fact pretty much acknowledged as a hot catch.
- I wish and will keep wishing that Dunnett does more with the Charetty daughters. (Also, re: Catherine in Spring of the Ram: I HATE THAT PLOT SO MUCH.)
- I really, really wish Nicholas' African majordomo Loppe was not so often silent, and that we were shown, more than told, his intelligence and importance; I notice him more now than I did on my last read, but it's not enough. (But I do love that he is the group linguist.)
- I like Katelina, and the Katelina scenes in this book especially were very powerful - and I do like all the powerful women behind the scenes. That said, a lot of them are very behind the scenes, and I am SO LOOKING FORWARD to the awesome angry bitter revenge-driven female protagonist of the series. Hopefully her arrival will make up for the amount of cringing I anticipate doing over the African setting in the next book!
