(no subject)

[skygiants]

Lara Elena Donnelly's Amberlough is being marketed as "John Le Carré meets Cabaret." This is largely accurate. I also saw someone mention Ellen Kushner's The Fall of Kings, which may also be accurate, but I haven't read Fall of Kings so I couldn't really say; however, I definitely did get some strong Swordspoint vibes.

The titular Amberlough is a secondary-world city (though not actually a fantastical one; there's no magic, as far as I can tell) heavily influenced by Weimar Berlin, full of corruption and cross-dressing and decadent clubs. While the nationalist/fascist One State Party is starting to gain in prominence in various regions of the country, nobody expects it to have a chance in Amberlough.

Protagonist A is Cyril DePaul, an intelligence agent who is not at all eager to re-enter the field after a previous traumatic experience; Protagonist B is Aristide Makricosta, a wildly fabulous cabaret emcee who moonlights as a key figure in a major smuggling operation. Cyril and Aristide are having a very comfortable time pretending that they are only banging so they can spy on each other, when in fact everyone is perfectly aware that they are only investigating each other so that they can bang. Protagonist C is Cordelia Lehane, Aristide's stage partner at the cabaret, who has numerous other personal business of her own but gets pulled into their storyline when Cyril finds himself in need of a beard.

The plot kicks off when Cyril gets yanked away from his moderate idyll with Aristide to go back out into the field on an undercover mission. In theory he is meant to be preventing an illicit takeover in the national elections by the One Sate Party. In practice -- well, I mean. Le Carre, Cabaret. I will leave it to you all to do the math.

This should probably be enough information that you'll be able to get a sense if this is the sort of thing you want (and feel able) to read or not. Personally, I'm more of a Privilege of the Sword person than Swordspoint; I was most interested in Cordelia, the only protagonist who at any point can really be said to take a stand for something more than [themselves+1]. That said, I will definitely be reading the next book.

Comments

[sovay]

In practice -- well, I mean. Le Carre, Cabaret. I will leave it to you all to do the math.

See, I like both John le Carré and Cabaret, but a combination sounds depressing as hell.

[skygiants]

I'm not sure it's that much more depressing than the two are individually, but it's not ... not ....... um.

All protagonists survive, anyway! Sorry, secondary love interests.

[hebethen]

I'd actually been wondering about Cyril -- his bit seemed rather ambiguous to me!

[makamu]

This sounds equal parts fascinating and messy. Thank you for making me aware of the book - I'll take a closer look before deciding what to do next :)

[skygiants]

You're welcome; it's definitely both of those things! I have some thoughts to unpack about the worldbuilding, too, though it's certainly making a very solid effort to be something quite different than alt!Germany.

[makamu]

I have some thoughts to unpack about the worldbuilding, too, though it's certainly making a very solid effort to be something quite different than alt!Germany.

Oh, I would love to read those thoughts if you can find the time! And it's good to hear that they are making an effort to be their own thing. Not least because I find most of the versions of alt!fascist Germany quite boring and predictably (speaking as a German with an interest in that timeperiod)

[skygiants]

The short version is that it hasn't completely cut the our-world ties -- for example, Amberlough uses British/German naming conventions while a couple of foreign characters have clearly Chinese-inspired names -- but she's put some effort into writing a democratic political system and a set of preliminary conditions for the rise of fascism that are both quite different than the ones extant in the Weimar Republic. (Internal trade disparities which I didn't 100% follow and a past unfortunate military entanglement that looks a lot more like America's involvement in Vietnam rather than the Great Loss of WWI being among them.) Her target at-risk minorities are I think also somewhat carefully designed not to map exactly onto Jews or Romani, though she can't get away from it completely.

[sovay]

Her target at-risk minorities are I think also somewhat carefully designed not to map exactly onto Jews or Romani, though she can't get away from it completely.

What does she choose instead?

[skygiants]

The religious targets worship an older religion which has largely fallen into disfavor and allows for marriage with more than two people (this is the only distinguishing feature I remember about it); the racial targets are a group of ethnic-minority hill-shepherds (Aristide is of this heritage). There is some overlap between these groups, but the Venn diagram is definitely not a circle.

[whimsyful]

Yeah I loved the prose and thought the plot was well done, but it was a bit too bleak for me, despite or perhaps because of the current political climate. I also wasn't that fond of Cyril--"ruthless manipulator willing to sacrifice everything for themselves +1" sometimes works really well for me, but it didn't in this case. I did like both Aristide and Cordelia though!

[skygiants]

Yeah, and I'm not sure we got enough early on of the Cyril+Aristide relationship in less devastating times for me to be invested in him vicariously/understand why Aristide was so invested in him despite the fact that he was knowingly dooming multitudinous other humans.

I did find myself spending a lot of time wondering when the book was written -- like, it's out now, publishing doesn't move that quickly, it can't have been written after November, right? It's not possible! It's just that the scene of everyone waking up the morning after the election like ?????!!!!!!:OOOOOOOO!!! was a little too real.

[kathmandu]

Maybe it was written after Brexit? Still not a lot of time, but a few more months.

[rachelmanija]

It came out from Tor in early February. There's no way. They have a one-year lead time at the absolute minimum. And that's not even accounting for the time it takes to write a book.

Counting backwards and assuming it was finished a minimum of one year before publication and presumably started at least six months before that, it would probably have been started some time in 2014 or (less likely) early 2015. If you push the timeline to mid 2015, which is just barely possible, it could have been inspired by Trump announcing his candidacy.

[skygiants]

What I'm wondering is whether it's at all possible publication was rushed due to Extreme Timeliness - or, alternately, whether there was a pre-existing book ready to go out and then a Post-Election Edit. But I think that's not really possible, honestly, I think it was just extremely and creepily fortuitous.