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Oct. 25th, 2018 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsWell now I have read Revenant Gun, the third in Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire books, and boy, I'm not even gonna try to do this one without spoilers.
Wow, I know I was talking about Lymonds last time, but Jedao II just came in from nowhere and waltzed away with the crown of thorns, huh? Sometimes you can tell what character an author loves best by how much they pile on the undeserved suffering, and this is VERY much the case with Jedao II, a sad immortal Frankenteen who is not responsible for any of the various things that everyone's angry at an alternate version of him about and nonetheless gets saddled not JUST with all the guilt and self-loathing but ALSO the two most unfortunate sexual relationships in a series that until now has been largely free of romance altogether.
Meanwhile, all I really wanted of Jedao II, for the entire book, was for him to get to hang out with Cheris, who is barely in the book at all; my understanding is that there is a sequel novella forthcoming, so one can only hope.
I'm not particularly interested in Kujen, which is too bad, because SO much of the book is dedicated to unraveling The Puzzle Of Kujen. I AM very interested in Kel Brezan, Kel Brezan's complicated sibling relationships, and Kel Brezan's political marriage. I'm also interested in Kel Inesser (and glad that we got a sympathetic character who's dubious about the new calendar and has no interest in hanging out with Cheris, as much as I want to be hanging out with Cheris, and also want Jedao II to be hanging out with Cheris.) And, structurally, I'm really interested in the non-Kujen problems this book sets, Life After Revolution, how to go on making the revolution the thing that it's promised to be; I love that we get the nine-year timeskip and the ways in which Brezan can see that he's failing, and I would very happily have read a whole book focused on that problem.
A very small thing: I made the mistake midway through this book of rereading an old review of an entirely different book where I complained about the parallel development of serialized narrative television running in seasons in a science fictional universe, so now I feel obliged to bring it up here too. There are very specific society and technological reasons that US serialized television developed to run in seasons! ANYWAY. It didn't actually bother me in text, Jedao II Perplexedly Watches Fanfic About Himself was a great running theme and I enjoyed it every time it came up.
Wow, I know I was talking about Lymonds last time, but Jedao II just came in from nowhere and waltzed away with the crown of thorns, huh? Sometimes you can tell what character an author loves best by how much they pile on the undeserved suffering, and this is VERY much the case with Jedao II, a sad immortal Frankenteen who is not responsible for any of the various things that everyone's angry at an alternate version of him about and nonetheless gets saddled not JUST with all the guilt and self-loathing but ALSO the two most unfortunate sexual relationships in a series that until now has been largely free of romance altogether.
Meanwhile, all I really wanted of Jedao II, for the entire book, was for him to get to hang out with Cheris, who is barely in the book at all; my understanding is that there is a sequel novella forthcoming, so one can only hope.
I'm not particularly interested in Kujen, which is too bad, because SO much of the book is dedicated to unraveling The Puzzle Of Kujen. I AM very interested in Kel Brezan, Kel Brezan's complicated sibling relationships, and Kel Brezan's political marriage. I'm also interested in Kel Inesser (and glad that we got a sympathetic character who's dubious about the new calendar and has no interest in hanging out with Cheris, as much as I want to be hanging out with Cheris, and also want Jedao II to be hanging out with Cheris.) And, structurally, I'm really interested in the non-Kujen problems this book sets, Life After Revolution, how to go on making the revolution the thing that it's promised to be; I love that we get the nine-year timeskip and the ways in which Brezan can see that he's failing, and I would very happily have read a whole book focused on that problem.
A very small thing: I made the mistake midway through this book of rereading an old review of an entirely different book where I complained about the parallel development of serialized narrative television running in seasons in a science fictional universe, so now I feel obliged to bring it up here too. There are very specific society and technological reasons that US serialized television developed to run in seasons! ANYWAY. It didn't actually bother me in text, Jedao II Perplexedly Watches Fanfic About Himself was a great running theme and I enjoyed it every time it came up.
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Date: 2018-10-26 05:15 am (UTC)I truly, madly, deeply adored Brezan and his bureaucratic miseries.
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Date: 2018-10-27 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-30 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-30 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-27 01:12 pm (UTC)HARD SAME
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Date: 2018-10-27 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-28 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-30 12:02 am (UTC)Jedao II Perplexedly Watches Fanfic About Himself was a great running theme Not just fanfic, but different interpretations of himself in various movies and dramas!
It was one of my favorite things, second only to the "Cheris tells Jedao II he screwed up his all important calculations because of a sign error" scene.
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Date: 2018-10-30 04:19 am (UTC)Yesssss I loved that even though Jedao II was significantly better at math than Jedao I, he still should have talked his calculations through with a rubber duck first!
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Date: 2019-04-01 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-06 02:58 am (UTC)