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Nov. 15th, 2015 10:58 pmI was enjoying Sergey and Marina Dyachenko's The Scar reasonably well, and then a thing happened and I stopped being able to take it seriously, which is probably all to the good because I kind of feel like the ending collapsed the whole point of the book out from under it. But it's fine, because I wasn't taking it seriously at that point anyway!
Most of The Scar -- an award-winning work of Russian fantasy in translation -- is very tightly focused on Egert Soll: an early modern dudebro extraordinaire whose hobbies include fighting and dueling and posturing and seducing other people's wives and generally committing extravagantly stupid feats of physical courage. Whether these extravagantly stupid feats of physical courage conclude with other people injured or dead is highly irrelevant to Egert. Basically, if you've ever read The Three Musketeers and thought to yourself, "wow, these people are all assholes of the highest degree!" then Egert Soll will seem very familiar.
Anyway, in like the second chapter Egert basically murders a hapless student in a duel incurred because Egert was attempting to seduce the student's fiancee Toria and wouldn't take no for an answer. Exit Toria, grieving and furious; enter a mysterious old man, who decides that Egert needs to be taught a lesson about toxic masculinity, and curses him to be OVERWHELMINGLY TERRIFIED OF EVERYTHING.
Most of the rest of the book is a slow psychological examination of how Egert, Most Valiant Dudebro In Town, deals with his sudden transformation into World's Most Helpless Physical Coward (spoiler: not well). Eventually, in his quest to get the curse reversed, Egert ends up in the same university town as the student he killed, and starts living a sort of weird shadow-double version of his life under the furious eyes of Toria.
As a deconstruction of the swashbuckling action-hero archetype, this is interesting! I generally agree with the project!
( The part where I stopped taking the book seriously )
( So then I hit the ending )
Most of The Scar -- an award-winning work of Russian fantasy in translation -- is very tightly focused on Egert Soll: an early modern dudebro extraordinaire whose hobbies include fighting and dueling and posturing and seducing other people's wives and generally committing extravagantly stupid feats of physical courage. Whether these extravagantly stupid feats of physical courage conclude with other people injured or dead is highly irrelevant to Egert. Basically, if you've ever read The Three Musketeers and thought to yourself, "wow, these people are all assholes of the highest degree!" then Egert Soll will seem very familiar.
Anyway, in like the second chapter Egert basically murders a hapless student in a duel incurred because Egert was attempting to seduce the student's fiancee Toria and wouldn't take no for an answer. Exit Toria, grieving and furious; enter a mysterious old man, who decides that Egert needs to be taught a lesson about toxic masculinity, and curses him to be OVERWHELMINGLY TERRIFIED OF EVERYTHING.
Most of the rest of the book is a slow psychological examination of how Egert, Most Valiant Dudebro In Town, deals with his sudden transformation into World's Most Helpless Physical Coward (spoiler: not well). Eventually, in his quest to get the curse reversed, Egert ends up in the same university town as the student he killed, and starts living a sort of weird shadow-double version of his life under the furious eyes of Toria.
As a deconstruction of the swashbuckling action-hero archetype, this is interesting! I generally agree with the project!
( The part where I stopped taking the book seriously )
( So then I hit the ending )
