Emma Bull, Falcon

[oyceter]

I feel like I've been on a whirlwind ride through space and time, like the gestalt pilots in the book.

And I'm taking a small break, because I just finished it five minutes ago and it's still pouring through my head and wreaking havoc on my emotions.

Back, still with nothing much to say.

First impression I had of the book, once I got a fair amount into the plot, was that this is the Emma Bull remix of Dune. The gestalt pilots, the disjunct between the royal life and life post-revolution, Niki and Morwenna, and Niki's conversion... Except this book gets right all the places where Dune can go wrong (and I really like Dune) and had me sitting at the edge of my seat the entire time.

It's so strange, because it takes a while to get into -- not too long, but enough so that I noticed a little mental disjunct. I think I have been noticing less these days because I've been reading so much romance. Romances aren't very hard to slip into for me -- get the names of the hero and the heroine off the back cover, get the basic plot off the back cover, and mostly what's inside is a clever play on the standard plot (hopefully), interesting twists of genre expectations, and occasionally watching with joy as the author stretches the boundaries of the genre to the breaking point.

Scifi/fantasy is different -- you're thrown in and generally expected to know your way around. You have to remember the various character names and relationships (in romance, if you forget the hero's best friend or the heroine's sister, it really doesn't matter that much), you have to sometimes figure out the political situation, the personal situation, and various emotional connections. And on top of all this, your brain is working fulltime in the background, trying to make sense of this new world you've just entered, trying to figure out the ground rules. Is there magic? Are there spaceships? What's the government? Nothing is certain, unlike a historical novel, in which you know what planet you're on at least.

I really miss that about sff, which I haven't been reading as much of late.

I love the way Emma Bull writes, how small gestures matter -- I was particularly struck by a small sequence in which Niki gets the inhaler from Kitty and only a few seconds later does the reader realize.

And I adore Niki (quintessential Fool, imho) and his foolish bravery and his morals and his heroic melodramatics.

That made the second half of the book so much more painful and wrenching to get through, reading about the conversion and his existence as a gestalt pilots (like the Space Guild people in Dune, kind of).

I love that his life is a circle, until he breaks free.

I very much like Jhari as well.

I may have some smarter things to say later, but right now I am a big mess of emotion.

Thanks very much to Aliera for sending it (though it took me forever to get around to reading!).

Comments

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Huh. I never made the Dune connection. Maybe it's time to reread this.

What did you feel about the split in the middle? Most of the reviewers had a problem with that.

[oyceter]

Hrm -- the split was definitely strange. I was also feeling like I was reading two books in the first half, since what was happening in the book had absolutely nothing to do with the back cover. But the Dune thing hit me around the betrayal scene, so I think I was sort of expecting it. Dune's got a divide like that, although not quite as drastic.

I think it might have worked better if the two halves had been tied more closely together -- I wanted the end to have some sort of grand revelation on the overthrow on Cymru connected with Niki becoming a gestalt pilot. I think Bull was sort of going for that, with the revelations about Morwenna and Jacob, but she didn't quite go far enough to make it an "Aha" moment.

Mostly I was all right with it though. I don't think it threw me off quite as much as it might have.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed it and always very glad for the reviews. This is the one EB book that didn't really work for me (YMMV and that's very OK.)

Did you see her story at Endicott? There's a link in my journal, and if you haven't yet, I think you might like it.

[oyceter]

That's interesting, how come it didn't work for you? I think I read her Finder a few years ago, and it didn't work for me at all, but I might reread it sometime soon and see.

Ooo, I have to check that out! I should remember to bookmark stuff on LJ that I find interesting.