Swan Knight's Son: A general analysis

As one of our previous puppies, Nine Princess in Amber, The Swan Knight's Son and its sequels are books that were written as one (or so I have read.) Still, the first book in the trilogy can be read as it is, and it presents you with an enjoyable introduction to the world John C. Wright has created.

The first thing that should be mentioned is that the Swan Knight's Son is a young adult novel. It can also be enjoyed by er... senior readers, though, and, in fact, some of the references and themes the book touches may fly over the head of almost any teenager. Nevertheless, it is something that should be mentioned as it is a book that was clearly written with a type of reader in mind, and its style and form reflect that choice. Ultimately, it is an adventure tale, and you will not find many "adult passions" even if they are mentioned or hinted. Sex (or sexual passion) is more or less inexistent, and evil and good appear as functions of a metaphysical reality, not just material necessity or your average human tragedy. As most of the characters are not human (e.g. talking animals) or may not even exist in our reality (e.g. elfs,) their needs and goals are not always relatable even if they all are part of a human-centric cosmology.

Thematically, this is a coming-of-age story set in our world (contemporary America, in fact.) However, this reality is surrounded (besieged?) by another reality that constantly toys with humanity. That other world is pretty much a fairyland-like world, but one bound by the imperatives of a Christian and Biblical cosmology. The elfs, pixies, and other creatures that come from that dimension are not your average D&Dified races (in other words, just humans with pointy ears) but almost demonic entities thirsty for human souls.

To say that the book has christian symbolism would be an understatement. The Lord of the Rings may have a christian subtext, but in the Swan Knight's Son those elements are the story, and although you can ignore them, they cannot be removed from it. The Fall of Man, its redemption by Christ, and the Final Judgment are explicitly mentioned, and they are not mere fluff (although you may choose to read it as such.) 

The elfs and other creatures that appear in this book are not merely evil because they are nasty, egotist, enjoy the occasional human snack, or are evil in any human/material scale but because they represent a metaphysical evil. It is pretty much implied they are fallen angels of some kind or, at the very least, servants of the Devil. Their wickedness is a function of that cosmology, and like the actors in a big play, they have a role to play, and their destiny is also preordained:

"They were born before Man with fish and fowl, on the second-to-last day of Creation and they shall descend into Hell on the first day of the second creation, when heaven and Earth are remade. [...] all will perish on the world's last day and be eternally damned. There is no redemption for them. They have no souls than can be saved,"

These are not mere orcs or other brutes that may appear in any other book. These are child-snatching, shapeshifting, transdimensional beings whose existential imperative seems to be to make things miserable for humans and damn their souls while at it if they can. And I use the word imperative because, as is common in many myths and legends, it does not seem like they have any choice in the matter (not that they would choose otherwise, though.) To put it into human terms: they do not do the things they do because they have interests, needs*1, or material temptations but because they MUST, not unlike a tornado MUST destroy. The weather analogy is not that far-fetched as in one chapter we discover that the elfs serve the Winter and Summer Kings, and their battles and contests will determine when the next winter will come (and none of the parts involved has the best interests of mankind in mind.) Also, most of the paranormal events and the creatures and their behavior seem to be somewhat tied to astronomical events, implying some of their behavior is more like a cosmic dance than actual volitional acts.

*1A snowmen mentions their kind needs to kidnap human women to reproduce, though.

That is the cosmological and moral background of the novel, and although you can choose to ignore it, it is always there. Therefore, the antagonist, the monsters, and the Evil our hero fights are not "creatures" as much as a principle or even a "force." This is what gives the elfs and the other creatures that fairy-tale, poetic, or mythical (or even alien*2) aura which makes them seem human (because they speak and think) and inhuman at the same time. Humans create a purpose by existing, doing, and choosing between options (or, at least, that is how we see it from our perspective) but these strange beings are a purpose which, again, it is dependent on the bigger cosmology already mentioned. 

*2Literally. In fact, there is a subset of heretics in the already quite wacky camp of ufologists that claims fairytale creatures and alien "visitors" are essentially the same beings but under different masks.

In a more formal aspect, the book is easy to read, somewhat short, and meant to be a page-turning. In fact, it seems to have been designed to accomplish exactly that as the book is divided into a great number (62, if I am not mistaken) of mini-chapters. As I have not read anything else from John C. Wright, I do not know if that is the usual arrangement for his books, although I speculate it could be a consequence of how he meticulously plans his books ( he does not look like someone who writes by the seat of his pants.) Personally, I would have preferred the broader classification with just ten chapters, as some of the mini-chapters where too short and occasionally the action seemed to jump from one place (or time) to the other when a smoother transition would have been better.

I recommend reading this with your preferred encyclopedia nearby. Every time you find a peculiar name, if you google it, you will find it is a reference to one legend or another. Nathan Housley has already linked to bigger and more detailed analyses of such influences and references, so it would be pointless to say more about it.

Plot-wise, this book is an introduction that follows the protagonist (Gilberec Parzival Moth, or just Gil) trying to make sense of his weird life, his mysterious ancestry, and his desire to become a knight. That desire would have been Quixotic in any other setting (and, to be fair, it still is a bit of that in this one) but the windmills are real this time and, well, the world always needs a few knights. 

It is the "discovery & training" book, if you will, where Gil finally understands (as much as these things can be understood) the nature of the strange reality that surrounds him, trains and gets stronger (thanks to a hardcore routine of bear-wrestling,) and finally finds a worthy challenge to test his skills and his mettle. Notwithstanding all that bear-hugging and the magic weapons he later finds, the guy seems a bit overpowered for a teenager, and I do not know where he learned to use a sword. I mean, in one occasion he beats a few elfs (while wielding an improvised club,) transdimensional and almost immortal half-demonic beings with centuries of experience. I think that moment weakened the aura of fear and preternatural power surrounding the elfs that Wright had managed to craft in the previous chapters.

Still, he is a half-human of sorts and, besides, this a young adult novel, and their protagonists are usually of the Chosen One variety. In any event, and comparing it with other books, I liked that the protagonist had to pass a grueling and brutal training regime, which somewhat justifies his later exploits. Also, those training chapters and the other ones where he talks to animals were my favorites.

I cannot finish this short analysis without mentioning against what this book was written. All books have a purpose of sorts, even if it is just the evocation of a complex emotional experience, but it is also not uncommon that they have an "enemy." I do not think I am assuming too much if I say The Swan Knight's Son was written against some of the modern trends in fantasy and fiction. It is also an obvious jab at secularism and its anti-Christian ethos. Although I would not go as far as to say this is a "message fiction" book, it does have a few things to say. Inevitably so, of course, considering my previous comments about its cosmology. I do not know about other people, but I smiled at the implication that elfs and supernatural forces were behind secularism, and the image of immortal elfs conspiring to remove Christmass trees and replace them with Kwanza trees was quite hilarious.

The lack of religious substance in contemporary fiction has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time, especially when in most fantasy settings it SHOULD be there. Even if, personally, I find some elements of Wright's cosmology a bit constraining, as they seem to reduce the supernatural antagonists almost to the level of objects or symbols, it is a welcome difference nonetheless. I think the next book in the series deals with the elfs in more detail, so some of those issues may disappear.

November 2016 Puppy of the Month: Thune's Vision, by Schuyler Hernstrom.

“And be wary. Victory will test your iron in ways defeat cannot."

A death knight embroiled in the schemings of a dark god, a warlord reluctantly chasing the visions of a dying shaman, warring lizardmen are disturbed by a strange sign from the heavens, an old wizard attempts his definite gambit to finally cheat death. These and others are the stories that you will find in Thune's Vision, a collection of four short stories and a novella, by Schuyler Hernstrom.

Some of you may already know him from his work on Cirsova magazine, but if not, this is the perfect opportunity to fix that. Anyone who knows his pulps and the classics of writers like Robert E. Howard and Jack Vance will quickly see the similarities between Hernstrom's style and those works. Although not yet a famous author, and it's in fact quite an obscure book, if you are interested in the renaissance of Sword & Sorcery and fantasy in general you should read Thune's Vision. Since the short story was also the cradle of fantasy, this collection is a great homage to those tales and the spirit that inspired the Appendix N and the work we do here at the Puppy Of The Month Book Club.

Do you want to join the discussion about a book that will surely be recognized in the future? Read the book and comment, or write your own post if you feel adventurous or have something to say!

You can buy Thune's Vision at Amazon.

Nethereal, Chapters 13-20

Chapter 14: The Shibboleth delivers the stones to Caelia station, located inside a system-wide debris field.  Once there, Vernon introduces himself to Jaren as a member of the Arcana Divines.  The Divines are building an experimental ship, the Exodus, from a design made by Jaren’s father.  Vernon offers Jaren employment in the hopes he can clarify some of his father’s notes.  Additionally, they want Navkin and Deim to helm the ship.

Unlike the conventional ether-runners of the Middle Stratum, the Exodus is designed to explore the uncharted realms of the Fire and Stone Strata.  Which sounds great until we learn that the ship is built using forbidden Guild knowledge.  The Arcana Divines rely on the ancient Mysteries from which the measured science of the Guild developed.

The strata are different dimensions.  At the “top” of the multiverse is the White Well, source of all prana and thought to be divine.  Below it is the Fire Stratum, followed by the Middle Stratum, where all the action in Nethereal has occurred.  The Stone Stratum lies below that, and at the bottom, there is the Void.  For the first time, we see an opposite to the gods.

***

Chapter 15: Jaren’s crew eats breakfast with Mithgar Navy sailors.  Mithgar also chafes under Guild rules, and the navy wishes to be explorers instead of Guild heavies.  During the conversation, Deim grows infatuated with a sixteen year old girl named Elena, who none of the sailors or pirates can see.  He also claims the girl visited him in the night.

To man the Exodus, Jaren need his crew.  The Divines give him coordinates to a prison ship that holds old shipmates that had been captured by Marshal Malachi.  During the raid on the prison ship, Malachi springs a trap.  Surrounding the Shibboleth with courier ships, he demands that Jaren surrender, using the captured pirates as hostages.

Using Workings and the Wheel have long been stated to cause madness.  Deim appears to be showing the first signs of insanity.  However, Elena actually exists, and is not a figure of Deim’s imagination, even if her presence around him might be.

***

Chapter 16: Aboard the prison ship, Jaren and Deim consider their options.  Impulsively, Deim takes control of the ship and attempts to ram Malachi’s courier.  The Guild ships disable the prison ships engines, but an old hauler appears and rams Malachi’s vessel instead.  While directing repair and boarding operations, Malachi realizes that his crew is vanishing into the air around him.  He runs to his ship’s bridge, chased by the screams of men dying around him.  A masked figure looms near the Wheel and offers Malachi a chance to “gather in the dark with us.”  Instead, Malachi uses Guild Workings to transport himself, and only himself, through the ether.

Mordechai has returned, revealing himself as the handiwork of the Guild from five generations earlier.  And whatever he’s doing to the Guildsmen, besides the head splitting and the mutilation, he isn’t just killing them.  The harvest imagery in “gather in the dark with us” is an unsettling clue, as “gather in” is synonymous with “reap”.  The purpose of Mordechai’s harvest has yet to be explained.   While the gods abandoned Nethereal’s universe, whatever embodiment the Void might have walks among it.

As mentioned in the previous post, Nethereal has been filled with action.  However, instead of focusing on the corkscrewing of ships through space and the spray of bullets piercing flesh, as is common in the milSF of the present, instead the action focuses instead on mood.  It use the techniques of implied horror, where monsters are hidden because no image can be scarier that that imagined by the audience, and applies the lessons to action.  If Nethereal ever becomes a TV or film series, there will be time to develop the action sequences into the harrowing chases that space pirates deserve.  Meanwhile, the book will worry more about suspense.

***

Chapter 17: While Malachi’s ship dies, Teg boards a second Guild courier.  He rescued his imprisoned shipmate, sparing – but not forgiving – the gunner who had almost killed him back during the Guild’s Tharis raid.  Meanwhile, Jaren decides to tow the surviving courier and the prison ship back to Caelia station.  At the asteroid base, Vernon inspect the hauler, muttering about Teth.  Jaren ignores the mutterings, and asks instead for his father’s notes.

Teth is an evil force opposite to the prana of the White Well.  Worse, it is considered to be Pure Evil, capable of corrupting a man.  Back in Chapter 5, Mordechai mentions using it to fuel whatever happened in the darkness of the freighter.  (Nethereal does not reward careful reading, it demands it.)  Teth is also the ninth letter of the Gen alphabet.  Since Nethereal relies on metered revelation, usually over the course of three chapters, I wonder if the Gen alphabet will become significant.

***

Chapter 18: For four months, Jaren has been kept from the shipyards building the Exodus, despite a growing involvement in the design and procurement of the ship’s experimental systems.  Two Mithgar navy ships arrive, bringing supplies and naval crew for the Exodus.  Captain Craighan, an officer with anti-Gen prejudice, convenes the military and pirate crews, and gives a speech marking the upcoming maiden voyage.

Craighan and Jaren are jockeying for position.  Neither has the upper hand.  While Craighan claims military command, it is Jaren and his navigators who can actually fly the Exodus.  This creates a system where, like the Spanish navy of old, the authority and the expertise needed to command a vessel are split into two persons.  But while the military man and the space pirate fight, their conflict is rooted in a clash of personalities.  Instead of a conflict between military regimen and cavalier smuggling, both men want to be in charge.  Craighan cannot fire his annoying contractor, and Jaren cannot claim the authority to be master and commander of the Exodus. 

It surprises me that the Exodus, a ship that relies on experimental systems and propulsion, is going straight into a maiden voyage, and not a shakedown cruise or operational test.  Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud.  Well, at least if they haven’t abandoned the universe first.

***

Chapter 19: Compelled by a sense of foreboding, Jaren gathers his crew and boards the Exodus.  There, they find Craighan preparing the ship for combat, manning the Wheel himself. Out in the asteroid field, a fleet of Guild ships led by the massive Serapis is attacking the shipyard.  Amidst the Mithgar Navy’s crumbling defense, Jaren orders broadsides against the Serapis, but is overruled by Craighan, who opts for warning shots instead.  Aboard the Serapis, Malachi scoffs at the response and directs his fleet to destroy Exodus’s escorts. Meanwhile, the Exodus tries to flee to the hyperlimit.

During the prison ship fight, Marshal Malachi managed to fashion a sort of prana thread to Jaren’s ship.  This allowed the Guild minister to follow the thread to the shipyards.  Notice that it required months to track the thread to its end.  There are limits to prana Workings, but more implied than explicitly stated.

I am unimpressed by the Mithgar Navy.  Perhaps malcontents and mutineers might not make the best fighters.  But they were outgunned by the Serapis, and, on the Exodus, Craighan was suffering from the effects of too much time on the Wheel.  But the use of warning shots against a foe killing your men is unforgivable poor judgement, almost cowardice.

Notice also that Craighan’s overexposure to the Wheel manifested itself as poor judgement, lost composure, fatigue, and shortness of breath.  Nowhere among these symptoms is Deim’s strange girl that only he can see. 

***

Chapter 20: Marshal Malachi orders the Guild pursuit of the Exodus.  Frustrated by Craighan’s actions on the Wheel, Navkin fires orbital bombardment weapons at the Guild fleet, committing a war crime.  The Guild counters by shutting down every Working aboard the Exodus.  In that darkness, Mordechai appears on the bridge and points out the Deim has seized control of the Wheel.  As the junior steersman activates the Exodus’s inter-strata engines, he glows a sickly yellow.  Darkness falls over the Exodus once more.

Another chapter better experienced than described.

***

In the next post: Hell.

Nethereal, Chapters 7-13

Congratulations to Brian Niemeier.  His novel, Souldancer, the sequel to Nethereal, won the first Dragon Award for Best Horror Novel.

***

Chapter 7: The Shibboleth follows Shan’s coordinates through an asteroid field in search of the weapons cache.  Using clues carved into the landscape by the theurg, they arrive at a complex bearing Thera icons.  Jaren and Navkin lead a recovery team through the site, but the site has been picked clean.  Dejected, the pirates leave the asteroid, sped along by an attack from a bat-like stone monster.

Ships in Nethereal require the use of a Wheel, a device that allows a Guild steersman to link his awareness to the ship to control the vessel.  As this is an alien experience to a human mind, discipline and will are required to maintain one’s sanity. 

I’m having a hard time not thinking of space-elves whenever the Gen are mentioned.

***

Chapter 8:  The Guild attacks the pirate’s den.  After improvising an explosive trap, he makes his escape, harried by Guild Enforcers.  The Shibboleth arrives to pick up the survivors and almost kills Teg while providing close air support.  On board, Teg and Jaren confront the gunner, who had been swept up in the emotions of the fight.  Teg attacks the gunner, but is subdued by a scratch from Navkin’s envenomed blade.

Between the empty vault and the Guild raid, Jaren’s plans for a Tharis independent from Guild rule have died.

***

Chapter 9: The Shibboleth arrives at Ambassador’s Island after a long flight from Tharis and the Guild.  Jaren intends to use his contacts on the asteroid base to revive his rebellion.  While at a station bar waiting for their contact, the pirates and the patrons are sedated by gas.  Only Navkin remains awake.  The assailants enter the bar.  To protect herself, Navkin summons a wolf the size of the bull.  It devours her attackers.  Before it can continue its rampage and sate itself upon the sleeping pirates, Navkin commands the beast to leave.  For the first time, the wolf listens to her.

***

Chapter 10: After the crew wakes up, Jaren browbeats his contact, who sold him out after blackmail from the minister of Tharis, Marshal Malachi.  The minister has masterminded the Guild’s pursuit of Jaren as well as the empty cache.  Learning that the Guild has arrived in the asteroid’s hanger, Jaren leaves immediately.  On their way out, a thin man in black offers them a job to salvage a missing ship.  As a sign of good faith, the thin man, Fallon, has already massacred the Guild Enforcers in the hangar.  The Shibboleth leaves the station, pursued in a running firefight by four corvettes.  Within the ether, an explosive version of hyperspace, the Shibboleth flies too close to an exploding corvette.

This chapter ties together all the previous plot threads with the exception of Mordechai’s. 

In structure, I am seeing potential influence from Chinese storytelling and long form Japanese anime.  At the same time, Jaren’s decision to accept the salvage mission is clearly an inciting action in the five act formula.  As this could be an essay of its own, let me summarize by saying that Chinese works, from literature to Shaw Brothers cinema, tend to follow a plot event-exploration of consequences-new plot event structure. Longer anime series would often devote the first 2-6 episodes to a hook adventure before developing the main plot arc.  I will likely develop the five act formula in a post devoted to it.  At this point in the formula, though, the protagonist makes a decision from which all conflicts in the story flow. 

The crew discusses the urban legend of the Byport Gouger, a face-slashing monster akin to Jack the Ripper.  While not of the Theran mythology, keep this urban myth in mind for the future. 

***

Chapter 11: Marshal Malachi reviews the progress of the Peregrine chase.  He deems the losses in personnel and ships acceptable.  After a discussion of philosophy and Guild magic, he puts further plans in motion.

For such a spiritual universe as Nethereal’s, Malachi is a hardcore materialist.  Magic is technology, complete with equations not found in the hardest of Sanderson’s magic systems.  Clinging to the certainty of determinism, if he thinks of the gods, he thinks of them in similar terms as the wind-up watchmaker of Deism, content to let the universe run according to its own laws without so much as a thumb on the scales of its workings.  As a member of the Guild, this makes him a materialist and a magician.  It will be interesting to see if his characterization follows that of C. S. Lewis’s materialist magician of the Screwtape Letters, “the man, not using, but veritably worshiping, what he vaguely calls ‘Forces’ while denying the existence of ‘spirits’”.   Right now, though, Malachi worships power 

and competence, like a proper Machiavellian.

***

Chapter 12: The Shibboleth assess their damage.  Their Wheel is beyond repair, but the ship can limp along on backup systems.  Worried by strange dreams of an unknown temple, Jaren resolves to complete the salvage.  The Shibboleth finds the freighter, locked in an embrace with a derelict Guild corvette.  They recover a strange cargo of living stone cubes from the hold.

Could this be Mordechai’s freighter?

For once, Jaren dreams of more than the mission and revenge.  A golden city with architecture unlike anything seen in the universe haunts him.  Despite its splendor, the city is empty, similar to another city of vacant halls and strange temples.

In Guild magic, inanimate objects are worked, while living objects receive glamers.  This distinction is important, as the strange stones in the freighter’s hold only accept glamers.

***

Chapter 13: Marshal Malachi tours the shipyards where the lead vessel of a new class of warships, the Serapis, is under construction.  Meanwhile, the Shibboleth limps into the port of Concordia.  After great difficulty in selling the salvaged stones, a fat broker approaches Jaren with a million guilder offer for the cargo…and continued employment.

The Nethereal universe is in dire straits.  Not only have the gods abandoned it, mass extinctions and desertification of worlds run rampant.  Despite the Guild’s reassurances, many link the loss of life to the continued emptying of the White Well, a reservoir of magical energy called prana, which the Guild uses to fuel both space travel and Workings.  The Gen worshipped the White Well as a god.  How this dying god may or may not be linked to the dying and transforming gods of Zadok and Thera is yet unknown.

Speaking of the Gen, the Guild rated them as better mages than humans.  Marshal Malachi states that this was reason enough to kill off the Gen.

The Serapis immediately recalls the naval duel with Captain John Paul Jones, of “I have not yet begun to fight” fame.  After capture, the original Serapis was converted into a privateer and later lost.  Serapis is also the name of a Greek and Egyptian god of the underworld.  We’ll see how significant a naming choice this may be.

***

I am impressed on how Nethereal avoids the dreaded exposition dump.  Other authors have spent entire chapters setting up worldbuilding, or worse, brought the plot to a screening halt to provide key information to the reader.  Nethereal uses a more metered approach, by stretching out explanations over the course of chapters, introducing new facts only when pertinent to the story without disrupting the action.  And, in a tale that has already had thievery, murder, assassinations, dungeon crawls, police raids, running gun fights between ships, and kidnapping attempts before the main plot kicks into gear, there’s a lot of action.  And the metered approach only adds to the mystery of the tale.

Introductions and Nethereal, Chapters 1-6

Greetings.  My name is Nathan and I have been a Puppy since the initial Campaign to End Puppy Related Sadness.  In addition to being a Wrong Fan, I have been a chemist, a satellite controller, and an office drone.   I’ll also add failed writer and unrepentant bookworm to that list.  Thanks to an English literature course in college, I tend to read books with an eye on how different works shape each other.  Think of the approach as a grown-up version of TV Tropes without the obsessive need to pigeonhole every little thing into a pithy phrase. 

But enough about me.  On to Nethereal.  There will be spoilers.

***

Chapter 1: Navkin lays in bed with Shan, unable to sleep.  She has sedated Shan and waits for the venom to take effect.  At an opportune moment, she steals away to work on Shan’s warded safe.  Using her Workings, she defeats the protections and cracks the safe.  Shan confronts Navkin, and using his own Working, tries to kill her using the same forces used to propel spacecraft between planets, but a monster mauls him to death before he can complete his spell.  Navkin leaves with the contents of the safe.

The first chapter introduces us to Navkin, a Steersman, thief, and major viewpoint character for the rest of the novel.  We also first see the Clarke’s Law magic for Nethereal in the Magi and Steersman, whose ranks include Navkin and Shan.  Using wizardry for space travel is not a new concept, but it identifies Nethereal’s universe as a spiritual one instead of the materialism of hard science fiction.  It is too early to determine if the Workings of the Steersmen are soft magic, like that used by Tolkien, or the hard, rules-based magic of Sanderson.

As you read on, remember the Gen, a despised people, and the monster at the end of the chapter.

***

Chapter 2: On the planet of Tharis, Teg Cross, swordarm for space pirate Jaren Peregrine, travels across fields of ash in a drifter car.  A sandstorm forces him to seek shelter, where he sees an ominous thin man in a suit and mirror-black shoes standing out in the wasteland.  The storm passes, and so does the thin man.  Spooked, Teg arrives at Sojourner’s Cut to fence stolen goods for his captain.  After making the arrangements for the exchange of goods, he is knocked-out from behind by an unseen assailant.

Teg’s mind wanders during his trip across the ash, providing some key world-building exposition.  The Steersman’s Guild is further developed as enforcing an ironclad monopoly on the ether needed for space travel.  Jaren Peregrine flaunts this monopoly while he gathers men and material for a revolt against the Guild on Tharis.  The cosmology of Nethereal appears in the terms Cardinal Spheres, Middle Stratum, and Nine Circles, which invoke both the Nine Worlds of Norse myth and the Nine Circles of Dante’s Inferno. 

The thin man is eerily reminiscent of the Men in Black.  Gamers might be forgiven for thinking of the thin men from XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

***

Chapter 3: Near the end of his voyage from Mithgar, Marshal Malachi prepares to assume the post of Guild minister of Tharis.  During the briefing from the outgoing minister, Malachi confronts him with information linking the minister to smuggling.  Malachi also insinuates that the minister’s support of piracy led to Shan’s death. The real quarry, however, is Jaren Peregrine’s band of space pirates.  Malachi blackmails the minister into helping break the piracy ring.

Cultured, competent, and Machiavellian, Malachai is the youngest Master Steersman in the Guild.  Discworld’s Havelock Vetinari and Honor Harrington’s Victor Cachat would be proud.  I expect to see reverses in the fortunes of Jaren’s pirate crew, beyond whatever trouble Teg is currently in.

Jaren’s reputation grows, chapter by chapter.  Not only is he a smuggler and a revolutionary, the Guild actually considers him a threat as the Gen pirate is charismatic enough to rally supporters to his cause.  Rebellion is now certain on Tharis, but we have yet to see if Jaren’s strategic acumen matches his charisma.

The name Mithgar confirms the influence of Norse myth on Nethereal.  Since each of the Norse Nine worlds is the home of its own people, I expect to see more alien races besides the Gen to be revealed.  Also introduced is the myth of Zadok and Thera, a pair of father and daughter gods eternally annihilating and transforming into each other.  Nethereal is a spiritual universe where the supernatural is normal.  It would be wise to pay attention to the myths.

***

Chapter 4: Navkin flees from the scene of her crime.  Old memories of captivity, escape, and her involvement with the Peregrine family resurface.  She returns to the pirates’ den and reports to Jaren.  Navkin has obtained the coordinated for a weapons cache from Shan’s safe.  Jaren intends to use the contents to equip an army against the Guild.  But first Navkin must tend to Teg, who was shot in the back at the end of Chapter 2.  During the treatment, Jaren interrogates Teg about the trip to Sojourner’s Cut, including the thin man in black.

Navkin is old, at least a hundred years old.  During that time, she has served in turn as rescuer, mother, and sister to Jaren.  Her escape from the Guild kicked off the chain of events that led to Jaren having the means –and the ship- to take revenge on the Guild.  At this time, it is not certain if her long life is due to Guild magic or the technology of the Cardinal Spheres.  She is also a conventional medical expert.  I expected her to use her Workings to heal Teg, not antibiotics.

We meet Jaren for the first time.  With waist-length red hair and a long tan coat, he resembles the shaggy-haired space captains of the golden age of anime space opera.  Firefly fans might also notice that his coat is kind of a brownish color.  Jaren is half Gen, and the last of a race genocided by the Guild during in war that was long over before Navkin was born.  He possesses the intensity and bloody-mindedness of his Gen parentage.  His internal dialogue reflects this, focusing solely on the strategy, logistics, and rage required for revenge.

***

Chapter 5: The captain of the freighter Sunspot confronts his mysterious recluse of a passenger, Van Mordechai.  Since Mordechai boarded the ship, crew and passengers have been vanishing at an alarming rate.  Viewing the unsettling Mordechai as a jinx, the captain wants to kick him off at the next port instead of continuing the voyage to Tharis.  Later, the captain awakes from a nightmare of his dying crew.  Life support is gone.  He reaches for the lights but grabs a bitterly cold blade that shrivels his arm.  Muttering about murder and mutilation, Mordechai confronts the captain about broken promises.  He disappears, leaving the captain alone in the dark…

This chapter is one filled with implied horror, and is better experienced than summarized.  That said, Thera’s star, around which Tharis orbits, is drawing a strange group of people towards it.   Perhaps this is a sign that the gods of Nethereal play an active role in human events.

***

Chapter 6: At the pirate’s den, Teg goes to fetch Deim, the backup Steersman for the Shibboleth, Jaren’s ship.  Deim awakens, but before he leaves for duty, he performs the morning rituals required of a devotee to Thera Souldancer.  Afterward, the two of them board the Shibboleth, a black frigate with swept wings.  Inside, they join the rest of Jaren’s crew as they plan to recover the weapons cache.

Every space pirate needs a spaceship.  Jaren’s Shibboleth has  a passing resemblance to Grumman’s X-29.  Its name also comes from a story in the Old Testament, found in Judges 12.  Suspected fleeing soldiers hiding among the Israelites were forced to say the word shibboleth.  If the foreigners could not say the word correctly, they were slaughtered.  The last member of a massacred race has named his spaceship after a massacre of hidden people.  This is also not the first point of resonance with the Old Testament, as Malachi and Mordechai are names found within. 

Deim’s faith is also significant, both in treatment and in plot.  It is an odd faith in a goddess who has abandoned her universe, but Teg treats it as worthy of respect.  Science fiction tends to treat religion with contempt, and fantasy is littered with plots that can be summed up as “Our god is an evil bastard.  Let’s kill him.”  It is refreshing to see a depiction of faith rooted in the ideas that it is real and it might actually be good.  As for how it relates to the plot, well, as the sergeants used to say in classroom training, you will see this again.

As predicted, other alien races besides the Gen were mentioned.

***

Six chapters down, sixty to go.  Since the next chapter begins an action sequence, I will pause here.  Feel free to post your own observations in the comments below.

Space Pirates Go to Hell

These days, listening to the SFF community recommeding books reminds me of listening to my parents trying to coax a much younger me into eating Brussels sprouts.  Whether it’s to choke down another vegetable or to support the newest in a never ending parade of social causes du jour, the reason is the same: It’s Good For You.  In both cases, precious little time is spent answering the one question that matters to me.  Will I like it?  In that spirit, let me take a moment to speak to the sense of wonder of those who might be on the fence about buying Nethereal, by Brian Neiemeier.

Space Pirates Go to Hell.

One might expect that Nethereal would be about a series of just but cruel punishments served to a crew of hardened criminals.  I certainly did after reading that description online.  However, the space captain, Jaren Peregrine, is a mysterious yet charismatic leader who wages a personal rebellion against a Guild that holds all space travel in its iron grip.  His crew follows him out of loyalty, not lucre.  And in the pursuit of his war, Jaren flies his ship straight through Hell itself.  

For anime fans, think Captain Harlock instead of Peter Pan’s Captain Hook.

Hell in Nethereal is not the lake of fire of current religious depictions.  Instead, it is patterned after the Nine Circles of Dante’s Inferno, complete with cities of the damned, backstabbing demon lords, and horrors, but built vast enough to fly a spaceship through.  Like the Inferno, the only escape is to go deeper through the horrors of the Circles, to the heart of Hell and beyond.  Yet Nethereal chooses inspiration instead of a direct science fiction retelling of the Inferno.  (For that, I recommend Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s Inferno and Escape from Hell.)  This gives the adventures of Jaren and his crew a Blake’s 7 meets Firefly meets Event Horizon flavor.

I could go on about how Nethereal is a genre-blending amalgam of science fiction, fantasy, and horror harkening back to the days of D&D’s Appendix N and the pulps, but that’s starting to veer too close to “It’s Good For You”, at least for my own sense of wonder. Fortunately, we have an entire month to delve into the plots and the characters that flesh out Nethereal from the concept of “Space Pirates Go to Hell” into the wonderful novel that robbed me of sleep when I first read it.

You can buy Nethereal at Amazon.com.