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icarus_chained Jun. 24th, 2013 10:14 pm)
icarus_chained Jun. 24th, 2013 10:14 pm)And finally. My sister helped me to buy the ebooks of Blood Maidens and Magistrates of Hell by Barbara Hambly, so I've just finished the James Asher series thus far. And by 'just' I mean I got the books yesterday and finished MoH about an hour ago. *grins faintly*
Right. A couple of things to preface. First, while I enjoyed both of these, I think Blood Maidens is probably the weakest book in the series. And second, I didn't notice it during Traveling with the Dead because I was too caught up fangirling Lydia, but over the course of these two I cottoned on to the slight genre shift across the series, which I think might have something to do with the mixed reactions I've seen towards the sequels? More on that in a second.
Just a quick overview of my reactions to the books:
- Blood Maidens. It had some good moments, but I couldn't help but feel that it was basically a remix of the major plot elements from the first two books. It's not bad, but up until the last few chapters it just felt really familiar. There were some high notes, though. Lydia's struggle to reconcile her reactions to Simon. The introduction of the Others (and Karlebach). Genia coming to Lydia for help. The glimpses we get of Simon's past love. And then the entire last sequence in the monastery of St Job, up to Asher's choice at the end. That was fabulous and somewhat wrenching. Overall, though, the book felt more like a bridging book between Traveling with the Dead and Magistrates of Hell than something that would stand well on its own. *shrugs sheepishly*
- Magistrates of Hell. Loved it. I'll probably go into this in slightly more depth when I'm touching on the genre shift, but basically I had the same reactions and felt the same rush with MoH as I did with TwtD, and probably for much the same reasons. *grins sheepishly* Spies plus vampires, it works for me, yes? Plus Lydia being badass and awesome, James being a spy, Simon being out of place and out of depth and I think growing into something new over the course of his adventures, and then some new and awesome characters: Mizukami in particular is awesome, and Karlebach is tragic and badass (and, while obsessed, not actually wrong). And any book that has Lydia sneaking around a vampire/triad compound thinking "Damn those wretched gangsters for stealing my glasses!" is always going to be good for me. Heh. Plus the whole struggle about Ysidro in this one, where they have to sentence him to a horrible death, manage to get him out (by accident, not intent), and then he gets shot ... And you know you shouldn't be upset, you know Karlebach actually has the right of it, but goddamn it, it still kills you anyway. (Although, can I just say? Mad supervamp is going to kill Simon (again) and Lydia kicks it in the trousers to save him? Never not going to be awesome. Just ... never).
It was awesome for me. I don't have the history behind me to judge what Hambly was doing with the setting, early 20thC Beijing, but there was a lot of exploration of the actual city and the way it worked, the people that lived there and the intrusive and walled presence of the outsiders, which was fascinating. I need to read more. Heh.
But MoH did finally make the genre shift click for me. We seem to have moved over the series from a slightly unusual vampire detective story into a turn-of-the-century spy thriller with added vampires. So if Those Who Hunt The Night was Dracula with spies, Magistrates of Hell was Flashman plus vampires? Like that?
Of course, for me this is perfect, because I like vampire stories but I love turn-of-the-century spy stories (again, see Flashman, though that's more 19thC), and spy stories plus the supernatural is basically catnip (see also Charles Stross' Laundry series). So the Ashers plus Simon exploring 1908 Constantinople or 1911 Beijing, dealing with the international pressures in the run-up to WWI and the local pressures in the aftermaths of revolutions and rebellions, is pretty much awesome to me. However, I can see why someone who had come for the vampires, not the turn-of-the-century politics/cultures, might not enjoy it half so much? Someone who's also read the series, would that be your experience?
That aside again, though. The interactions between the three leads, the story built up across the four books ...
I love how Simon, much like Anthea, seems to be changing from his time with the Ashers. When he first approached a human to solve a vampire problem in TWHTN, we got the impression that he did so only reluctantly, and pretty much every other vampire in range thoroughly disapproved of it. Then Lydia pokes him into helping her deal with Charles and James and Anthea, travelling from Vienna to Constantinople, and in BM he's asking for James' help to travel to St Petersburg to sort out another far flung vampire problem, and then by the time we hit MoH Don Simon seems to have essentially appointed himself as freelance vampire policeman dealing with whatever hinted vampiric problems might come up, even should they happen to be in China.
He risks more, he trusts more, he sacrifices more. He goes places that scare him, when he'd spent the past how many centuries denying he could even feel fear anymore? Simon has always been a rare vampire in terms of things that interest him and things that he knows how to deal with and things he's willing to do and consider when he needs to act. Working with the Ashers seems to have ... put a burr up his ass, basically. He's doing things. Not just the hunt. He's exploring the world, dealing with Masters, putting down mutant infestations and Other nests, investigating and interfering with power networks from Europe to China. He's becoming possibly the first global vampire, at the dawn of the 20th century. He's ... possibly not very good at it yet, not compared to James and his Foreign Office experience, but considering that most vampires get more and more restricted as they get older, the fact that Simon's even out there at all at his age is fairly spectacular.
And I really love the struggle James and Lydia have to deal with him. Especially when Karlebach shows up to remind them what he is, what he does, to not let them slip into complacency about the fact that Simon is still (and always will be) a murderer. I love James struggling to think about it in terms of his service to Country, comparing bodycounts and motives between one form of service and another, whether the blood is any less red for the causes of country or just self-preservation. How he keeps circling the realisation that he chose to leave the service, to walk away from killing because he knew he could all too easily live with it, and that Simon will never do the same. And Lydia, who thinks of it in terms of Margaret Potton, of each individual innocent who dies to feed a man she still wants to stay safe, who knows and fears that she loves two killers, one human and one not.
And, on that subject, how much do I also love that James does not for one second begrudge Lydia anything she feels? That they've gone through the pain of miscarriage together, that they've gone through the joy of having a child, that they've fought vampires together and both borne the scars, that they trust each other at every turn to be capable enough to do whatever needs doing. That James knows Lydia loves Simon, and doesn't ... doesn't seem to feel a second's jealousy. Fear, yes, for where it might lead them. But there's no anger and no hurt towards her for her feelings. (Possibly because James rather loves Simon too, or at least struggles with his loyalty to him and his fear of its causes). That the trust in her that James first showed in TWHTN, when he sat down and told her what was happening and trusted her to help him deal with it, is still there, three books and at least four years later. (And now with a child in tow, now with a daughter they love more than life and uneasily consider that they'd happily feed someone to Ysidro if anything ever happened to her).
I loved Mizukami watching the pair of them, by the way. I love him seeing James as more than what he appears, I love him seeing through Lydia's grief, I love him admiring her for the warrior she is at heart. *grins* A grieving widow who stands beside soldiers as a doctor and a strategist and discusses planting chlorine bombs to destroy a youkai nest, yessir, she is indeed a samurai at heart. And James' amused chagrin when Mizukami points it out to him. Hee. Oh, I love them. (I also love how James is essentially 'Global Vampire Expert Number One' these days, and people from St Petersburg to Beijing are wondering how the hell he knows what he knows, and how the hell he survived long enough to know it).
And Simon. Between James being unable to kill him in Petersburg, and then everything that happened in Beijing: them realising he's been captured, that they'll have to kill him horribly because there's no way to get him out, them struggling with the knowledge that he probably deserves it (bodycount in the tens of thousands), him managing to get out, him saving Lydia, and then the gunshot.
And it was the last book so far, and I thought it was real, I thought Hambly'd actually killed him, and damn I do not like knowing that I kind of wanted to save a murderer too -_-; That I felt the shock and horror along with them, and didn't want him to die. Especially when James was right there acknowledging dully that Karlebach was right, that Simon deserved to die, that he was a murderer. That does not make this easy, dammit!
Which is the point, and at least half of why I love these books, yes. But still. *grins sheepishly*
Um. Yes. So. I now own the books. And I've now read the books. And I love them desperately, and I kind of hope for more. At least one more. Just one more hit, yes? Isn't that how these things work? Just one more hit please, and I'm sure I'll be satisfied. Heh.
In summary: spies and vampires go well together. And James/Lydia/Simon is still my OT3. With all the uncomfortable moral realisations that entails. *smiles crookedly*
Just a quick overview of my reactions to the books:
- Blood Maidens. It had some good moments, but I couldn't help but feel that it was basically a remix of the major plot elements from the first two books. It's not bad, but up until the last few chapters it just felt really familiar. There were some high notes, though. Lydia's struggle to reconcile her reactions to Simon. The introduction of the Others (and Karlebach). Genia coming to Lydia for help. The glimpses we get of Simon's past love. And then the entire last sequence in the monastery of St Job, up to Asher's choice at the end. That was fabulous and somewhat wrenching. Overall, though, the book felt more like a bridging book between Traveling with the Dead and Magistrates of Hell than something that would stand well on its own. *shrugs sheepishly*
- Magistrates of Hell. Loved it. I'll probably go into this in slightly more depth when I'm touching on the genre shift, but basically I had the same reactions and felt the same rush with MoH as I did with TwtD, and probably for much the same reasons. *grins sheepishly* Spies plus vampires, it works for me, yes? Plus Lydia being badass and awesome, James being a spy, Simon being out of place and out of depth and I think growing into something new over the course of his adventures, and then some new and awesome characters: Mizukami in particular is awesome, and Karlebach is tragic and badass (and, while obsessed, not actually wrong). And any book that has Lydia sneaking around a vampire/triad compound thinking "Damn those wretched gangsters for stealing my glasses!" is always going to be good for me. Heh. Plus the whole struggle about Ysidro in this one, where they have to sentence him to a horrible death, manage to get him out (by accident, not intent), and then he gets shot ... And you know you shouldn't be upset, you know Karlebach actually has the right of it, but goddamn it, it still kills you anyway. (Although, can I just say? Mad supervamp is going to kill Simon (again) and Lydia kicks it in the trousers to save him? Never not going to be awesome. Just ... never).
It was awesome for me. I don't have the history behind me to judge what Hambly was doing with the setting, early 20thC Beijing, but there was a lot of exploration of the actual city and the way it worked, the people that lived there and the intrusive and walled presence of the outsiders, which was fascinating. I need to read more. Heh.
But MoH did finally make the genre shift click for me. We seem to have moved over the series from a slightly unusual vampire detective story into a turn-of-the-century spy thriller with added vampires. So if Those Who Hunt The Night was Dracula with spies, Magistrates of Hell was Flashman plus vampires? Like that?
Of course, for me this is perfect, because I like vampire stories but I love turn-of-the-century spy stories (again, see Flashman, though that's more 19thC), and spy stories plus the supernatural is basically catnip (see also Charles Stross' Laundry series). So the Ashers plus Simon exploring 1908 Constantinople or 1911 Beijing, dealing with the international pressures in the run-up to WWI and the local pressures in the aftermaths of revolutions and rebellions, is pretty much awesome to me. However, I can see why someone who had come for the vampires, not the turn-of-the-century politics/cultures, might not enjoy it half so much? Someone who's also read the series, would that be your experience?
That aside again, though. The interactions between the three leads, the story built up across the four books ...
I love how Simon, much like Anthea, seems to be changing from his time with the Ashers. When he first approached a human to solve a vampire problem in TWHTN, we got the impression that he did so only reluctantly, and pretty much every other vampire in range thoroughly disapproved of it. Then Lydia pokes him into helping her deal with Charles and James and Anthea, travelling from Vienna to Constantinople, and in BM he's asking for James' help to travel to St Petersburg to sort out another far flung vampire problem, and then by the time we hit MoH Don Simon seems to have essentially appointed himself as freelance vampire policeman dealing with whatever hinted vampiric problems might come up, even should they happen to be in China.
He risks more, he trusts more, he sacrifices more. He goes places that scare him, when he'd spent the past how many centuries denying he could even feel fear anymore? Simon has always been a rare vampire in terms of things that interest him and things that he knows how to deal with and things he's willing to do and consider when he needs to act. Working with the Ashers seems to have ... put a burr up his ass, basically. He's doing things. Not just the hunt. He's exploring the world, dealing with Masters, putting down mutant infestations and Other nests, investigating and interfering with power networks from Europe to China. He's becoming possibly the first global vampire, at the dawn of the 20th century. He's ... possibly not very good at it yet, not compared to James and his Foreign Office experience, but considering that most vampires get more and more restricted as they get older, the fact that Simon's even out there at all at his age is fairly spectacular.
And I really love the struggle James and Lydia have to deal with him. Especially when Karlebach shows up to remind them what he is, what he does, to not let them slip into complacency about the fact that Simon is still (and always will be) a murderer. I love James struggling to think about it in terms of his service to Country, comparing bodycounts and motives between one form of service and another, whether the blood is any less red for the causes of country or just self-preservation. How he keeps circling the realisation that he chose to leave the service, to walk away from killing because he knew he could all too easily live with it, and that Simon will never do the same. And Lydia, who thinks of it in terms of Margaret Potton, of each individual innocent who dies to feed a man she still wants to stay safe, who knows and fears that she loves two killers, one human and one not.
And, on that subject, how much do I also love that James does not for one second begrudge Lydia anything she feels? That they've gone through the pain of miscarriage together, that they've gone through the joy of having a child, that they've fought vampires together and both borne the scars, that they trust each other at every turn to be capable enough to do whatever needs doing. That James knows Lydia loves Simon, and doesn't ... doesn't seem to feel a second's jealousy. Fear, yes, for where it might lead them. But there's no anger and no hurt towards her for her feelings. (Possibly because James rather loves Simon too, or at least struggles with his loyalty to him and his fear of its causes). That the trust in her that James first showed in TWHTN, when he sat down and told her what was happening and trusted her to help him deal with it, is still there, three books and at least four years later. (And now with a child in tow, now with a daughter they love more than life and uneasily consider that they'd happily feed someone to Ysidro if anything ever happened to her).
I loved Mizukami watching the pair of them, by the way. I love him seeing James as more than what he appears, I love him seeing through Lydia's grief, I love him admiring her for the warrior she is at heart. *grins* A grieving widow who stands beside soldiers as a doctor and a strategist and discusses planting chlorine bombs to destroy a youkai nest, yessir, she is indeed a samurai at heart. And James' amused chagrin when Mizukami points it out to him. Hee. Oh, I love them. (I also love how James is essentially 'Global Vampire Expert Number One' these days, and people from St Petersburg to Beijing are wondering how the hell he knows what he knows, and how the hell he survived long enough to know it).
And Simon. Between James being unable to kill him in Petersburg, and then everything that happened in Beijing: them realising he's been captured, that they'll have to kill him horribly because there's no way to get him out, them struggling with the knowledge that he probably deserves it (bodycount in the tens of thousands), him managing to get out, him saving Lydia, and then the gunshot.
And it was the last book so far, and I thought it was real, I thought Hambly'd actually killed him, and damn I do not like knowing that I kind of wanted to save a murderer too -_-; That I felt the shock and horror along with them, and didn't want him to die. Especially when James was right there acknowledging dully that Karlebach was right, that Simon deserved to die, that he was a murderer. That does not make this easy, dammit!
Which is the point, and at least half of why I love these books, yes. But still. *grins sheepishly*
Um. Yes. So. I now own the books. And I've now read the books. And I love them desperately, and I kind of hope for more. At least one more. Just one more hit, yes? Isn't that how these things work? Just one more hit please, and I'm sure I'll be satisfied. Heh.
In summary: spies and vampires go well together. And James/Lydia/Simon is still my OT3. With all the uncomfortable moral realisations that entails. *smiles crookedly*
