The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan
Apr. 23rd, 2009 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbgI was told that The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan was a fantasy genre-busting, extremely violent thrill ride etc etc. This is not why I read it. RM also happens to be the author of one of my favourite SF/detective books Altered Carbon, and as a recent GoH at Swancon, he was a seriously cool, intelligent and interesting Dude.
I also stopped reading fantasy some years ago, bored by the heavy repetition (NAFE).
Expectations are interesting things. I kept waiting for the outrageously bloody and violent bits, but they never seemed to come. I clearly have a high tolerance for (appropriate and well written) gore, but the fight scenes didn't announce themselves as Fight Scenes and it all seemed internally consistent. Consistency of tone is very important to me.
If a lot of people are waving sharp pointy things around, someone will lose an eye. And an eyebrow, half an ear, and a chunk of cheek. Oops. If the action had been a bit slower, I'm sure lingering infections would have taken out many of the survivors.
As for the shattered fantasy tropes, I was too busy reading to notice them. This is a Good Thing.
The gay sex was well-executed, I'm told. I could have done with a bit less of it, and the story wouldn't have suffered; the same applies to the het sex in RM's other work. I'm not sure the hero-is-gay-therefore-a-partial-outcast-even-though-he's-nobility quite works as a plot device. RM said it gave Ringil a reason to care about the little people, but his war fatigue seemed to be a perfectly good reason for that. War is stupid, after all.
I admit quite freely that I suffered from occasional who's-the-guy?/which-city-was-that?/what-race-are-we-talking-about-now? -itis. That certainly made it feel like a fantasy novel :-)
Did the multiple character threads weave together into a seamless narrative core for the climax? Not notably. Names were dropped so we all knew the protagonists knew each other, but the final rendezvous was abrupt and lacked a sense of inevitability (maybe on purpose?). Peter F. Hamilton multi-threads and weaves particularly well, but it's a new thing for RM. We'll see if he improves.
In summary it was well done and I liked it a lot, and will certainly read the next one, although I'm aware it will probably take a while to get to print.
I also stopped reading fantasy some years ago, bored by the heavy repetition (NAFE).
Expectations are interesting things. I kept waiting for the outrageously bloody and violent bits, but they never seemed to come. I clearly have a high tolerance for (appropriate and well written) gore, but the fight scenes didn't announce themselves as Fight Scenes and it all seemed internally consistent. Consistency of tone is very important to me.
If a lot of people are waving sharp pointy things around, someone will lose an eye. And an eyebrow, half an ear, and a chunk of cheek. Oops. If the action had been a bit slower, I'm sure lingering infections would have taken out many of the survivors.
As for the shattered fantasy tropes, I was too busy reading to notice them. This is a Good Thing.
The gay sex was well-executed, I'm told. I could have done with a bit less of it, and the story wouldn't have suffered; the same applies to the het sex in RM's other work. I'm not sure the hero-is-gay-therefore-a-partial-outcast-even-though-he's-nobility quite works as a plot device. RM said it gave Ringil a reason to care about the little people, but his war fatigue seemed to be a perfectly good reason for that. War is stupid, after all.
I admit quite freely that I suffered from occasional who's-the-guy?/which-city-was-that?/what-race-are-we-talking-about-now? -itis. That certainly made it feel like a fantasy novel :-)
Did the multiple character threads weave together into a seamless narrative core for the climax? Not notably. Names were dropped so we all knew the protagonists knew each other, but the final rendezvous was abrupt and lacked a sense of inevitability (maybe on purpose?). Peter F. Hamilton multi-threads and weaves particularly well, but it's a new thing for RM. We'll see if he improves.
In summary it was well done and I liked it a lot, and will certainly read the next one, although I'm aware it will probably take a while to get to print.
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Date: 2009-04-23 01:20 pm (UTC)The Steel Remains
Date: 2009-04-23 02:22 pm (UTC)For fans of Richards Takeshi Kovacs books, someone has pointed out that the sky dweller Takavac might be an in-house take on Takeshi Kovacs. Read the paragraph where he says he's changed flesh and traveled in a spirit form to a dozen worlds really makes sense. If that's that case, very clever!
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Date: 2009-04-23 02:20 pm (UTC)Bloody-and-violent's an interesting one. I rewatched Pulp Fiction fairly recently because I wanted something bloody and violent with loads of complicated interweaving threads, and compared to my recollection of my first viewing it failed miserably on both counts. Hardly any characters to keep track of, and very little in the way of explicit violence.
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Date: 2009-04-23 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-23 02:40 pm (UTC)Funny thing is, I initially had no interest in reading it. The blurbs I read about it did not tweak my fancy. But the moment it was revealed in the Sexuality... panel at Swancon that there was Hot Gay Sex in it? Wooho!! What can I say, I'm a sucker for man on man action.
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Date: 2009-04-23 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-23 02:51 pm (UTC)