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A review by timinbc
Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear
3.0
I never know what to say about these just-good-enough-to-make-you-read-the-next one books.
The setting seems rather familiar. The sole survivor on a battlefield just happens to be a prince - what, again? We have a rukh (roc) and a Cho-Tse (kzin) and veiled assassins (out-ot-place ninjas) in a world that isn't our Asia but also isn't NOT our Asia.
So to fix this, Bear gives us a sky that changes to indicate who's in power where you are at the moment, and in some cases has a moon for each of the power players. Said moons seem to be in the sky all the time, let's not work too hard on the physics of that. Lookit, I can accept djinns and magic horses etc., but this sky stuff is too much. Can you go for a walk, looking up, and see it change? Does it click over in a blink. or change at midnight, or what?
We have to have a Quest, of course, and the setup is OK except that Temur's devotion to Edene is not established but seems to be all-important.
Our lead characters are all nice. Decent, thoughtful, visit Mom every Sunday. The bad guys are bwah-hah-hah, OK. I did like the matter-of-fact, businesslike djinn.
We have a wizardess who has been told she doesn't have much power but she could be strategic. I dunno, I have this feeling that 700 pages from now she's going to go up against an obviously-way-stronger wizard and find that ... well, you know. Not complaining; that's what we WANT in our fantasy. [Although, someday, I want a book from someone about the problems of being by FAR the strongest wizard in the world, battling a constant challenge of can vs. should and conflicting requests]
So we meet the characters, set up the problem, move them toward the Confrontation. and we have to stop, because that's how multi-volume sagas work. Sigh.
Now we come to the horse. Bear does a good job of slowly, slowly revealing that this is not just a good horse. By then end of this volume 1 we see that it can teleport, and I think we are shown that it can talk and/or is telepathic and quite intelligent. Great. What will we learn in volume 2? Can it shake its mane and turn into 200 pegasi that can breathe fire? Can it teleport its rider?
Nevertheless, I will read #2. I've read several other E-Bears and generally liked them,
The setting seems rather familiar. The sole survivor on a battlefield just happens to be a prince - what, again? We have a rukh (roc) and a Cho-Tse (kzin) and veiled assassins (out-ot-place ninjas) in a world that isn't our Asia but also isn't NOT our Asia.
So to fix this, Bear gives us a sky that changes to indicate who's in power where you are at the moment, and in some cases has a moon for each of the power players. Said moons seem to be in the sky all the time, let's not work too hard on the physics of that. Lookit, I can accept djinns and magic horses etc., but this sky stuff is too much. Can you go for a walk, looking up, and see it change? Does it click over in a blink. or change at midnight, or what?
We have to have a Quest, of course, and the setup is OK except that Temur's devotion to Edene is not established but seems to be all-important.
Our lead characters are all nice. Decent, thoughtful, visit Mom every Sunday. The bad guys are bwah-hah-hah, OK. I did like the matter-of-fact, businesslike djinn.
We have a wizardess who has been told she doesn't have much power but she could be strategic. I dunno, I have this feeling that 700 pages from now she's going to go up against an obviously-way-stronger wizard and find that ... well, you know. Not complaining; that's what we WANT in our fantasy. [Although, someday, I want a book from someone about the problems of being by FAR the strongest wizard in the world, battling a constant challenge of can vs. should and conflicting requests]
So we meet the characters, set up the problem, move them toward the Confrontation. and we have to stop, because that's how multi-volume sagas work. Sigh.
Now we come to the horse. Bear does a good job of slowly, slowly revealing that this is not just a good horse. By then end of this volume 1 we see that it can teleport, and I think we are shown that it can talk and/or is telepathic and quite intelligent. Great. What will we learn in volume 2? Can it shake its mane and turn into 200 pegasi that can breathe fire? Can it teleport its rider?
Nevertheless, I will read #2. I've read several other E-Bears and generally liked them,