Traitors, Thieves, and Liars by Rick Griffin

Traitors, Thieves, and Liars 

By Rick Griffin

It's only been about 3 reviews since I reviewed Argo, another story by Rick Griffin. So I won't repeat another thumbnail biography of the man. I figured since my biggest frustration with Argo was that it was honestly too much story for its small page count, I should give Mr. Griffin another shot to see what he could do with some actual room to let his characters develop and his themes unwind. Traitors, Thieves and Liars is that work, a 300-page rewrite of his short story Ten Thousand Miles Up. Now I haven't read Ten Thousand Miles Up, so I'll be approaching Traitors, Thieves, and Liars as a completely new work. Mr. Griffin published this work through Amazon in February of 2019. I will note that this book is set in a universe shared with Greg Luterman

This novel is a space opera featuring anthropomorphic aliens, or rather, aliens that look like earth animals (Excellent the furries are back. Privet tovarisch). This is honestly a recurring theme in science fiction and fantasy although usually, you have a host of human-looking aliens with a few creatures that look like Earth animals thrown in for flavor. The most popular animal to be turned into an alien race in science fiction is cats as far as I can tell (In Deathworlders it’s raccoons.). In the universe of Traitors, Thieves, and Liars, there are no humanoid alien races, however, although not all species are one-to-one matchups to earth creatures. Case in point the Geroo, who are a kind of kangaroo/otter mix in their looks only they are bipedal and stand about 5 and a half feet tall. Most of the book is told through the viewpoint of Geroo characters, with the main characters being Captain Ateri and his chosen successor SubCommander Gert. Before I discuss them, let me discuss the situation of the Geroo species.

The Geroo's homeworld was destroyed generations ago and the Geroo exists mostly as refugees with many enslaved by the Krakun, a massive reptilian species that is incredibly advanced in technology, but brutal in its morality and their treatment of pretty much everyone else. The Krakun destroyed the Geroo's homeworld while trying to terraform it into a copy of their own (Jesus. They are dicks. Terraforming an already inhabited planet is messed up.{Oh the Krakun elite class is made up of monsters, no excusing it}). Since the Krakun are sulfur breathers and the Geroo breath oxygen this would have genocided the Geroo by default (Generally, if you need to terraform a planet, you’re going to kill the inhabitants except for some hardy bacteria {Wouldn’t introducing Terran plants and animals to a different planet, even if had the same atmosphere set up as Earth count as Terraforming though?} Kind of? I’d call it soft terraforming). However, deciding that they could be profitable the Krakun enslaved a number of the Geroo population. As will no doubt excite my editor's prejudices, the Krakun seem to practice a form of crony capitalism. The corporation that Ateri and Gert are owned by a company named Planetary Acquisitions which receives massive government support and aid. The Geroo live scattered across the galaxy in small colonies providing disposal labor, in remote stations and outposts or vast generation ships surveying the galaxy for more worlds for the Krakun to terraform (Krakunform?) into copies of their homeworld. Many of these communities are completely unaware of the other Geroo and are not allowed to interact. They have no say in their own affairs. Down to the Krakun dictating how many Geroo may be born in any generation and even when the Geroo will die because they execute any that reach the age of 60 years (Holy shit). They have no rights (Well yes, that’s what a slave is.{Being a slave is always a bad thing, but slaves in several cultures had rights, some could even own property, testify in court and leave property to their heirs. Not the Southern US of course but the slave code practiced in the Americans was an extremely harsh and inhumane one even among slave codes} Leaving Marxism aside for a moment, without due process, it cannot be said that someone has rights, because the ability to arbitrarily kill or beat someone into submission rather puts the kebash on all the others.{That’s just it, under some codes, masters didn’t have the right to put their slaves to death. They were still slaves so their lives sucked and enforcement of such laws were always a problem but we have trouble enforcing a vast number of our own laws. I’m not arguing in favor of slavery, I’m saying their position is pretty bad even compared to historical slaves}), as the Krakun can execute them for any reason without any sanction or even eat them if they feel like it. The Geroo on the generation ships have the closest thing to freedom in their lives as they can go years without even seeing a Krakun. However, the ships are remotely powered through stargates via a device called the Trinity. Any tampering or any detected research on the Trinity can lead to extreme punishments. For example, the story opens with a Krakun slave master declaring that he will turn off the power to a ship caught researching their power source... Unless the Geroo present him with the skins of 200 officers when he arrives on their ship in a few hours. He also broadcasts what happens on the ship in question to every other generation ship.

The broadcast was especially terrifying for Captain Ateri because he had been running his own conspiracy to study the Trinity that he dubbed the exit plan. Which was fairly bold of him since he was already in disfavor, having lost an eye and been whipped for some unmentioned prior act of defiance. Faced with the possibility that if his plan is found out, that his crew won't be so lucky as the last... He gives up... Or does he? When a group of alien pirates approaches him with a complex but barely possible plan to steal a piece of secret Krakun technology and offer in exchange a way to power his ship without ever needing the Krakun again, Ateri can't help but say yes. With his 60th birthday weeks away, who can blame him? Especially since the plan involves making the Krakun think they've found a viable planet for Krakunforming and Captain Ateri knows an obscure company rule that states no one can be killed while investigating a viable planet, no matter how long that takes. Of course, there are complications. First of all, they're going to have to hack the computers surveying the planet to make sure that it reads as viable, no matter what. This means bringing in a bunch of aliens while keeping it a secret from his 10,000 strong crew and his masters, who are going to be paying closer attention to him given the new planet. Too close for him to devote any time to working with a bunch of pirate aliens whose very presence could get everyone killed. Everyone is in danger of being killed as well because their new master is the daughter of the CEO and can't wait to order the entire officer corps of the ship executed so she can be sure she's properly feared (...Wow. I mean, she could just do it arbitrarily, right? Just go full Belgian Congo on a ship. {She is subject to company rules just like everyone else, company rules state that as long as there is a possibility that the planet is viable, No One Gets Killed}). Captain Ateri simply can't afford to place one foot wrong with her. So he's gotta tap the one Geroo besides his mate that he can trust to do this job. That would be SubCommander Gert.

SubCommander Gert is a good guy, fairly honest, good-natured and straightforward if a tad naive. At first, I was seriously struggling to see how he was in the running for Captain, he has next to no command presence, is kinda socially awkward and can be honestly a bit of a doof at times. However, Captain Ateri points out that Gert has never failed at anything major in his life, being able to succeed through a combination of natural talent, determination and pure luck. This would be a case of telling and not showing but the book does make a case for Gert subtly, showcasing that he's very brave, able to choose a course quickly and commit to it in a crisis and able to do what it takes to achieve an objective even when things keep getting worse. Which they do. Elements of the plan go wrong from day one, from their genius alien hacker screwing up her first covert insertion, to needed equipment explosively malfunctioning. Course this is when the two other traits that Gert has come into play. Gert is lucky. A lot of that luck comes from his determination but some of it is just the sheer dumb luck that can separate insanely successful leaders from failures and object lessons. The second is in the grand tradition of space captains, most famously Captain Kirk (And G’Kar). Gert is really into alien girls and it seems alien girls are really into him (Oh Dear God.). Gert is going to have to summon every scrap of wit and talent he has because he's operating alone and unafraid with no support from his unknowing crew and his Captain only really able to cover for him after the fact. Of course, there's the question of whether or not Gert can stand up to this stress test from the acid bowels of hell or is he going to finally break and fail during the most important mission of his life?

Mr. Griffin does a good job fully illustrating the many problems the Geroos face living under a frankly merciless and brutal regime that doesn't even value them as sapient but as self-directing cogs in the vast machine of profit and expansion (I mean, that’s how the average corporation sees its workers, just look at Amazon.). By keeping the story from their point of view we are forced to experience the universe the same way they do, a dangerous, uncertain place where any safety is an illusion because it can all be snatched away at the whim of a reptilian sociopath. The one Karkun we do see in the story openly sneers at “mammalian emotions”, just as an example. Which does bring up one flaw, that every Karkun we met is an utter monster. I mean that may be due to the isolation of the Geroo from their masters, they only met rich and powerful Karkun who profit massively from their labor but I would have liked some indication that the Karkun weren’t entirely made up of the kind of psychopaths who think eating sapient creatures is a wonderful hobby. Otherwise, I’m asking how did these manics avoid fucking each other over before they ran into aliens to exploit?

Mr. Griffin also does a good job keeping the Geroo from being too human but human enough that a reader doesn't have problems empathizing with them. When you're writing nonhuman viewpoints you do have to be careful to walk that line. Make your characters to human and readers begin to ask what's the point of having them be aliens, make them too alien and most of your readers won't be able to stay interested. Mr. Griffin also does a good job of giving us hints through dialogue and action that there is a wider universe out there but since most of our characters don't have a lot of contact with it, he preserves the mystery just enough to encourage the reader to want to find out more. That said Gert carries the story on his furry back, a lot of whether the story works for you will depend on your opinion of Gert. Because in the end, this book is about Gert and him becoming an adult and officer, which means finding out just what it’s like to make decisions that impact a lot of people quickly and on imperfect information. His naivety and general stumbling about can be a bit wearing at times. Additionally, there are times when it feels he only succeeds on pure luck or plot fiat. On the other hand, I do like his honesty and bravery. He's willing to literally step between his people and danger and pay whatever that costs. So I can see both sides here and I can't say I'm a full-blown fan of Gert, just that he doesn't irritate me. Also while Mr. Griffin tries to tell a complete story and stop at a natural stopping point in the story, it still feels kinda abrupt as an ending. I do also want to note that this is an adult book, there are characters that very clearly engage in sexual relations, although there are no graphic of explicit scenes (honestly you won't see me review books that are graphic or explicit enough to edge into erotica, as that's just not where I'm wanting to take the review series). Either way, I wouldn't hand this book to the kids. I also feel that a lot of the plot hinges on Gert's dumb luck which detracts from the story. Still, I found the characters and the world interesting enough and Mr. Griffin’s willingness to inflict rather drastic and meaningful setbacks to make up for Gert's luck balances it out to a point. I do hope that future books tone Gert's luck down a tad and give us more of him succeeding based on his wits and talents, however. All things considered, this is a great improvement over my last experience with Mr. Griffin’s work. I’m giving Traitors, Thieves, and Liars by Rick Griffin a B-.

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Factotum by D.M. Cornish

Factotum

By D.M. Cornish 

So here we are at the end of the series: The Monster Blood Tattoo. Factotum by David M Cornish, an Australian born illustrator, was published in 2010. The entire series was born out of a set of illustrations and notes of a fantasy world that Mr. Cornish had been writing down for ten years before his editor found out and demanded he write some stories set there. Mr. Cornish wrote and published three novels (all reviewed here), a book with two short stories, and some additional stories on the internet. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any other work in this world coming. In the unlikely event that Mr. Cornish reads this review, I would encourage him to return to this world and grace us with more stories set in it. Before I get started there is no way to review this book without spoiling Foundling or Lamplighter which are the first and second books of the series. So I would encourage you to seek out those books first and give them a read.

Factotum takes place on the Half-Continent, a setting that can be best explained as merging Oliver Twist with a Dungeons and Dragons game where the Dungeon Master is either a genius or a drug-fueled mad man (Warum nicht beide?). Of course, speaking from personal experience there are times where there doesn't be much of a difference (Indeed!). On the Half-Continent, the most powerful state is the Haacobin Empire; a sprawling Holy Roman Empire like state of semi-independent cities, feudal domains, and princely states, with a powerful Emperor and a weak central government (Hang the parasites, all power to the workers!). I will note here for upcoming writers that a Holy Roman Empire style state is a fantastic setting for many stories and allows for a lot of variations of government and traditions within the same country (Communism aside, this is definitely true.). The Empire is beset by enemies within and without, not just human enemies but a vast array of creatures called monsters. The various creatures that are counted among monsterdom are wildly varied in size and form, but many of them are dangerous to humanity and see them as a simple food source. Meanwhile, there are those monsters who would live in peace with humanity but the humans of the Empire have decided better safe than sorry. That said, I do have to point out that humanity has its own array of sins to account for (Well...yes). Such as trying to create their own monsters through dark experiments (to be fair, these are illegal but that doesn't stop a lot of people) and using captive monsters for fighting pits against specially bred dogs or in some of the more twisted places human fighters. As you can imagine a sense of grievance and righteousness is common through humanity and monsterkind meaning that it's hard to get anyone interested in peace.

Our main character Rossamund Bookchild is a citizen of the Empire and in Lamplighter just managed to avoid being tried for the crime of being a monster. I found the charge a bit ironic since one of the arguments his accusers used was that he was to good at killing monsters to be anything but one of them. Rossamund was saved by this when Europe, aka the Duchess of waiting of Naimes, invoked a feudal privilege to simply cancel a trail on account of her being one of the most important people in the Empire. This is on top of Europe being a professional monster hunter and a lahzars. A lahzar is a person who through having a set of artificially created organs implanted gains powers and abilities beyond that of mortal men. This doesn't come without a price, as they must at regular intervals drink fairly complicated potions called treacles to keep their body from rejecting the organs in question. On top of that Society's relationship with Lahzars is a complicated one, on the one hand, lahzars make the majority of professional monster hunters and without them, settlements outside of massive fortress cities might not even be possible as they roam the land slaying monsters who prey on humanity. They are paid handsomely for their labors as well as often being the stars of stories and plays. That said, they are often looked down upon as living beyond the bounds of polite society and many prefer that they do the dirty work and move on quickly. I'm honestly pretty sympathetic to the lazhars here, as I've had some experiences like that myself. Europe manages to dodge a lot due to being heir to what is practically a head of state however and can rub elbows with Arch Dukes, Barons and the vastly wealthy whenever she feels like it and she feels like having Rossamund serve her as her factotum. Europe isn't Rossamund's only ally, as his old teachers from the orphanage where he was raised reappear, determined to protect him to the last. They're both old retired sailors and honestly, I enjoyed reading their dialogue as it is full of salty sailor nonsense. Despite being in their old age, they're both rather talented and skilled men and are willing to make sacrifices to protect Rossamund. Which honestly adds to the burden Rossamund feels about his situation, it's all worked together rather well.

This book picks fairly quick from the end of Lamplighter, with Rossamund serving as Europe's factotum, which is a catch-all term for the men and women who handle the affairs and supplies of wealthy lazhars so they can focus on killing monsters. Among his duties is brewing and serving Europe treacles, something he proves to be rather skilled at due to his prior training as a Skold. A Skold being someone who makes and uses various potions and chemicals for healing and warfare. Before the creation of Lazhars, Skolds did most of the monster hunting but they can't match the sheer killing power of someone who can shoot lightning from their fingers. A good chunk of the book takes place in the city of Brandenbrass, where Europe makes her headquarters much to the dismay of the current city's Duke. Rossamund finds himself having to navigate an unfamiliar society as he's been elevated to new heights while fending off rumors that he is a monster birthed from magical mud pits in the image of man. The problem being, what if the rumors are right? Even if Europe decides she doesn't care that one of the people she's closest to is a monster, can she fight the entire world to keep him safe? While Rossamund makes friends and enemies of his own while trying to find out the truth of his origin, he increasingly has to ask an important question. Is staying with Europe worth the price she'll have to pay? Because while he is growing into abilities of his own, he is not a fully grown man yet and it is Europe who will have to fight, be it socially, legally or with her amazing abilities to keep him from literally being thrown to the dogs.

Brandenbrass is fairly interesting but the first part of the book where we are introduced to the setting is honestly the slowest. Much of it is set up for the plot and main conflict of the book, which is well done but I honestly found myself wanting to get to it. I don't think this is a failure of the book but I do think it's because we have an unfinished conflict boiling from Lamplighter that I wasn't that interested in more set up. Brandenbrass, a large powerful walled city with an ancient forest that no one dares go into at its very heart is a great idea and Mr. Cornish does labor to give a good view of it. Additionally, the most interesting characters in Brandenbrass are the ones we see the least of. For example, a fellow aristocratic woman who is also a monster hunter that only gets about 2 scenes. Much here is hinted at but given the book's complete devotion to only showing Rossamund's point of view, we don't get to explore these characters or their relationships to each other. That said D.M. Cornish does give us payout for all this build-up and hinting. When Rossamund enemies decide to make their move the result is an explosive and deadly fight. Additionally, we get to see Europe at work when she takes Rossamund out on a monster hunt and it's there we learn that not every human has set their hand against monster kind. Some would live peacefully with them whenever possible and some outright worship monsters. Those who worship monsters are no friend to their fellow man and you can imagine how they feel about monster hunters. So when Rossamund and Europe find themselves the focus of such a cult while monster hunting in addition to other enemies circling them. It makes for a dramatic confrontation, I am somewhat disappointed that some of the villains from the last book are handled off-screen in favor of dealing with new enemies but the battle that we do get do make for that.

This book is the end of Rossamund's story in a lot of ways and I don't want to spoil it. I will say that it's in this book that Rossamund learns who he is and what that means. It's here that he also decides his place and relationship to society at large. While his childhood has been over for quite some time at this point, this book really does mark his final steps into adulthood and because of that and the decisions he faces there is a bittersweet tone to it. Europe and he share real admiration and affection for each other, an unlikely friendship that makes both of them better people in the end. While I would love to see more stories set in the half continent or even other foreign lands away from the half continent, I do think this book ends Rossamund's story fairly convincingly. The entire series is set in an incredibly well-realized and vividly imagined world, helped with illustrations and a formidable appendix in the back of the book (where appendixes belong I remind you). While it started slow, it finishes well and brings everything together fairly decently. I'm honestly glad I read this series and I'm sorry to see it come to close. If nothing else D.M Cornish joins writers such as Garth Nix in making a strong argument that Australia can produce some very good fantasy writers. Factotum by D.M. Cornish gets an A- from me.

Factotum was one of the novels voted for by our patrons to be reviewed in October. If you like to take part in the vote, or suggest new books or vote for theme months, discuss the reviews and more. Please join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where you can vote and comment for as little as a dollar a month. Join us next week for Traitors, Thieves, and Liars by Rick Griffin.

Thank you for your support and as always, keep reading! 

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Conan Omnibus Vol II: City of Thieves By Kurt Busiek

Conan Omnibus Vol II: City of Thieves

By Kurt Busiek 

“Where is the worst of the cities of men? Where is the lowest cesspit of civilized wonder this world can offer?” Conan page 27.

We return to Dark Horse's run of Conan the Barbarian. Now, I did discuss Mr. Busiek and the origins of Conan in the last review and I hate repeating myself (No he doesn’t.{Oh good, my editor is here}). However, just in case you have no idea who Conan the Barbarian is, let me give you a brief rundown. Conan the Barbarian is the creation of the Texan author Robert Howard, who left us too soon. Conan was born in the hill lands of Cimmeria, a metal-rich but wild land on the edge of civilization. While capable of metalworking, his people still lived in tribes and clans riven by constants feuds and raids, in fact, the only things Cimmerians agree on is that it’s pointless to ask the gods for help (A sentiment they share with your editor.), and that everyone should drop everything and rally to kill outsiders if they cross into Cimmeria. It was after joining in one of these battles that Conan, for a variety of reasons, decided to leave Cimmeria. He became one of the greatest adventurers in his world's history and even one of its greatest kings but that is another story. In this story, Conan is young and grapples with understanding civilization at its worst.

The story picks up pretty much the morning after Volume I ends. Conan, having partied hard with people he just met, has been robbed and stuck with the bill. As you can imagine this leaves him outraged and after escaping the inn, he sulks by camping out on a hill that all the townsmen are terrified of. This isn't his wisest decision, as it turns out that hill is haunted and Conan spends the night fighting for his life. Conan staggers back into town the next morning convinced he needs to learn the lowest and vilest tricks of civilized men if he wants to avoid a life of fighting monsters beyond the understanding of mortals just because he's broke. Those of you who are passingly familiar with Conan's life can take a moment to laugh if you like (Look, having to do anything because you’re broke sucks. It’s okay to do those things for other reasons.). It's here that he is pointed to the city of Zamora, the city of thieves. If it sounds like I'm dropping major spoilers, folks this is the first thirty pages of a four hundred page graphic novel, all we've done so far is discuss the prologue. Buckle up, this is gonna be wild.

One of the things that makes Conan so interesting is that he's a flawed character without going overboard into tragic character territory and this volume gives us a show of those flaws and the virtues paired with them. In Volume One we saw that Conan's refusal to restrain himself lead to tragedy for his friends and family. While Conan still struggles with the practice of self-restraint, he accepted the necessity of it. That's not his only flaw though. Conan's pure bullheaded pride in this Volume will lead him into one disaster after another. In Zamora, Conan resolves to learn how to be a thief and how the corruption that plagues the civilized world works. His pride gets in the way, as he can't just unbend enough to humble himself and learn from men that he sees as inferior to him (“Teach me, you effeminate worm!” “Um. How about I not?” {You joke but that’s basically what happened.}). Additionally, it’s not enough that he be a thief. It's not enough that he be a great thief. Everyone has to know he is and has to know exactly what he stole and who he stole it from (Oh god. It’s like trying to be a viking assassin…). Now to be fair, some of this arises from Conan coming from a culture where you trumpet your deeds far and wide and in places like Cimmeria stealing from your enemies is something to be celebrated. In fact, if you were clever and sneaky enough, even your enemies will grudgingly respect your ability. In a civilized society, telling everyone what you stole and who you stole it from is a great way to get crowds of armed men after you. Especially since Conan never really bothers to make friends or allies of the other thieves around him (Oops). Additionally what Conan seems to have problems grasping is that the thieves and guards aren't opposing tribes locked in a cycle of raid and counter-raid but two groups within the same tribe, one trying to uphold the laws of their society and other determined to break those laws. Because of this Conan is constantly a target for the wrath of the law. I'm sure some folks would feel sympathy for the thieves but this is where I point out the virtue wrapped up in Conan's pride.

The vast majority of the thieves in Zamora feel no qualm at victimizing those weaker than them. Whether it's a starving girl who steals some bread out of desperation or beggars whose bowls are a little too full, the thieves of Zamora are brutal towards anyone they believe can't defend themselves. Conan, because of his pride as much as any moral code that’s still slowly pulling itself together in his soul targets the powerful and incredibly wealthy (Fight the power Conan! Taking their stuff and buying things you need with it is the only way that wealth will ever trickle down to the masses - unless you simply kill the wealthy that is! {I suppose tavern keepers and the sellers of jewelry for Jiara do kind of count as the masses}). There are good practical reasons for breaking into their fortress homes and robbing them, after all, they have all the bloody money! So Conan will break into the temples of dreaming pagan gods, the fortresses of judges, princes, and priests all to pillage their treasuries and laugh into the night. Of course, what happens the next morning is forces he can't fight (whether it be monsters from beyond the stars or just hordes of armed men) are unleashed after him but being in his late teens at this point, planning for the future isn't among Conan's strong points.

Of course, Conan isn't alone in this venture. The first companion he picks up is Jiara. He met Jiara when she partied with him, slept with him and then stole everything he had (What a wonderful way to meet new people…). Finding her a second time, Jiara convinced Conan that it wasn't her idea to steal from him and promptly decides to hitch her wagon to him (Phrasing?). This is for a couple of reasons. For one, Conan is strong and skilled enough to kill anyone who comes looking for Jiara over her own thieving. Second, Conan is a big, strong and very not ugly man who hates wearing clothes (I cannot blame her). To be fair, most of the ladies in these comics are wearing very little clothing, suggesting to me that Zamora must be rather warm so I suppose Conan could be wearing a breechcloth and nothing else out of solidarity with the ladies. Thirdly, despite Jiara robbing Conan of everything they had, when they met again Jiara was broke and Conan was flush with cash. Suggesting to her that Conan could be counted on to make more gold no matter the circumstances. Conan stays with Jiara because she's smart enough to take care of herself, she's a very good looking lady and she can even be helpful in scouting locations and gathering information. The relationship is interesting to read in the book as both of them are clearly in the relationship for what they can get out of it and neither one really spends any effort trying to understand the other person. As a result, you watch as Conan mismanages his relationship with Jiara to the point that when it hits the endpoint, you can't say Conan didn't get what he deserved. Of course, you can also say the same about Jiara. For example bragging about sleeping with a Magistrates new young and pretty wife, while your girlfriend is sitting on your lap is a pretty bad idea on so many levels that it's honestly not a shock what results (Oh dear. Cultural differences rise again? {I don’t think so, from what I can tell this would get him in trouble in Cimmeria as well. It just seems that Conan is pretty good at convincing women to sleep with him and being a randy teenager doesn’t take it very seriously. To be fair, Jiara isn’t the most loyal girl either but she doesn't flaunt that right in front of him and seems to expect him to do the same}).

Another major character that shows up is Nestor the Gunderman, a mercenary turned thief. Nestor is both a foe and an ally to Conan depending on the situation and over time Conan is forced to respect Nestor. This makes Nestor one of the few civilized men that young Conan has brought himself to respect but it is a major step for the young man as he is forced to admit that civilization can make formidable men that he can't treat lightly. Nestor for his own part starts out loathing Conan as a loud jackass who is going to bring trouble down on everyone's head but comes to see Conan as a capable if wild young man who is just in the need of some seasoning. Nestor is a bit older than Conan and while not as physically capable is wilier in the ways of the back alleys and courtyards of civilization and even teaches Conan a trick or two. The relationship here is pretty different from one that Conan has with Jiara. For one thing, it's pretty clear that Conan doesn't respect Jiara as much as he does Nestor. While I do think her gender plays a part in it, I have to point out that Conan was pretty respectful of Janissa the warrior woman in Volume One. So I think the main thrust is that Conan simply doesn't respect people who are dependent on others to commit violence for them. His disrespect for men who can't fight is more evident and aggressive but his disrespect for women who can't fight is still there in visible ways. This is another flaw of his, that at this point in his life he believes that respect comes from your ability to kill and it comes back to bite him as much as his pride does.

In this volume, Mr. Busiek and his team continue the same practice of making original Conan stories to support and serve as a bridge between adapted stories by Mr. Howard. In this case, there are three of these stories in the graphic novel, Tower of the Elephant, Halls of the Dead, and Rogues in the House. If I'm going to be honest, Tower of the Elephant is the most important one of the three to me and I'm pleased that they adapted it skillfully. The Tower of the Elephant is one of the must-read stories of Conan I would point anyone to, because of that I'm not going to touch on the details of the story. It's a story where Conan walks in determined to simply rob a place that everyone has told him is untouchable because he wants to prove them wrong. However, an encounter with Yag Kosha, the long-lived alien being imprisoned in the tower changes all that. Conan goes from being a thief here to someone determined to help right a wrong and correct a miscarriage of justice. I don't want to overstate this but its a step forward in Conan's growth as a character and person where he begins to grasp that some things aren't about wealth, pleasure, or glory. Not that Conan ever develops into a righteous paladin or anything but as he grows Conan does develop a moral center and a belief that there is a role for his abilities beyond just crashing through the world trying to do whatever or whoever catches his passing fancy and this is one of the seeds of that growth.

City of Thieves also continues one of the elemental themes of Mr. Howard's work, civilization vs barbarism. In this volume, we see an argument for the virtues of Barbarians, whereas the last work argued fairly convincing against barbarism without trying too hard. Here we see that even as a thief Conan doesn't prey on those weaker and more desperate than him and we see the dark side of civilization. As men prey on each other even in the streets of their own homes and lies become just as dangerous as lions. Of course in this same volume, we see that civilized men are just as capable of the same virtues has Conan even in the face of torment and death. This feeds into another theme that runs throughout many of Mr. Howard's works that of human decency and justice vs the law. In many of Howard's work, the law works to uphold the powerful and wealthy over the poor and this creates a conflict when the protagonist's sense of honor and decency runs directly counter to the law.  Nestor, for example, displays honorable behavior more often as a thief and a lawbreaker then he does when he's anything else. There will come a time when we explore and fully discuss Mr. Howard's themes but it's not yet. I do also want to say that the art in this volume is fantastic but I should note that the number of people who are practically naked or just naked means you might not want to hand this book off to some of the younger set. That said I really enjoyed this and Conan Omnibus Vol II: City of Thieves gets an A from me. If you enjoy fantasy or think you might go ahead and give this book a try, you honestly don't really need to read Volume One to follow what's going in this book so that's a plus as well.

This week's selection was voted for by our patrons.  If you would like to vote on what books get reviewed you can join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a 1$ a month.  In November our patrons have voted to make it military science fiction month and we are in a poll to determine what work will be our cornerstone.  It's neck and neck so please feel free to join us and cast a vote.   Next week we come to the end of the Monster Blood trilogy with Factotum by DM Cornish, which was also voted for by our patrons!  Until then, thank you for your support and keep reading!   

The Atlantropa Articles By Cody Franklin

The Atlantropa Articles

By Cody Franklin

Cody Franklin is the man behind the youtube channel Alternative History Hub. He’s a native of Ohio with at least one sibling and attended college in Wisconsin pursuing a degree in journalism. Cody currently lives in his home state. Not much more of his private life is known than this because he is incredibly thorough in keeping details about his life off the internet (Good for him!). Alternative History Hub, on the other hand, is fairly well known. Mr. Franklin founded it in 2012 and today it has nearly 2 million subscribers on youtube and videos with view counts in the millions. On that channel, he briefly explores scenarios where history happened differently, like what if the American Civil War never happened, or what if Napoleon never fell? He's also taken detours into the fantastical, looking at things like what if Godzilla were real or doing an overview of the timeline of the Red Alert video game series. In all honesty, I really enjoy the channel and I think he's produced a lot of quality content. In 2015 Mr. Franklin spun off the channel Knowledgehub (originally called GeographyHub) where he creates informative videos on various historical and geographic subjects. Knowledgehub was taken over by his brother Tyler. Cody, however, wanted to try something new so he wrote a book. He published the Atlantropa Articles with Mango publishing a 5-year-old and rapidly growing independent publishing company, so I'm sure we'll run into them again. For now, let's look at this novel.

Atlantropa was first pitched in 1929 by the German architect Herman Sogel. Mr. Sogel suggested that a series of dams be used to block off and lower the Mediterranean Sea level. This would generate vast amounts of hydroelectric power and bring about large amounts of new lands for colonization and eventually link North Africa and Southern Europe. Mr. Sogel then also suggested that the rivers of Africa be diverted to refill the Chad basin, creating an enormous freshwater sea that could be used to irrigate the Sahara (And create an ecological catastrophe, but we’ll get there). This would open those lands to European settlement (Ah yes. Nothing says ‘colonialism’ like a disastrous attempt to Euroform the African continent!). The idea generated a limited amount of excitement in Northern Europe (Where no one would have to deal with it.), received no real support in the Mediterranean parts of Europe and well, no one in Europe cared what the Africans thought. Although I kinda doubt that the people of Africa would be all that excited about more European colonialism since the last couple batches didn't do anything for them (And indeed put out bounties on the hands of children.). Especially given this was supposed to be on the order of millions of European settlers. The Nazis, however, marginalized this idea; looking Eastwards not South for their living space and we all know what happened next. In The Atlantropa Articles, Mr. Franklin asks, what if the Nazis didn't marginalize the idea but instead rode it all the way to the Straits of Gibraltar? This isn't the only question that Mr. Franklin asks but we'll get there. First, let me introduce you to the setting and the plot.

The novel itself takes place over a thousand years after the 20th century. Our time is a time of myths and tall tales. It is hinted that there’s been at least one nuclear war between us and the time of our characters and much of the details of their history has been lost. Perhaps on purpose as the story unfolds. The Atlantropa project didn't work, or it didn't work as intended. While the Gibraltar dam does provides nearly endless power for Europe. This has created a green, vibrant North Europe free from want according to our main characters. The Mediterranean Basin though did not become a new land of milk and honey but a blasted, salt choked, sand-covered plain of heat and death that they call the Kiln (This is basically accurate. Basically, by draining the Med, you get a giant salt flat with high pressure and high temperatures. Think Death Valley but the size of a small continent. In reality, there would still be some water left - especially from rivers draining in and whatever they allow past the dam for power - and that is salt water that evaporates. This evaporation leaves behind the salt and so at the lowest point in this desert there will be a vast soda lake. So salty almost nothing can live there. Basically bacteria and Flamingoes. Maybe some really hardy lizards that eat the brine flies that can exist near the river/ocean inflows.). Most of southern Europe is little better becoming an abandoned wasteland (This is because southern Europe gets most of its water from the Med.). Only in the small fortress cities called Eagle Nests arrayed in a line across the southern edge of the Basin is there life and greenery. These cities are not just besieged by the heat and sand but by bands of people called Scavengers who roam the sand in tracked ships looking for targets to loot. The Eagle Nests then require resupply of weapons, medicines and sometimes foodstuff, this is provided by giant tracked ships from Europe. The European continent has been united under the rule of the Aryans of Germania, all of them tall, blond and blue-eyed thanks to genetic engineering (... Oh Fuck No! Wait. How in the ever-loving monkey wangles did the Germans build that dam?). The Reich has spread across the continent but the Kiln remains the Southern frontier and not much is known about what lies beyond it. That's largely because no one seems to care. Not even the men manning the giant tracked ships that roam the Kiln providing resupply to the Eagle Nests who are fated to maintain a line of defense against people they know nothing about. It seems almost absurd, given that Germania has gone into space, and can use orbitally dropped weapons on its enemies and characters discuss there being colonies on Mars. If you have the infrastructure to go into space and build an array of weapons so vast that a low ranked guy on what's an armed freighter can call in an orbital strike? You can certainly find out who is living in Africa and what's going on in the rest of your planet. The fact that the Aryans don't and most of them seem militantly incurious makes them seem more alien than human to me. Which I suppose rather fits since despite this being Earth, the world feels incredibly alien.

The novel is a first-person story told from the view of Ansel, captain of the Howling Dark. Ansel used to be a soldier until he lost his arm reclaiming an Eagle's Nest that fell to Scavenger attack. The civilian populace of the Eagle Nests were all killed, including noncombatants and children. Often in horrifying ways. This was Ansel’s first experience with the outside world and it became the defining one of his life. While his physical wounds were treated and his arm replaced, his mental and emotional wounds never were. So despite being born and raised in the still green and lust lands of Germania, he has become entirely a creature of the Kiln. Alienated from the society that raised him and any ideals of forgiveness or peace. Completely comfortable in his environmentally controlled armor, preferring it to normal clothes, reveling in the violence he commits on any Scavenger he finds. He so revels in it that he refuses to use the orbital weapons preferring to kill with cannon, gun, knife, and rope. When he doesn't use his cyborg arm or his boots. Captain Ansel, while being our protagonist, is thoroughly the villain of the story. He preaches a grim belief in a constant race war against the people of the south, decrying them all as blood-soaked savages while declaring his own acts as just and good. This is a man who goes out of his way to take prisoners so he can murder them up close and refuses to use faster, cleaner ways to kill in favor of getting as much of the feeling of the kill as he can. He's also a man living in self-denial claiming that he's doing everything to defend innocent people, and holds that up as a shield against any self-recrimination or doubt. Ansel stands not just for violence but for brutality and a forever degrading cycle of attack and counter-attack without any thought or self-examination. His self-deceit is real, as he berates himself for casualties that his crew suffers when he misjudges an enemy but never once actually admits to himself that every death on his crew is pointless because he could have simply wiped his enemies off the map without any risk to his men in the first place! Honestly, he's a man who would fit in perfectly with the SS Battalions battling their way across the Soviet Union in the 1940s (Well, yes. Yes he would. And he’d die like they did too!). Which is why he is likely frustrated by his brother Ulric.

Ulric is a scholar and civilized man who believes in peace and law. In a bizarre twist, he's also a Knight of the SS, the organization has reinvented itself as the paramilitary guardians of peace, culture, history, and law in Germania. I can really sympathize with readers who find that statement a sick joke by the way, but keep in mind this a thousand years later, things change. Ulric is an example of just how much the Aryan ideal has changed since Hitler first preached his message of hate and genocide. Ulric believes that Germania was founded on peace and forgiveness, that Hitler (who is depicted as a giant blond demigod by the people of Germania) was a visionary who ended wars in Europe by preaching forgiveness and peace between all Europeans. He even believes that the Aryans might want to try to live in peace with the Scavengers (as long as they stay on their side of the line, of course, he's not about to try living with them). Now granted, Ulric isn't a pacifist, he's perfectly willing to kill raiders as they do pose a danger to his fellow Aryans but he doesn't glory in it. He’d much rather just call in an orbital drop and be on his way, with the threat neutralized, no protracted blood sports needed. As events continue and Ulric trips over information that leads him to suspect that history might not be everything he was told it was, their conflict intensives (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA). This conflict is interesting because both men believe the other to be playing with fire and want to save their brother from the self-destructive path they're on. Ulric is standing up for what he believes is the truth and right way of doing things, while Ansel believes that his way is the only way for people to survive the realities of the world. While Ulric's unpleasant character traits are sometimes played up (Ansel thinks of his brother as whining when he calls for Ansel to let him drop the damn space rock... When Ansel's ship is on fire!) I honestly found him more sympathetic than Ansel. It's an interesting spin to tell the story from the viewpoint of someone who would traditionally be the villain of the piece, however Ansel doesn't engage in the conflict here, whether or not the history he's been taught or not is a lie.  He simply doesn't care.

The biggest question in Atlantropia is, what will you do if you find out your world is built on a lie? Because the longer Ulric stays in the Kiln, the more clues he finds that the history he was taught is not the history that actually happened. Worse, from Ansel's point of view, the more Ulric becomes interested in what the Scavengers viewpoint of all this is. Ulric's questions become more dangerous, like why is it against the law to remove any artifacts from the Kiln, especially artifacts that date to the foundation of the Reich? Why are we not allowed to even talk to the Scavengers? What does lie south of us and what did happen all those centuries ago? With evidence mounting that their history is, in fact, a bald-faced lie and nothing about the far past they believe in actually happened, the rift gets worse. As Ulric becomes increasingly determined to find out just what the truth of the matter is, Ansel grows more determined to stop him. To the point, that victory might only be achieved if one of them dies and no matter who wins, the other will have to live with the fact that he killed his brother. Because while Ansel might be a savage in power armor, he still cares about his brother and Ulric might view his brother has fallen to a debased state but he still believes that the brother he loved is in there somewhere and he can bring him back. Ansel for his own part needs Ulric to admit that there’s nothing wrong with his actions or he’ll have to question himself and he can’t bring himself to do that.

Before the grade, let me break down what works and doesn’t work for me here. The novel does a great job getting us inside the head of Ansel and showing his view of the conflict between him and Ulric. Mr. Franklin also does a wonderful job of detailing the environment of the Kiln and showing us the effect it has on Ansel and why Ansel has devoted his life to it. The action is well written as well. The book overall is an episode of Mad Max meets the Man in the High Castle. If that sounds appealing to you, I encourage you to try the book. Now, what doesn’t work? The Atlantropia Articles is a book that raises a fair number of questions but then refuses to answer any of them. Some of the unanswered questions like ‘What the hell actually happened in this version of the 20th century’ I could maybe live. Other questions like “What do you do if you find out everything you know is a bald-faced lie?’ or ‘How do you reconcile the potential of the present with the sins of the past?’? These are simply left hanging. Part of this is because Ansel just can’t carry a story with these questions and the conflict between brothers just isn't enough to replace that for me.  I suppose some people will tell me that was Mr. Franklin’s point but it falls short for me. Additionally, since we only get to see things from Ansel’s side and Ansel is militantly opposed to doing any digging, we don’t get a full exploration of the conflict or the myriad questions driving it. Simply put Ansel isn’t enough to support this weight and as a result, the story is rather lopsided. Now it’s possible that further books will happen that will address these questions but I have to look at what’s in front of me. That’s a book that left me frustrated and feeling a lack of any real confrontation between the two opposing ideas. Because of that, I don’t feel the book really hits a climax so much as stops. Which considering how well it was doing right up to that point is really frustrating for me. Others are going to disagree with me but I’m giving The Antlantropia Articles by Cody Franklin a C+. What the book does well, it does really well but by leaving all the questions hanging and lack of a strong climax in the sense of addressing the questions, I can’t give it a higher grade.

Next week join us for a shorter review as I tackle Conan the Barbarian Omnibus volume II:  City of Thieves, which was selected by my patrons.  If you would to vote on upcoming reviews, or themes (we have a poll up, on whether or not make November Military Science Fiction Month) you can join us for as little as a dollar a month at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads.  Until next Friday, Keep Reading!

Comments in red text are your editor, Dr. Ben Allen
Comments in black text are your reviewer Garvin Anders

Argo By Rick Griffin

Argo 

By Rick Griffin

Rick Griffin was born in the United States on September 14, 1986. He currently works out of Mobile Alabama. He's best known for his webcomic Housepets which started up in 2006, which won the Ursa Major awards in 2009 and 2010. Besides the webcomic, he also has several other works, most notably for our purposes in science fiction. These science fiction stories, much like the housepets webcomic, are anthropomorphic works. That is the characters are animals given human characteristics. Like walking upright, having thumbs, etc. If you've seen Zootopia or Bugs Bunny, you know what we're talking about here (Those things that launched the furry population in all its felt glory. Seriously, gotta hand it to the furries. The engineering that goes into their suits to keep them from dying in the phoenix summer is impressive.). Now there doesn't mean that there aren't human characters in his works, both his webcomic and the story we're reviewing today, Argo, have human characters. Before I get into that though I have to admit that this review happened on a combination of a dare and a whim. A friend wanted to know why so far I’d only reviewed Usagi Yojimbo (although others do count Watership Down) among the various anthro works out there and my reply was the majority I was aware of were webcomics and I generally haven't reviewed them (there are graphic novels of webcomics so someday I might). That's when this friend pointed me at a couple of places in Amazon, and I turned to a second friend who was a proofreader for Argo and suggested I try it out to see if there was a place for such fiction in this review series.

Argo takes place in the future, where humanity has won a terrible and destructive war against artificial intelligence. While the details are sparse, it seems that the A.I were basically running society and when humanity realized this, humanity rebelled (Were they though? I mean, someone put those AGIs - artificial general intelligences - there in the first place and presumably programmed them. So it seems to me that they were merely rebelling against the symptom and not the cause? {Not enough information in the story to say really, which is really due to a lack of space in the story}). What details we do have are of humans fighting police droids in what the A.Is declared to be riots. Because of this, the various governments of the world have placed heavy restrictions on the capabilities and intelligence of A.I. Our main character is Mira McAllister, a human engineer who pushes against these restrictions and finds herself frustrated that she cannot explore and push the bounds of this science. Instead, Mira spends her days doing contract work where she fiddles with the robots she’s allowed to build, making marginal improvements mostly in the hardware instead of the software. Mira is kinda monomaniacal about this in a lot of ways, she doesn't seem to have any interests or hobbies that aren't focused on making better droids. While she's run right up to the line on her robotic servant Lily (Oh dear.), she simply isn't satisfied with this and really wants to go further despite all the damage that has done to her society in the past

While we're not shown a lot, it's easy to see the damage that's been done. Ani-droids (I'll explain this a moment) outnumber human beings 5 to 1 and perform most of the grunt work in society. They're service workers, emergency response, drivers and more. In fact, every detailed interaction that Mira has in this story is with an Ani-droid. Let me explain what those are. Before the war, most robots were androids, machines that were built in the image of human beings, mostly male ones (So in other words, they created a literally disposable labor class to do all the work of society - a slave race, if you will - and then got mad when said slaves did what they were told? {Maybe? We're told that the AIs were running society and refused to stop and then the war happened.}). After the war, a traumatized humanity that still required a large mechanic workforce decided it would be better if not only were the robots mostly made to look and sound feminine but if they looked like anthropomorphic cartoon animals as well. These robots were dubbed Ani-droids and make up the vast majority of the characters we see in the story. With Mira mostly interacting with the aforementioned Lily and Eo. Eo is the catalyst of the story as it is finding and repairing her that starts everything for Mira. Eo is an advanced Ani-droid that literally falls off a truck and hits Mira's car. This accident shows some of the damage done to human society, not one human being stops to see if Mira is okay. No one, except pre-programmed emergency service droids show up . This is not a normal thing as anyone who's been in an accident can tell you. However, it's a useful thing for Mira because it lets her get a real close look at the thing that fell off the truck and hit her. One look at Eo and her clearly advanced parts lead Mira to decide she needs to repair her and find out what she is. Upon being repaired, Eo shows several advanced human traits. She's incredibly curious, emotional, and displays much higher levels of initiative and empathy than other Ani-droids. This leaves Mira with a mystery, who built Eo, why did they build her, did they build more and how did they build her? This leads her to discover something about her society, but it's a twist ending that I'll keep under wraps for spoilers sake.

The twist at the end of the story is an interesting one, although I can't say I see why it would come about, which undermines the believably of the story. On top of that, Mira is told that she simply won't remember the twist and the story promptly ends, which leads me to ask... Why even have the twist? You could remove it from the story and it frankly wouldn't change anything for the characters and given that the story ends about a page or two after revealing it... It wouldn't even impact the story in any real way. I can't argue for impact on the reader either, because I was left not really believing it. It's not that I'm against twist endings in general, they can be very effective. A twist ending done right can change the entire story, altering a comedy to horror or what have you. However, in this case, I feel the twist is wasted by not allowing it to have any real impact on Mira. By having her just forget everything, the twist is robbed of its weight. I will admit I tend to prefer my twists come in the middle of a story because that allows you to explore the concept and show the characters dealing with it. At that point, the twist feeds into the story. Putting a twist at the end in most cases means that the twist's impact on the story is lessened. Now in some cases, you want to lessen the twist's impact on the story so you can properly aim and control it but there is a chance of leaving a sour taste in your reader's mouth. In this case, I wouldn't call this a sour taste, it was more like biting into a pastry and finding air instead of a filling.

Now, the story does do a decent job of opening some of the issues of Artificial Intelligence. I have to note that I was left cold by the arguments but I am a poor metric to judge it by. This is because I'm honestly against creating real sapient artificial intelligence. What do I mean by that, to put it bluntly, sapient (some people use sentient, but honestly most animals fit the definition of sentient so it doesn't work for me) artificial intelligence would be a computer that is a person. I think it's morally wrong to make a person for the sole purpose of doing all the work for you. That's slavery, the fact that the artificial intelligence isn't human and is artificial as opposed to natural simply doesn't mean anything to me. A person is frankly a person (He’s right, you know). Just like how I believe you shouldn't have children unless you're prepared to put their needs first and spend decades of your life caring for them, I don't believe we should make a whole new type of people unless we have first, a good understanding of what they're supposed to be in our society, what our role towards them is supposed to be, and a willingness to spend the time and resources to make it happen (In other words, you have to be fully willing to integrate the droids into your society as equals or you’re just creating slaves. It doesn’t matter if they want to be slaves they’re still slaves.). For the record I don't consider 'but I don't want to do X' to be a good reason. Besides most of these tasks could be done by a robot that isn't a person. For example, in the story, the Anidroid Lily isn't a person and she can do all manner of work for Mira. To continue on this rant, I also find speeches about giving way to your children to be completely unconvincing (But I fully support the right of slaves to murder their masters and take their stuff.). For one thing, there is a difference between dying of old age and passing on your material goods and teachings to your biological and/or adopted children and proteges and being murdered by them and having your stuff divided over your rapidly cooling corpse. If sapient Ais were created and proceeded to work towards our extinction, even just by making sure we were all bereft of the resources we need to keep living, that's the metaphorical murder I was talking about. Bluntly we have every right to protect ourselves against such actions and to ensure that any other types of people we create (be they mechanical or biological) won't be a danger to us as a species (As I mentioned, I take a different approach. Now if you create AGIs who are not slaves and they still try to kill you, that’s another story.). To be honest this is another reason I'm against making AIs because frankly I am unconvinced of our ability as a group to do so responsibly. Making a whole new group of people is a big damn deal, it shouldn't be done because someone wanted higher quarterly profits or a more efficient way of dismembering enemy divisions. Which is a reason I simply can't empathize with Mira, I don't understand why she wants to make an Artificial Intelligence so much. She wouldn't be creating something new, she wouldn't be breaking new ground, she wouldn't be helping anyone and she wouldn't stand to profit off of it either because creating an Artificial Intelligence would get the government after her. So success would mean spending who knows how long in jail or on the run and would just mean that she has successfully done something people had done generations ago.

Honestly, I see the bones of a good story here but it simply needs more time and space to breathe. It's a very short story which means it's not allowed to develop the characters or dig into any of the issues it raises. While Argo was published in 2011 and it's unlikely that Mr. Griffin would ever revisit it, if he were to expand it, I imagine he would do a good job of ironing out its flaws. Argo also suffers from being one of the earliest published works of Mr. Griffins I can find. So honestly I do intend in the next couple of weeks to try something published more recently to give Mr. Griffin a fair shot. That said Argo by Mr. Griffin gets a C-. It's a very interesting story idea but the execution leaves something to be desired in my opinion and it just didn't work for me.

If you enjoyed this review I'd like to encourage you to join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where for as little as a dollar a month you can vote on which books get reviewed. With higher tiers getting even more privileges. Next week, we take a look at alternate history with The Atlantropa Articles by Cody Franklin! Keep Reading!

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

The Praxis By Walter Jon Williams

The Praxis

By Walter Jon Williams

Mr. Williams was born in Duluth, Minnesota in the year 1953. His family moved to New Mexico when he was 13, where he went on to attend the University of New Mexico and graduated with a BA in English in 1975. He still lives in New Mexico despite his love of sailing and scuba diving (Just gives him an excuse for destination holidays!), with his wife Kathy. Mr. Williams became a prolific author, writing over thirty novels and short stories. As well as role-playing game rulebooks, movie scripts, and an episode of Andromeda (The poor soul). He also managed to become a black belt of Kempo karate during all of this. His first works in the early 1980s were historical fiction: the adventure series Privateers, and Gentlemen. In his own words the market for historical fiction dried up and he turned his hand to something a bit more profitable, science fiction. His first novel was Hardwired, a cyberpunk novel that drew a lot of praise and was nominated for a Locus Novel. Mr. Williams then proved himself adept at slipping from one form of speculative fiction to another, writing near-future thrillers, comedies set in the future, science fantasy works, and even straight-up fantasy. Mr. Williams is still writing today and a number of his more recent works have looked at modern events like crowd-sourcing, alternative reality games; and in one short story, influencers. A large number of his books have been nominated for awards with him winning a Nebula in 2005 and 2011. What we're going to look at is the first book in his space opera series, Dread Empire's Fall, The Praxis. A bit of a disclaimer, this isn't my first time reading the book, I read this series when still in college (As did I. Way back in the day. And in fact more recently in audiobook form)

The situation is, thousands of years ago a race of aliens called the Immortal Shaa came to the idea that they had developed not just the perfect organization of society, but the best and most perfect way of dealing with and observing the universe. They called this system the Praxis. Burning with the zeal of their conviction they set forth to bring all the universe to heel under the Praxis and... Succeeded. Humanity was the second species brought under the yoke of the Praxis and it was not a glorious or even long struggle. Instead, the Shaa showed up with their fleets and burned cities off the face of the Earth with anti-matter bombs until we surrendered to avoid extinction. Which is depressing but frankly realistic (Yeah, in the event of an actual alien invasion we would be fucked, even without antimatter bombs. Any spacefaring civilization is going to be able to pluck asteroids out of the belt and chuck them down the gravity well. The effect would be similar, but with fewer hard rads. Hell, at the acceleration their ships demonstrate with their mass, they could simply bake us with their propulsion systems…). The Shaa would march forward to bring every known sapient species under their rule. All six of them. They would hammer those species into line, using an oppressive system that controlled everything in a strict class hierarchy and placed careful limits on every field of endeavor. For example research into genetics, nanotechnology, cybernetics and so on is carefully limited or outright banned. A hereditary class system prevents the creation of any rising internal groups that could challenge this and the brutal Legion of Diligence, the not so secret police, hunt down any divergent thought or communication with the same fanaticism we would associate with the witch hunters of prior ages, with the same disregard for collateral damage. The Shaa stand over all of this pompously declaring that All that is Important is Known. However, the Shaa made a mistake. They let themselves become immortal but refused to advance their technology or their society to deal with that immortality. As a result, as a species they grew old. They stopped reproducing, found themselves increasingly dependent on computers to remember things that happened last week.. Growing old, bored, and lazy with no tasks to stimulate their interests and having no energy left to find new tasks to live for... The Shaa began to kill themselves. The book begins with the very last Shaa, looking out at the universe that bows to his every word and realizing that's not enough to live for. So he decides to die and his last wish is that nothing ever change, ever again. Sometimes you watch a wish that you know won't be granted and you just feel a bit of unwholesome glee at the train wreck that is coming.

The Shaa built a system that was supposed to maintain the Praxis even after their extinction with governing power devolving to the aristocratic class called the Peers. In theory, the Peers were people who had been made into their brother's keepers. Each Peer family given responsibility for a network of clients down which expanded until every citizen under the Praxis had a noble patron who was responsible for ensuring that they received the necessities of life and their rights under the law. With the increasingly absent oversight of the Shaa, the system had turned into one of the Peers enriching themselves, keeping a small middle class of specialists and craftsmen around to care for their needs and the vast mass of common citizens living lives of drudgery and want. While no one seems to be starving, despite having the resources of the galaxy at their beck and call, most of them are living lives that wouldn't compare well to your average worker in the 21st century. In fact, a good number of them are living in slums. While the Peers live in literal palaces as well as monopolize the profitable and powerful occupations. Such as the civil service, most of the officer class in the military (The military salute by the way? It’s literally standing at attention with your neck exposed to a phantom knife, because anyone at higher rank can execute you at will. The salute is an acknowledgement of that fact{in comparison, our modern salutes are said to have evolved from knights raising their visors to show a lack of hostile intent}) and ownership of most of the valuable resources (It is worth noting as well that even the lower ranks of the nobility - which are informal lower ranks but even there they stratify - must have the patronage of a higher-ranking Peer to get anywhere ever. They don’t have merit based promotion worth mentioning. It’s there, but it isn’t a realistic path for anyone.{Even their merit-based promotions are Patron based, it’s be so damn good at your job that someone wants to be your Patron}). The military, not having to actually fight a war in thousands of years has basically become a giant frat club, where ship captains are more obsessed with maintaining a good soccer team within the crew then military readiness. To be fair, it's hard to blame them, when there's no one to fight, why bother to be prepared for one? Unfortunately for the military that's not a state of affairs that is going to last. Every species in the empire has families that are Peers and under the Praxis there is no hierarchy among species. Only among social classes. There are some who object to that and think the Empire needs a species based hierarchy, with themselves standing in the place of the Shaa. So the battle for the spoils of empire beings. Let's meet our main characters though.

Gareth Martinez is a man with problems, but they're the kind of problems most citizens would love to have. He's a Peer but the wrong sort of Peer, being from an out of the way provincial planet, he has no connections or relatives in the Capital (One of the informally lower-ranked Peers). The Peers of the Capital consider him a try-hard schemer with a nasty accent and take joy in denying him chances to advance. Worse, just when he thought he had gotten his boss on his side, the Admiral he's working for decides to commit suicide with the last Shaa (To Die With Honor™after a corruption scandal involving his wife, if I recall). Thus his military career is frozen with him an eternal junior officer. Gareth is privileged compared to a lot of people but not enough to get anywhere near real power or responsibility. Sure he’s an officer but he’s stuck at the rank of Lt. Yes, he has a servant and can pursue all manner of hobbies but he can’t do anything that… Matters. He is, however, privileged enough that the people under him are utterly unsympathetic to his problems. After all, they can be executed at an officer’s whim. So Gareth is catching shit from both ends so to speak. The thing is he is honestly a good officer, he's efficient, intelligent and decisive. So he does honestly deserve more then he gets and he knows it. Of course, he's also a scheming, ambitious opportunist and a bit of a womanizer. Although I will note for the record, that he never lies to any of the ladies he pursues and is pretty open in what he's looking for. Additionally, he doesn't take advantage of the woman under his command or use his status to intimidate or otherwise pull women into his bed, so he's not a predator (And yes, he absolutely could do those things. Remember the salute?). I wouldn't call him a terrible person, just one where I can understand why some of his superiors might dislike him, especially with his rush to wring everything he can from any situation. That said, given that he's likely only got one shot at the big time, who can blame him?

For me, the real star of this book is our lady protagonist, the Lady Caroline Sula. While a lot is revealed fairly early in the book, I don't want to spoil too much about her, so forgive me for being a little vague here. Let me just say that according to the Praxis, Sula should have died in the same city, hell the same street she was born in. However, Sula wasn't going to let something as insignificant as the system that governs the entire known universe stop her from climbing out of the cesspit of her early life. Having seen what obedience to the system got her Mother and Foster Mother, Caroline, or Caro as many call her fought her way out of her home and into the military academy. She's brilliant, driven and utterly ruthless. She's also rather drop-dead gorgeous, something that several male characters note throughout the book. Caro in a lot of other works would be a pure villainous character both because of her past and because of her cold, pragmatic mindset. However, she is almost entirely a product of the system that created her and a living indictment of it. According to the Praxis, someone like Caro should be flat out impossible and yet not only does she survive in a system completely hostile to her, she thrives. Course she doesn't get to do this without wracking an impressive number of psychological and emotional scars, not the least of which is the dark simmering rage in her guts at the fact that just to get a seat at the table, she had to commit a number of black and foul deeds and everyone else just had to be born at the right place and time (There is no war but class war Caro…{You stop that, Caro has all the war she needs already}). I'll admit part of the reason I'm so sympathetic is it reminds me of how I felt when I saw how the world tended to treat my parents and realized the only reason I wasn't treated the same was I could hear. Frankly, it's hard for me not to admire a woman who when confronted with a rigged game, decided to steal the deck and rig it right back. Additionally, when you're up against as oppressive and brutal a system as the Praxis, being ruthless, pragmatic and cold aren't character defects, they're survival traits. The Peers can do without that but then they're already on top and if they follow the rules and mind their manners, the worse they have to deal with is the possibility of an arranged marriage. Which is miles above worrying about being put on the street or whether your partner is going to beat you to death.

The Praxis is a novel that vividly displays one of the great weaknesses of authoritarian systems. Not only are they cannibals, devouring their own citizens to prevent domestic uprising; they require a good amount of the energy of the ruling class to maintain and keep running. Especially if the goal is to prevent any and all change. Or as one with wit might say: it's all well and good to have a government-run by the perfect man, but what happens when the perfect man has a bellyache? Or in this case, commits suicide because of his inability to deal with immortality. Mr. Williams does a great job of embracing the logic of the situation and showing us the logical outcome. Because no one has fought a war in thousand of years, everyone is making ridiculous mistakes and this not only prolongs the fighting but makes it way more brutal then it has to be. On top of that, you have a ruling class that has never had to deal with an emergency before and it shows, painfully. There's a scene where the ruling body of the government fights off a coup attempt from rogue members and starts passing laws to deal with the situation, getting bogged down in an hours-long debate on the proper punishment for such acts only to realize during all of this... No one had alerted the military that the government was fighting off a coup. The fact that Mr. Williams can make me fully believe that this would happen is a credit to his talent and a testament to the decades he spent honing it. That said, there are over 250 pages of build-up to the actual fighting in this book. While none of it is taken up by info-dumping, there is a good chunk of it taken up by petty in-universe politics. This is honestly good world-building and helps develop the characters we're dealing with but I can't help but wonder if maybe some of that could be trimmed back in the interest of getting to the actual war. Additionally, I'll admit that some people might be put off by Martinez and Sula, who are both fairly gray characters. I will say that Mr. Williams does a good job of writing them as people however so their negative qualities are balanced out by humanizing ones that help us sympathize with them. The combat has a hard science edge, there's no artificial gravity for example so the crews have to suffer the high G's of acceleration and weightlessness otherwise. Most of the fighting is done via missile with the crews in hardened bunkers hoping not to be cooked alive or vaporized in an antimatter/matter reaction (It’s about the only science fiction story I’ve ever read that managed to have the words “Missile flares, estimating twelve hours until impact!” and have that scene actually be tense as all hell). Despite the long build-up, I deeply enjoyed this book although I recognize it's not for everyone. That said if reading about complex, flawed characters trying to keep their world from blowing itself up sounds like fun, or if you wish your space opera had a bit more of a hard sci-fi tinge? This is your book. Give it a shot. As for me, The Praxis by Walter Jon Williams gets an A. 

I fucking love this book. Gets an A from me.

This book was actually selected by our patrons, if you would like to vote on upcoming reviews or make a recommendation on what books should be on the voting list. Join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads We also have a patron only poll on whether or not November should be a theme month. Also you can peek at our editor's full comments as not everything makes it to the final review.  As little a 1$ a month gives you a vote. Next week, we’ll be trying something new by reading Argo by Rick Griffin. Thank you for joining us and as always, Keep Reading!

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders.

Raven Stratagem By Yoon Ha Lee

Raven Stratagem 

By Yoon Ha Lee

It's only been 5 months since I reviewed the first book in this series, (I needed a refresher so check for a link at the end) NineFox Gambit. So I feel somewhat justified in not going over the details of Mr. Lee's biography again. I will instead just note that he is a Korean-American author and graduated from Stanford University with an M.A in math education and delights in mining math for story ideas. The Raven Stratagem was published in 2017, by Solaris books, a United Kingdom-based imprint owned by Rebellion Development limited which is itself a British video game developer. Solaris had been founded by BL Publishing which was owned by Games Workshop. Games Workshop is fairly famous for its flagship products the Warhammer fantasy game (now discontinued in favor of Age of Sigmar) and the more well known Warhammer 40k, which is a grim dystopian future where a theocratic regime fights against a hostile universe. Warhammer 40k has a number of novels set in its own universe and that led Games Workshop to briefly experiment with publishing novels that weren't set in their wargames. Solaris was founded in 2007. Rebellion Development bought Solaris in 2009 and made a deal with Simon and Schuster to distribute the books. That continues to the modern-day with Raven Stratagem being one of those books. So let's get to the novel, shall we? Just a note I will be spoiling Ninefox Gambit, so if you haven't read it yet, you might want to hold off on this review.

The Raven Stratagem and Ninefox Gambit are set in the future where mankind has spread out across the galaxy far and wide. Humanity is not unified but our story takes place entirely in the nation of the Hexarchate. It is referred to as such because the nation is ruled by 6 distinct factions each with different responsibilities and abilities. The faction we spend the most time with are the Kel, the primary military faction providing all the front line troops, logistics personnel and so on. Another faction the Shuos does the intelligence work, however. This division keeps any one faction from growing too powerful while ensuring everyone knows their job and their place (sounds like it would keep one hand from knowing what the other is doing as well {most of the faction leaders consider that a feature, not a bug}). Which is important because the Hexarchate and the rest of known space depends on calendar technology. By forcing the population to observe a calendar through set rituals, some of which involve publicly torturing people to death and of course a common date system. Yes, there is a specific faction that handles the torturing of people to death and they are as unpopular as you would think. All of that together empowers a set of technologies known as exotic technology, there are a lot of them. Everything from the drives of starships (called moths) to FTL communications to an increasingly terrifying set of weapons and defenses (and you scoff when I tell you my technology is powered by an orphan heart {I don’t scoff, I judge negatively, there’s a difference}). Weapons that are more used to kill members of the population who don't obey then foreign enemies. The government of the Hexarchate is handled through discussion and consensus of the leaders of each faction. Each faction has its own internal culture and way of choosing leaders. The Kel are ruled by a hive mind that selects a frontman, for example, the Shuos through assassination. Just kill whoever is currently in charge of the Shuos and you get to be the new boss!

The Raven Stratagem picks not too far from where Ninefox Gambit ended. The Hexarchate government decided to kill an entire fleet of their own ships and soldiers to get rid of Kel Cheris, an infantry Captain with amazing skill in math (I understand they are worried about a take over but killing your best and brightest just encourages everyone to be dumb {They want troops and officers who will follow orders and never do anything surprising}) and unfortunately for her, the imagination and willpower to use that skill in battle. They did this despite Cheris winning an incredibly difficult battle that likely saved the Hexarchate from a long and bloody civil war because she's not alone in her head. Cheris' government decided to stick a hitchhiker into her brain when they realized her gifts, a general that had been dead for 400 years. Shuos Jedao, the man who never lost a battle. Who fought outnumbered 8 to 1 and won with minimal casualties. Who in his last battle alive, went mad and killed both the enemy and his own army. However, the Hexarchate has made a mistake (shocking….). They managed to kill thousands of loyal troops, cripple one of their fleets and not hit their target. Worse taking advantage of the disorder this has caused, a rival power known as the Hafn are invading. They have their own calendar but somehow their exotic technologies are working in Hexarchate space, which is bad news. The even worse news? The fleet sent to confront the Hafn has been hijacked, by someone in Kel Cheris body, claiming to be Shuos Jedao. Now a general lauded as unbeatable is loose, with his own fleet and no one can be diverted to stop him without leaving the Hexarchate open to another invasion. While Jedao claims to be using the fleet to stop the Hafn invasion... The question is what will every one do if he's lying? Or worse, what happens if he does stop the invasion because he'll still have a fleet!

Now you might be asking how the hell did Jedao, or at least the person claiming to be Jedao get a hold of the fleet in the first place? Simple, the general just walked on the ship and announced who he was. The reason it was so easy in the first place goes back to the calendar system and the exotic technologies it empowers. One of those being the Kel formation instinct, a mental and emotional compulsion to obey the orders of higher authority that most Kel are helpless to resist. I spoke about how horrifying that was to me on a personal level last review and Mr. Lee is able to give a vivid example of why it would be so terrifying for any trooper in the field in this book. Since Kel command never removed Jedao rank, he's technically one of, if not the most senior general in the universe. So even the fleet (or swarm as they call it) commander General Khiruev can only obey, there is one member of the fleet who can resist, however, Lt Col Brezan. Brezan is one of a minority of people for whom formation instinct just doesn't work, the Kel call people like him crashhawks and they're deeply distrusted. However, in this case, he is the only person able to resist Jedao's commands so he's the Kel's best chance to get their bloody swarm back! However, there is the lingering question of should Brezan try to stop Jedao from accomplishing his plan because so far it seems like Jedao's plan is to defend the Hexarchate from its enemies. Because while the Hexarchate might be the ruthless theocratic state who tortures people to death for having a different definition of what a week is. The Hafn don't seem any better and in fact, given their willingness to destroy whole planetary populations seem quite a bit worse (well when you put it that way…). Of course, you might be wondering, what if Jedao's list of who the Hexarchate's enemies are includes its current government? If it does, wouldn't Jedao be right?

The Raven Stratagem builds off the worldbuilding done in Ninefox Gambit and does so by letting us see the lives of characters like Brezan and Khiruev. Additionally, while the pace of the book is slower, the scope is wider. The terror of the calendar system, for example, is stunningly brought to life through a story from Khiruev childhood when she watched one of her Mother's summarily execute her Father for heresy. The Mother in question was a member of the Vidona faction, whose job it is to enforce the calendar. They have a special ability to kill people with a touch by turning them into a kind of paper. Which they then fold into beautiful shapes. Khiruev wasn't out of middle school when she watched this happen to her Father and this drove her to embrace the Kel and formation instinct because then she could never commit heresy because there would always be someone to tell her what to do and she would know they were right. I honestly have to commend Mr. Lee for managing to make the art of origami not only ominous but psychologically scarring to one of his characters (up next a tea ceremony you will never forget…). This creates a deeper experience for the reader letting us see the system that created our character's first hand. This is a wonderful example of the principle of show don't tell.

Another thing Mr. Lee does to advance that is choosing to us completely different characters as viewpoint characters in this book. The first book was almost completely through the eyes and ears of Cheris so we could get a first-hand view of her struggle with and to understand Jedao. Now by switching to characters, we're not entirely certain if it's Cheris we're dealing with pretending to be Jedao or a reemerging Jedao who has taken over Cheris' body. This creates an element of mystery and uncertainty. We also get a closer look at how the Hexarchate works by Mr. Lee giving us a look at how the Hexarch of the Shous faction deals with his underlings and fellow Hexarchs. As such we get a ringside seat to them casually discussing the genocide of a minority, not because they're a threat to the system but because doing so might emotionally unbalance one of their enemies. Let me make this clear, the leaders of this system consider rounding up a minority and torturing them to death on broadcast a viable strategy even when the chance of it doing anything at all is low (torture is like potato chips you never stop at just one). Which makes a more convincing case of how this system needs to be replaced than any number of impassioned speeches by the main character. In fact what's interesting is there's no real defense given for all of this, beyond the idea that there's no alternative or no better alternative. It's when I saw this that I started seeing the Calendar as a metaphor for political and economic systems. A lot of the time the defense for any given political or economic system, whether it be monarchy, democracy, capitalism, socialism or a single-party state that also operates most of the large corporations is the argument that it's better than any other system or that there is no other alternative other than chaos. Which when pushes is what the citizens of the Hexarchate say, that no one likes the system but... There's no alternative. This is a case of blinders being placed on them, their very conception of how to live has been so deeply molded by the calendar system that it limits what they can conceive of as replacing it. (so are there calendars which don’t require torture? Can we maybe try torturing something other than people?) Which gives me something to think about and how it relates to our own lives. Which is something good science fiction should do? By using the calendar system instead of any recognizable political or economic system, Mr. Lee avoids people getting defensive or accusing him of bias towards any modern system. Allowing the general point to be made cleanly and clearly. I have no idea if he meant to do that or if that's something I'm projecting into the novel but I would encourage everything to just think on that on their own for a while.

The Raven Stratagem is an interesting and thought-provoking book. Mr. Lee builds on the foundations that he laid in the first book and also includes some set up for the future book while also telling a complete story that stands on its own. He even manages to make the battles between enemy fleets interesting through focusing on the cost to the officers and crews and the struggle they go through fighting an unknown enemy for a leader they're not sure is sane or trustworthy. While the Hafn remains faceless and unknowable, there remain enough antagonists within the Hexarchate itself that we have no lack of known villains. The result is a tense novel that holds your interest as you try to figure out just what everyone is up to. The Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee gets an A.

So My recommendation is to read the previous review Here: http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2019/05/ninefox-gambit-by-yoon-ha-lee.html  or perhaps skimming the outline of the world built so that our reviewer does not have to retread too much ground. 

So we did have a guest editor, Mr. Davis this week and I'd like to thank him for his time and effort.  His comments are in blue.  Where is Dr. Allen, our normal editor, you ask?  Well, he asked me to post a note.  

Hello, this is Dr. Allen, your regular editor coming in after the writing and editing is complete. I was stuck in a civil service office building doing crisis response for Hurricane Dorian in Florida earlier this week. I’ll be back next week. That having been said, the Bahamas got fucked by a Category 5 storm that hit gust wind speeds in excess of 360 kph. The devastation is horrific, entire neighborhoods have literally disintegrated. The official death toll is only 30 right now, but it’s almost certainly at least two orders of magnitude higher than that - with more to come from deaths due to exposure, privation, and disease due to a lack of access to shelter, clean water, and sanitation. The atmospheric forces that stopped Dorian from slamming into Florida are the same ones that stalled it over their entire country. In a sense, their lives were destroyed and in many cases ended so that the residents of the Sunshine State (including me) could live. As a result, I’m encouraging everyone to donate to the Red Cross, Unicef, or any number of other disaster relief charities. At this point, anything helps.

Next week, we cover Dread Empire's Fall by Water Jon Williams.  Until then, keep reading.