The Age of Madness

Say this for Joe Abercrombie: he tests himself.

Say this for Joe Abercrombie: he tests his reader.

Say this final thing for Joe Abercrombie: he's never dull.

Fantasy is all too often about preservation of the status quo. There is something inherently conservative about it in that sense. Pared down to its bare bones - and more of those later - pastoral good defeats industrial evil. JRR Tolkein has much to answer for in that sense. Modern fantasy has started to make moves away from this, but change - fundamental societal and technological change - hasn't really been tackled. Even the best modern fantasy - I'm looking at you, Winnowing Flame trilogy - harks back to preservation over progress.

There are, of course, exceptions. And, of course, Joe Abercrombie marks himself out as one of them. The self-appointed (with good reason, it should be said) Lord Grimdark has always challenged traditional fantasy tropes. In the bloody vanguard of the grimdark movement thanks to the First Law trilogy and its associated standalone novels, he has never been afraid to tackle fantasy conventions head-on. You root for the morally grey - or, in the case of the Bloody Nine himself, the out and out black and evil - in a world of questionable morals. Flaws are inherent in his characters. Idealism be hanged; sometimes literally. This is a world that doesn't dress itself up as perfect.

And, when all is said and done, why would you want to preserve a world like this? This is a world where the central nation, the Union, operates under an anti-democratic closed council. Opponents to the oppressive regime are persued by a secret police that uses the most brutal methods possible to preserve (that word again) power for the ruling few. What could be testing for the reader is how dark it can get. This is a violent world. TV Tropes actively describes it, in an understatement, as a crapsack world that actively makes decent people worse. No wonder the people in it hanker after a Great Change.

Abercrombie's writing ranks amongst the best the genre has to offer. This is a dark, depressing world, but it's leavened with humour - often black - that offers respite. We see regular use of catchphrases to build character. Characters' dialogue feels organic. The world-building is consistently superb, particularly as we see the reinvention of an established world. The writing is sharp and focused, with hardly a wasted world. For no other reason, every fantasy fan and writer should make sure they read at least one of his later novels.

If you're looking for pace, then perhaps the Age of Madness isn't the best place to start with Abercrombie's work. My own preference is for the relentless rhythm and power of the Shattered Sea trilogy when it comes to a relentless narrative thrust. And if you're looking for real focus in the characters, the First Law standalone Best Served Cold offers more. But if you want challenge, and ideas, and invention, the best thing to read is undoubtedly the Age of Madness, the third (second? Does a trilogy of standalone novels count as a trilogy?) trilogy in the First Law world.

Change has been in the offing before. Political consequences have always been inherent within the world. Civilisations rise and fall. But most importantly: things move on. Red Country, the final standalone after the First Law, laid the foundations for a revolution. An Industrial Revolution.

And that is where we pick up. Time has moved on since the first trilogy, as we return in earnest to Adua, capital of the Union, for the first time since Bayaz, First of the Magi, destroyed the Agriont to preserve his political experiment. Thirty or so years have passed. King Jezal, put on the throne by Bayaz himself, is nearing the end of his life, his hedonist delinquent son Orso completely unsuited to rule, while the Closed Council continues to rule with an iron fist. In many regards, this is familiar territory. Unchanging fantasy.

But wait. Those changes in Red Country - itself a pastiche of the western genre - are being felt in Adua. The chimneys of industry rise. We hear of canals and capitalism run amok. Iron rails begin to stretch out of Adua, snaking into the Union itself. Investments by the rich are offset by ruthless exploitation of the poor. Simplified, we see the exploitation of the working class through predictably brutal methods.

It is in this world that we see a collection of interesting - and inevitably flawed - characters. Savine dan Glokta, the ruthless daughter of Sand dan Glokta from the first trilogy, is an amoral investor, a manipulator of men, and noted beauty. At the start of the trilogy, she is engaged in an illicit - and inevitably explicit - affair with Prince Orso. Across the sea, in the North, we find Rikke, the Dogman's daughter, blessed, or maybe cursed, with visions of the future. We also find Leo dan Brock, the Young Lion, the closest we find to a hero at the very start of the series.

If that all sounds safe and easy, rest assured it doesn't stay that way as we navigate a fantasy Industrial Revolution and all it entails. I have missed out many characters who are met during the 1,700 pages or so of the trilogy, and it is these characters who offer much of the moral complexity of Abercrombie's writing. These characters mean it is never short of compelling.

And never short of challenging. Change is inherent in what Abercrombie tries to do. This is the work of a writer unafraid of stetching what is possible within the genre. We see many normal low fantasy traits - we have battles, rebellions, plenty of politicking - but we also see a Great Change akin to the French Revolution. Ideas leap off the page, and the extent to which Abercrombie tests the conventions of fantasy becomes apparent the more we progress.

Perhaps it is inevitable in a series of books this wide-ranging and dense. When I say hardly a word is wasted, this is one of the most tightly-written series you'll come across. In a less masterful writer's hands, the books could easily have been twice the length. What it does mean is that unless you're paying full attention, key moments can be missed. It also meant that at times it feels like the Age of Madness is trying to do too much.

That being said, it's always better to stretch both reader and writer than it is to stick with what is safe and secure. And although some aspects of the Age of Madness don't quite land, one way or another, it is still one of the most significant works in modern fantasy. It is a series fundamentally about change, and about people in that change, and it takes fantasy into - if not uncharted territory - territory that has hardly been explored before. On the fringes of the map we see the cartography of a modern master.

Say this for Joe Abercrombie: he's worth a read.

Too Like the Lightning

Imagine, reader, that you are the perpetrator of the worst mass murder seen in a utopian society for many years. Imagine that rather than face the ultimate penalty the rest of your days are spent in perpetual penance but in secret, as your very identity poses a risk to your safety. Imagine that you are the one man - or woman, for sex is no hindrance to this - able to balance economies and realities and that you live, almost paradoxically, in a private hive home, surrounded by the humanist and the utopian. The broken and the damned surround you and power flexes itself around you at all times.

Congratulations, reader, for you have placed yourself in the realms of Too Like the Lightning, Ada Palmer's philisophical 2016 science fiction novel. It is a novel of contradictions, set in a world completely alien to our own 21st century sensibilities.

And perhaps it is that which meant I could not finish it.

This is a strange novel. Not just for its content, which, as I have already said, feels completely out of the realms of the modern man's - or woman's  - experience. But also for its style. Its plot. Its philosophy. This is a novel that can completely alienate the reader, such as yourself, dear reader, if you do not understand its minutiae.

I did not read the novel, it should be said. I listened to it. For twenty hours, my listening was confused and somewhat lost. My questions outweighed my answers. At times, I completely lost track of what was going on. Snippets of sense emerged, but they were few and far between. Despite this, I persevered; it takes something else to defeat me in a quest to read a book such as this.

This curious mix of Thomas More and Frank Herbert (alongside the Marquis De Sade - this is the one thing I wish I was kidding about) attempts to combine future economics and politics with the unbelievable elements of a boy who can animate the inanimate. It is ambitious. It is beautifully written. It also incorporates elements of gender theory - about the only thing I understood - with eighteenth century writing style.

If I have lost you in this review, reader, I apologise. You are my master in this and I should not have let you down. But this emulation of the written style does not include how unreliable Mycroft, our first person narrator, is. Or does it? Certainly this is a pale imitation of it, bereft of many of the ideosyncracies that actually made the style interesting to listen to even when it was impenetrable.

I did not enjoy Too Like the Lightning, but I do not regret having read it. Perhaps this is a book to be pored over rather than listened to - in the car, no less, dear reader. It may be a book that rewards the tooth-combing reader who can understand the philosophy and the seemingly plotless nature of the novel. I cannot make a judgement for you, though, dear reader, and I would encourage you to form your own judgement rather than rely on my unreliable perspective.

The Year of the Word

Each year begins with a challenge to myself. Read more women. Read more from around the globe. Read a particular series. Simply read. The challenge depends on how the year looks in prospect. The decision to get an Audible account made all challenges significantly easier, it has to be said, but in general reading time has been harder to come by in the past couple of years. Having a family will do that.

So what shall it be this year? Come, come, we haven't got all day to decide. What I choose to entertain myself with shall inform my choice of book.

Last year, it was the year of the classic. Dickens. Elliot. Du Maurier. Austen. Brontë. All featured highly in my year's reading. Dickens in particular found himself a staple of my... well, listening, if you must know the truth, but then Dickens should be listened to rather than simply read. You don't get the tempo of the writing, the organic nature of the dialogue, the sense of knowing characters through rambles and interactions like friends. Were I reading his work I'd probably find it insufferable and unfocused, meandering to an ill-defined conclusion. But listened to, the language sings and provides joy.

So what of this year? This year is not a year for the classics, although Audible having many from the nineteenth century available to listen to for free as part of my membership inevitably means I'll rattle through a few from Hardy, Trollope and others. No, this year is a year for something else: 500 words per day of writing.

It's a change. And yes, I'm cheating already. I'm counting these words as a part of my daily quota, so I have something at stake in making this as rambling as possible. Talking around the issue is, of course, a speciality for Dickens and there's much to be learned from the master of the meander, but I also need to ensure in my writing I have more focus.

500 words a day is hopefully less than an hour each and every day. By the end of the year, it's 182,500 words; two good novels, although I set no targets for what I write, simply the amount. Yes, I want to write certain stories. Yes, there are some things on my to-do list. But what is more important is rediscovering the habit of opening a Word document (or Pages, as it is on my laptop) and getting words on a blank sheet. It's opening a blog to crystallise thoughts - perhaps on writing, perhaps on history, perhaps on politics, perhaps on something completely different - and hold myself to account.

This year, you can expect to hear more from me. And I hope to make it interesting.