Booklog: Pratchett and Novik and Jinks, oh my!

[nebroadwe]

Three books this time; having a long commute makes it easy to sail through the pages.

Terry Pratchett, Making Money

Sequel to Going Postal, in which condemned con man Moist von Lipwig was reprieved for a new life as Postmaster General of Ankh-Morpork. Now the Post Office is running smoothly, but Moist is coming apart at the seams, practice-burgling his own office to relieve the boredom. Offered the opportunity to take charge of the Royal Mint, he absolutely refuses ... with predictable (and highly amusing) results. Here's Mr. Pratchett again, taking aim at economics, politics, linguistics, computer modeling, the war between the sexes and just about anything else that passes him in review (including, I suspect, the works of Lois McMaster Bujold. Is it just me or does Moist von Lipwig sound a lot like Miles Vorkosigan, shifted over a universe and down a few dozen social strata, so that there's less noblesse oblige and more "Fanfare for the Common Man" played on kazoos?). More memorable avian-related phrase-turning: "Mr. Lipwig had been in trouble, but it seemed to Igor that trouble hit Mr. Lipwig like a big wave hitting a flotilla of ducks. Afterward, there was no wave but there was still a lot of duck."

Naomi Novik, Empire of Ivory

Fourth in her ongoing Temeraire series, which is refighting the Napoleonic Wars with sympathetic characters, serviceable prose, a good grasp of period detail and an air force (i.e. intelligent dragons). This round sees our heroes grapple with the immediate danger of a dragon-plague (foreshadowed back in Throne of Jade) and the more insidious forces of -ism (racism, sexism, speciesism). It's a credit to Novik that she doesn't just line up good guys and bad guys, but allows the various characters' limitations of perspective to put them all over the map on the issues (e.g. protagonist Will Laurence's sour father, who has all but disowned him for joining the Aerial Corps, is also a fervent abolitionist, while Laurence's friend and former subordinate Tom Riley, an honorable man, takes offense at the idea that his family's investment in the slave economy might be tainted). The novel ends with Laurence and Temeraire in the kind of political-military-moral pickle from which I suspect only a cross-Channel invasion can pluck them, but we'll see. Eagerly awaiting the next installment, me ...

Catherine Jinks, Evil Genius

Cadel Piggott is living the adolescent Gary Stu fantasy: he's cute; he's a genius when it comes to systems analysis; his neglectful parents actually did adopt him; and his real father has arranged for him to attend a school designed to hone his talents so he'll be ready to take control of the corporate empire waiting for him. Except that his father is the evil Dr. Phineas Darkkon, imprisoned for various crimes, and the school is the Axis Institute for World Domination, where embezzlement and forgery are part of the core curriculum and poisoning is a popular elective. I know: it sounds like an unholy cross between Artemis Fowl and Harry Potter, but you have to remember that this is Catherine Jinks writing, which means that Cadel is no Gary Stu, but a very smart (though not always smart enough), undersocialized (yet sympathetic) fourteen-year-old trying to build his own moral compass out of the bits and bobs he can purloin under the eyes of his therapist, his father's enemies and the school surveillance system. Fans of the X-Men will probably feel at home here, as long as they don't mind a more down-to-earth approach to superpowers and technology (some of which feels handwaved). Room is left at the end for a sequel, mostly in terms of character development; I'll look forward to it.

Well, at least one of them was the first book in a series. Gotta be a standalone around here somewhere ...