Being the wise old man that I am, one of life’s lessons I
keep close to hand is: avoid the things that you like the idea of more than you
like the actual thing. Humans being humans, for whatever reason there are
things we invest a great deal of hope, desire, even material wealth to acquire,
only to quickly discard them, or be disappointed due to some misperceived incompatibility
with our personalities, interests, or preferences. Our eyes can be bigger than our plates in more
ways than just food. Books have great
potential in this area. Reviews make
them seem interesting, commenters praise their glories, and awards apply a
bright, neon-yellow highlight, meaning this wise old man does not always learn
from his mistakes. Such is the case with
Elizabeth Bear’s Range of Ghosts
(2012), first in her Eternal Sky trilogy.
Looking back to my notes for Bear’s Undertow, I should not have invested in Range of Ghosts. Flat, flat,
flat prose that sucks the life out of what could have been an interesting story,
Range of Ghosts indicates nothing has
really changed in Bear’s style in the intervening years. Under the microscope, there is nothing
overtly wrong with the flow of words. Syntax
is correct, the words are descriptive, and the text moves the story forward. And yet I perpetually struggle, paragraph
after paragraph, line after line, to maintain focus—even in the so-called dramatic bits. (The exact same thing I experience reading
Daniel Abraham.) I must continually rein
my wandering mind in. Needless to say,
it’s an indication something is wrong.
While reading Range of
Ghosts I thought long and hard about this (wandering, wandering…), and came
to a few conclusions regarding why the novel is so flat. Firstly, Bear doesn’t effect narrative
depth. Everything is on the
surface. There are attempts at creating
mood—that narrative intangible allowing the story to sink its claws deeper in
the mind. There are descriptions of
blood and gray skies, for example, and the characters have emotions and
emotional moments. But these are never
conveyed in a way that builds a deeper understanding or subconscious bond with
the story. Adding to this problem is
pacing, more specifically the uniformity of pace. The entire narrative is the same steady,
medium speed. There is no pick up and
slow down, no injections of urgency, no plot pauses to let the reader catch
their breath, or walking them up the next hill to let them slide down the other
side. And the third issue contributing
to the flatness is the lack of amplitude between details and generalities. A
similar level of detail is applied to both important and unimportant aspects of
the story. With everything accorded the
same level of significance, the reader has no spectrum on which to assign
value, leaving them indifferent to things in general. By contrast, looking at a similar book, Guy
Gavriel Kay’s Under Heaven, one finds
appropriate dynamics in prose—rhythm, atmosphere, emphasis on certain details and
de-emphasis on others, positive and negative space, etc.. Thus I’ve come to the conclusion that Bear’s
prose feels more like a relationship between writer and paper than writer and
reader.
Looking at other reviews and commentary on Bear’s work, my
opinion is in the minority. This means
there are readers who like, even love, her prose. (My guess is that readers put off by Bear’s work
have jumped ship long ago, leaving readers who enjoy her work for what it is,
and comment, and review, and praise, accordingly.) Thus, I would just say it wasn’t for me, and shift
to look at the positive aspects of Range
of Ghosts.
In terms of pure imagination, Bear has no shortage. The novel presents a world that feels fresh
in the context of other epic fantasies on the market, namely for the ways in
which it incorporates ancient Mongolian and Chinese cultures. Range of
Ghosts opens at the end of a bloody battle.
Part of an ongoing civil war that erupted after the death of the great
Khagan, his sons now fight for power.
Picking himself from the wreckage is Temur, grandson to the great
Khagan, now looking to establish a new life on the grasslands with sheep and
horses. However, assassins sent by his
uncle to eliminate contenders for the throne would have it otherwise. Samarkar, who was once princess in the nearby
Rasan Empire, has given up royal standing to become a wizard, something which
she made one of the greatest sacrifices possible to even have a chance at. Her path crossing Temur’s, unbeknownst to
both a secret cult lies in the shadows, looking to take power over all empires. (While that end note sounds quite familiar,
Bear maintains focus on the characters and their journey, which isn’t bad.)
As is to be expected in the opening volume of an epic
fantasy trilogy, a healthy portion of Range
of Ghosts is spent building the world, its backstory, and establishing the character
relationships that will carry the story forward. Info dumps limited, Bear does a solid job
integrating these elements into the present-day story, all the while building
story threads for potential future resolution.
The worldbuilding is there, but rarely poured upon the reader in
gallons, which is a positive.
Readers looking for “diversity” in their narratives should be
on Range of Ghosts like white on rice
given Bear’s usage of female characters.
Beyond token inclusions of ‘empowered’ and ‘independent’ women, Bear
should indeed be applauded for the manner in which they are implemented. There is no, “I am woman, hear me roar!” to incite the reactionary side of
feminism but which fails to address more relevant topics. Instead, each woman has a natural place in
the setting, conforms to her own traits, posseses a spectrum of morality,
displays both agency and weakness in diverse ways, and represents—that all
important word—gender in organic fashion.
“I am woman, hear me speak as an
equally proportioned character.” seems more the umbrage. (Intelligent, sophisticated, mature, yes, but you can see why it didn’t catch on as much
as roaring…) This is fully worth
appreciating given how lopsidedly male the overall epic fantasy scene is, not
to mention the penchant for creating empowered female characters which, in
fact, are just men with breasts.
In the end, a lot could have been done to fix style and
technique in Range of Ghosts
(creating better narrative rhythm would eliminate the dross while motivating the
story on a line by line basis is one example).
As it stands, the flatness killed my ability to sustain engagement with
the novel, but for other readers may not be a problem. There remains a great deal of imagination as
well as meaningful character interaction relevant to the setting. Take that as my grain of salt. Overall, I’m afraid I need to learn my lesson
and just give up on reading Bear.
No comments:
Post a Comment