Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

When I started reading Demon Angel, several things struck me.  First of all, it was clear right from the start and Hugh and Lilith were both protagonists with tremendous strength and hubris.  That Hugh’s ego and sense of pride were tied to his idealism and his dedication to truth did not make it any less powerful or complex than Lilith’s paradoxical loyalty to duplicity and cultivating weakness in her human prey.  Early on Brook introduces the phrase there can be no light without darkness, which, while hardly a new revelation, still resonates meaningfully throughout the novel, because Brook is not set on keeping yin on one side of the equation and yang on the other.  Instead, Hugh, who is in the business of salvation, and Lilith, who is in the business of destruction, are forever in the process of examining and renegotiating their roles, not only in relation to each other, but also in their larger significance to the cosmic interplay of good and evil, light and dark, kindness and cruelty.  At one level, Demon Angel is the story of two characters who cannot escape their essential nature but are both mistaken in regard to who they think they are.  And through their relationship, not only do they truly discover each other, but they also play out the unsettled relationship between sacrifice and salvation, both human and immortal.  Brook uses the bond between Hugh and Lilith – which essentially proceeds as a series of ever more intimate and dangerous bargains – to demonstrate the novel’s insistence that appearances can be deceiving. 

I realize that all of this probably sounds like some humorless theological seminar, but that’s one of the wonderful turnabouts in Demon Angel.  While it’s not a book filled with epic revelations, it’s by and large an incredibly inventive, lusty, adventurous, and compelling Romance, with two characters whose fates are – in both the most literal and cosmic sense – intertwined, and their love both human and spiritual.  Not, to be sure, in the traditional sense of an inspirational novel, but more in the sense that these two characters have a strong presence beyond the physical, and the levels on which their bond grows extend from the profane to the sacred and back again.

There are already a number of very detailed reviews of this book on various reader blogs (check out Bam and DearAuthor, for example), and much of the plot of the novel is revealed in these reviews, so I will skip the in depth synopsis (plus it’s freaking hard to do this novel justice by writing a linear plot summary – even if I were capable of such a thing, which I am obviously not).  Generally speaking, the first hundred pages and eight hundred years or so of the novel are an exhilarating whirlwind of bargains and battles and repressed lust, with the young knight Hugh going from human to Guardian to human again, and the demon halfling Lilith going from full to less empowered demon as her father, Lucifer, becomes increasingly disappointed with Lilith’s growing conscience and affection for Hugh.  This part of the novel centers around the conflict between Hugh’s inclination to teach and serve honorably on earth and in Caelum and Lilith’s contrary mandate to exploit human weakness and recruit more lost souls for Lucifer.  That Hugh and Lilith are immediately attracted to each other isn’t just because opposites attract, but because they aren’t exactly opposites deep down. 

Hugh’s first exchange with Lilith occurs when Hugh stumbles upon her sexually dominating a half-naked and blindfolded seneschal of his lady’s castle, a man known for his vanity, pride, and cruelty, and this scene immediately marks Lilith as temptation in the most dangerous of ways.  The world-weary Lilith is attracted to the boy-knight Hugh in spite of herself, and it is not long before she finds various ways to tease and provoke him, sometimes in the guise of the Lady Isabel, who is no more than a child herself, married to an older and exceedingly jealous baron, and clearly infatuated with the gallant and handsome Hugh.  Hugh engages with Lilith in almost every way—debating, bargaining, teasing, lusting. Soon it becomes clear that neither is what they appear to be on the surface:  Lilith is not a ruthless tool of Lucifer and Hugh is not an almost-saint.  For example, Lilith defies her hellish service by giving Hugh to his heavenly (literally) mentor Michael to be made into a Guardian (not exactly an angel, but a divine protector of humans, nonetheless) when he is mortally stabbed after mistaking Lady Isabel for a disguised Lilith and almost raping her out of anger and lust.  After Hugh’s transformation, Guardian and halfling demon continue to spar and to lust, while Lilith becomes wearier of tormenting her victims and Hugh becomes less able to rationalize and accept the violence he sees in the more modern world.  The closer together they seem to come, though, the more the tension between them increases, culminating in a clash in which Hugh stabs and buries Lilith, his sense of despair and loss driving him to fall to earth and resume life as human, fully believing Lilith is dead and released from service to Lucifer.

The second section of the novel takes place in current day (well, a few months from now, actually) San Francisco, where one of the gates to Hell stands just below the Golden Gate Bridge (a convenient place to catch all the suicides).  Hugh has become a disconsolate university professor and a cult hero for a version he wrote of Lilith’s story, which his adoptive “sister,” Savitri (the heroine of Brook’s next novel), surreptitiously discovers, wretchedly translates, and publishes as a gift for Hugh.  The books circulate to others, though, even spawning a game called DemonSlayer, which Hugh’s students like to play, pissing off the megalomaniacal Lucifer because it stars Lilith instead of himself.  Hugh is unfulfilled but steady in his life, until his students start disappearing, nosferatu are unexpectedly prevalent and active in the city, and Lilith surprises him with the fact that she is both alive and an agent for the FBI, which has joined the SFPD in trying to solve the disappearance/murders of Hugh’s students (for which, of course, he is the prime suspect).  This part of the novel puts Lilith and Hugh finally in the position to banter and bargain like old times, to consummate their long flirtation, and to join forces against the nosferatu and a variety of ambitious demons (many of whom work as civil servants!).  Hugh also has the teeny tiny goal of saving Lilith from Lucifer, who “saved” Lilith after Hugh stabbed her, only to torture her and then send her back to earth with the express order to kill Hugh by way of convincing him to submit to an insane ritual that will further empower Lucifer, punish Lilith for caring about Hugh, and destroy Hugh once and for all.  The more human Lilith becomes, of course, the more difficult it is for her to imagine losing Hugh, and the more vulnerable Hugh finds Lilith, the more convinced he is that he will sacrifice himself to save her.  Lilith is a woman who has always been wary of kindness, and Hugh feels incredibly guilty about the moments of cruelty he has indulged in over time.  Would Hugh’s sacrifice be kindness or cruelty to Lilith, and which would she prefer?  Would Lilith’s sacrifice (by defying her father’s authority) be kindness or cruelty to Hugh when she would be lost to him forever?  For these characters, and in the world of the novel, it is sometimes difficult to discern the difference, let alone to decide what would be more just.

It is in this second section of the book that much of the mythology is fleshed out, most of the mysteries explained, and the lion’s share of the novel’s complexity occurs.  It is also the most problematic in terms of evaluating the novel’s success, because some of the book’s ambition turns back on itself.

It was fascinating and entrancing to watch Hugh and Lilith dance their dance across time and various earthly and unearthly forms of existence.  The first section of the novel creates an almost palpable sexual and emotional tension between Hugh and Lilith, with all the tendrils of their complicated mutual attraction nicely drawn:

. . . “Shall we bargain?’

A low, tortured groan escaped him, rumbling against her chest.  “God, no.”

She laughed but persevered.  “I’ll keep you warm.”

“And I will owe you doubly?  A lie and . . . a kindness?”

Rocking against his arousal with a wicked smile, she said, “’Tis not a kindness I offer you, but pleasure.  Or temptation.  Or pain, depending on how you take it.”

“To me, it would be comfort and warmth only,” . . . “What would bring comfort to a woman such as you?  What would be kind?”

She stilled.  Felt her mask of amusement slip.  He must have seen her – desperation?  Regret? She dared not name them, even to herself.  “Naught you can give.”. . .

He watched her, as if trying to determine whether she spoke truth or merely toyed with him.  “The bargain cannot be struck. . . . Though I would offer kindness, it seems equality in this exchange is impossible.”

“And would you take the temptation if I were like Isabel?  Beautiful and pure?” . . .

“If you were like Lady Isabel, you would be married. . . . And it would be a betrayal of fealty to my lord and God.  Will you betray your liege in return?  To whom do you owe loyalty, that it would be equal?”

. . . “Do not be kind to me,” she said finally. (pp. 32-33)

Brook weaves together the lust between Hugh and Lilith with some of the existential questions of the novel so that the relationship between the two of them has a deepness, even early on in the book, and the metaphysical issues Brook is introducing become more accessible through Hugh and Lilith’s interaction.  It’s a nice combination, and it keeps the first section of the novel very buoyant. 

The second part of the novel was less successful for me, in part, I think, because it is difficult to keep an effective balance between complexity and intensity, especially when an author is both worldbuilding and relationship building with as much intricacy as Brook is.  Her writing style reminds me very much of Jo Goodman (of whose work I am a big fan), both in her languorous attention to detail and her tendency to make sure the reader doesn’t miss anything.  I love the attention to detail, the way, for example, she describes the various areas of San Francisco (I go to school in the Tenderloin, so I had no problem imagining demons exploiting lost souls there), and the care she takes in focusing the reader’s attention on the mundane details of modern life for characters who are far from mundane.  More wearing in the second part of the novel, however, are the detailed explanations of things I would have been perfectly happy discerning myself:

Steam filled the small room.  Lilith quietly closed the door, began slipping out of her clothes.  The outline of Hugh’s body, wavering behind the frosted glass; his hand was braced against the shower wall, his head bowed beneath the spray.

She stepped inside, and he turned toward her, gave a half-hearted smile.  “Are you here to tempt me?”

“No.” She ran her hands over his shoulders, and she kissed him. His lips were salty; she drew back, studied him.  Not all of the moisture on his face was from the shower. . . . (p. 373)

I wish Brook had enough faith in her readers or confidence in herself to let Hugh’s salty lips speak for themselves (well, you know what I mean).

In writing this review, I looked back over the first part of the book and noticed that the explicating prose is there, too, but I didn’t notice it as detrimental until about a hundred or so pages from the end of the book.  Several reviews of the book have pointed out that the second section is talkier, and that is certainly true, as is the fact that the plotting and worldbuilding of the book are pretty intricate.  But I don’t really think that’s what made the second section drag a bit for me.  I do think it’s a pacing issue, but one related more to the cumulative weight of Brook’s descriptive prose than a failure to keep the action moving at an engaging pace.  Because there is a lot of action in the second half of the book, especially near the end, but I felt slightly labored in reading it.  I do not, however, think this is a fatal flaw in Brook’s writing as much as a first original full-length novel issue.  Certainly I don’t think that the book was too intricately plotted or detail-heavy to be accessible.  There were points, especially in the beginning, where I wondered about something that was explained more fully later.  And there were moments in the second part of the book where I had to re-read passages or flip back to catch up on something I thought I had missed.  But again, if Brook can find a way to better balance the explication and description with the actual details she needs to get across – that is, to discern more effectively what is and isn’t necessary to explain— I think her prose will become much more powerful and the pacing of her work smoother. 

As for the characters, though, Brook excelled in drawing two protagonists who antagonize as much as they demonstrate their heroic qualities.  The mirroring between Lilith, who seems to thrive on deception and destruction, and Hugh, who appears to value only honor and order, is really lovely, creating two remarkably likeable characters that are not one-dimensional or unambiguous in their morality.  While Lilith enjoys exacting a twisted price from people who commit horrible acts, she also sees it as justice somehow, and not simply the perversity that drives those who do not know truth from falsity.  Created from a human form, she never completely loses her humanity, and as hard as she tries to remain demonic, Lilith cannot bring herself to fully ruin Hugh.  And while Brook could have easily made the monkish Hugh a staid, rather boorish counterpoint to the dynamic Lilith, instead she draws him as unsettled and self-accusing, ill at ease with a Guardian’s responsibilities to protect humans but still aspiring to honorable service.  I have to say that I have a weakness for angsty heroes and ballsy heroines, so both Hugh and Lilith work for me on every level.  Plus the whole notion of service gets a nice workout in the novel, from what it means to serve a master deceiver (Lucifer) to what it means to submit to one’s passions and feelings.  Where strength finds its match in vulnerability; where honor can be found in a lie; where action takes place in reflection – all of this and more filters through Demon Angel.  As I was reading the book, I kept thinking about my high school Latin class, and the definition of “virtu” we learned:  the best that man (hey, they were Romans and my teacher was an old-fashioned kind of guy) can do.  That contemplation of virtue, of the highest aims of humans and what counts as “best” under morally ambiguous circumstances, is definitely a preoccupation of Brook’s fictional world.

As I said before, I really liked the San Francisco setting, and followed along in my head through various locations. Although I personally think that traversing the Bay Bridge is a more hellish experience, it was clever having the gates to Hell located under the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was a hoot to see Colin again (from Brook’s story “Falling For Anthony”), with the delicious irony in his insistent desire to paint his self-portrait through time.  I also adored Lilith’s hellhound, Sir Pup (a tribute to Sir Hugh the puppyish medieval knight), who was allowed to be a character and not just an amusing oddity.  And I liked the fact that while icky and ugly things happen in the novel, Brook doesn’t linger over the details, so I got a sense of how bad Chaos and The Pit were, for example, but didn’t get excruciatingly gruesome descriptions I’d have to work to forget later (what can I say --I’m a wimp).  I very much appreciated how Brook built the sexual tension between Lilith and Hugh while not glossing over the fact that Lilith was a demon.  Her true demon form includes scaly red skin, leathery black wings, cloven hooves and forked tongue, and she creates a sexual spark in Hugh at her most inhuman looking; in fact, the first time they have sex Lilith is in her full demon shape, complete with claws and blood-drawing scales on her breasts and nipples.  That her appeal to Hugh extends beyond her transitive human form(s) was one of the nice surprises of the novel for me, as was the fact that Hugh remains pretty sexually inexperienced for some 800 years of his relationship with Lilith.  Brook doesn’t make a big deal of the fact that Hugh is a virgin, in the same way she doesn’t write Lilith as a slut who needs to be reformed, and while I really did wonder at how Hugh remained “pure” for all that time, it worked within the parameters of the story because of his generally ascetic ways. 

I’m definitely looking forward to the next book, Demon Moon, not only because I want more of the vain vampire Colin, but also because I’m hoping some of my lingering questions from “Falling For Anthony” and Demon Angel will be answered.  I’m still not certain I understand all the nuances of Brook’s mythology, even as she draws from Milton, Dante, and Bosch.  I haven’t had time to go back through Demon Angel to piece through the origins of some of the characters and the relationships, so I don’t feel confident yet in holding against the book some of the things I may have missed.  I do hope, though, that as the series continues the world Brook is building becomes more fleshed out.  And I have to say that I finished Demon Angel satisfied that in Brook’s paranormal world, love is the highest form of service, and earthly justice found in a very human and very happy ending for the lovers. 

It’s hard not to compare Victoria to the obvious: there are a few nods to Buffy, particularly in Victoria’s struggle to maintain something of a normal life while following a legacy she’s chosen, a legacy that has also chosen her. There are many layers of internal conflict to be resolved for Victoria, as she’s inherited a strength and ability to do something extraordinary, and shows potential to be one of the most powerful Venators in her family’s history due to the purity of her lineage. That same lineage also guarantees her a socially marvelous season in London shopping for a husband, a process that would be overshadowed and rendered somewhat obsolete by her choice to become a Venator. The balance of social popularity and, well, saving the world affects Victoria’s life at every moment.

Unlike Buffy, she has to willingly and somewhat repeatedly choose to follow that path in order to become a full Venator and receive the amulet that will aid her in protecting and asskicking.  She could have opted out with no harm, no foul. So when life gets decidedly sticky for Vicky, she has to blame herself, and can’t start whinging about how unfair it all is. There will be others in generations to follow and she could leave the battle of good and evil up to them. 

The power of that choice creates a strong heroine, but one who isn’t infallibly perfect - thank heavens. Victoria makes mistakes, has lapses of judgment, and wants desperately to get to a level of competence such that her great aunt and her fellow Venator Max will stop looking over her shoulder or protecting her from her own inexperience. Victoria is also interesting as a heroine because she is surrounded by exceptionally strong women in her family, from her great aunt, who is proof that eccentricity in old age can be used to conceal just about anything, to a mother who has hidden depths of steel and devotion to her family, even if she makes different choices than Victoria might expect.

Additionally, there is a Big Bad to be dealt with in the novel, and a larger Big Bad looming for the series as a whole, plus the individual battles and attacks facing Victoria on a chapter-by-chapter level. Victoria and Sebastian find themselves battling Lilith, the queen of the vampires, over a book that can call to life a demon army, tipping the world domination scales way to far in the vampires’ favor. The origin of the Big Bad and the Bigger Bad, and of the Gardella family itself, is also tied into both Christian theology and vampire lore, which yields larger implications for all parties, and creates an increased sense of depth for the backstory.

I’m going to put a dollar bet down that this book series will be optioned for film or television in some form, either as a whole or as individual books, because the influence of television series viewing is evident in the plot structure, and the organization of the larger and still larger story arcs. This is not at all a bad thing; it’s simply telling of how storytelling in visual and literary forms can influence one another and will likely continue to do so.

The good parts? Victoria can be frustrating, but her fallibility makes her more accessible as a heroine. If the heroine is a superhero who can throw the reader and all men within arm’s reach through a wall, it becomes harder, I think, to create flaws that won’t damage her as a character yet will make her a more empathic individual. Gleason manages to make Victoria a very noble heroine with understandable flaws. Victoria wants to succeed, and wants to make her great aunt proud, aside from the whole ‘saving the world by staking vampires’ thing. She operates from a place of good intentions both grand and local, so her goofs and slip-ups only make the reader cheer for her more.

I only wish the men had been more developed, though by possibly developing one over the others, Gleason would run the risk of giving away the ultimate ending of who Victoria will choose as her hero. I think with the presence of three potential heroes, each demonstrating character flaws that can urge Victoria to grow stronger emotionally, it’s more than a triangle - not to state the obvious. A triangle of attraction isn’t strong enough structurally to contain the potential entanglements that are certainly imminent for Victoria and her three mysterious men. Each represents a different facet of Victoria’s development, so each is equally important. Still, there’s that part of me who wants to know who the hero will be, so I don’t get all bummed out if I root for the wrong dude.

Above all, the writing is what recommends this book most. Gleason’s writing is sharp and taut, which makes for excellent action sequences, and a plot that travels quickly from the start. The writing strength alone gives me ample reassurance that this potentially plot-heavy series is in the right hands. I’m definitely looking forward to the next installment. 

Seems I have to face a sad fact about myself and my romance reading: I might have grown accustomed to being spoon-fed the antagonists and the forces acting against the protagonists. Maybe I’ve been reading too many paranormal evil-as-villain stories, or maybe I’ve been missing out, but clearly, I’m much better a romance reader for having read this story.

Lucien’s Fall, as evidenced by the title, is a romance that focuses mainly on the transformation of the hero, Lucien Harrow, Lord Esher. A terrible rake, a Lord Slut, even, Lucien is invited to a house party thrown by the incomparably beautiful Juliette, more appropriately known as Countess Whitethorn. Juliette’s stepdaughter, Madeline, is making a late entrance into society, and her stepmother is attempting to create an engagement between Madeline and Charles Devon, Marquess of Beauchamp, a man of considerable fortune. The Whitethorn estate, and the family living on it, are deeply in debt, and the house itself is falling down bit by bit. Juliette sacrificed jewelry to host the house party and clothe Madeline attractively, and scored quite a social coup by securing Lucien’s attendance. Lucien’s friend Jonathan is also Juliette’s current lover.

Lucien is a tortured hero like few others in romance. He’s tortured by his own actions, or inaction, his history, his past affairs, and by his own mind and body. As a result he’s barely functional in social situations half the time, and his reputation for outrageous behavior makes ample room for more of the same.

Madeline, however, is unimpressed - well, better to say she’s impressed but smart enough not to show any hint of interest. She knows that her bread is best buttered by an alliance with Beauchamp, and an affair with Lucien would lead only to ruin. Madeline is set on saving her home, Whitethorn, most specifically the gardens, which are her passion. She delayed her debut into society so she could travel the Continent and learn more about gardens and botany, and her goal is to restore the home and grounds with a marriage to a rich man. She’s not mercenary about it by any means, but she is honest with herself and her stepmother: there is no marriage for love in her future. And while Lucien attracts her, and he certainly has a fortune to spare, she knows he is not the sort to marry.

One of the most innovative and charming features of the story is the depth to which both Lucien and Madeline recognize their own roles as Rake Hero and Perfect Heroine. Well-schooled by a socially-aware stepmother, Madeline is more than conscious of her need to keep Lucien away from herself, as he would think nothing of ruining a virgin and walking away. But the almost meta-conversations they have on the topic are fascinating:

Behind her came footsteps.... Madeline smiled, unsurprised. “Join me, Lord Esher,” she said without turning.

“How did you know it was I without looking around?”

Madeline looked up at him. “I think there must be a book of rake’s etiquette,” she said lightly. “First rule is one must always follow one’s prey into a moonswept night.”

To her surprise, he laughed. “Well done.... What then would be my next step?”

Madeline straightened, knowing she must not show any hint of shyness or of blushing sensibility. If she were to put him off properly, he had to understand she knew well any technique he might attempt. “That would depend on the woman, of course, and the rake.... Pray tell, then, what tack you’ve chosen for your foray into my seduction.”

“Are you absolutely certain I’ve chosen to seduce you?”

“Yes, though you didn’t make up your mind until supper” (Samuel 27).

How completely refreshing to have two characters acknowledge their roles, and their awareness of the other’s motivations. This meta-conversation happens a few other times in the course of the story, and it’s wonderful. Madeline makes it clear that she’s on to whatever plans Lucien comes up with, and she calls him on his behavior each and every time he is less than genuine with her and falls back on his libido-driven actions aimed solely at the flower that is not in her gardens. He gets very little leeway with her and she won’t tolerate any of his rake-ful behavior, not matter how affected she is by her own very real attraction to him.

Lucien himself is delicious, and I say that as an admitted sucker for the tortured, artistic hero. Lucien is a gifted individual with a talent for musical composition, a talent he was forced to squelch due to abuse and pressure after a personal humiliation and tragedy. He pays for his attempts to ignore his gift with blinding headaches, but when he meets Madeline, he sees a parallel to his own gift in her love and talent for gardening, and the health that comes with embracing one’s passions. Madeline begins to see what Lucien tries very deliberately to hide: the heartless rake he appears to be hides an enormously sensitive synesthete who can experience colors as sound, specifically classical music.

His efforts to deny his gifts and hide his emotional and musical sensitivity are reflections of his ability to hide or squander any good intentions he might have of behaving with honor. Thus his music and his morals are tied to one another as Lucien faces his own demons and acknowledges that he must change himself and modify his own behavior if he wants to become worthy of Madeline.

Therein lies my one problem with the book: Madeline herself. Lucien has to endure a great deal of effort to turn his actions and intentions in an honorable direction, and his template for honorable is Madeline, who refuses to accept his habitual rake routine. But Madeline in my estimation does not grow or change as much, and her goodness brings forgiveness much too easily when her own actions hurt, humiliate, and mistreat those who have been kind and honest with her. She is self-aware enough to recognize that the marquess to whom she could be engaged is subject to the same forced treatment from her that she suffers from Lucien: interest solely for the purpose of attracting a person for selfish ends. Lucien wants to bed her; she wants the security of the marquess’ fortune to save her home. Her goals might be slightly more altruistic but they are selfish in origin, and she knows it. Even with that self awareness, Madeline seems to get away with minimal consequences for some very selfish behavior throughout the story.

The ending itself also gave me trouble, and far be it from me to spoil it. But to sum up: she didn’t choose him. She allowed herself to be chosen or even taken over and over again, even as her own selfishness made her less and less worthy of him while he became more worthy of her.

By far the best part of the book for me was the writing, specifically the characters. Samuel does not take the easy way out with any of the emotional entanglements working against Madeline and Lucien. Her mother is not in favor of any interaction between them, and will risk her own happiness to ensure that her daughter does not end up a rake’s victim. But even as she interferes, the reader is privy to enough of her character and motivation that even though I hated what she tries to do, I understood and empathized with her position. Equally, Samuel could have easily made Charles, Marquess Beauchamp, a villain, a shallow fool, or even a non-character. But as Madeline’s intended fiance, he’s not as attractive as Lucien, but he’s a good, kind, honorable man, and the complete and deliberate opposite of Lucien. He pays attention to his responsibilities and those whose lives depend on his estate management skills, and he chooses those responsibilities over frivolity and vice. To witness Madeline caught in the choice of peaceful marriage without love, and passionate love without the defined promise of marriage isn’t any easier for the reader than it is for Madeline herself, because again Samuel’s ability to create completely defined secondary characters makes the story that much more lush and moving.

Our Intrepid Hero is Leo Graf, Engineering Instructor Extraordinaire, known across the galaxy (or at least, GalacTech, his employer) for his mad welding and safety instruction sk1llz. His latest task is to teach a group of young ‘uns at a space station what is basically Advanced Shop Class in Space, something he’s done often enough. But these young ‘uns are different. They’re unusually well-behaved, and have been indoctrinated from the cradle to listen to their superiors and only minimally question authority. And then there’s the fact that they’re genetically engineered so their bodies are less susceptible to the ravages of long-term life in freefall, including retention of bone density and organ health, thus saving the company the expense of periodically sending them downside.

Oh, and there’s the small matter of the extra pair of arms they possess in the place of legs.

Graf is perturbed by the situation--not so much by the deliberately engineered mutations as the fact that the Quaddies (as they’re informally called) are treated like livestock; he also finds the extensive psychological conditioning the Quaddies go through disquieting. The action finally kicks into high gear when technological developments make the Quaddies obsolete and Bruce Van Atta, the über-villainous program director, reveals how he plans to dispose of them. Graf knows that what Van Atta (and GalacTech) want to do is wrong, but he’s not sure what he can do until (cue Summer Blockbuster Preview Guy’s voice) he comes up with a plan so crazy, it might just work.

Given the astonishing ethical and philosophical implications of the genetically-engineered Quaddies and the politics of corporate ownership of sentient entities, very little time was spent examining the nuances of the situation. In fact, precious little time was spent on setting, period, which left me feeling somewhat dissatisfied, because when I read science fiction, I enjoy a certain amount of rivetty crap. I don’t want to be inundated with specs and theory, but a some detail is nice, and I’ll confess right here and now that I’m a whore for complex world-building a la Hyperion or A Fire Upon the Deep.

The relatively sparse details did mean book moved along at a decent clip, though the pace is uneven--not much happens in the beginning of the book, and the last third or so is crammed with nail-biting moments. I enjoyed that part of the book best--the Crazy Plan of Leo’s required massive co-ordination, and almost everything that could go wrong, did. The problem was, by the time I got to the nail-biting stuff, I wasn’t particularly invested in the characters and the story, so instead of flipping the pages as fast I could to find out what happened next, I felt at most mild curiosity, though I was certainly able to appreciate the clever makeshift solutions they came up with.

In terms of characterization, the points of view are divvied up amongst various characters, which can be effective in bigger novels, but this isn’t a particularly meaty book. As a consequence, you don’t get to spend too much time in anyone’s head except Leo’s, so most of the other characters don’t feel as complex or developed as they should be. And to tell you the truth, everyone’s kind of boring--the good guys are, anyway.

Also, Graf has a romantic entanglement that was completely unnecessary, one that emerged out of nowhere. I’m not sure why it was included, because his motivations were convincing enough without the True Lurve component; not only that, he and his objet d’amour didn’t spend much time with each other at all, which made the romantic aspect a mild annoyance more than anything else.

Oh, and boohiss for the two-dimensional and utterly sociopathic villain. After the third time I was hit over the head with the fact that Van Atta does things only when they serve his self-interest, I got it. I didn’t need to be hit on the head with it again.

And one last nit to pick: I’m not in any way a dialogue tag Nazi, but oh dear Lord did Bujold have a problem with those in this book, to the extent that I started noticing them. And I’m not normally a person who’s bothered by dialogue tags, mind you.

Overall, this was a pleasant enough read, though not particularly memorable. I admit, I was a bit disappointed, given how various friends of mine have built up Bujold in general and the Miles Vorkosigan saga in particular to me. However, I have no qualms about picking up another Bujold. I hope it provides me with a less yawn-a-riffic experience than this one.

So much happens in the story that I don’t want to describe much more than that, because much of what keeps the story rolling in a crisp and exciting fashion is the constant surprise and action that face Kallista and her ilian. Add to that the additions of new members of the group, and the sexual tensions and explorations that go on, and it’s a hot story. If it was just a story about a family in a polyamorous culture with matriarchal traditions, it would be good. If it was just a story about a military captain who inherits incredible powers and no guidance but her own experience in how to handle and tame them, it would be good. But combine that with demon villains and acts of bravery and emotional depth on the part of an ever-growing family of well-rendered supporting characters, and it’s gooooood.

The well done parts of the story are many: it was easy to slip back into the world of Adara, and not a great deal of explication was needed. The worst example of sequel explanation is in the Sweet Valley High books, where every damn one began with a description of the perfect-size-six twins and blah blah blah. The mark of a good series is that a giant info-dump of backstory isn’t needed to bring a reader up to speed. Everything that’s part of the world-building in this story is done through context, and Dayton excels at creating a fantasy that’s completely different from the modern world yet still offers the reader many, many paths through which to relate to the characters, the society, and the rules as a whole.

Moreover, everything that’s different has flaws. I might not live in a matriarchal society, but when I read about what works so well in Adara, I also read about those elements of the society that weren’t perfectly functional, such as the treatment of men in the army, or the ability to welcome strangers, particularly male strangers. As peculiar as it is to say so, it’s a completely fantastical universe that maintains a realism that makes the fantasy accessible and yet maintains enough distance from current reality to allow the reader to really think about the ramifications of that alternate world.

On a more immediate level, the characters are enjoyable as well. Kallista is likable and not too perfect for an otherworldly superhero, and each member of her ilian is interesting, with motivations that inform their actions so that they contribute to the saga individually and collectively. Joining the ilian does not dilute secondary characters so that they serve only to highlight how great Kallista is. While some of them certainly serve as foils, they are each characters with stories in their own right, which makes the larger tale more compelling.

I don’t envy Dayton the task of writing a saga in three parts. For one thing, the middle of a trilogy has to be the hardest to write, particularly in a saga with three parts. Part one sets everything up, part three has a major climax with a resolution to the larger story. So part two continues the first third but doesn’t quite fix everything. The story has to continue and have an ending that leaves room for still more, and that feeling of incompletion is harder to overcome.

Kallista has had a book’s worth of demon fighting time to get herself acquainted with the magic she possesses, and is now figuring out why the members of her ilian are chosen by the One and Godmarked to join her. Much of the process is out of her control, which must be difficult if a higher power is picking your potential bedmates, but yet the challenge to master the additional power from each member of her ilian, and to blend them together to fight the demons that threaten Adara, rests solely on Kallista.

There’s one scene where Kallista is fighting a few demons, and figures out pretty rapidly, once her ilian and all their variations of power are together enough for her to switch from regular unleaded to high test demon asskicking, what she needs to do to destroy them, provided she’s in range for maximum effectiveness. And once they’re toasty, one of her iliasti says something along the lines of, “That was too easy.”

And once Kallista figured out the effects of their individual absences in her magic, it seemed easy. There were struggles and there were some fearful moments, but not so much for Kallista as the others. Book 2 is a bit more about them than her, which makes sense because Kallista had to decipher situations and strategize, and not kick ass so much, especially as her magic was slowly returning post-partum.

But the question with book 2 isn’t so much “Would Kallista win?” It was more a question of whether she and the others would be able to hold the ilian together physically and emotionally in the same space long enough to harness the power to win the latest battle. And since her ilian is not quite complete, book 3 should bring some seriously powerful asskicking.

I hope someone has the good sense to publish it, because I personally am eager to know what happens. Seriously. Don’t piss a Smart Bitch off.