Thousand Names, Djanjo Wexler
Jul. 29th, 2013 01:45 pmSharpe in Secondary-world fantasy
Thousand Names is a fantasy novel that draws heavily on napoleonic memoirs, similarly to Sharpe or Hornblower (but land-based). I've wanted something like that for a long time so I'm glad I found it.
The main viewpoint character is the dutiful but tired captain, left in charge of a remote garrison in a previously-occupied province. But the main character is a Sherlock-esque ambitious young intellectual colonel who arrives with the instructions to recapture the province. The characterisation wanders a bit, but it does a reasonable job of pitting experience against brilliance and showing the advantages and disadvantages of both.
My biggest complaint is that it doesn't really add anything to that. The scenes are almost always dealing with magic or military tactics identical to muskets/cavalry/artillery in our world, it doesn't try to answer "what if wizards were common on the battlefield".
Otherwise, it's a good but not outstanding fantasy/army novel.
Details good and bad
Lots of details ring very true: standard soldier's life is full of late pay and annoyances and waiting for baggage trains, rather than great fights between good and evil. Most people are loyal to the people they know, not to abstract ideals. The people on both sides of the conflict are characterised and realistic.
Other things are a bit generic. They constantly complain that they have the dregs of the army (they even use Wellington's angry/affectionate term "scum of the earth"), but it's most of the way through the book before they actually have any practical problems with people being less that utterly professional.
Bechdel test
It passes the Bechdel test, which is pretty good going. Assuming a woman spending 100% of the time pretending to be a man counts, but I think it does. I'm not entirely happy with the characterisation of the female characters, but there is a variety of them, with varied backgrounds and motivations.
Vaguely arabic desert nomads
On the plus side, the nomads had reasonable motivations and fought effectively. On the minus side, they were the only group which didn't have any viewpoint characters, or any individual characters at all other than the faceless leader.
Thousand Names is a fantasy novel that draws heavily on napoleonic memoirs, similarly to Sharpe or Hornblower (but land-based). I've wanted something like that for a long time so I'm glad I found it.
The main viewpoint character is the dutiful but tired captain, left in charge of a remote garrison in a previously-occupied province. But the main character is a Sherlock-esque ambitious young intellectual colonel who arrives with the instructions to recapture the province. The characterisation wanders a bit, but it does a reasonable job of pitting experience against brilliance and showing the advantages and disadvantages of both.
My biggest complaint is that it doesn't really add anything to that. The scenes are almost always dealing with magic or military tactics identical to muskets/cavalry/artillery in our world, it doesn't try to answer "what if wizards were common on the battlefield".
Otherwise, it's a good but not outstanding fantasy/army novel.
Details good and bad
Lots of details ring very true: standard soldier's life is full of late pay and annoyances and waiting for baggage trains, rather than great fights between good and evil. Most people are loyal to the people they know, not to abstract ideals. The people on both sides of the conflict are characterised and realistic.
Other things are a bit generic. They constantly complain that they have the dregs of the army (they even use Wellington's angry/affectionate term "scum of the earth"), but it's most of the way through the book before they actually have any practical problems with people being less that utterly professional.
Bechdel test
It passes the Bechdel test, which is pretty good going. Assuming a woman spending 100% of the time pretending to be a man counts, but I think it does. I'm not entirely happy with the characterisation of the female characters, but there is a variety of them, with varied backgrounds and motivations.
Vaguely arabic desert nomads
On the plus side, the nomads had reasonable motivations and fought effectively. On the minus side, they were the only group which didn't have any viewpoint characters, or any individual characters at all other than the faceless leader.