Archive for the ‘Ian Tregillis’ Category
Necessary Evil by Ian Tregillis
published in 2013
Where i got it: from a friend
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Necessary Evil is the final book in Tregillis’s Milkweed series, and this book takes place immediately after the gut punch cliffhanger ending of the second book in the series, The Coldest War. So, I really can’t talk in any detail about Necessary Evil without giving epic spoilers for the entire series. #sorrynotsorry
Before I get to the spoilers, let’s go back in a time a little bit. Back in 2013, I read the first book in the series, Bitter Seeds. It was one of the darkest books I’d ever read. When I finished it, I thought to myself that this Tregillis guy is a damn awesome writer, but I don’t know if I can read anymore of his stuff. A year went by. And suddenly, all I could think about was this series – what happened to the characters? So I finally read the second book. And it was even darker and more soul wrenching than the first one. And when I finished it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about how lonely Gretel is, that maybe she was a victim, that she’s a horrible human being and I hate her, but she is lonely and a victim. I couldn’t stop thinking about how how Raybould Marsh got to this point in his life, where his wife barely talks to him and their son is, well . . . not even going to go there because then I have to thinking about why his son is the way he is. Like the earlier books in the series, Necessary Evil was an utterly engrossing page turner.
I just now described Necessary Evil to my husband with “it’s about the psychology of redemption and every page is like a punch to the nuts and you just want to die on every page”. He laughed, a little.
While I was reading Necessary Evil, a line from my review of Bitter Seeds kept popping back into my head:
“When the cost gets too high you are supposed to know it’s time to stop.”
Over the course of the series, Will and Marsh realized the cost was far too high for what they were getting from the Eidolons. But when you work for people to whom money is no object, how do you get them to stop spending? By becoming the enemy.
And with that, it’s epic spoiler time.
This is a not review, because I’m not really going to be talking about what happened in the plot of The Coldest War. To be honest, I was sorta ho-hum about most of the plot. But the characters, oh my god, with just a glance in my direction Marsh and Gretel bored holes right through me. And in a way, since this is an alternate history, as in something that could have happened but didn’t, the plot doesn’t actually, in the grand scheme of the universe, matter, does it?
The Coldest War takes place during the early 1960s, so twenty some years after Bitter Seeds. Klaus and Gretel have spent twenty years as prisoners of war in the USSR; and over in London Raybould Marsh and William Beauclerk have spent twenty some years trying to convince themselves they did the right things, that it was worth it.
So let’s talk about the characters, who you’ve already met if you’ve read the first book in the series, Bitter Seeds.
I feel like comparing characters in this book to gambling addicts. Addicts because Marsh and Beauclerk keep saying they can stop anytime they want…. but they can’t. They keep thinking the next bargain will even things out, that they’ll “win” next time, for various values of “winning”. It’s like the guy I saw buying scratch off lottery tickets the other day. He was joking with the clerk that last week he won $3 on a scratch off ticket… but that he’d spent $19 on the tickets. There was an edge of addiction in his nervous laughter, an underscore of him saying he could stop anytime he wanted.
New Goodies
Posted on: December 13, 2014
As usual, I have attempted to not bring more books into the house and failed miserably. It might sound counter intuitive, but the more books that are piled up on the coffee table (and under the coffee table, and on the corner of the kitchen table, and on the table next to the bed), the less inclined I am to want to purchase more.
But, sometimes I can’t help myself. And then beautiful books show up in the mail, and before I know it I am surrounded by the happiness that is new books that have come to live in my house and be loved by me.
Here are my newest babies:
From Del Rey/Randomhouse comes a gorgeous edition of The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord. this is her follow up to The Best Of All Possible Worlds, but they can both be read as stand alones. Stay tuned for January, when I’ll have not one, but two articles about her new novel. I’m more than a little excited!
From Orbit (you know, the folks who spoil me rotten?) comes The Mechanical from Ian Tregillis. I had no idea he had a new novel coming out! But I sure was excited to pull this ARC out of it’s envelope. The Mechanical comes out in March, and so far the only thing I know about it is that since it has Tregillis’s name on it, I want to read it.
holy shit, it’s Tim Powers’ autograph!
oh, so this is that novelization I keep hearing about?
How neat that he signed everything upside down!
and a bonus gift!
Such legible handwriting, he must be a scientist!
one of these days, you’ll get another book review. one of these days. . .
Blogger buddies ARE THE BEST.
Bitter Seeds, by Ian Tregillis
Posted on: August 24, 2013
Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis
published in 2010
where I got it: purchased new
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I’ve been avoiding this book for a while now. Alternate history is always fun, but I tend to shy away from War stories. When this book was chosen for my local book club, there was no getting around it.
The first few chapters were a little rough going for me, more because the time and place jumps around with little context than that I wasn’t sure I wanted to be reading this. A british boy is caught ripping plants out of a garden, another British child is hidden from his terrifying grandfather, and elsewhere two dark complected siblings survive a harrowing journey to an orphanage in Germany. Time jumps forward nineteen years, it’s 1939, and suddenly I wished I’d paid more attention in history class.
The young boy in the garden is Raybould Marsh. Mentored and then sponsored by John Stephenson, Marsh grows up to become a spy for Her Majesty. Sent to Spain in 1939 to meet an informant, Marsh gets the clue that something strange is going on when the man bursts into flames, taking most of his evidence with him. The evidence that Stephenson’s team is able to reconstruct makes no sense, and to investigate it, project Milkweed is born.
The siblings are Klaus and Gretel, and the orphanage later becomes Reichsbehörde für die Erweiterung Germanischen Potenzials , the Authority for the Advancement of German Potential. For the glory of the Reich, Dr. von Westarp has spent twenty years trying to create supermen. The subject’s willpower, or willenskrafte, is augmented by battery power, allowing the person to fly, or set something on fire, or read minds, or disappear, or who yet knows what else. Klaus’s talent lies in dematerializing into an ethereal ghost capable of moving through walls and people, and Gretel’s talent lies in seeing the future. The surgical procedures are experimental and dangerous, and nobody talks about the rows and rows of child sized graves.
the Little Red Reviewer 
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