Okay, these are some thoughts on two books I’ve recently finished, one released in July, the other coming out in October. One from Tor, the other from Del Rey, so both from houses with big yards, both from authors I’m familiar with (at least their work), and both continue & conclude previous adventures. These are brief thoughts on Charlie Huston’s My Dead Body, and The Price of Spring by Daniel Abraham. You can check out my preliminary thoughts I expressed on each within my Now Reading posts (here and here). As an aside, I’m not saying they will always occur, or even that they will occur at all, but if you’re the type who avoid spoilers at all costs, you may just want to take a pass.
This apparently brings to an end the Joe Pitt Case Books, and it concludes the only way it really could. My first thought was that throughout the 5-book escapade, Pitt has found himself on several occasions not properly supplied with blood. Indeed, on occasions he refuses when it would be most logical to indulge, and even his nature (the one he tells us about) to do so. His refusals are both completely contradictory and definitive of his character(s). The one he is, and the one he talks about. The two are pretty damn similar, and aptly the very last words we hear from Pitt (and the novel) still feels like a debate,even when we think we hear absolute conviction. The only thing that has (not) changed is now that conversation encompasses more than two. Joe isn’t just talking about himself anymore, he only has one job, and he doesn’t have to change sides to find the best way through the hour, day, week, or year. His side is still his own, but next to him stands his girl–absolutely and willingly. It may even be her side. In some way that may make Pitt seem rather complex, but playing in to what I just said, he really isn’t. Or rather, he isn’t any more or less than anyone else is. It’s a rather cliché and common occurrence to give credit to a writer for writing novels that would still be good if they were without their speculative content, and on the surface–and perhaps even fact–the Joe Pitt novels are quintessential examples of stand-up, tough guy, crime novels, with vampyre dressing. I think stating such takes away from the larger success. Charlie Huston has written a multi-book vampire-centric series that neither sells itself on sexuality or exclusively to a young (sorry, forgot about the moms) female demographic…and it’s good. It’s damn good, even with a hiccup installment. The return of Vampyres who don’t look like cats I can beat down on whim is a welcome one. In Joe Pitt’s (our) world, one thing seems rather absolute–people die and any walk of life (or undead) can be touched as brutally as the next. I’m not sure if anyone died well in this series of books, and upon reflecting on the many examples in the series, there is extremity and drama to it, but they are just moments. They don’t drag out, and even if there are bloody but eventually neat bows, they are not forced before our consideration for long. Shit happens. They are exits, and at the end we are always just left with the aptly (indeed, chosen) named Joe. He chooses like anyone one less. He’s one of us. He always has been, and doesn’t change until he finds he would have it some other way. That there could be, had to be, another left standing.
At the end of the day a book either kicks ass or it doesn’t, and when reading a final chapter to a series, one can’t help to consider what came before. What you come to realize is that this series deals with issues like faith, relationships, employment, minorities, and (un)biological warfare, but instead uses words like wraiths, gangs, turf, vampyre and zombies. Huston doesn’t beat you over the head with it thought, even when in fact Joe is either delivering or absorbing such a blow (which is rather frequent). It’s not considered while being read. Absorbed not bored.
I’m not sure if I believe the final conversation we have with Pitt, but bluffs can kill all the same, and Joe Pitt’s adventures can ultimately be described as the type of good that’s even better than great.
If you can feel that. I think our boy Phil Sax could.
I think we have to conclude that Abraham was able to pull it off. If you read my initial thoughts you’d get the impressions that there was always a lot to like here, but I wasn’t sure if those pieces would add up to something to love. The latter isn’t necessarily representative of anything quantifiable or directly comparable to what I’d call good. I always go back to something like M. John Harrison’s Light, a fantastic novel that I think is one of the better Science Fiction novels of the last decade or so, but I don’t think I’d ever want to revisit it. Even aware that it’s perhaps one of the best SF novels I’ve read, on a given day I’m not sure I’d rather have that initial read under my belt more than I would a Clone Wars Karen Travis novel (which I probably would have reread). Illogical, but that’s love.
I think there a point in The Price of Spring with about 30-40 pages left to go that you find that Abraham has succeeded. You find that you legitimately want to know how both the novel and series is going to conclude, and not just for the sake of the formality, might-as-well, gone this far, intentions. It does seem to have what is perhaps a bit of a long-winded epilogue that I felt takes away from the sudden climax. Ultimately, I think only one character’s plight piques an interest beyond purposes of closure, as the two central characters had, while certainly pitiable, kind of tired, and no longer the discoveries –or vehicles of–we saw in A Shadow in Summer. Considering the nature and name of the series, I found it relatively lacked for cost. Or rather, there was certainly cost, but I never felt personally beggared bit it, and more than once I found myself interacting like a character in The Price of Spring; a poet retired, who’d rather his wife be involved in worldly affairs, and leave me to my own life. I was in the game, but now I’m watching, and though that can be enjoyable, don’t we always want the controller? Sure there is the idea in the way single figures or groups make decisions that effect the faceless majority that cripple people, nations, and generations, but in prose form it’s too easy for the reader to write-off (which admittedly may be exactly the point). It reads true, it’s just not the most effective entertainment. What becomes (or some) the central antagonist, or the embodiment of it–a blinding baby with the powers of a god–is more of an affecting symbol, and not so much an endearing or turmoil sparking story element for me.
There is of course the two-piece that I thought was an interesting choice by Abraham to play with. These are ideas people may have recently seen in Saramago’s Blindness and Cuaron’s Children of Men, in one book. I think does well in giving us the isolated, personal reaction to both occurrences, I think due to my own familiarity of those works, there is some gravitas (or even novelty) taken away from those two two major points of the novel’s back-drop, and they almost seem minimized due to what seems to be the small-minded characters we follow. Again, most likely the point, and while true observations, they just for me lacked something that transition them to entertainment value. I also found myself without a side. It’s not to say I need one to enjoy a novel or conflict, or that I found both view points equally so balanced, it just that at some point I didn’t care which (or neither) prevailed. The worst thing I can say is that the story felt like it bent over to hit a half dozen or so points of elements that Abraham tried wanted to wrap his novel/series around them. Make no mistake, however, there is absolute authority here, and you never feel Abraham is anywhere he doesn’t want to be, but it is this very feeling of an external certainty and conviction that allowed for only the most brief of moments where I felt like I was discovering something with the author. It is perhaps this shared experience that leads to the love I mentioned before.
I said before that the epic is about moments. The Price of Spring has a moment, but it serves more as a reminder of what I felt was missing. Abraham is a terrific horror writer (check out the spectacular Flat Diane) and there is a moment when the Andat herself tells Maati what he must do. It’s a powerful and frightening moment, and highlights the most interesting and personal elements in the series – the Andats themselves. Staring at which we can’t reconcile with. Ever.
The personal drama and political machinations did very little for me, and just seemed what I had to get through to get to these sweet, all too scarce, absolutely lovely little pockets of horror. In some ways it reminded me of David Keck’s In the Eyes of Heaven and In a Time of Treason, except with a much higher floor. Keck’s first two books border on being unreadable, yet have these absolutely incredible bubbles that feel like they could be a Bram Stoker award winning short story. The moment in The Price of Spring is not alone in the series. A Shadow in Summer has the instance of Seedless gaining his freedom that I found incredibly moving, and an even better pay-off. It was inevitable, but still was not at all lacking for tension or pure brutality. We knew, but we still felt. When Abraham embraces the fiction of his speculative fiction, I see glimpses of the story I’d love to read.
For now, I have no problem with experiencing one I merely liked.
