The New World

I finally got around to reading The New World, Michael A. Stackpole's final installment in his Age of Discovery trilogy.

There are many characters and many plot lines in the story. Keles Anturasi is fleeing his abductors and strange creatures that have been sent after him. He is traveling with his bodyguard Tyressa and Princess Jasai, who both love him. His brother Jorim is living as a reborn god, and has to deal with his goddess sister and god brothers, one of whom is Grija, the god of death. Ciras Dejote is a swordsman who is traveling with the awakened warriors who swore centuries earlier to protect the empress. Prince Cyron and Prince Pyrust are two princes who were once at each other's throats, but now have joined under the returned empress to fight the invader, Prince Nelesquin. Virisken Soshir is an ancient warrior whose memory has returned.
A former prince and lover of the empress, he fights to protect the empire against Nelesquin.

Nelesquin is allied with Qiro Anturasi, Keles' grandfather, who can manipulate the world to match his maps. He has magical warriors sworn ages ago to join him. And he has created, with the help of Qiro, magical creatures to help in his conquest of the empire.

The plot is fast moving and vast. Jorim has to face Nessagafel, the father of the gods, who wishes to destroy creation and start over. Nessagafel ends up trapping him in the ninth Hell, and he has to figure out a way to get out. Nelesquin conquers the most secure fortress in the empire and moves against Moriande. He defeats Prince Pyrust, and then kills him when Pyrust tries to poison him. He captures the southern half of Moriande, and great battles ensue. Keles discovers he has powers like his grandfather, and has to figure out how to stop him from destroying the world.

Ciras loses an arm in a battle, and has it replaced by a magical arm. Each side in the battle comes up with different magical creatures to destroy the other side. Soshir comes up with brilliant tactics to save more time, but it is eventually Keles who must save the land from Qiro. Jorim's sister Nirati travels to Hell to save her brother, with the help of a recreated Pyrust. In the end, Nessagafel is defeated by Cyron, who is murdered and reborn as a god, and the goddess of wisdom. Nelesquin is defeated when his body is destroyed by a young boy, and his warriors quickly fall.

The story is complicated, and the author almost manages to keep it all together. I think in the end there are just too many threads to keep track of. But the pieces do come together well in the end. The destruction of the invaders is well thought out and satisfying. Each bad guy meets a different end. The characters are not terribly complex. The most interesting one is Keles, who has to deal with the loss of his sister, his missing brother, and his deranged grandfather, all while learning about his new powers. Jorim also has to deal with a complex situation. The author makes the plot seem inevitable, all the while throwing new wrinkles into everything. It's a mostly satisfying end to the series. The trilogy ended up being different than I had imagined, but still a good read. B+.

The Reverse of the Medal

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin continue their adventures in The Reverse of the Medal, the eleventh installment of Patrick O'Brian's series.

The story starts in the West Indies, where the Surprise is resupplying after a tour in the Pacific. Jack gets a visit from a young man who turns out to be his illegitimate son from a black woman. The young man brings a letter from Jack's wife, whom he met in England. Meanwhile, Stephen is trying to figure out what to do with a large sum of money he found secreted on a ship.

Jack takes the Surprise across the Atlantic while searching for the Spartan, a privateer that has been harassing British ships. They nearly catch the Spartan with a ruse but it gets away, and a chase ensues. They end up running into the British blockade fleet and losing the privateer.

Back at the port, Surprise is paid off and readied to be sold off. Jack and Stephen take care of some long waiting business. The hotel where Stephen stayed has burned down. He has to talk to his superiors about his intelligence work. While tying up loose ends, Jack runs into a man who gives him a tip about stocks that will rise with a rumored peace. Not knowing any better, Jack puts money on the stocks and tells his father about it.

When Jack gets home, he finds his wife and children are away. After a couple of days of cricket with some of their shipmates, his wife Sophie comes home. Very soon a constable knocks on their door and announces that Jack is under arrest. He was worried about being arrest for debt, but it turns out he is being arrested for stock fraud. Jack hadn't realized that he was being used as part of a stock scheme. Because his father is a radical, the powers decide to go after jack with the full force of the law.

Legal maneuvers ensue, while Stephen tries to get Jack good legal help and also buy the Surprise, so that he and Jack can turn it into a privateer. Stephen takes Pullings to the auction for Surprise, and they win it. When Stephen returns, the trial is over, and Jack is guilty. He is sentenced to pay a fine and endure one day in the stocks. Stephen gets his letter of marque, turns over his large sum of money, and gets in touch with a French agent of his acquaintance. The French agent returns a large diamond that belongs to Stephen, and announces he wishes to travel to Canada in return for information. Finally he discloses that Ray, Stephen's colleague, is actually a double agent working for the French.

The story is a good one, and takes some surprising turns. Jack's confidence and acumen at sea fail him on land, where he easily falls prey to con men. Stephen, as usual, takes command of business on land. They only reason he hadn't suspected Ray was because he thought the man was too incompetent for the French to want him as an agent. Stephen also faces disappointment with his wife, Diana, who has left him for another man. She believed the intrigue in the letters that were sent to her, about Stephen running around with another woman. She is contrasted by Sophie, who rejoices at seeing Jack despite the illegitimate son. Jack gets caught up in politics, despite being a political, while Stephen, the intelligence agent, manages to avoid any trouble or entanglements.

I think it's a B+. Compared to other books in the series, it lacks some of the excitement of the high seas. The intrigue on land is still dramatic. Jack being convicted and struck from the Navy's list is unexpected, as is Stephen's purchase of the Surprise. The characters' adventures on land are interesting, especially Stephen's dealing with the intelligence agency. With the Surprise as their own, it should be interesting to see what happens next.

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is John Milton's epic poem on the fall of man as told in Genesis from the Old Testament. I decided to read it after listening to the lecture series on epics. It stands up to its reputation.

The story traces Satan's rebellion against God, his imprisonment and escape from Hell, the temptation of Eve, and Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden. Milton expands on the Genesis story, starting with Adam's creation. There are sequences where an angel tells Adam about events prior to his creation, namely the creation of the universe and Satan's rebellion.

Milton starts the poem in medias res, like a true epic. He also begins several sections with calls to his muse, Urania, whom he transforms into a Christian muse. I like these forms which give the poem an epic feel. Milton draws from the epic tradition with skill. Another epic element is iambic pentameter. Even though it sometimes gets a little repetitive, it's a solid rhythm that keeps a steady feel of the heroic. I found myself enjoying the meter.

One epic feature that I did not appreciate is the awkward grammar. I found it difficult to read lines that had the verb at the end, with lots of noun phrases between subject and verb. It can be very hard to understand such a sentence, especially across multiple lines. Join that with Milton's appreciation for Greek or Latin style grammar and vocabulary, and some sections become nearly unreadable. Many of the words are archaic, odd usage, or Latin words translated. With the notes, some of the words or phrases were often enjoyable. Milton was very educated and could read nearly every major European language. He brought an immense depth to the poem.

One of my favorite epic elements is the extended metaphor. It's just not something that you find anywhere else. Some of Milton's metaphors go on for several lines. They really help illuminate descriptions.

The theme of the poem is one of the biggest in mythology: the fall of man from God's Paradise. Milton elaborates the myth, bringing important characterization and motivation. I find it fascinating that the Bible does not have any details of what happened before God created Earth, Eden, Adam and Eve. Yet there is a large Christian mythology of the events in Heaven that led to Satan's downfall. Milton, along with Dante Alighieri, is largely responsible for defining our view of Hell. Dante presents an extended Catholic view of the punishments of Hell (including his contemporaries), while Milton presents a Protestant view of Satan and his fallen angels living in Hell. Milton takes existing mythology and creates some of his own.

Milton was also into science, especially astronomy. His knowledge of astronomy comes out in his description of the Earth and other planets. He touches on the controversy of the day, the beliefs about the motion of the Earth around the sun as opposed to the sun moving around the Earth. It is interesting to read about the motion of the Earth as an actual new idea. It gives me hope that today's evolution "controversy" will be settled, at least within another two hundred years or so. However, I wasn't entirely pleased with Milton's approach. There is a scene where Adam asks the angel Raphael about how the planets move, basically casting the question of the seventeenth century. Raphael replies: "To ask or search I blame thee not, for heaven/Is as the book of God before thee set,/Wherein to read his wondrous works, and learn/His seasons, hours, or days, or months, or years;/This to attain, whether heaven move or earth/Imports not, if thou reckon right: the rest/From man or angel the great architect/Did wisely to conceal, and not divulge/His secrets, to be scanned by them who ought/Rather admire;" Milton is basically saying, through Raphael, that the details of how the universe works is beyond man's understanding, and we should just be satisfied with its beautiful elegance. Much of God's creation is not fit for man to comprehend. I think this is a big copout. I believe Milton wanted to have it both ways by acknowledging scientific truth without offending religious orthodoxy. Instead of saying, yes, this is the way the universe works, he says, it could work either way, so just don't worry about it. In a sense this could be called a deeper truth, but I don't really believe that dismissing the importance of scientific discovery should be called a deeper truth. In as much as religion and science are at odds, I think he did a disservice to both. If religion is making scientific claims, then it has to be treated with scientific judgment.

The cause of Lucifer's rebellion is jealousy of God's Son, whom God has set over all of Heaven's host. Lucifer, now Satan, decides to rule Hell, and take over Earth by corrupting Adam. Adam adores Eve, and decides that if she is to be cast out of Eden, then he will join her, because he would rather be with her than in Paradise. Eve's choice for eating the forbidden fruit is that she is taken in by Satan. She wishes to gain knowledge to make her more like God.

Since Lucifer, as a creation of God, and Adam and Eve, created in God's image, go against God's word, part of the nature of God's creation is to rebel. God knew that his creation would decide to go against him, and really it was part of the master plan. Man, even as a rebel, is doing God's work. There must be something similar in God's nature if man is made in his image. Milton touches on the contradiction of the Son saving mankind, but only through the fall of Adam. It seems that the universe would not be complete without man's fall. It's part of the long term goal.

Then again, I always wonder why God waited so long to bring his Son to the world. Why did so many people have to go without being saved? Book X is a quick ending, almost rushed, telling of the Son's kindness to Adam and Eve despite their breaking their covenant, Satan's return to Hell only to see his fellow fallen angels turn to serpents, and Adam and Eve's reconciliation. The last two books follow Michael as he tells Adam what is to happen in the rest of Genesis and Exodus. It is interesting as a poetic summary of the Old Testament, but it's really outside the narrative. It only emphasized to me the strange story and the mystery of why it goes on for so long until the Son finally arrives four thousand years (or whatever) later. So much tragedy could have been avoided had the Son been sent earlier.

The poem is definitely an A+. Milton was daring to write about such a grand subject. Satan's struggle against God is part of Man's struggle to be independent. The temptation and fall were part of the definition of what it means to be human, a crucial element in history. The main moral problem I have with the whole story is the notion that all of Adam's descendant's have to suffer for his transgression. There is a natural cost for one's actions, but forcing others to accept responsibility for one man's sin is not moral. Though I reject the notion of original sin, the story of man's fall as it is mirrored with Satan's fall is fascinating and fundamental to understanding Western literature.