Reading Lamp

Review: The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

Time to return to some full length non-tie-in science fiction, I'd say. Yup, this is a good one; the Hugo Award seems well deserved (though the Hugo's credibility has been pulled into question in recent years). I'm quite happy with what I read here, and have to order the sequel soon.

The Story:

"The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple award winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin.

Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision."

The Review:

The Three-Body Problem is an odd one. It tells its story in unusual, somewhat convoluted ways, but manages to tie them all together in the end, hitting the reader hard with twists and revelations. It gets you to sympathize with a lot of characters, just before pulling the rug from under your feet. It also made me look up chinese history, who'd have thought?

The novel starts during the cultural revolution in the late 60s China. Right off the bat, we are exposed to some of the cruelties and ideological dangers of that era. It is a bad time for science and "wrongthink", which this particular plotline focusing on Ye Wenjie maintains throughout.
Ye gets involved in some counter-revolutionary things and, to escape her own doom, gets recruited for a top-secret research project. The mission? Making contact with an alien civilization before anybody else can - because neither the United States nor Russia can be trusted not to misrepresent Earth, of course.

One chapter on this plotline, dispersed throughout the whole book, had me laugh pretty well. It contained documentation on the project's intentions and plans, including drafts for a message to send out to the galaxy, wherein China's propaganda of the time really puts it on too thick, and gets dismissed. It is a cool, rarely seen spin on science fiction; in general I rarely get exposed to chinese settings or history in fiction, which is kind of a pity. Of course that also meant I had to wikipedia a few bits here and there early on to get fully immersed in the historically-inspired parts and visualize what was happening. Nothing too bad though, just a general understanding should get you to appreciate the book more.

The second plotline centers on Wang Miao, a scientist working on nanomaterials, who got dragged into some weird events occuring in present-day China; Scientists all around are committing suicide, declaring that "physics doesn't exist" and the universe has been put on its head. Wang is asked to infiltrate the "Frontiers of Science", which is supposedly connected to it all, and stumbles upon two things shortly after:

1. A countdown running through photographs he takes, steadily counting down to an unknown event and
2. The game "Three Body", which presents the third major plotline of the book.

Wang is the connecting piece in the puzzle, through connections to characters on all sides of the mystery. Instead of walking away from it all, he decides to pursue the truth behind it all, which brings him to a friendship with Shi Qiang, called Da Shi. The detective comes across as rough and rude, but also as incredibly competent and like a life saver in many situations. While at first glance unlikeable, he quickly became one of my favorite characters in the novel (and I liked a bunch of them!). Da Shi, in essence, presents a counterpoint to the scientists and big wigs in the book, whose thinking is usually on a different level from that of the normal folk. He grounds the story and prevents it from becoming too theoretical in critical scenes.

The third plotline, the game "Three Body", still centers on Wang Miao, but this time he is wearing a virtual reality suit and playing an alternate reality type of game. It presents historical milestones and architectural marvels, from china's warring states period over egypt's pyramids to the pentagon, and poses the "Three-Body Problem", wherein three separate stars are following chaotic, unpredictable paths due to each other's presence. Civilization in "Three Body" falls prey to the unpredictable nature of the world's ecosystem, with sudden ice ages or inflammation or the likes, and it falls to the players to figure out a way to anticipate those "chaotic eras" and understand the pattern, to allow people to flourish.

This odd setting presents the reader with a lot of interesting and creative ways to visualize the highly theoretical technobabble. At one point it even comes down to mimicking the way a real-world computer would work (which made me laugh heavily), using human resources. Cixin Liu was very creative with these scenes, and as they run parallel to the ongoings in the real world, they help connect things and explain various problems to the reader. It was a clever way to approach the science in the fiction.

However, the Three Body game is also a bit wonky in places.
For one, there is a scene late in the book where Wang realises that progress through the game and the cycles of civilization they go through are recorded independently from one another, while in multiple sessions it appears that multiple players are in the same cycle with Wang. I also had some trouble with the way time in the game works, as it could speed up sometimes to test player theories, like their predictions for the alternating stable and chaotic eras' durations. How that would affect players outside of the immediate vicinity isn't touched upon. Likewise, when Wang leaves the simulation for about half an hour towards the end, four cycles have passed already, which makes me wonder about the timeframe there. On top of that, whenever Wang logged in, many cycles had passed, which means that the civilizations' comings and goings were occuring independently from his presence in the game to begin with.

That's the kind of nitpicking that I came to with the Three Body scenes. I enjoyed them greatly for what they did, but the framework didn't feel as solid as it could or should have. In hindsight they're not a big deal but they could have been expanded a little more. Then again, that's also down to me being a Gamer and enjoying solid representations of gaming-media in fiction.

The science behind it all appears in most cases as plausible, though I am not qualified to judge the theories' accuracy or can comment on their authenticity. They did, however, work in the context of the book, and nothing felt too far-fetched to break my immersion. If anything, I was impressed by how deeply Cixin Liu went into these often convoluted topics. The annotations often helped reference certain topics, be they historical or even just other media, like an Asimov short story that found use in the novel.
As a fan of science fiction, it certainly catered to me with its depth and complexity, though it will likely turn off readers who expect something straightforward without a lot of talk about theoreticals but little practical.

The real star of the book, to me, wasn't Wang Miao, the apparent primary protagonist, though. It was Ye Wenjie, who went from a tragic figure to somebody morally ambiguous. I loved the way her life was sketched throughout the book, with her plotline giving context to events in the present day and resulting in some big bangs as far as plot twists and revelations were concerned. She ended up being a very complex, oddly relatable character who one may or may not agree with, but will undoubtedly feel for. I also loved how one of her chapters got mirrored very closely by one of the final ones, from another side entirely. That managed to connect dots and present a mutual sense of wonder and change that I could appreciate. Additionally, it also presented a counterpoint to Ye's own actions, showing the alternative.

While I was initially a bit out of my depth with the chinese setting, history and names, I quickly got used to all of that and it benefitted my enjoyment of the book. The problem posed may be a global one, but I am glad that, for a change, such a tale wasn't based on US American tropes.

This being the first novel in a trilogy, you can bet that things are left relatively open for the sequels. However, the way it ended, while a cliffhanger, actually felt suitable here. It leaves the reader as uncertain about the future as it must be for humanity in the novel. The author managed to wrap things up in an emotional, sobering way without overplaying his hand or stretching things too far. As a result, The Three-Body Problem ends in a satisfying way that left me wanting more, but would also allow me to stop here and not read any further - it simply works.

Of course, I won't stop with this book; I'm in for the whole trilogy. If you enjoy less action-reliant science fiction, you'll probably do the same after finishing it.

The Three-Body Problem on Goodreads

Review: Pieces of Hate by Tim Lebbon

Pieces of Hate has been on my radar since its release, but oddly I never got around to reading it. Even when I surprisingly received a review copy of A Whsiper of Southern Lights along with one I had requested, I didn't manage to get to it. But it is October now, which is the perfect time to read some horror, so this was exactly what I needed.

The Story:

"During the Dark Ages, a thing named Temple slaughtered Gabriel's family. A man with snake eyes charged him to pursue the assassin wherever he may strike next, and destroy him. Gabriel never believed he’d still be following Temple almost a thousand years later.

Because Temple may be a demon, the man with snake eyes cursed Gabriel with a life long enough to hunt him down. Now he has picked up Temple's scent again. The Caribbean sea is awash with pirate blood, and in such turmoil the outcome of any fight is far from certain.

Dead Man's Hand:

In the wilderness of the American West, the assassin is set to strike again. Despite his centuries-long curse, Gabriel is still but a man, scarred and bitter. The town of Deadwood has seen many such men... though it’s never seen anything quite like the half-demon known as Temple. "

Disclaimer

I surprisingly received a print review copy of the sequel, A Whsiper of Southern Lights, along with another one I had requested from the publisher. It's been sitting on my desk for a few months.

The Review:

Pieces of Hate, the book, actually consists of two stories: Dead Man's Hand and Pieces of Hate. The latter is a novella, the former described as a novelette and first in the series. Whereas Pieces of Hate is told in third person, Dead Man's Hand instead goes with a first person narrative, through the eyes of an innocent bystander who gets caught up into events.

For me, Dead Man's Hand worked much better. The narrative style keeps the mysteries intact and divulges just what is necessary, while the reader has to connect some dots. The point of view character and his place within his western community worked well to reinforce feelings of fear and terror but also threw in the reader's sense of curiosity and inability to stay away from the mystery unfolding around Gabriel the one-eyed stranger's search for the "demon" named Temple.
Gabriel and Temple both remain mysterious throughout, and it isn't quite clear just what is going on, why Gabriel hunts Temple exactly and what their shared history is. The distance between reader/PoV character and the hunt for vengeance added to my enjoyment.
Dead Man's Hand turned into quite a good horror mystery in my eyes, with the reader being thrown into a long-running conflict between inhuman characters, and confronted with a sense of helplessness.

With Pieces of Hate, the clock gets turned back to centuries earlier and the style switches and puts the lens right on Gabriel. We get to find out about his tragic backstory and cause for his need for vengeance, see his traumatic experiences and a few more overt displays of malice from Temple.

There are a bunch of things left unexplained in this one yet, and where I liked that in Dead Man's Hand, here it felt a bit jarring, due to how much was actually explained as it is. The man with the snake in his eye, for example, is a real mystery to me, and I wanted to find a bit more out about him, since his message to Gabriel gets repeated like a mantra here.
In contrast to the western setting of the previous story, this one goes for a pirate theme. I like that quite a lot, especially since the pirates here are shown as real cutthroats. Even knowing some of Gabriel's secrets, there are a few risks involved regardless, simply due to the relative unpredictability of the pirate crews. Somehow Lebbon managed to make some of them menacing yet also likeable.

In case it wasn't clear already: These are not nice stories. They are full of grim themes, violence, hatred and a general sense of dread. They are satisfying for all that, and while I prefered Dead Man's Hand, Pieces of Hate, taking everything into account, might be the more chilling of the two stories.
It seems like Tim Lebbon is trying to vary up the settings with this series, going from western to the age of sail, to the second World War in A Whsiper of Southern Lights. I appreciate that variety, and thought that what he brought to the table in both stories here suited the settings quite well.

With this book done, I definitely want to go deeper and read the next book, which is already lying on my nightstand (...along with a host of other reads, to be fair). Gabriel's hunt for Temple isn't over yet, and I want to see its violent conclusion for myself. Lebbon got me invested in Gabriel as a character and the horror mystery as a whole, so he's earned my readership.

Pieces of Hate on Goodreads

Review: Genestealer Cults by Peter Fehervari

This is a difficult review to write, and probably to read. I've tried to keep things vague and abstract to not spoil the fun of the book. To put it bluntly: I'd highly recommend the novel. It is a great read with a lot of flavor and thrilling scenes. I certainly loved it and believe it is one of the best things to come out of Black Library's printers in quite some time.

The Story:

"Members of a seemingly loyal cult devoted to the Emperor make a pilgrimage to the world on which their order began. But what they find there puts all they believe into question…

The galaxy is vast, and worship of the God-Emperor by His faithful takes many forms. The Spiral Dawn is one of the countless sanctioned sects of the Imperial Cult. As a gathering of Spiralytes make their holy pilgrimage to Redemption, the sect's world of origin and a shrine world of the Imperium, they find not a haven of enlightenment and introspection, but a soot-choked hellhole where their order's founders and an unorthodox regiment of Astra Militarum maintain an uneasy coexistence. As tensions between the serene congregation and the superstitious Guardsmen mount, the new arrivals begin to unravel the dark secrets concealed at the heart of their faith."

The Review:

Legends of the Dark Millennium: Genestealer Cults, despite its highly generic title and cover, are anything but. The hint is in the author's name: Peter Fehervari.

While this is only his second novel for Black Library, he has a host of short stories and a novella under his belt, all of which share a common theme: The Dark Coil, which, at this point, seems synonymous with Fehervari's trademark atmosphere, sense of hopelessness and spiralling descent into madness, unravelling the characters to the core.
The "grim darkness of the far future" is something that is invited with every Warhammer 40,000 story, but barely any of them nails that as well as Fehervari. When you pick up his stories, you're in for tightly-knit nets of implications, revelations, and psychological horror, rather than the all-out bolter porn a lot of 40k stories devolve into.
You're in for well-crafted characters who are on the brink of breaking, walking a knife's edge between revelation and damnation. You're also in for inhospitable worlds, whether they be the thick deathworld jungles of Phaedra, the eternal night of Sarastus, the frozen surface of Oblazt or, with Genestealer Cults, the volcanic and ash-tainted claustrophobia of Redemption. A lot of thought goes into the stages for Fehervari's stories, and they always seem to strike you with a feeling of isolation and imminent danger.

While this novel is noticeably shorter than Fire Caste, in line with Black Library's short novel policy these days, I didn't feel that it detracted from the book. I would certainly have wanted more content - why wouldn't I? - but Fehervari did very well with the space he was given, and even snuck in a lot of references and parallels to his other works - something that I've come to expect from his works. Specifically, the novel features characters from Fire Caste and his Fire and Ice novella, printed in [book:Shas'o|26859331] / [book:The Tau Empire|32025763] (get the latter in paperback, it includes the former plus an additional novella), along with multiple short stories by him. Generally you can read any of his stories on their own, but the more you get involved in his sub-mythos, the more you'll be able to take away from his works.
This is especially true with Genestealer Cults. It straight up sees characters with ambiguous fates return to the fold, while introducing a load of new angles at things he previously talked about.

The Black Flags, this story's Astra Militarum regiment, is even made up of forces from across worlds previously named, and offers a natural way to reintroduce old friends. It is made up of stragglers and remnants from other regiments across the Vassago Abyss, reshaped into a somewhat coherent force with very peculiar mental tendencies. A lot of them are broken men and women, including their Witch Captain or Colonel Talasca, who often retreats into his tower to scribble madly at his walls. Everybody has his ghosts here, defying their past, present and future.

The primary protagonist of the book, Captain Cross, is a newcomer to the Black Flags. He freshly arrives on Redemption at the start on the book, alongside an imperial cult's pilgrimage to the shrine world. He feels that all the Sacred Spiral hogwash is fishy and doesn't trust it, prompting him to accompany the pilgrims, and Ariken Skarth, who he shortly befriended during his voyage. He gets involved in matters despite his better judgement, and the coil twists and turns til he is irrecoverably drawn into the unfolding holy war on Redemption, and the machinations of higher authorities.

Ariken herself is a strong character as well. A healer by trade, she joined the Spiral Dawn pilgrimage to Redemption yet isn't as firm in her beliefs as most others. She is, in many ways, a driving force in the Black Flags' resistance, and her character develops heavily throughout. She was presented as intriguing, caring yet also increasingly ruthless as the stakes increase. Ariken, too, is drawn deeper into the spiral to the point of no return to ignorance.

But all that praise basically comes down to one thing: Peter Fehervari was the perfect choice for writing this first, defining novel about the modern incarnation of the Genestealer Cults. His skill set is focused on subterfuge, insidious plots, ambiguous characters and spiralling madness. This makes him the ideal pick for presenting the insidious nature of the Genstealers' indoctrination and the cult's inner workings. He touches on psychological aspects far more than any other author writing for the publisher, and that is exactly the close-up that this faction needed to flourish on the page. He dives right into the cult's activities while maintaining a front of ignorance on the side of the imperial troopers, up until the point of escalation.

Few things on Redemption are clear-cut. The Black Flags are made up of ambiguous figures, and from the beginning it is clear that there is more than meets the eye on the planet. While we, as the readers, are aware from the start that, hey, a Genestealer Cult is at work on the world, Talasca and co are oblivious as to what is going on. They suspect the Cult of the Spiral Dawn of treachery and danger, but the cult's fascade and stealthy indoctrination of their own troops, keeps them in the dark until it is almost too late. The initial reveals of hybrid monstrosities hit home, showing how out of their depth the loyalists are. Where they suspect the taint of Chaos, the reality of the situation is quite different.
However, the Genestealer Magi actively use the fear of the regiment to turn them on one another, and sway further soldiers to seek refuge in the Spiral. It really was nicely put together, and highlighted the psychic manipulation of the cult, and showed why these xenos infiltrators are as successful at undermining whole societies as they are.

From the first page on, up til the very last, the Genestealer infestation is showing its magic. In fact, right in the prologue we get to see the first steps in the Patriarch's evolution through the first infection on Redemption. They grow their strength and even penetrate the sanctity of the local Adepta Sororitas abbey! The whole prologue and later sections dealing with the more alien hybrids and aberrants are utterly inhuman and as close to the Tyranid psyche as you're going to get.

Honestly, this is the most difficult type of review to write for me. There are so many cool scenes and characters in here that I cannot really touch on without spoiling hugely enjoyable parts of the book. Across all of Fehervari's stories, the sense of mystery and satisfaction of discovering twists and turns and connections between stories is one of the things I cherish most, and I'd be doing any potential reader a disservice if I were to address them directly. So I have to talk in the abstract far more than I would like.

To give you a more direct example of how grim, gruesome and terrifying the Cult is depicted here, let me quote you one snippet:

[character a] sighed. ‘The last time I saw [character b] she was two months pregnant, though it looked closer to six. Their spawn grow fast.’ He shook his head. ‘She was overjoyed because she’d been honoured by the cult Iconward.’

Yep. That really twists your stomach, doesn't it? I know it did mine. And I loved the book for it. It doesn't try to hide the utter perversity of the infection. It hits right where it hurts, on multiple occassions. Not a single major character here is ever safe from the cult's influences and attacks. They can die in droves, just like that, without big acts of heroism or the often criticised plot armor. Fehervari was never afraid of getting his original characters fall to madness or an enemy's (or ally's) guns, and this is true here as well.

To my delight, there are various plot points left open for the future. While the plot itself is wrapped up as well as one can expect, Fehervari leaves the door open for themes and characters to feature in his future works, carrying on the Dark Coil's legacy. Thus the spiral turns again, deepening the overarching mysteries while delivering a damn fine read in its own right.

Genestealer Cults is one hell of a novel. It kept me awake at night, staying up longer than I should have, just to finish one more chapter, one more chapter. I ended up taking a few days off from reading more, just to let it simmer a little and not burn through it too quickly. After all, I waited years for Fehervari's next novel, so why cut the experience short. But even when I got back to it, I was drawn right into the thick of Redemption again, as if nothing had happened. The book does a fantastic job staying interesting and engaging all throughout, without any dull downtime, and when the cold war escalates and the Spiral Dawn reveals its true nature and purpose, things never let up again.

I'd highly recommend this novel to anyone with even a passing interest in Genestealer Cults as a faction, or anybody really who wants more out of the 40k IP than just numb bolter action flicks. I'd call Legends of the Dark Millennium: Genestealer Cults one of the best books to come out of Black Library this year - and they had a lot of pretty good stuff this time around...

Legends of the Dark Millennium: Genestealer Cults on Goodreads

Review: Twilight of the Dragons by Andy Remic

Oh boy, remember the ultra-vulgar, bloody entertaining, almost pornographic novel The Dragon Engine by Andy Remic? Its sequel was recently released and ended up on my desk. I read it, and I hugely enjoyed it despite its flaws. Here's why.

The Story:

"During a recent dwarf civil-war deep under the Karamakkos Mountains, the magick-enslaved dragonlords have broken free from centuries of imprisonment and slaughtered tens of thousands throughout the Five Havens before exploding from the mountain and heading in fire and vengeance for the lands of Vagandrak. Two once-noble war heroes of Vagandrak - Dakeroth and his wife Jonti Tal, an archer and scholar, the Axeman, the White Witch and a Kaalesh combat expert find themselves in a unique position: for they have discovered the ancient dragon city of Wyrmblood, and a thousand unhatched dragon eggs. Dakeroth and his companions must work with their enemies, Skalg and the Church of Hate, in order to bring down the dragonlords and save the world of men and dwarves. But there is no bartering with these ancient dragons; for they seek to hatch their eggs and rebuild the cruel Wyrmblood Empire of legend."

The Review:

Twilight of the Dragons is an oddly entertaining book. It is still vulgar, "offensive" and unrecommendable to younger readers, but also in many ways different from The Dragon Engine. Not in a bad way, however.

Where with The Dragon Engine I was utterly unprepared for the vulgarity, sex jokes, assault, torture and what have you, having me wince at the ideas presented by Andy Remic (reading about "ball crushers" was pretty grim!), I was definitely prepared for more of the like in Twilight. To my surprise, those aspects were tackled to a lesser degree here. Instead the book focused more on the characters' resignation, fears, trauma and the rampage of the dragons in Vagandrak.

Surprisingly, this novel also throws a crossover with Remic's Iron Wolves novels at us: The heroes from The Iron Wolves and The White Towers appear here, stealing a lot of the spotlight. This, of course, includes spoilers for their own novels, seeing that this is a sequel, chronologically.
I honestly wish I had read those novels before I did Twilight, but after the fact I cannot say that, while I was initially not so keen on it, I disliked their inclusion. In fact, I liked all of the crossover-characters a good bit. They were easily relatable, had a decent amount of comedic relief (one part of which even crops back up in the epilogue and had me laughing out loud!), and gave a much-needed perspective of the dragon rampage outside the mountains that the heroes are stuck in for pretty much the entire novel.

Disappointingly, the heroes, that is, Beetrax, Lilith, Sakora, Dake, Talon and the boy Jael, are stuck underground until the very end, and as a result don't even encounter Volak and her sisters for most of it. I had expected them to be the driving force when it comes to subjugating the dragons again, but instead the futility of that task was tackled via the Iron Wolves chapters. For the original heroes from The Dragon Engine, oddly little happens in terms of external threats, comparatively. There is one battle against a dragon-splice which I liked a lot, and some dwarf-killing, but until the climax chapters (and I don't mean those involving past romance scenes between Beetrax and Lilith with that!) they're fighting themselves and their own insecurities more than anything else.

Which, as a theme, I liked. None of them were left unaffected by the preceding events, the torture, the lack of sunlight, and most notably the death of Jonti Tal, Dake's wife. They're traumatized, growing in apathy and start turning on one another. Of course, equiem magic plays a role in it as well, raising the stakes to a higher point. The point stands, however: Their quest to find and destroy the dragon eggs of Volak isn't easy, and that is more down to their own sensibilities and fraying nerves than to outside forces.

In a way, this made the inclusion of the Iron Wolves inevitable. The action against Volak was necessary to the book, both to get the tension up and to balance the depressing nature of the other parts of the book. Remic nailed the conflict on the surface very well, too; Narnok, Dek, Trista and co were all amusing to read about, and their struggles to somehow manage to harm and/or kill Volak were offering up cool setpieces. Narnok especially had me chuckling over how absurd it was for him to constantly taunt the mighty dragon queen.

“I’m Narnok. Don’t forget it. It’s a name I’m going to carve on your arse.”

It was a massively entertaining romp of thrilling action, with ever-growing desperation and things just got better and better. I was incredibly sad when, inevitably, heads began to roll (or ashes got blown into the wind, eh?). Andy managed to make me care about characters that came out of the blue and stole the fireworks show, giving them a personal background that I enjoyed and made me curious about the rest of their story. Yes, I was definitely disappointed that it wasn't down to Beetrax and co, but what I got instead was no less entertaining than what I expected.

The dragon rampage itself is worth noting too. The prologue kicks it off, set right after the end of The Dragon Engine. Volak, Kranesh and Moraxx are free to do as they please: which just so happens to be slaughtering humans. If you're not a fan of seeing children die, then you might want to back out of this one, because the story starts right with that; it gets us to care about a little girl who finally made a friend and has fun playing around, just to be eaten alive. That had me gulp - I didn't expect that kind of thing within the first 5 pages! But damn if it didn't set the scene for just how terrible a renewed Blood Dragon Empire would be!

Multiple similar scenes of disaster are featured throughout the book, up until the dragons get their dues through no other than Skalg. Where in The Dragon Engine I had nothing but disdain for the fucker, here I actually cared for him as an individual. The author managed to humanize him a great deal, giving him a layered personality and personal dilemma. He is made relatable in his role, and showcases how mountains of frustration and pain can come tumbling down and break our own backs.
In a way, Skalg is the real hero of the book, which surprised me. He is still a megalomaniac and doesn't get off lightly, but he definitely pulls more than his own weight to resolve the looming doom. Remic definitely addressed Skalg's situation in a satisfying way.

If you're a fan of the sexual themes from The Dragon Engine, the book has you covered too. Not only does it have some orgies going on involving Vagandrak royalty, involving an arrogant princess trying to rape her soldier-become-servant, but it also has some more romantic flashbacks for Beetrax and Lilith.
I honestly cannot believe how well-done the romance in the latter actually was. It was actually nice, and sweet, and made me care even more about the couple. It wasn't blunt and on the nose, and instead reinforced their relationship as a whole.
More than anything, those scenes were relatable, authentic and respectful. They hammered home just how much of these two books was actually about Trax and Lil and their reunion. Those heartwarming scenes raised the stakes for the depressing underground excursion tenfold, and had me raging as the climax came about.

My regrets about the novel, after all is said and done, boil down to the original heroes taking a bit too much of a step back. While I liked the themes and execution, I figured they'd be more prominent here. It wasn't a dealbreaker by any means, but I was wishing for them to be more involved.
On top of that, there are various plot nuggets that weren't resolved, and deliberately left open. The epilogue makes it pretty clear that there is room for sequels yet, tying all the way back to the Iron Wolves books (and I'll damn well read those before I get into the next one), but there's more to be said about the Dragonheads, King Yoon, the remaining Splice in Vagandrak and a bunch of side characters who I figured would contribute a bit more yet.

Be that as it may, I think I enjoyed Twilight of the Dragons even more than I did The Dragon Engine. It flowed well, I cared for the whole, larger cast and the dragons were magnificent to behold. The action was great, the personal drama high, and I'd like to read more about all involved.
If you've read The Dragon Engine, you owe it to yourself to read this one as well.

Twilight of the Dragons on Goodreads

Movie Review: Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV

Yes, this isn't a book. No, I don't care about that. I'm a Gamer, and Final Fantasy has been a big factor in my life for various reasons. I want to talk about this movie prequel-thing to Final Fantasy XV, formerly Versus XIII, formerly way different from what it is now. I've got the urge to discuss it, and how it fares in my opinion.
Maybe at some point I'll manage to tackle the various written media tie-ins to the Final Fantasy franchise, like On the Way to a Smile, the Final Fantasy VII bridge-anthology to the Advent Children movie (though that might be awkward as it has never been officially released in english, but in German, French and Spanish it has), or the various Final Fantasy XI or XII novels. For now, though, I'm doing this movie.

The Story:

"The magical kingdom of Lucis is home to the hallowed Crystal, but the menacing empire of Niflheim will stop at nothing to make it theirs. War has raged between the two for as long as most can remember.
King Regis of Lucis commands an elite force of soldiers dubbed the Kingsglaive. Wielding their king's magic, Nyx Ulric and his fellow glaives stand before the crown city of Insomnia, fighting to stay the inexorable advance of Niflheim's imperial army.
Before the overwhelming military might of the empire, King Regis can only salvage his kingdom by accepting an ultimatum—he must cede all lands outside the crown city, and see his son, Prince Noctis, wed to Lady Lunafreya, the former princess of Tenebrae now captive of Niflheim.
As the war of wills rages, the machinations of Niflheim transform Insomnia into an awe-inspiring battleground, pulling Nyx into a struggle for the very survival of the kingdom."

The Trailer:

The Review:

Kingsglaive is a chaotic action flick. That's to be expected from a Square Enix / Final Fantasy movie at this point. Advent Children was that, and The Spirits Within was it too, under Squaresoft. Kingsglaive, however, was better than I had expected. While things fall apart quite a bit in the second half (mostly coinciding with Lunafreya's screen presence), I didn't not enjoy it. It made me groan in a lot of places and frustrated me with some of its characters, but overall it was a fun movie to watch.

The movie kicks off with a flashback sequence about the ongoing war waged by the Niflheim Empire. King Regis (played by Sean Bean... Poor guy) of Lucis visits the allied kingdom of Tenebrae with his son Noctis, who is recovering from an incident. Niflheim strikes and dashes the party, killing the queen of Tenebrae, capturing her children and forcing Regis to flee with Noctis.
Noctis, of course, is the protagonist of Final Fantasy XV. This twelve-years-ago intro, and the short post-credits scene that mirrors the game's intro, are the only times you'll see the guy in this movie, though. It is placed parallel / as prequel to the game, showing what happened in Lucis during the prince's absence. Personally, I'm cool with that, as Noctis hasn't been very appealing to me since they apparently lobotomized his character somewhere between when it still was Final Fantasy Versus XIII and it becoming XV.

Now, the movie makes a 12 year timeskip after the intro, and Lucis' capital of Insomnia is on its last legs. The King has grown old and, while his magical abilities and the Crystal residing in Insomnia maintain a powerful shield around the city, he knows that it cannot last much longer. The crown, and the magic ring of the Lucii Kings need to be passed on to Noctis, for the future of the world, because somehow Noctis is the only one who can save the entire world from Niflheim domination. It really isn't explained well or detailed much, which is understandable for a movie but frustrating if you watch it and constantly get told how an off-screen prince is the key to saving the world when it doesn't give you a real idea of how he's supposed to do that.
So Lucis is screwed, and Niflheim keeps pushing the royal elite strikeforce, the Kingsglaive, further back every day. The Kingsglaive is introduced in a nice, bombastic battle against Niflheim troops and, for the most part, monsters with clear references to series staples. Behemoths and Cerberus feature, and the big effing demon Niflheim drops in, for it to wreak havoc with its gigantic missile turrets, is very clearly a Weapon from Final Fantasy VII in design. While never specifically named, this is cool fanservice that I could appreciate a great deal. It pays homage to some popular designs without breaking stride to explain the reference.

And while I'm on it, the movie also features the Morbol, the nasty green tentacled piece of bad breath that everybody sane who's played Final Fantasy will hate. In a cartoon. For kids. On in-universe TV. It also mentions Chocobos, once verbally (something about Chocobo dung), and another time as part of a delivery truck's branding.
Sadly, I felt those parts a bit more jarring than the Niflheim offensive's use of monsters. Most of the movie is set in Insomnia, which doesn't seem to host any monsters whatsoever. Even when all hell breaks loose, you'll only see humans running, no animals, monsters or otherwise. It seems like a missed opportunity to not have a zoo breakout in there somewhere, even if just in the background. The way it is, Insomnia, for all its use of magic, felt really disconnected from the world at large. This isn't just down to the barrier isolating the city, but down to how much Square Enix tried to stick with the theme of realism for it, in a world full of odd monsters.

I have to clearly say though that the city of Insomnia was beautifully crafted. It felt like a living city with a complicated network of roads and paths, lots of commerce and movement. I enjoyed the architecture of it all, and couldn't help feel impressed. Where Tenebrae has a lot of green and floating islands to show for itself, Insomnia is a large, modern city that is easily relatable.

Beyond that, we don't see much of the outside world. We are told that the Kingsglaive consists of immigrants who were able to "borrow" a bit of king Regis's magical powers and now serve to defend the kingdom. Their old homes were conquered and/or destroyed and they aren't as well-regarded in Insomnia as they'd deserve to be, which causes conflict within their own ranks at times. But we never actually see what they've lost or left behind, which is a shame.

Nyx, Crowe and Lazarus

Like the title of the movie implies, the Kingsglaive is central to the story. While it mostly focuses on Nyx Ulric, the arguably most capable Glaive, who fills the cocky, self-assured hero role of the cast, other members like Libertus Ostium and Crowe Altius are close seconds with bigger parts to play. The three share a deep friendship, which ends up the catalyst for things breaking apart further as the Kingsglaive doubt the king's capabilities and intentions more. Next to the trio there's a Glaive named Luche Lazarus, who is a big jackass and its immediately clear that he's up to no good. The foreshadowing there is pretty heavy-handed.
Command of the Kingsglaive goes to Titus Drautos, who I thought was actually a pretty cool character. It wasn't easy pinpointing him up til the end, but I liked him for what he was and represented.

After the disastrous, Weapon-aided initial assault that introduced the central Kingsglaive characters, Niflheim sends an envoy to Insomnia, who is no other than the Chancellor of the empire. Ardyn Izunia is, without a doubt, a villain. Yes, there's an emperor on the throne of Niflheim, and there's a more obvious and direct villain in the movie, but there is not a shadow of doubt in my mind that this character will be the main villain of Final Fantasy XV. His whole attitude, presence and tone are so obviously sinister and treacherous, it cannot be any other way. I've played enough Final Fantasy titles before to know the drill. It reminds me of how Kefka Palazzo stole the show from emperor Gestahl in Final Fantasy VI, for example, or how Seymour Guado usurped basically everyone in FFX. Those characters only needed to enter the stage for the audience/player to realize they're bad news and probably pulling the strings behind the unfolding evil.

Is it tropey as all hell? Yes, yes it is. But I don't mind that, as long as the character is designed and written in a way that cultivates that doubt and foreshadowing in a cool way. Which, in this case, I think it did, even though Izunia barely appears beyond his first, pretty good scene.
He offers a ceasefire to king Regis, under the condition of marrying his son Noctis to princess Lunafreya of Tenebrae. Regis thinks he failed Luna and her brother in the flashback, and the two characters know there's more at stake for the world as a whole, so Regis decides to go along with it to save more than just Insomnia, while trying to alter the deal behind the scenes using his Kingsglaive.

Regis I've come to appreciate a great deal in this movie. He's a composed, wise ruler who actually cares about things and is aware of his own limitations. He isn't vainglorious, not hot-headed, knows his role and has his priorities straight. I thought he was well-written and his visual design appeared regal and combined his growing physical frailty with a sense of nobility that made him look like a worthy king. He's got my vote of confidence.

Now, before I get to Nyx Ulric, the primary protagonist, let me talk about Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. Because, oh my god, she's awful. She's easily the worst part of the movie. I don't usually get upset about "damsel in distress" scenarios, but Luna's story here was pretty much that, ad nauseum.
First off, she gets captured in the intro scene. Then she gets detained at the palace of Tenebrae, and her brother (who is a bag of dicks) supports that and has become Niflheim's lapdog. Then she gets used as a political bargaining chip, gets forced to agree to marriage (though to be fair, she wanted that all along so hey, no harm done), gets captured again, makes nonsensical decisions, babbles on about not fearing death and needing to do her duty, gets rescured time and again, up until the very end of the movie, where she makes even more dumb decisions and proves unable to listen to her protectors ("stay hidden" followed by her running into the open, "fly you fools!" followed by her standing to watch anyway, etc).

She's a complete void of character agency. She takes things as they come, doesn't rebel, doesn't have any bright ideas bar one at the very end, which I still cannot decide if it was intentional or down to idiocy, and the only time she actually acts on her own accord to hopefully save the day it is to jump out of a flying transporter and almost falling to her death, only to be rescued by Nyx who chides her for her lunacy.
She's the epitome of the obedient little princess bride who can't harm a fly, and has no discernible skills of her own. I am honestly happy this story was told as a movie instead of part of the actual game, because Luna is bound to be the subject of the most infuriating escort mission in gaming history otherwise.
Throughout the whole movie, she felt dumb as bricks, had nothing intelligent to say and only spouts stuff about her duty being her destiny and how she's not afraid of dying for her cause... which, of course, is never actually elaborated on. Her cause is to support Noctis in saving the world, and that's that it seems. But hey, at least she looks kinda pretty and wears a dress with plenty of skin shown, so fans will probably idolize her anyway.

Comparing Luna here with the old character of Stella Nox Fleuret, who was written out of Final Fantasy XV when it changed its title from Versus XIII, and replaced with Lunafreya, I can only internally weep. If this is the story Square Enix wanted to tell now, then yes, I agree that the kickass Stella with her magical skills and mysterious aura wouldn't fit the bill anymore. They had to replace her with a boring dress-puppet. Yes, I'm still not over Stella's removal. Fun fact: One of the scenes from the movie involving Luna and Nyx seems to be modeled after one involving Stella and Noctis from footage 5 years ago. That's how much was changed over the years.

Anyway, Nyx Ulric has his hands full saving Lunafreya and keeping her safe for a rendezvous with his commander. Whereas the first half of the movie shows off mostly politics, introduces characters and puts the lens on Regis and the Niflheim antagonists, the second half quickly deteriorates into a gigantic action piece. It gives Nyx and his fellow Kingsglaive ample opportunity to show off their skills, which include creating small barriers, throwing fireballs and, most notably, using their glaives to teleport-jump all over the place, something that Nyx excells at.
It is chaotic, but fun to an extent.

While the action itself seems well executed and animated, I have to object to the confusing camera work and overabundance of special effects. Yes, it is magic, yes it should be flashy, but don't blind the audience with lights and pull their attention from A to B to C to D to E while constantly changing the camera angles and throwing glitter at them. Those instances got more and more frequent as the movie neared its climax, and I can't say I was a fan of that, even though I liked the teleport-jumping in theory. The way it was visually represented felt overbearing and exhausting, and often glared or blurred the action to the point where it was tough to pay attention to what was happening.

Initially I didn't much care for Nyx Ulric. He seemed like the generic cocky bastard hero that has come so many times before. In a way, yes, he is exactly that. As the plot progressed he is shown to be much more capable than that, however. He's quick to put 2 and 2 together, makes daring maneuvers, catches on to traps and uses all he knows to do his job. Especially towards the very end, when he is on his last legs and applying for support by the Lucii gods, he is shown to be strong of character and morals, which made me glad. He didn't take the easy route but instead shows defiance and selflessness, working towards a cause rather than personal glory.
I have to admit to liking his character a great deal, and thought him to be written pretty well. While he begins as a show-off, he backs it up with all his actions throughout the movie and turns into a good protagonist to cheer for. To me, he seems like a far more interesting protagonist than Noctis.

Now we should talk Action. The movie is full of it. Explosions, mayhem, teleport-daggery, magic swords, giant statues fighting Kaiju-esque Weapons a big final boss battle, thrilling escape scenes... They put a LOT of flashy action setpieces and destruction into the film, showing off just how adept at CGI Square really is nowadays. They blend motion capture with 3D animated scenery to the point where I had to ask myself if I was really looking at 3D renders rather than live action characters in a real environment. Technically this movie is a marvel, even at its meagre 23.976 frames per second (which, sadly, added a lot of motion blur and confusion to fight scenes. Yes, this movie would've benefitted from being 48 or 60fps instead). It is a well choreographed, if a bit overdesigned, piece of bombastic action that should get the audience's blood pumping.

Square have always been ahead of the game in that regard, with Final Fantasy VIII back in the day featuring one of my all time favorite FMV scenes (among many other great ones, mind you), and who can really complain about Final Fantasy X's incredible Blitzball intro scene? But then The Spirits Within happened and almost bankrupted Squaresoft, making the merger with Enix necessary.

For some reason even that near-fatal experience didn't detract from Square's desire to pursue near photorealistic CGI graphics and amp up the graphical fidelity aspects of their titles. Some of their games, especially on Playstation Portable, were so full of stunning prerendered cutscenes that they had to recycle a lot of playable sections to get the game itself to fit onto the small storage capacity of the UMDs. Final Fantasy XIII, my most-loathed mainline title in the series, was so concerned with flashy CGI scenes and graphics that it really didn't have much to offer in terms of gameplay. Even the battles were overchoreographed with lots of flashy lights.

So it was inevitable that Square Enix would make yet another movie tie-in to Final Fantasy. Next to the messy The Spirits Within and the Final Fantasy VII sequel Advent Children, Kingsglaive looks pretty good. It is probably the most appealing of the three when it comes to demographics beyond fans of the series. It isn't overly bloated with terminology (like with the creatures it features), even though it references events from past generations. It can be a bit confusing at times with its magic shenanigans, but not more so than the usual action fantasy flick that hits cinemas. The biggest problem is that, after the movie is over, the story definitely isn't. The movie plot continues in the game, and while that particular chapter is done and over with, a full resolution isn't forthcoming.

It does, however, introduce all the relevant information to enjoy the character action. The cast appears well-contained and wrapped up neatly, doing its own thing away from the game's main cast. And unlike Advent Children, you don't need to know anything going into the movie to understand the characters, and aren't bludgeoned to death with flashbacks. The scenario is familiar enough (a kingdom on the brink of collapse, an empire conquering the world, a princess in distress, the underdog hero stepping up his game) for a more casual audience while giving enough fluff and fanservice for series fans to be happy about.

Still, while I can clearly say I enjoyed it surprisingly much, there were many, many moments in the almost 2 hour movie that had me groan, facepalm and want to bang my head against the wall. Come to think of it, almost all of them had to do with Lunafreya and her nonsense. It doesn't help that she is one of only two relevant female characters, the other being Crowe, and her relevance soon fades.

Libertus, who added a lot of comedic relief early on, seemed overacted, with his voice actor being very shouty most of the time, even if it didn't fit the mood of the scene. His subplot, after leaving the Glaives over his disillusionment with the king, is almost irrelevant. You see him walk into a rebel conspiracy meeting with a grand total of four people attending, only one of which is seen again later. The whole rebel conspiracy was poorly written and glanced over to the point of it not being necessary in the movie at all. It is an extension of the growing unrest within the Kingsglaive immigrants, but doesn't really support the movie. That whole subplot felt like excess weight that needed to either be elaborated on or trimmed away.
On top of that, Libertus is constantly shown taking painkillers, but I didn't feel that was relevant either. I expected some conflict to come off of that, but it really didn't. It was a cheap way to try and make him appear more vulnerable, but the lack of commentary on it really didn't work.

And then we have the Lucii / ring plot device throughout the final stages of the movie. There is little info given about the line of kings, or why they turn into mighty guardian spirits, though it wasn't really needed for the film. What bothered me, however, was the gigantic battle at the end, involving statues of those kings starting to move like hyperactive action figures, fighting the Weapons. While incredibly cool on paper (heck, I loved Pacific Rim and this was oddly reminiscent of that), it also served to create a LOT of chaos around the actual plot-relevant characters. There are scenes where Nyx and General Glauca are riding their respective Kaiju and it is never really made clear if they are controlling them or not.
While on the ground, especially during the final blows of their duel, the big things mirror their fight in the background, at least in part, which is a cool element to have but, in my eyes, overshadowed the more grounded duel. I get that they tried to make this battle titanic and depict massive stakes for Insomnia, but they didn't need to have a giant kaiju battle constantly distracting viewers from the fight that they were, hopefully, emotionally invested in. Glauca, too, was well-done as a character, with some great use of moral ambiguity.

Point being, the movie started drowning in overblown action after the halfway point, with the whole city being on fire and destroyed by the final 20 minutes. Those apocalyptic proportions were full of eye-candy, but detracted from the substance of the plot, all while shoving Lunafreya back into your face. God, I hate that woman so much...
But then, seeing the emotional payoff for Nyx and Glauca was satisfying and, to a degree, saddening. There was a lot of stuff in this feature film that appealed to me, even as I wanted to punch Luna in her pretty face for mucking things up. It wasn't a bad film to watch by any means, especially if all you want is a big, pretty action flick with magic and a clash between reality and fantasy/scifi elements. It won't win any awards for outstanding writing, though it is in places surprisingly good, but possibly for its excellent visual fidelity.
If you intend to play Final Fantasy XV, I would not in any way recommend skipping the movie. If you don't care about the game at all, your mileage will vary, but if you like dumb action movies, this might be right up your alley.

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV easily exceeded my expectations. But then, they weren't high to begin with. It surprised me enough to make me consider rewatching it, and even to possibly buy a Bluray copy for my shelf. I might just have to put a Pepe the Frog sticker on the cover to hide Lunafreya from view...

Kingsglaive on the Official Website