The Dragon Waiting group sync-read

[tabacoychanel]

Hello everyone and welcome to our group sync-read of the first of John M. Ford's books to be rereleased by Tor, The Dragon Waiting (1983)! I know there are 5-6 of you who have already expressed keen interest in this virtual bookclub; if you are not one of them PLEASE feel free to join us if the book looks like your jam! It's said to be a dense book so I'm looking forward to having fellow travelers to tackle it with me. If you haven't already, do read this to get a general idea of what the book is like and this longer article which situates Ford's work in the context of what was happening in the genre at the time.

I'm going to start an Introductions thread below where we can all introduce ourselves and hash out the structure of the sync-read. I'll give it a few days (until October 4) for us all to post a short intro, and get on the same page re: the reading schedule. See you all down there!

P.S. there's one or two of you i may have corralled into getting a Dreamwidth account just so you could join this dicussion lol for you guys I recommend turning on email notifications for this post so that anytime anybody replies to this post, you'll get notified.

Comments

Introductions/Housekeeping

[tabacoychanel]

Since The Dragon Waiting does not seem like a book that lends itself to a non-genre audience, I assume we're all longtime speculative fiction fans here! List your favorite authors, favorite series, favorite TV/movies. If so inclined list the general geographic area from which you hail, or your Hogwarts Houses, or any other relevant info.

The book itself is 13 chapters + an introduction. I think it probably warrants a structured approach rather than the freeform "read however much you feel like and then post about it whenever" approach, so what do we think about weekly discussions? or should we go with twice weekly discussions? Imo we ought to start slow, 1 chapter a week, and once we've built up momentum and have the lay of the land we can go to 2 or more chapters per week if we want. Thoughts?

Re: Introductions/Housekeeping

[tabacoychanel]

Hi I'm Lya!!!! she/her. ASOIAF by George RR Martin are probably the most formative sf/f books in my life but I have a love-hate relationship with them nowadays. My favorite spec fic authors are Lois McMaster Bujold and Naomi Novik, absolutely devour everything they write. Other authors that had a big impact on me: Garth Nix, Robin Hobb, Robin McKinley, Guy Gavriel Kay, Roger Zelazny, Jacqueline Carey, Claire North, Frances Hardinge, Diana Wynne Jones, Ada Palmer, Tamsyn Muir. I don't watch that much visual media but i did fall headfirst into The Old Guard fandom recently; Firefly and Battlestar Galactica are old standbys.

I live in the Northeast USA and I'm a double-Ravenclaw according to the patented Sortinghatchats Hogwarts Houses taxonomy ;-)

Re: Introductions/Housekeeping

[hamsterwoman]

So organized and democratic! ♥ :)

or your Hogwarts Houses, or any other relevant info.

<3! :D

Hi Lya-friends! I'm Anna, she/her, Ravenclaw, House Tyrell, Nirai faction, Gordian Hive -- with the latter explaining why I feel compelled to collect fantasy sorting system labels like that :D -- living on the West Coast of the US (originally hailing from then-USSR/now-Ukraine).

Lifelong genre reader, fantasy and sci-fi. Favorite SFF series, in no particular order, are LotR (One True Canon of my heart since I first read it at 13), Discworld, Vorkosigan Saga, Dragaera/Vlad Taltos books, Rivers of London, Terra Ignota, Machineries of Empire. Other major mentions to Earthsea (which shaped the way I intuitively think about magic), A Song of Ice and Fire (definitely past its heyday for me, but we had some great times), Harry Potter (despite JKR's best efforts in the last several years), Kingkiller Chronicles (the magic system! ♥ ♥ ♥), Chronicles of Amber, The Dresden Files, Gentleman Bastards, Bujold's Chalion/Five Gods, Temeraire (except book 8; we don't talk about book 8). Other authors I enjoy (or authors I enjoy beyond just these series) include Neil Gaiman, the Brothers Strugatsky, Naomi Novik, Ann Leckie, T.Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon, Holly Black (at least historically), Sarah Rees Brennan, Diana Wynne Jones, and as of recently Frances Hardinge.

I'm much less of a non-book media person, but I do love Babylon 5, Firefly, Avatar: the Last Airbender, and really like what I've seen of Buffy (5.5 seasons) and Killjoys (2.3 seasons), and the very basic complement of nerd-friendly movies like Galaxy Quest, MCU, and LotR adaptations (duh).

I've been wanting to read some John M. Ford for a while, because a number of authors I like are huge fans (Gaiman, Brust), and I've liked the poem of his I've come across several times (Sonnet: Against Entropy, which is my kind of thing to a ridiculous degree, so it makes me really curious about his fiction), and then the fabulous article linked in the main post made me even more curious to check him out.

re: Housekeeping -- I think once a week is a good check-in frequency -- more frequent might be tough with people's non-overlapping schedules, and also I think a week is probably a good interval in which to chat about things in DW format. And I'm on board with starting a chapter a week and seeing how it goes. Like, that was definitely the right chunk-size for Cyteen, but maybe this'll be the pull-you-along kind of book... (And I assume that of course people* can and will chaos around the structure as it fits them)

* you know who you are, and we love you for it ;P <3

Possible resource, though probably not for a first read: Draco Concordans, which I've seen recommended by a bunch of folks embarking on their The Dragon Waiting rereads.

Re: Introductions/Housekeeping

[seriouslywhy]

Hi, everyone! I’m Alena (or A), and I’m what cafemassolit dragged in XD She/her, Gryffindor primary/Hufflepuff secondary, House Stark, Hive-wise somewhere between Cousins and Masons (but probably Masons), which already tells you about some of the books I’ve read lol. Living in Moscow.

Sci-fi and fantasy books are my reading material of choice – I barely ever pick anything else to read. I’ve read the usual – LotR and The Hobbit, Harry Potter, ASOIAF, some Chronicles of Amber – and in retrospect they were probably all formative, but I’m not actively into them anymore. My top current authors include: Kate Griffin/Claire North, Mark Lawrence, Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Ness, Joe Abercrombie (yeah, idk how that happened), Ada Palmer. I liked N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy a lot, but nothing else of hers; I liked Sarah Reese Brennan for Devil’s Lexicon, which was a hit, and the rest was a miss by so many miles; I liked what I’ve read of Barry Hughart, Bujold and Hardinge. I’ve read HDM, but wasn’t duly impressed; Kingkiller Chronicles are in roughly equal parts impressive and frustrating, but there is a lot of the latter; Margaret Atwood’s stuff is interesting but so far very often more depressing than I prefer my fiction to be. Sapkovsky’s Witcher series was great fun.

I’ve watched too many TV series and anime to list, but if we go for biggest impact/deepest love, I’ll go, in no particular order, with The Magicians, Killjoys, Sense8, Dark, The Umbrella Academy, Pushing Daisies and some of Doctor Who. I enjoyed the first five seasons of Supernatural and the first season of Westworld, but things have gone south for both since. My most recent joyous discovery is The Boys.

Re: Housekeeping, I also think chapter-by-chapter schedule starting with once-a-week check-in sounds reasonable - we can later adjust it, if need be. From what I so far know of this book, it might require erm significant intellectual resources, so starting out slow sounds good to me.

Re: Introductions/Housekeeping

[mysticalmuddle]

Hello! I'm Mystic, she/her, and tabacoychanel turned me onto this in much the same way she turned me onto Terra Ignota and a multitude of other weird and wonderful books. Currently living in the Southwest USA.

I read really omnivorously, but speculative fiction is my biggest time sink. Along with the usual sci-fi and fantasy, I'm also into pre1990s post-apocalyptica, magic realism, and alternate histories (especially if they involve magic realism). Seeing as The Dragon Waiting is basically alternate medieval history with added magic, I am insanely excited!!!

Books I really liked are: ASOIAF by George RR Martin, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, Territory and War For the Oaks by Emma Bull, From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury, Contact Harvest by Joseph Staten, and Zen Cho's short stories. Discworld, The Locked Tomb, The Dark Tower series, The Old Kingdom, and The Raven Cycle are also high in my heart. Other miscellaneous authors: Christopher Moore, Robin McKinley, T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon, Ursula K. Le Guin (esp. her short stories), Naomi Novak, Neil Gaiman, R A MacAvoy, Robert Heinlein, and Brian Jacques. Currently reading the third Terra Ignota book (Turn on your location Ada Palmer, I just wanna talk!).

I don't really watch a lot of visual media with a plot. I saw The Old Guard and liked it, and Pacific Rim is an instant rewatch. LotR, the first two Harry Potter movies, and several recursive-so-bad-they're-good-again sci-fi movies are up there.

RE: Housekeeping, I think a chapter a week with weekly discussion is a good place to start!

I'm very excited about this book. I hadn't really heard of John M Ford, beyond the obligatory mention of how he helped shape several genres, until about two months ago but have been eagerly waiting for the release ever since. I read the sonnet hamsterwoman linked, and was struck by how well he kept the meter intact throughout it, and how natural and unforced his rhymes seemed. The imagery was also stunning! His favorite poem of mine, Winter Solstice, Camelot Station isn't anywhere near as technically impressive--it's free verse--but the story he tells with it helps make up for that, imo.

Another link that might be of interest: his comments from Making Light, helpfully collected together posthumously. Everything I've read about Ford always emphasizes how expansive his wheelhouse as a writer was, and seeing all his marginalia bits put together really underscored that. It's mostly short verses, bits of never-written short stories, snatches of dialogue, and fragments of plays. They really gave me some insight into his sense of humor and his genius at turning the absurd into the artistic (which in turn just made me more excited for The Dragon Waiting).

And for ease of rereading (and for those who might not have read it), the Slate article with some background about why his books fell out of print and the difficult journey in dealing with his estate that's allowed them to be rereleased now.

So excited to meet all of you! Can't wait to dig into this book together <33333

Re: Introductions/Housekeeping

[cafemassolit]

Hello, I'm a chaos demon, and if someone is being anonymously dragged in this esteemed establishment, it's probably me :D

I'm K (Kay/Kamilya) and me and my succulents and my billion kilos of books have just moved house! So my life is currently very on brand and chaotic. I live in London and drag radishland (there's an Imperial Radch joke in there somewhere) nearly as much as it drags me -- into its ways, slowly but inexorably. Double Slytherin, Humanist, Targ.

I do love many of the names mentioned by you all already -- Hardinge, DJW, Kate Griffin, Pratchett, Lawrence, Bujold, Ursula's essays and Zen Cho's short fiction, and I'll add The Goblin Emperor to the list -- and I'm probably forgetting a million more. I read various non-fiction, though definitely less so than genre things. I'm also always on the lookouot for good SFF with queers -- anything on the spectrum from chewy and baroque like Ada Palmer and feel good and genre savvy like In Other lands. I was prepared to dismiss Gideon but then Harrow's book happened and exploded my brain, so there is that for the literary surprise of the year. I read quite a bit of queer romances too -- KJC's Will Darling Adventures being this year's most delightful discovery, and Captive Prince being still, regretfully, something I care about A Whole Lot. When normal kids grew up furtively reading fanfic on their family computers, I hauled doorstoppers from the library; it didn't mean I grew up dignified, it only delayed my fandom puberty.

I'm bad with TV shows and movies, and I have to consult my google keep notes to remember anything I've seen. I love Man from UNCLE, John Wick and other movies with stylish violence. I have an extensive track record with animanga, though nothing I've been keeping up with regularly for the last few years.

I'm excited about this sync-read because I love syncreads despite being rubbish at them, esp in excellent company, and I love chewy, smart books with a punchy payoff, which this promises to be. A chapter a week seems like a good pace, and i'll be on my best behavior :P


PS. I am so impressed by our darling hostess's organizational skills! and i promise not to take it as a challenge to overload it with entropy but xoxo

Re: Introductions/Housekeeping

[jeepster]

Hi, I'm Kevin, Looking forward to my first sync-read experience.

My reading list bounces between sci-fi and fantasy
- Sci-fi favorites include classics from Greg Bear, Larry Niven, Asimov and (more recently) the Expanse series by James S.A. Corey
- Favorite fantasy series would be the Thomas Covenant trilogies by Stephen R Donaldson, Kingkiller Chronicles by Rothfuss, and the Licanius Trilogy by James Islington. Love the Wheel of Time (looking forward to the upcoming Amazon Prime series), and the entire Cosmere of Brandon Sanderson (very excited for the fourth Stormlight novel coming in November)

A chapter a week seems like a good pace. Sounds like it will be a fun read to share!

dobby was useful

[cafemassolit]

In case any of you, like me, looked at dramatis personae and wished for a quick refresher:

War of Roses in 10 minutes. Legit 10 mins.
Horrible Histories War of the Roses weather report 4 mins
and a bonus Richard III song, also from Horrible Histories 3 mins

Re: Introductions/Housekeeping

[tabacoychanel]

All right gang the plan is we reconvene in one week's time Sunday 11 October, to share our thoughts about chapter one! Don't fuss overmuch about time zones and such; if you want to post on Saturday or on Monday instead of Sunday it's nbd. If you zoom ahead to later chapters because it's that gripping, don't stop on our account, try to take notes if you can, as you go, but I don't want anybody to feel like they have to stop just because of our weekly check-in schedule. Likewise, if Darth Real Life intervenes and you don't get the week's reading done, don't sweat it, catch up with us when you can, the discussion threads will still be here! Happy reading everybody <3333

Re: Introductions/Housekeeping

[cahn]

YAY hamsterwoman linked me, I'm so excited about this!

I'm cahn, she/her, love SF/F books and really books in particular :D John M. Ford is an old favorite of mine and I have... possibly all his books? I also love Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, Bujold, and lots more. Lately I've also gotten interested in opera. :)

I did a read last year as part of what was going to be a larger John M. Ford read, but which I didn't have time to do after that :D The posts are Intro with historical though non-in-depth spoilers for all chapters, chapters 1 through half of 9, and second half of chapter 9 through 13 (or look at my jmf tag). The second and third posts in particular are Extremely Spoilery -- I am trying to make sense of What The Heck is going on in the books -- so they may be worth reading after we finish the requisite parts :D

Re: Introductions/Housekeeping

[sineala]

Hi! I'm very late to the introductions but I just got around to rebuying TDW tonight, so I hope it's not too late to play! cahn and hamsterwoman tipped me off to this and I can always use an excuse to reread TDW. Maybe this time I'll actually manage to read along with the Concordance.

I'm Sine, she/her, sadly not really into Harry Potter houses anymore, and also in the northeast US. My current main fandom these days is actually Marvel Comics (I know, I know) but I am and have always been deeply into SF/F novels; this year I actually bought myself a Worldcon supporting membership and voted for the Hugos for the first time, and it was a lot of fun, and I hope to do it again next year. I like a whole lot of SF authors, but my absolute favorite, whom I feel is extremely underappreciated, is Diane Duane.

I actually haven't read all that much of JMF's work -- just TDW, the Trek novels, and of course his posts at Making Light, back when he was, well, still making them. I hope to get around to reading the rest of his books. I have several of them waiting here for me.

Also, when I rebought my most recent copy of TDW (I had loaned it out and wanted to read it again) it ended up being a lovely pristine first-edition hardcover that had clearly been sold on from someone who had received it as a review copy, because there was a letter tucked into it that featured a blurb from the publisher, which I transcribed here in case anyone was curious about how this book was originally marketed. Though it is technically accurate, I am not sure that the blurb did it justice.

Anyway, I guess I'm off to read Chapter 1 now!

Chapter One (+ Introduction)

[tabacoychanel]

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Re: Chapter One (+ Introduction)

[hamsterwoman]

Introduction by Scott Lynch -- honestly, I made it to part 3 and bailed on the intro, because... why was this necessary? Why a multi-part, uber-pretensious introduction? How is this supposed to sell a reader picking up the book for the first time on what follows? Also, why from Scott Lynch? There are genre authors out there who, AFAIK, were personal friends of Mike Ford, and some of them bigger names than Lynch (e.g. Gaiman, if I'm not mistaken). So what the hell? (And I say this as soneone who enjoys Scott Lynch's books to a reasonable degree. But, like, I'm not here for this, man. Also, maybe get a room... >.>)

On the other hand, I appreciated the note from JMF himself about historical anachronisms ("as few technical anachronisms as could be managed, though some of the technologies given were not known i the story's locales at the time it is set" -- which is a cool approach to take), and the dramatis personae of historical characters, which confirmed that I remember Richard III even less well than I thought. I'm looking forward to the appearance of Francois Villon (whom I know vaguely about from the Okudzhava song).

OK, Chapter 1!

The narrative tone in this chapter -- for the most part -- struck me as very reminiscent of old-time-y kidlit fantasy -- like Lloyd Alexander (probably on account of all the Welsh) and such. Which, this is a book from 1982, apparently, but even so quite a bit later than the vibes it was giving me. But I say for the most part because there are bits that are NOT kidlit-y and those made me do a double-take every time I ran into them because the tone had lulled me into not expecting them -- all the "tempting boy" stuff, Hywel checking his crotch after he wakes up from the dream in which he does magic, Dafydd sending "Glynis, the pretty barmaid" away when the soldiers come and having "Annie, the ugly barmaid" serving them, and the ending of the chapter.

Until sineala linked to the blurb, which refers to Hywel as "an ancient wizard", I was a bit adrift on how this chapter, temporally, worked with the War of the Roses (but not bothered by this enough to actually look up the founding of Constantinople or anything). But now it makes more sense if there's a significant timeskip. (I did look it up after I was done with the chapter, though.)

Constantinople sounds very cool and I'm looking forward to seeing it in later chapters (I assume): "bazaars at which all the fruits of Earth and the crafts of Man could be purchased, with coins that British and Chinese, Slav and African, German and Portuguese and Dane all accepted as true currency" -- this is a lovely bit of worldbuilding, the way it conveys the breadth of the "known world" and the power of Byzantium.

"Hand-cannons" in, what, ~800 AD? Cool!

On the other hand, white butter in warm ale sounds incredibly gross

I'm curious about what's going on with the idea of gods here. The British soldiers swear by Jove's beard, and I couldn't tell if Hywel believed it literally or figuratively, but he says Constantine is "now a god, like Julius Caesar, like Arthur King of Britain". And according to Ptolemy, "Old Caludius tried to refuse godhood, and failed..." which raises all kinds of questions! And seems like it is a literal thing that happens, then, if wizards as well as little boys believe in it...

Also curious about how magic works in this world. Ptolemy tells Hywel, "Now you're catalyzed", which is both an interesting concept and interesting term to use for it. And apparently it kind of... runs on entropy: "Every spell [...] ruins the worker a little more. If you are strong-willed, the wrecking takes a little longer... but it happens in the end, just the same." Also, there's some kind of magical E=mc^2 stuff they've apparently figured out: "Time and energy, never energy alone. Spirit is to matter at... I've forgotten the numbers; some astounding ratio." -- it seems their magic is impressively scientific and impressively far along, if these sorts of calculations exist. Naturally i find this to be really cool!

The prose is really lovely, in a... fitting, I guess? sort of way. My favorite quote so far is Ptolemy answering Hywel's question about his god: "The same as the builders of Kyklos Sophia worshiped. The perfection of the curve. The meeting of the stones. Time and energy and precision; those are the wizard's true gods, though I daresay we find others more convenient to curse by."

And on a random note: I'm a bit embarrassed that the only reason I recognized Owain Glyn Dwr's name when it popped up was The Raven Boys XD

Chapter Two

[tabacoychanel]

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Re: Chapter Two

[cafemassolit]

I have really enjoyed chapter two! I see we're assembling a team there, and it is served with much glee about Tropes involved. The bartender seems to know his audience there.

After Hywel's chapter ended the farmer boy's journey with Odin-like initiation (a good old blood price for wisdom; I enjoyed the twist that the Farmer Boy route is not apparently leading to a Missing Heir but rather the Wizard), I was gearing up for something lofty. Dimi's chapter took me by surprise by just how much fun it was, his leadership charisma shown not told though his French posse (I loved the French posse) and the vivid, warm way he related to characters around him and the more abstract concepts. My homework (guesswork?) educational video for the day was an angry nerd yelling about inapprorpiateness of Persian sources for understanding Roman Mirthaism, and a replay of a battle of Alesia. The latter was hella fun in terms of driving home Caesar's opportunism and allowed me to understand the ongoing references, but if there was A Big Divergence namedropped here I must have missed it. But I'm actually starting to relax around the ability to follow historical events a little bit: on a Dunnett scale, I am not as lost as I would be because there is plenty going on a character level that roots me into the story.

I am not entirely sure what happened at the end there with the exchange with the eunuch -- did he actually suggest to Dimi how to fake his own death there? Goddamn u most beloved and therefore most dangerous Ducas.*

PS. Because of who I am as a person, this chapter also played on my Captive Prince heartstrings, what with the charismatic Greek princeling and a fierce and smart French counterpart XD Too bad about Charles!

*I admit I am thrown off by Ducai used as plural for Ducas -- that would not work for modern Greek as I know it; perhaps something from older versions of the language? Or they are mongrelling between Latin and Greek here, in which case I can just step away and hold my modern sensibilities to myself.

Chapter Three

[tabacoychanel]

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Re: Chapter Three

[seriouslywhy]

Chapter 3, and we got to the Medicis. Some live-blog impressions:

- Parties with Lorenzo de Medici seem to be in the "me, an intellectual" style XD

- Didn't really see the second twist coming - that the Riccis were not only involved in making a cure for Lorenzo illegally, but also at the same time blackmailed into subtly poisoning him. Huh.

- The disguise-and-follow sequence was impressive, though I'm really not sure why she didn't just conspire with Lorenzo to fake his illness in the first place; I guess it's one of those "trust no one!" situations.

- You know, I was just thinking about how trust is possible within a family of medical professionals who also deal in poison, and lo and behold, Cynthia's dad went and drugged her :') I assumed at this point that she was going to go and save Lorenzo (which she eventually did).

- "Yet no sensible god, none worthy of intelligent worship, would create a punishment that never ended" -- HAHAHA. Ahem. Yes, carry on.

- "They found the house where the hostages had been. They found a limepit... There never were any hostages, Cynthia." -- ok, I don't think I fully get this. So her family were never taken in the first place, and like, her dad (or someone) was faking those letters, or they were taken, killed and buried/dissolved in the limepit or something?

- "Madonna Lucrezia used to say that the incubus who brought Arthur down was Theodora of Byzantium, after she turned vampire to save herself from death. But surely not... surely they would not succeed in ruining a king, and then fail to take his country." -- this seems like a bit of a non sequitur, but it feels important..? Is this the Divergence thing everyone's been talking about?

General thoughts:Cynthia is the oldest of the introduced characters so far, but we do not really know (at least, I do not really know) whether or not their ages will be important. By the old-timey cover of the book, I assume Hywel is going to be an old man in the main story, and Cynthia and Dimi will still be relatively young, so there is that. I'm not sure what I think of Cynthia, except I'm skeptical she's accepted as this qualified medical professional at 22; I get it that she started training young and that's just how it worked in that time period, but still.

This chapter fleshes out the topic of vampires, who seem to have an interesting position in terms of societal hierarchy: the choice is frowned upon and generally is described as the last resort to escape death, but still, the Duke kept his title and was apparently received in high society despite his bloodsucking status and an overall terrible reputation. So vampires are not social outcasts per se (at least in Italy). I'm pleased with the two-step vampire neutralization procedure and the definite lack of garlic and holy water (I'm guessing no one could have agreed on which holy water to use in the first place lol).

P.S. I wrote these notes right after finishing chapter 3, but - coming clean - I'm now actually a few chapters ahead. If everyone is doing ok with the pacing/density, could we maybe revise the schedule and tackle two chapters a week?

Chapter Four

[tabacoychanel]

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Re: Chapter Four

[seriouslywhy]

Chapters 4&5, as per approved motion :)

Well, WOW. I honestly thought at first that the bawdy Frenchman must be grownup Dimi, even though calling himself "Charles" seemed kinda dumb, and his general behavior was offputting, so I was very glad to find out that it was - most likely - deliberate misdirection XD It could've been an interesting twist, in an of itself - like, what could've happened to a person to have changed that much? I noted that "Charles" had no problem telling that Hywel was a magician, so that means either powers or some kind of sensitivity, which I didn't think Dimi had, but eventually that part became clear enough. I figured the woman must be Cynthia, and of course no hair color is so easy to dye as white, so. What followed was a Poirot-style mystery with Hywel starring as the detective XD His later conversation with Cynthia was a lot like, "hmm, who outsmarted whom then..?" I have to confess that at some point I had to go back and reread the part where the new characters arrived, because there were somehow too many names/professions/plot-relevant characteristics to remember. I choose to ignore the tights debacle entirely.

I'm happy that Ford didn't drag out Dimi's dislike of/bias against the vampires too much, or at least toward Sir Honorable German, and everyone started getting on like reasonable people. I hope later on we find out exactly how Hywel picked him up and what he has been doing up until now, but also yay - desperate people trying to take on a behemoth in a what's from the start going to inevitably be a losing battle! This is gonna go so well, isn't it.

Chapter Five

[tabacoychanel]

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Re: Chapter Five

[sineala]

I am going to be the first to leave my comments on chapter 5 down here, I guess.

I have to say that introducing your fourth main character by way of having him accused of murder is also a bold choice.

I also have to say that locked-room murder mystery is not really a genre I am deeply into, so I am not sure how fair this is by the rules of mysteries or how solvable it is; I am pretty much just reading it for the characters and trying to keep up. (This is one of the more confusing chapters for me.)

Having said that, "an egg fell out of his sleeve" made me laugh out loud.

I'm kind of wondering now if Hywel's remark "there were always limits to the protection of the wand" means that a courier's wand affords some kind of otherworldly protection, or if it's just symbolic of the power that is backing the courier. Ordinarily I'd assume the latter, but, well, magic exists in TDW.

Other than that I'm not sure I have a lot to say about this chapter. Um. I'm glad that everyone is down to fight Byzantium, I guess.

Are we doing 6 & 7 next week, or just 6?

Chapter Six

[tabacoychanel]

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Re: Chapter Six

[hamsterwoman]

So, right, the next two chapters. I have NO IDEA what is going on, really, but here goes. (Since these chapters do fall over a break between parts, I guess I'll comment on them one at a time.)

I'm still not happy with the continued switch from close third person to third person objective -- it's so much harder to follow things when we don't even see how the characters feel about things. I think we did get a couple of lines of Cynthia's thoughts here, but it wasn't much. And while the main characters are no longer doing things under false names, now OTHER people think they're someone else, and we don't know who, and it is so very confusing XD

So, the vampire warlords of Wallachia -- that's kind of neat. And, I'm confused - can vampires sire children, or do Stefan and Juliette's children predate him being a vampire? (On a totally random note, "He met Juliette in Varna [...] She'd been sent to the East as a wife for a Byzantine coronal, a present from the Auvergne strategos" -- both Varna and Auvergne are places I have been, and it's nice to have the spar of a geographic location amidst all this action I am very confused by XD)

I am not sure I'm following what they're doing with the ~forged document -- is it that they're creating a document which, through sympathetic magic linkage to the original, they can use to affect the real thing? Or are they trying to create a real copy by magic, or what? And then where the real thing (?) is on the way to. And were Our Heroes just after it to destroy it? That seems to be what they do, but I wasn't sure if that was always the plan or if they were reacting to something they had found out during the night.

Ah, here's the quote cahn was alluding to earlier, from Hywel: "Magic is a building of many small efforts toward a final, greater end. Magic is slow." But we actually see some pretty direct magic here -- the magical barrier that prevents Dimi from passing through it and sets his leather sleeve smoking, and Hywel bringing it down with enough power to crack and blacken the floor, and then Guillaume basically coming apart from overworking his magic (which I guess explains why normally people work magic in small, slow ways)

Hywel comments on Louis the exiled king being in favor of "an army of English-men to fight an army of Byzantines over two countries you would like to rule yourself. The foreigners collide, are disorganized, and the people rise in rebellion--" and Dimi puts it, "And it will not end in Paris, it will not end in Gaul, blah, blah, blah." (Ouch :( That was still my favorite chapter, and definitely the one that touched me the most, emotionally.)

So we got to the part of English politics where I have a very vague sense of things, very haphazardly stitched together from K's homework videos, a long-ago visit to Warwick castle, and Stark-Lannister-Tyrell plans in ASOIAF, which is, even in total, not super useful for following what's going on. Who would've guessed XD

Oho, Reynard, whom I'd liked in Cynthia's intro chapter, reappears, and the spy is a woman in disguise! Now I'm even more intrigued by her.

Quotes:

"No, I mean weak-willed, which is only a fault in common men but a disaster in kings. Margaret, however, had enough will for the both of them and a kingdom besides."

"Hywel introduced him as Quentin le Chaudronnier, 'that rarity, a genuine alchemiker.'
Gregory said politely, 'By which you mean he can turn lead to gold?'
'By which I mean he does not claim to do so.'"

Chapter Seven

[tabacoychanel]

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Re: Chapter Seven

[hamsterwoman]

End-of-year celebrations in London with "green-sashed Gawaines and horned Hernes, Kyrils with crown and quill" -- OK, Gawaine and Herne I get; what about Kyril with such accoutrements? And ooh, a Chinese dragon dancer procession and firecrackers, though presumably not in celebration of Chinese new year but just adopted to local holidays?

Hey, we're ~50% through the book and have finally met Richard. Not at all like what I was expecting (based on Shakespeare and Sir Ian McKellen, admittedly). He seems like a nice enough guy, and the relationship with Anne seems more palatable (at least from what he's told us) than what's shown in Richard III. And I like the bonding with Dimi over maps and Mithraism.

Cecily Neville's youngest daughter, Ursula "seems determined on a career in one of the knightly orders" -- which, I wonder what kind of a career in a knightly order is open to a woman in this universe.

The thing with Cynthia was unexpected and I'm not at all sure I'm following what's happening. So Hywel thinks she's in some kind of post-traumatic shock/depression and wants her to come to Wales because he thinks it will help her, right? Cynthia doesn't want to go to Wales, but Gregory menaces her vampirically as a way to get her to agree to go with Hywel rather than to Scotland with him -- and this is something Cecily put him up to? And given that she shakes Gregory's hand when they're saying good-bye, Cynthia seems aware of that not having been a real threat and... has forgiven him for the performance?

"When the young man who would become Edward IV fought his first great battle, a strange thing happened in the sky overhead: three suns shone together. Edward's advisors were still divided as to whether this was a sign from the gods or a refraction phenomenon of the 'sundog' variety. Edward himself played no favorites: he went from no particular faith to the earnest worship of Phoebus Apollo, in time constructing a new hall in the London Pantheon, and endowed a school of paticks at Minerva College, Oxford." -- 1) LOL, 2) I looked up "sundog" because I'd not heard the term before, so this was educational, and 3) neat to hear that Oxford has a Minerva college -- I wonder if it's Magdalen College (founded in 1458, I think the timing would be OK, given that the battle in question was in 1461 per Wikipedia). It seems like other older or contemporary colleges would be likely to keep their (non-Christian) names, except for All Souls, and I like the M-alliteration and being a female name better with Magdalen, so I'm going to assume it's that.

"Dimi gave a brief glance to Tyrell, who stood quietly by; then, with his mouth open as if he had just understood a mysterious thing, he looked at Gregory. Gregory had removed his glasses, and his eyes were very white in the night." -- am I supposed to understand what's going on here? 'Cos I sure don't XD

Chapter Eight

[tabacoychanel]

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Re: Chapter Eight

[cahn]

Previous read:

Dimi and the spy Colin rescue the Duke of Albany (Scottish royalty), and then Colin kills Albany. In our world, Albany and Richard III allied; in TDW AU, they obviously don't, and Colin cites preventing this alliance as the reason he killed Albany.

Why did Colin kill Albany and prevent the alliance? Was he in league with the Byzantines as well? I guess so (and so does Draco Concordans), but this is never stated outright.

(Draco Concordans notes: Dimi's girl is obviously Elayne! p. 213 - one of the running gags in this book, which DC doesn't seem to note, is that everyone claims King Arthur for their own: the Welsh, the Scottish, the English. It's funny because it's true! Also, note DC about Georges as a plot point, which is something I entirely missed.)

This read:

So last chapter we were all wondering what the heck was going on with Dimi and Gregory and why they were going to Scotland. I now think that maybe Gregory is there to develop guns/cannons in an out of the way place. (Can anyone who knows history tell me whether there were cannon at the battle of Bosworth in our history?) Still not totally sure what Dimi is doing there (except that I guess it's always good to have a guy who knows warfare and the enemy on your side?) as it seems like the offer to be one of Richard's men is spontaneous and not part of Hywel's plot in any way.

Chapter Nine

[tabacoychanel]

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Chapters 8-9

[cafemassolit]

I did not check in with anything on previous double chapter because a) I didn't feel like starting with a "what was that?" and b) all my comments and questions have been raised by others, which goes to prove that we're all in this together, or something XD

I regret to say I'm still on a "what was that" train, but also I am not feeling like Deep Thoughts today, so, in no particular order:

- Dimi wants to have a daddy so bad. I mean sure, Dukas Sr sure set some standards and then was offed before Dimi could grow up, but bambi-imprinting on the first liege with a charisma tells me Dimi is still a precious child at hard.
- I do not vibe with the one-off magical therapy session fixing ptsd scene. props for not making it a "soldier's trauma that only happens to soldiers" but something (everything) about mary had a little lamb touching her with jesus-powered spotless magic I'm -- confused and put off. Otoh Cynthia is back in action, which is good.
- "two years of welsh beds" well uh smooth? I gave up on homework videos to keep track of when and what was happening so let's accept that.
- suddenly a santa claus grindewald! suddenly portals and murder! 🤷🏻‍♀️
- i may be the dimi groupie A accuses me of being, but I continue to be mildly offended by the fact that no one seems to care -- or just pause to analyse before assessing this information to be not relevant to the wider plot -- about him being the missing heir of sorts. I mean, yes, trope subversion, but also, a girl just wants some in-universe risk and benefits assessment /pouts
- i feel hywel is too emo for his age
- it took me a while to understand the shoujo misunderstanding of "roses are red, violets are blue, i used to have a horse called luna, ur both pretty uwu" XDD can't stop laughing whenver i remember it
- can we go back to dimi pls.

Chapter Ten

[tabacoychanel]

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Re: Chapter Ten

[hamsterwoman]

A sex scene is another thing I was not expecting this book to have (more fool me, at this point). I still don't know that it was really necessary for the book to have one, but...

It's interesting to finally get Gregory's POV, though. It's more self-loathing than I'd expected ("any frothing dog"), even based on his fairly unhappy dialogue about his condition.

God why is everybody in this book named Richard or Edward or Henry XD (I mean, I know why, it's because that's what everybody in England was named at the time, but it's really annoying as a reader in an already-confusing book.

I would not have known, if cahn hadn't pointed it out in the last set of chapters, that we are supposed to know that Buckingham is with Morton, and does not have the young king's best interests in mind. I probably would've been taken in, along with Dimi, by the bluster. Even knowing not to trust him, I had to smile at his "In a forest of Woodvilles [...] A very thicket of 'em", because I'm easily amused.

I do like that Richard is torn in this, between thinking of young Edward as his brother's son and thinking of him as a future king ("We are talking about my brother's son. [...] But we're not, are we. He's not just a boy any longer.") And I like the "I ran out of tears before brothers" line. And I mostly like Edward himself, occasionally regal through visible effort and sometimes a little boy (like the "I love strawberries" bit in the next chapter) and sometimes sort of in-between ("Is there no one who will come and go at the King's command?")

But even with that, I'm not sure I totally buy the certainty that Rivers is trying to kill young Edward rather than entertain that he might be telling the truth about the boy being terminally ill. Like, Richard certainly has good reason to be paranoid at this point (especially once he hears that Margaret may also be somehow involved; he definitely does not seem rational about her), and given the story of Rivers killing his childhood companion/possibly having inteded to kill him in the joust, it makes sense that Richard wouldn't trust him much... but if Rivers had wanted Edward harmed, it seems like he wouldn't go about it this way? And, Dimi just believes along with Richard because he can't imagine Cynthia not doing something to help, which just seems silly -- Dimi of all people should know that sometimes medicine can't do anything. (OK, I went and peeked at Draco Concordans, and it seems like this is SUPPOSED to be abrupt and out of character, because Richard and Dimi are being influenced by sorcery? OK then, that makes more sense. I suppose it might also explain why Rivers doesn't fight back as much as Dimi would expect him to / seems to be in pain out of proportion to how he is being restrained?)

Also, yay more Dimi POV. I especially enjoyed him assessing the room where Richard and Rivers are meeting ("He had paced out the room earlier today: he could kill the first man through any door, and hold the rest with the polearm."), and the noblemen themselves, and whether or not Anthony's tapping could be a secret signal (regular or magical).

Quote:

Rivers: "Elizabeth never told your brother [about young Edward being terminally ill]. And the Prince doesn't know -- we didn't have any courage to tell him before his father died, and we're not notably braver now."

Chapter Eleven

[tabacoychanel]

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Re: Chapter Eleven

[hamsterwoman]

Ooh, a cliffhanger! And that last scene, with Dimi and Gregory locked up in a dungeon together, confirms what K and I had been talking about in one of the previous chapter discussions: Dimi really does have chemistry with any male character in his proximity (except for Hywel). Like, I would read that fic, is what I'm saying.

In the scene where Hastings is suddenly accused of treason and executed, Dimi is struggling to think and doesn't seem to recognize his own voice, -- OK, sorcery at work, now that I know to look for it.

Vampires: ah, so they are affected by the sun, just not very dramatically -- the sun makes Gregory's head ache. And we have another vampire in Argentine; it's neat to have a stand-off between two of them. (I guess this is who Margaret was assuming Gregory was? since she mapped one wizard to another, I guess she recognized a vampire in Gregory and figured it had to be the vampire allied wiht Morton?)

Other worldbuilding bits: There are fighting women in this universe, like the "company from the Reintal order of Valkyries" Gregory mentions in flashback. And there's no law of temple sanctuary in this universe, because "The state may make no law that favors a faith. Since not all faiths have a rule of inviolability, such a lwa would favor those that do. In the end... it was decreed by Justinian [...] that if the gods wished to keep sanctuary they would themselves punish its violators."

I really like the way JMF writes action in Dimi's POV -- it's so spare and matter of fact and simple (like the tower climb). Here I'm talking about the line "Then Mancini made a sharp turn, then there were two men in fawn suits of clothing; and then there were none."

There's a trick-writing bit when Buckingham walks in on Gregory and Argentine, where at first he is referred to as "nobleman", "the Duke" and addressed as "Your Grace", so it's not clear whether it's Richard or Buckingham arriving, before it's clarified at the end of the scene. That was an "i see what you're doing there" bit for me, but still kind of neat.

What is the deal with the jars Morton and Argentine are messing about with?

Quote:

Richard to Morton: "We should take your eyes and your tongue, but you'd smell your way to favor again."


OK, onward to the conclusion!

Chapter Twelve

[tabacoychanel]

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Re: Chapter Twelve

[sineala]

Coming up on the end of the book! My commentary is getting really terrible; it has been a very long week for me, sorry.

Also, regarding Cynthia in this chapter, I can vouch for the fact that people do get very freaked out when you faint in front of them. (Guess what I did this week? I don't recommend it.)

For someone who hates killing people so much, Cynthia sure ends up doing it a lot.

Update: I still want strawberries.

Ah, yes, this is the section of the book that makes me wish I knew more about the Princes in the Tower. And of course, here in TDW, they're vampires! Vampirism for notable political figures! Why not?

Hello, random... masochism? I am confused. I don't know why I'm confused; I have definitely read this book before. I think I must forget about it every time.

Chapter Thirteen

[tabacoychanel]

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Re: Chapter Thirteen

[sineala]

The final chapter! Time for Bosworth Field!

I don't know that I like the implication -- if I am reading this correctly -- that a lot of soldiers were magicked into following Henry; I feel like taking away their agency is not the best move, narratively, because it seems to set up an idea that following him is so awful that no one ever would of their own free will, and, okay, yes, he's the enemy here, but also humans are capable of doing monstrous things all by themselves, and that seems to be a major theme of the book, so it seems strange to undercut it here.

I do appreciate that we have saved the titular dragon for the last chapter.

And, just so you know it's me: Nemesis Draco? Draco?! A nominative? Excuse me, but no. Would it have been that hard to come up with Nemesis Draconis? Apparently so. (I was also going to suggest "inimica" but apparently "nemesis" is attested in Latin.)

Anyway, yay, all done. This was fun.

Post-read Thoughts/Discussion

[tabacoychanel]

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