Devices and Desires
Sunday, August 16th, 2009 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charmianAm about halfway through K.J. Parker's Desires and Devices. Since K.J. Parker is a pseudonym, there is no way to tell which gender the author is, which explains why I'm going to use "they" or "s/he" when talking about the author.
The book posits a semi-renaissance/medieval world. There are two mountain kingdoms, Eremia and Vadani, which are bitter rivals. Vadani is rich because of its silver mines, and Eremia, while having impregnable natural defenses, is poor. On one side, both are bordered by a vast desert, and on the other side is the Cure Hardy, where various "sects" of nomads live, and towards the coast, there's the city-state of Mezentia. The Mezentines arrived on the continent awhile ago from somewhere else, and are organized very hierarchically based on their guild structures, and possess advanced technology, by which I don't mean ray-guns or automobiles, but the principles of precision engineering and metallurgy. This has made them economically dominant on the continent. The Mezentine socity is pretty uptight, to the point where they'd condemn a man to death for a trivial deviation from their Specifications. This man, Zianni Vaatzes, escapes and comes up with a complex plot to somehow once again see his wife and daughter, a plot which will apparently involve betraying his city (though in his mind it's the current leadership which has betrayed it), betraying others, and the deaths of thousands), which rather does show a certain lack of perspective on Vaatzes's part. (Well, that's part of it, after all. Zianni is a product of Mezentine society to the core, and the books are almost anthropological in focus, showing the differences in culture and mindset which govern the conflicts between the societies)
It's hard to get into Zianni as a character, because it's interesting how normal and quiet and ordinary of a man he is, before he starts out his quest (it's still not really clear how the "mechanism" he's thought of is going to work out, as he's well... openly betraying the city?! So how is that supposed to lead to him being able to go back?). Godlike feats of engineering are one thing, yet how does he get this vast insight into human nature and warfare which allows him to bring down Ducas? I think the answer in the book is that it's that engineering is a systemizing way of thinking, and his advancement in this allows him to turn everything into mechanisms and systems, and thus have greater insights into things than most people; also, his status as an outsider to Eremia's society also gives him certain insights. However, Zianni has already lost what is most important to him before the book has even begun, and thus his quest may end up being a farce, but he doesn't even know it.
The nicest person in the book is Orsea, but he's also the most foolish, his own worst enemy, indecisive, unfit to be ruler, to the point where this is what the people who like him say about him. I'm getting the feeling that in K.J. Parker's works, being a good person (I'm not meaning in a bland way: Orsea is the sort of ruler who genuinely cares about his people, but doesn't know how to help them; in a way, it's not his fault, as he became duke by semi-accident, as opposed to Valens, who was born to it, and combined it with natural talent)
Viatriz: Dear lord, see, Viatriz and Valens SO need the internet. Valens could post to web fora under a pseud so no one would know he was the Duke, and thus he could get to be emo and soul-baring to his internet pals (he would have tons, because he's eloquent and feeling in his letters), and Viatriz would have some outlet for her isolation, as an outsider in her own nation. Also, she could post to ask.mefi and get told WTF are you thinking, this is NOT friendship, this is what is called an "emotional affair." Which is what she's getting from Valens (and yeah, it's part of his sekrit romantic side that he totally believes this is like, NOT love, it's FRIENDSHIP!!!, a friendship which MUST be kept secret from the entire worldddd)
Valens: If this were an anime, Valens would totally be the fangirl favorite, amirite? I mean, he's got this poor-little-rich-boy thing going for him, or maybe we should make that "ultra-competent, ruthlessly common-sensical young ruler with a sekrit romantic side that comes out of his loneliness." Mockery aside, Valens is set up as the ideal ruler: he's rational, decisive, knows himself and the world, and he isn't a power mad despot either. Valens seems to be the one person in the book who has a chance of doing something (if he chooses) against Vaatzes.
Other notes:
This sort of makes me want to write Musou fanfic in which the characters spend an inordinate amount of time doing boring paperwork. XD Because these books do show the tedium and complexity of ruling. Valens is like, a really competent CEO, and we're shown him legislating and judging headache-inducing law cases and then having to go to boring meetings. On the other hand, letting this series influence Musou fanfic would probably mean that you ended up writing Yue Ying as scarier than Lu Bu. (Though if you think about it, the arbalests and the fire breathing tanks are pretty damn scary already)
The author really has something against love. Maybe s/he read too much shoujo or dumb fantasy fiction where "love redeems the universe!!!!" and is reacting against that? A classic, or perhaps tragic view of romance vs. the orderly workings of society and enlightened self-interest, perhaps? Love as socially destabilizing force, etc, or a criticism of authorial tolerance of the crazy stuff folks do for love, like the deaths of thousands, etc. Or maybe the author is just a hater.
The book posits a semi-renaissance/medieval world. There are two mountain kingdoms, Eremia and Vadani, which are bitter rivals. Vadani is rich because of its silver mines, and Eremia, while having impregnable natural defenses, is poor. On one side, both are bordered by a vast desert, and on the other side is the Cure Hardy, where various "sects" of nomads live, and towards the coast, there's the city-state of Mezentia. The Mezentines arrived on the continent awhile ago from somewhere else, and are organized very hierarchically based on their guild structures, and possess advanced technology, by which I don't mean ray-guns or automobiles, but the principles of precision engineering and metallurgy. This has made them economically dominant on the continent. The Mezentine socity is pretty uptight, to the point where they'd condemn a man to death for a trivial deviation from their Specifications. This man, Zianni Vaatzes, escapes and comes up with a complex plot to somehow once again see his wife and daughter, a plot which will apparently involve betraying his city (though in his mind it's the current leadership which has betrayed it), betraying others, and the deaths of thousands), which rather does show a certain lack of perspective on Vaatzes's part. (Well, that's part of it, after all. Zianni is a product of Mezentine society to the core, and the books are almost anthropological in focus, showing the differences in culture and mindset which govern the conflicts between the societies)
It's hard to get into Zianni as a character, because it's interesting how normal and quiet and ordinary of a man he is, before he starts out his quest (it's still not really clear how the "mechanism" he's thought of is going to work out, as he's well... openly betraying the city?! So how is that supposed to lead to him being able to go back?). Godlike feats of engineering are one thing, yet how does he get this vast insight into human nature and warfare which allows him to bring down Ducas? I think the answer in the book is that it's that engineering is a systemizing way of thinking, and his advancement in this allows him to turn everything into mechanisms and systems, and thus have greater insights into things than most people; also, his status as an outsider to Eremia's society also gives him certain insights. However, Zianni has already lost what is most important to him before the book has even begun, and thus his quest may end up being a farce, but he doesn't even know it.
The nicest person in the book is Orsea, but he's also the most foolish, his own worst enemy, indecisive, unfit to be ruler, to the point where this is what the people who like him say about him. I'm getting the feeling that in K.J. Parker's works, being a good person (I'm not meaning in a bland way: Orsea is the sort of ruler who genuinely cares about his people, but doesn't know how to help them; in a way, it's not his fault, as he became duke by semi-accident, as opposed to Valens, who was born to it, and combined it with natural talent)
Viatriz: Dear lord, see, Viatriz and Valens SO need the internet. Valens could post to web fora under a pseud so no one would know he was the Duke, and thus he could get to be emo and soul-baring to his internet pals (he would have tons, because he's eloquent and feeling in his letters), and Viatriz would have some outlet for her isolation, as an outsider in her own nation. Also, she could post to ask.mefi and get told WTF are you thinking, this is NOT friendship, this is what is called an "emotional affair." Which is what she's getting from Valens (and yeah, it's part of his sekrit romantic side that he totally believes this is like, NOT love, it's FRIENDSHIP!!!, a friendship which MUST be kept secret from the entire worldddd)
Valens: If this were an anime, Valens would totally be the fangirl favorite, amirite? I mean, he's got this poor-little-rich-boy thing going for him, or maybe we should make that "ultra-competent, ruthlessly common-sensical young ruler with a sekrit romantic side that comes out of his loneliness." Mockery aside, Valens is set up as the ideal ruler: he's rational, decisive, knows himself and the world, and he isn't a power mad despot either. Valens seems to be the one person in the book who has a chance of doing something (if he chooses) against Vaatzes.
Other notes:
This sort of makes me want to write Musou fanfic in which the characters spend an inordinate amount of time doing boring paperwork. XD Because these books do show the tedium and complexity of ruling. Valens is like, a really competent CEO, and we're shown him legislating and judging headache-inducing law cases and then having to go to boring meetings. On the other hand, letting this series influence Musou fanfic would probably mean that you ended up writing Yue Ying as scarier than Lu Bu. (Though if you think about it, the arbalests and the fire breathing tanks are pretty damn scary already)
The author really has something against love. Maybe s/he read too much shoujo or dumb fantasy fiction where "love redeems the universe!!!!" and is reacting against that? A classic, or perhaps tragic view of romance vs. the orderly workings of society and enlightened self-interest, perhaps? Love as socially destabilizing force, etc, or a criticism of authorial tolerance of the crazy stuff folks do for love, like the deaths of thousands, etc. Or maybe the author is just a hater.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 07:32 am (UTC)Good advertising!
This will be me in x number of years.
Thank you for writing your thoughts on this, by the way - hearing more about the books makes me want to read them more. The library doesn't have them, but they sound interesting enough to buy, and I'm totally behind love vs. enlightenment (or self-interest). :D
Also, that would be the best Musou fanfic ever.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 09:03 am (UTC)Maybe you can join bookmooch or go on Abebooks and try to get them used? The paperback edition does have a nice looking cover, not a cheesy fantasy novel looking one.
Heh, it's more like love v. basic moral responsibility. XD I suppose it's sort of like "is one person worth the deaths of thousands?! YES!" that you see all the time.
LOL, didn't know you were into the Musou games! I don't recall you blogging about them.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 11:01 pm (UTC)