Thursday, October 31, 2019

The Empty Throne: Those Above & Those Below


Those Above & Those Below
by Daniel Polansky, 2016

Imagine a series with all of the low-fantasy political intrigue of A Song of Ice and Fire, and it’s two books long and then it’s done because the author finished the story. Sound good?

In the Empty Throne duology, Daniel Polansky introduces us to a continent of medieval feuding states. Aeleria is a militaristic expanding power, reminiscent of ancient Rome. The steppes of the Marches are inhabited by fierce nomadic peoples, whereas the cities of Salucia are run by traders who prefer to hire mercenaries to fight their wars.

And yet none of these petty human states will ever amount to anything compared to the Others, also known as Those Above, or Eternals, or as demons, depending on one’s point of view. Majestic, strong, agile, long-lived beings, Those Above have claimed suzerainty over the continent for thousands of years, allowing the human nations to bicker and argue while they live lives of leisure in their vast city, the Roost. Why should they meddle in the affairs of puny humans, whom they think of as insects? After all, if a human nation gets out of hand, they can swoop down from their mountaintop abode to effortlessly crush them.

The Others are the sole bit of magic intruding upon this universe. We never really find out what they are, or where they came from, but it doesn’t really matter. They’re not tyrants, and they don’t rule with anything close to an authoritarian iron fist. In fact, they are utterly unconcerned with human welfare. Their beautiful mountaintop city is surrounded by a teeming human slum, a place of squalor and misery ruled by organized crime. They don’t care. Most of them don’t even notice.

The story of the Empty Throne duology -- Those Above and Those Below -- is the story of the human rebellion that aims to topple these complacent, sublimely perfect creatures from their position.

The story is told through the eyes of four main protagonists, two Aelerian and two at the Roost. Bas is a grizzled veteran of Aeleria’s army, famed as the only human to have killed an Eternal in combat. It’s through Bas’s eyes that we see most of the story’s battle scenes, which uncompromisingly depict war as a brutal, unglamorous endeavor. Eudokia is a brilliant, ruthless, amoral woman who has risen through her own efforts to become the most powerful figure in Aeleria’s male-dominated government. 

In the Roost, Calla is a privileged human who lives among Those Above on the mountaintop. She is essentially a pampered slave, not that she would see herself that way. It is Calla who eventually emerges as the most sympathetic of the four main protagonists. And Thistle is a young thug who grew up in the vast slums on the edge of the city. Thistle’s eventual character arc is not difficult to predict, but it is difficult for him to break out of the patterns of behavior that he grew up with.

Those Above and Those Below are best thought of as a single long novel arbitrarily split in two. The pacing might not be everybody’s cup of tea, as the first ¾ of the story slowly, methodically builds toward a conclusion that, when it comes, feels thoroughly inevitable. But the slow buildup is important; it gives meaning to the tragedy that finally unfolds.

The final chapters of this story are unremittingly grim and sad. There is a sense that this was the only way the story could possibly play out, with human nature being what it is, and with the Eternals seemingly unwilling or unable to compromise. The violent end might have come at a later date, if things had gone differently, but it would still have come eventually. It’s not pretty when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

It may be tempting to find parallels between this story and the state of the world in 2019. If there is a lesson here, it is a warning of the horrific consequences if those at the pinnacle of power cannot change course or compromise with those they deem weaker.

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Haven't updated since May, ugh

I haven’t updated this in several months! It’s a bad habit to let this blog lie fallow. I should read more and write more.

Well, I’m going to try to update more regularly, now that I’m back from a 2 ½ week trip to Europe. What can I say? It was good to see family. Ate a lot of Western European sweets that put Taiwan to shame. We spent several days in Paris and nobody was rude to us -- it seems we missed out on a classic cultural experience. For the record, Marseille is a delightful, underrated city. And if you’re going to see immensely popular European tourist attractions, buy your tickets ahead of time whenever humanly possible.

Flying long-haul airlines is a good time to see movies. On the way to France I saw:

Toy Story 4: I like Pixar. I’ve never disliked a Pixar movie (bear in mind I’ve never seen any of the Cars movies). Oddly enough, I’ve never seen the very first Toy Story, a weird omission that I’ll have to rectify at some point. I’ve never really had an emotional connection to the Toy Story series, so I feel unqualified to say if it’s a good thing that they keep making movies after Toy Story 3 seemed to provide a definitive and satisfying end. But I can say that Toy Story 4 is quality entertainment and is as inventive as I would expect from any Pixar film.

Rocketman: An enjoyable look at Elton John’s music, though to be honest if you strip away the music and costumes there’s not much here. Actually, that’s a silly thing to say. The music and the costumes are the whole reason to watch.

Vice: I was curious about the oddball casting, especially Steve Carrell as Donald Rumsfeld, which kinda works if you accept he’s creating a new character rather than impersonating a real person. Overall though, although Vice has a few genuinely clever bits, it also has a lot of sarcastic snark that thinks it’s more clever than it actually is. A sober look at the Late Ante-Trump Era of the Republican Party could make for an interesting movie; whatever Vice is, it is not sober.

And on the way back I watched:

Amélie: I saw this one on the way home from Paris, feeling that I may as well watch it as it’s a well-known film, it hadn’t crossed my path before, and I’d just been in Paris. My verdict? I see what they were aiming at, but it wasn’t really to my taste. But allow me this one flight of fancy. Upon arriving in Paris I had managed to immediately lose my wallet (long story short, I’m an idiot). No one ever found it; it might as well have vanished into thin air. Watching Amélie, it suddenly occurred to me: Amélie is a real person, she found my wallet, and she was taking her time trying to think of the most whimsical, quirky way she could return it to me! Well, screw you, Amélie, I just wanted my wallet back.

Stan & Ollie: Having seen a bunch of Laurel and Hardy’s films as a kid, I was suitably primed for this film about L&H’s attempts to revive their career in the 1950s. As with all films of this type, great liberties have been taken with the real-life chronology, but the main thing most viewers will remember will be the acting by Steve Coogan and John C. Reily. The two actors, especially Reilly, do a superb job channeling L&H -- it’s an astonishing oversight that neither one received an Academy Award nomination. This is a low-key, understated film produced by people with an affection for a bygone era of show business.

As I said, now that I am back in Taiwan I shall try to post things more semi-regularly...