Book: The black opera
Sep. 10th, 2012 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livAuthor: Mary Gentle
Details: (c) 2012 Mary Gentle; Pub 2012 Night Shade Books; ISBN 978-1-59780-219-2
Verdict: The black opera is exuberantly fun alt-history.
Reasons for reading it: I am a big fan of Mary Gentle, so I was really excited to find a new book by her.
How it came into my hands: I think I was looking for the sequel to Kameron Hurley's God's war, and they share the same slightly off-beam publisher, Night Shade Books. I can't check that because their website is horribly broken at the moment, both the search and the browse functions.
The black opera exhibits many of Gentle's strengths and relatively few of her weaknesses. I've been pretty much smiling constantly since I started reading it, and spent much of the weekend absorbed in it. It's alt-history, where Gentle, a professional historian, has picked a very specific setting which isn't one of the obvious cliché periods: early nineteenth century Naples, with ghosts and zombies and limited magic. So tBO appeals to the zeitgeist, the feel is a bit proto-steampunky, with the protagonist an atheist / skeptic / science fan, and the presence of ever-popular undead in a setting with fairly strict social protocols. But it's very much not yet another Pride and prejudice and zombies clone, but something quite original.
As with many of Gentle's other fantastical history pieces, notably Ash, the history part is in many ways more skillfully executed than the fantasy part. You've got a really rich setting, with a bunch of characters who, while sympathetic to a modern reader, are very much part of their time and society, and I found myself really caring about the politics of a random small kingdom in pre-unification Italy. I was kind of confused by the mention of Naples being in Sicily, but browsing Wikipedia it turns out that the Two Sicilies actually existed and the Bourbon King Ferdinand, a major secondary character in tBO, was a real historical figure.
But the magic in this very fun and vivid setting is, honestly, kind of meh. The connection between music and magic is quite cool, because it's understated, and Gentle doesn't try too much to get into the mechanics of it. The descriptions of the two different flavours of undead that exist in this setting are reasonably creepy and reasonably original, but the fun part is how they interact with the historical setting, they're not outstanding in a field which is a bit overcrowded with variations on the zombie theme. What I felt really let the book down was the Emergent God thing; the portrayal is way too plot-convenient, and lacks any real sense of mysticism.
What made the book so enjoyable for me is the characterization. Conrad is a delightful main character; in some ways he reminds me of Yudkowski's take on Harry Potter, being an intelligent, rigorously logical person who believes passionately in the scientific method, but finds himself in a world where magic is in fact real. He's lower-middle-class, which is refreshing to see in a world with the usual fantasy trappings of a monarchy and fascinatingly glamorous nobles and aristorcrats. He's bright and talented without being a super-genius, loyal and occasionally courageous without being implausibly awesome. There's an absolutely glorious bromance thing going on between him and his army comrade / manservant, and I really enjoyed the portrayal of how he almost finds himself becoming friends with his king but rank prevents the relationship from really developing to its full potential.
There's a rather fun assortment of what in modern terms we would call queer characters, who are very much part of a setting where the understanding of gender and sexuality is very different from two hundred years later. The conservative Catholic milieu of the general society, the practical reality of people who don't have the luxury of strict gender roles, and the specific setting of the opera company where things are rather more fluid all play in to how these characters come across. Conrad's sister Isaura-Paolo is a really brilliant character, she starts out as the cliché of a feisty, independent girl who escapes her sexist milieu by running away dressed as a boy, but there's some very interesting exploration of how she experiences gender. There's a minor character, Sandrine, who is hinted as being trans, plus some background about castrati characters.
The other thing I really like about tBO is the love triangle. If Gentle is a bit under skilled at portraying magic, she's very good at all-consuming true love, which is a kind of magic in some ways even if it's an accepted trope in mimetic fiction. The relationship between Conrad and his rival is also exquisite; I often dislike love triangles, but this one is really compelling. And the way it's resolved and how that ties in with the plot climax is absolutely masterful. I actually found the political plot a bit predictable; I could so easily guess who the traitors would turn out to be that I assumed that I must be falling for misdirection, but no, my first guess was right. But the development of the romance plot is the opposite, full of really clever and unexpected twists.
Details: (c) 2012 Mary Gentle; Pub 2012 Night Shade Books; ISBN 978-1-59780-219-2
Verdict: The black opera is exuberantly fun alt-history.
Reasons for reading it: I am a big fan of Mary Gentle, so I was really excited to find a new book by her.
How it came into my hands: I think I was looking for the sequel to Kameron Hurley's God's war, and they share the same slightly off-beam publisher, Night Shade Books. I can't check that because their website is horribly broken at the moment, both the search and the browse functions.
The black opera exhibits many of Gentle's strengths and relatively few of her weaknesses. I've been pretty much smiling constantly since I started reading it, and spent much of the weekend absorbed in it. It's alt-history, where Gentle, a professional historian, has picked a very specific setting which isn't one of the obvious cliché periods: early nineteenth century Naples, with ghosts and zombies and limited magic. So tBO appeals to the zeitgeist, the feel is a bit proto-steampunky, with the protagonist an atheist / skeptic / science fan, and the presence of ever-popular undead in a setting with fairly strict social protocols. But it's very much not yet another Pride and prejudice and zombies clone, but something quite original.
As with many of Gentle's other fantastical history pieces, notably Ash, the history part is in many ways more skillfully executed than the fantasy part. You've got a really rich setting, with a bunch of characters who, while sympathetic to a modern reader, are very much part of their time and society, and I found myself really caring about the politics of a random small kingdom in pre-unification Italy. I was kind of confused by the mention of Naples being in Sicily, but browsing Wikipedia it turns out that the Two Sicilies actually existed and the Bourbon King Ferdinand, a major secondary character in tBO, was a real historical figure.
But the magic in this very fun and vivid setting is, honestly, kind of meh. The connection between music and magic is quite cool, because it's understated, and Gentle doesn't try too much to get into the mechanics of it. The descriptions of the two different flavours of undead that exist in this setting are reasonably creepy and reasonably original, but the fun part is how they interact with the historical setting, they're not outstanding in a field which is a bit overcrowded with variations on the zombie theme. What I felt really let the book down was the Emergent God thing; the portrayal is way too plot-convenient, and lacks any real sense of mysticism.
What made the book so enjoyable for me is the characterization. Conrad is a delightful main character; in some ways he reminds me of Yudkowski's take on Harry Potter, being an intelligent, rigorously logical person who believes passionately in the scientific method, but finds himself in a world where magic is in fact real. He's lower-middle-class, which is refreshing to see in a world with the usual fantasy trappings of a monarchy and fascinatingly glamorous nobles and aristorcrats. He's bright and talented without being a super-genius, loyal and occasionally courageous without being implausibly awesome. There's an absolutely glorious bromance thing going on between him and his army comrade / manservant, and I really enjoyed the portrayal of how he almost finds himself becoming friends with his king but rank prevents the relationship from really developing to its full potential.
There's a rather fun assortment of what in modern terms we would call queer characters, who are very much part of a setting where the understanding of gender and sexuality is very different from two hundred years later. The conservative Catholic milieu of the general society, the practical reality of people who don't have the luxury of strict gender roles, and the specific setting of the opera company where things are rather more fluid all play in to how these characters come across. Conrad's sister Isaura-Paolo is a really brilliant character, she starts out as the cliché of a feisty, independent girl who escapes her sexist milieu by running away dressed as a boy, but there's some very interesting exploration of how she experiences gender. There's a minor character, Sandrine, who is hinted as being trans, plus some background about castrati characters.
The other thing I really like about tBO is the love triangle. If Gentle is a bit under skilled at portraying magic, she's very good at all-consuming true love, which is a kind of magic in some ways even if it's an accepted trope in mimetic fiction. The relationship between Conrad and his rival is also exquisite; I often dislike love triangles, but this one is really compelling. And the way it's resolved and how that ties in with the plot climax is absolutely masterful. I actually found the political plot a bit predictable; I could so easily guess who the traitors would turn out to be that I assumed that I must be falling for misdirection, but no, my first guess was right. But the development of the romance plot is the opposite, full of really clever and unexpected twists.
