"The Myriad"
May. 30th, 2006 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowI think I've mentioned before my liking for the novels of R. M. Meluch. It's been a long time since her last, and so I ordered The Myriad as soon as I knew it to be available.
The front matter quotes a Booklist reviewer:
Be that as it may, The Myriad definitely is MilSF. It's the first, apparently, of a series - Tour of the Merrimack - and I suppose I'll follow it, but I didn't find it as intriguing as her earlier work. A few random comments, marginally spoilery, are under the cut.
1. There is a common type of scene, often found in works of this type, wherein the realistic military heroes confront idealistic and foolish civilians. You'll see it in Niven & Pournelle, in Anderson, in Heinlein, and in a variety of other places, and I find it tiresome, mainly because of the strawmen set up as the civilians. (The question being debated is a legitimate one, but it's rarely presented as anything but one-sided.) It shows up again here, which bugged me. I came away from the book dissatisfied... but then thought about it some more. The civilians are, indeed, foolish, and their words and actions deserve the contempt with which they are met. However, the actions of the military leaders do, indeed, lead to disaster - not the one the civilians had predicted, but a worse one. On the other hand, ill-advised actions by the civilians exacerbate the situation... And even that doesn't tie the matter up; the disaster has... a curious and in some ways beneficial aftermath.
2. One item that didn't set well with me was the central conceit of the Palatine Empire: an interstellar rival to the Earth-based (and US-led) forces, founded by - I kid you not - an immense and centuries-spanning conspiracy of people loyal to the notion of the Roman Empire, who, at the first opportunity, refounded it in space. I'm sorry, but my WSoD doesn't stretch that far.
3. The ending, as I said, is curious, and I'm not altogether pleased with it. Among other things, it ensures that the remaining volumes won't be (in a certain sense) sequels to this one, even if they share many characters. It's odd; Meluch does achieve some nice effects, ending it the way she did, but it feels like cheating. It always does. And that's all I'll say about that.
Overall verdict: well, okay. I'm curious to see where she goes next, but this isn't quite up to par for her, in my judgement. I still rate The Queen's Squadron as her best.
Tangential addendum: Two of the Star Trek movies - Nemesis and First Contact - were, indeed, rated PG-13. The first of the movies was rated G; all the rest were PG.
The front matter quotes a Booklist reviewer:
After a 10-years hiatus, a distinguished military SF writer returns to print with a zany adventure that might be considered a PG-13-rated Star Trek.Which puzzles me. I wouldn't class Meluch's work as MilSF; I could see putting The Queen's Squadron in that category, perhaps, and sufficient determination could stretch the definition to cover Jerusalem Fire, but surely not Chicago Red. There may be other works of hers I'm unaware of, but we're not talking about Drake, Weber, or Pournelle here.
Be that as it may, The Myriad definitely is MilSF. It's the first, apparently, of a series - Tour of the Merrimack - and I suppose I'll follow it, but I didn't find it as intriguing as her earlier work. A few random comments, marginally spoilery, are under the cut.
1. There is a common type of scene, often found in works of this type, wherein the realistic military heroes confront idealistic and foolish civilians. You'll see it in Niven & Pournelle, in Anderson, in Heinlein, and in a variety of other places, and I find it tiresome, mainly because of the strawmen set up as the civilians. (The question being debated is a legitimate one, but it's rarely presented as anything but one-sided.) It shows up again here, which bugged me. I came away from the book dissatisfied... but then thought about it some more. The civilians are, indeed, foolish, and their words and actions deserve the contempt with which they are met. However, the actions of the military leaders do, indeed, lead to disaster - not the one the civilians had predicted, but a worse one. On the other hand, ill-advised actions by the civilians exacerbate the situation... And even that doesn't tie the matter up; the disaster has... a curious and in some ways beneficial aftermath.
2. One item that didn't set well with me was the central conceit of the Palatine Empire: an interstellar rival to the Earth-based (and US-led) forces, founded by - I kid you not - an immense and centuries-spanning conspiracy of people loyal to the notion of the Roman Empire, who, at the first opportunity, refounded it in space. I'm sorry, but my WSoD doesn't stretch that far.
3. The ending, as I said, is curious, and I'm not altogether pleased with it. Among other things, it ensures that the remaining volumes won't be (in a certain sense) sequels to this one, even if they share many characters. It's odd; Meluch does achieve some nice effects, ending it the way she did, but it feels like cheating. It always does. And that's all I'll say about that.
Overall verdict: well, okay. I'm curious to see where she goes next, but this isn't quite up to par for her, in my judgement. I still rate The Queen's Squadron as her best.
Tangential addendum: Two of the Star Trek movies - Nemesis and First Contact - were, indeed, rated PG-13. The first of the movies was rated G; all the rest were PG.
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Date: 2006-05-30 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-30 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-30 10:29 pm (UTC)Interesting, SE (and other Nordic) codes seem to be two years less. So a PG13-movie is an 11-movie and an R-movie is a 15-movie.
But at times, the difference is considerably bigger. Brokeback Mountain is a "7" movie in Sweden (I guess younger kids might have trouble with the subtitles :-) ) but an "R" in the US. ;-)