Out of Lascaux

Review: Games of Command

Games of Command
by Linnea Sinclair

Up 'til now, I have avoided any romances labeled "Science Fiction" because frankly, they usually aren't. They tend to be written by women who's only experience of SF comes from the Star Wars movies, and are pretty weak in the SF area.

So when I saw "Games of Command," I thought at first that it was actually SF. It has a very SF-looking cover, until you realize it's a beautiful woman and a hunky man. And the word "Romance" on the spine is a dead giveaway. I read the blurb and decided to give it a chance.

I was not disappointed. Linnea Sinclair knows her space opera, and she knows her romances, and she has blended them well. It has enough of each to keep it exciting. There are actually two romances, but the author strings us along on the really intriguing one between a command officer of the fleet with a shady past, and a cyber-engineered admiral who was once her enemy. It has all the right earmarks of a classic romance.

Now, Ms. Sinclair is no Catherine Asaro, but Asaro's books are still labeled "Science Fiction," so her novels are very heavy on the SF side while still being romances. I guess her publishers figure as long as she stays away from the romance formula, she can still write whatever she wants (romance formula: boy meets girl, girl hates boy, girl falls in love, conflict keeps them apart, they finally get together and live happily ever after). So, I recommend "Games of Command" only to fans of Science Fiction who are also fans of Romance novels.

His Majesty's Dragon

Let me start out by saying that I was never a huge fan of dragons. Sure, I read the Pern novels by Anne McCaffery when I was younger, but I didn't become obsessed by them or even sought out other books about dragons. That said, I inhaled His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik. I really couldn't put it down.

The premise is a cross between the Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwall, Patrick O'Brien's naval series, and Dragonriders of Pern. The story is set in an alternate universe where Napoleon is still the big bad bent on the conquest of England, but dragons are real. Not only are they real, but they are used as an aerial corps to support naval and ground troops.

Capt. Will Laurence is a dedicated naval captain, but when they capture a French ship with a very special egg on board, he knows his duty is to see that this dragon is brought safely home to England no matter the personal cost. And the cost at first seems very high, but we know that he will not feel this way for long, because everyone knows that dragons have a special relationship with their riders (at least, we do if we've read the Pern novels.)

The writing is very good, and I particularly enjoyed the bit at the end where Novik includes excerpts from the 18th century books on dragons that had been mentioned in the story. I also enjoyed the scene of dragons frolicking in the lake while their handlers look on in bemusement. My one problem with the book is that there are far too many species of dragons to keep track of. Don't ask me what a Regal Copper looks like, 'cause I couldn't tell you.

This is the first in a series, and I look forward to reading the rest, and anything she continues to write in the future.

His Majesty's Dragon at Amazon.

Naomi Novik's website.

The Lymond Chronicles

For Christmas, I received new copies of the last two books in the 6 book series Chronicles of Lymond by Dorothy Dunnett. Now, anyone who knows me knows these are my all time favorite books. I started reading them 30 years ago back when I was a teenager. Since then, I have re-read them a few dozen times. My old mass market paperbacks are so abused they have that heavy, clear packing tape all over them holding the covers on. And the covers are terrible, anyway; horrible, lurid 70's era romance novel covers. One of them doesn't even have the right time period portrayed - the books are set in the 16th century, but the cover for the book Pawn in Frankincense has a Napoleonic era couple on the front (ugh!). Anyway, I now own all the Vintage trade paperback editions, so I had to re-read them all again. I haven't read the entire series through in probably 20 years. I have been enjoying myself immensely ("Don't bother me right now; I'm at the courts of Ivan the Terrible and Mary Tudor today.")

Rather than write a whole review, I direct you to the numerous reviews on the Amazon pages (the link above). I do recommend them to anyone who enjoys epic historical fiction, ornate prose, exotic settings, court intrigue, action, adventure, and a main character to die for. Speaking of which, I took a quiz that only a Dunnett fan would appreciate, and apparently I am Francis Crawford of Lymond (though somehow I look like a young Peter O'Toole).

The Speed of Dark

By Eizabeth Moon

I had heard great things about this book; it's a Nebula award winner, I had seen great reviews, and I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Moon. But for some reason, I just did not get this book.

Lou Arrendale is an autistic man living in the not-too-distant future. He has had treatments and education that have made it possible for him to function well enough to hold down a job, live in his own apartment, and drive a car. But he and the others like him where he works are still "different." The story is basically that he gets stalked by an unstable acquaintance outside of work and bullied by his new boss at work. The real conflict is that there is an experimental "cure" for his condition, and he and his co-workers are forced to decide whether they want to try it or not.

Most of the book is told from Lou's point of view, in first person, present tense. The problem I had was that I never felt I was reading the thoughts of someone who was really unique. His language seemed artifically stilted, he sometimes had trouble understanding people, and he was a very sensitive person who had trouble dealing with social situations. But I found his interior monologue tedious after the first few chapters. It was like Moon was trying to convince me that Lou really was different by telling me over and over again how awkward he felt. I was never convinced. For a while I thought her point was that he wasn't so different, and the treatment was unecessary or a mistake. But that didn't seem to be it.

Perhaps it's because I have many of Lou's problems. Now, wait, I have never been considered as even slightly autistic, but I hate social situations and dread talking to people face to face - I'm great from behind a podium. I constantly wonder if I have offended someone with something I said, or if they are angry with me. I rarely look people in the eye. I have to remind myself and force myself to do it, but it feels unnatural to me. New situations make me nervous, and I will often avoid going new places by myself. These are the type of things that made Lou "different." So how could I see him as all that "different?"

I did enjoy his brief explorations into complex subjects like what is the speed of dark. Lou argued that if light has a speed, dark must have one also. But his philosophical and scientific ideas were a very small part of the book, not enough to make it that interesting. I would really like to hear from someone else who has read the book and can explain why it's considered "splendid," "graceful," "compelling," etc, etc. What did I miss?

Archangel Protocol

Archangel Protocol
by Lyda Morehouse
ROC, 2001

It's 2076, and the Medusa bomb turned parts of major cities to glass. Everyone is connected to the web by the LINK, everyone that is, except outlaws and poor people. And in this reality, anyone who has no declared faith or who is excommunicate is outside the law.

Deirdre McManus is one such person. Thrown off the police force, excommunicated from the Catholic Church and cut off from the LINK for her non-involvement in the assassination of the Pope, she lives on the edge of society, scraping by as a private investigator. She has hit rock bottom when a man by the name of Michael Angelucci comes to her with an offer she cannot refuse - access to the LINK.

We are told that many people have changed their name to some form of Angel due to the presence of the LINK Angels. The Archangels appeared on the LINK, showing themselves to people in a reality that seemed more than virtual, and they were unanimously proclaimed miraculous. But not everyone believes they have come from God, and Deirdre has been asked to find out the truth behind them.

This is Lyda Morehouse's first book. It's very good, even though there are some spots that feel rather amateurish. Archangel Protocol was hard to put down, and since my attention span has fizzled over the years, that's saying a lot. I highly recommend this book, especially to Unitarians. In this reality, Unitarians run the underground railroad for scientists, excommunicates, and secular humanists. Oh, yeah, there are a few UU in-jokes in this one, since Ms. Morehouse was "raised in the traditions of a Unitarian Universalist fellowship." But it also has a rather spiritual quality which gives it a rich texture as well. Ms.Morehouse is quite prolific, too - she has already published three more books since this one came out. I look forward to reading them as well.

Paintings that changed the world? - Part II

(Part I)

As I read through Paintings that Changed the World: From Lascaux to Picasso, I started to wonder if perhaps part of the problem was in translation. The original German title is Bilder, die die Welt bewegten: Von Lascaux bis Picasso, but the difference between the German and English title seems to be insignificant. The blurb on the back of the book says:

Paintings that Changed the World looks at ninety of history's greatest masterpieces to explain just what makes them great. Brief, informative essays examine each work from historic and cultural perspectives and offer intriguing observations and interesting anecdotes about the artists and their eras...

Boy, do I take issue with that statment. I really don't think the authors have given enough attention to the actual works they chose to include in this book. They spend more time discussing the event portrayed, or the artist who painted it, than they do talking about why that particular work is memorable.

Continuing with my review/revision of Paintings that Changed the World, I will skip several of the paintings they included, 1) because I don't think they are all that "earth-shaking" and 2) because I have no intention of re-writing the entire book. So, on to the the Byzantine Era.

Mosaics at San Vitale, Ravenna

The title the authors give to this entry is "From Brothel to Court: Masterpieces of art and architecture." They go on to describe Byzantium at this time, and the Emperor Justinian and his Empress Theodora, depicted here. The Emperor and Empress were definitely memorable; not only did Justinian build fine churches for the newly dominant Christian religion, he is also said to have married a prostitute.

The Byzantine historian Procopius said of her: "She bared her body front and back, inviting men to look at charms that are supposed to remain unseen, and became an expert in the techniques of exciting lust so as to hold worldly men in their thrall."

It is generally agreed that Procopius had issues, and probably exaggerated Theodora's lurid past to some extant. The authors are diligent in discussing Theodora, but nowhere do they actually mention the mosaic.

What makes this work so extraordinary is that up until this time, almost all church mosaics portrayed Christ or other sacred figures. There may have been a small figure of a donor added in a corner, but nothing like these grand processionals that flank the walls of San Vitale. Theodora and her women face Justinian and his court on the opposite wall. And if we are to believe even the tiniest hint of Procopius' vile rumours, Theodora would be the last person to be represented on the walls of a church.

The mosaics of San Vitale in themselves are breathtaking, from the image of Christ Enthroned to the Sacrifice of Abel and Melchisidec, the mosaics are unique in their richness of detail and expertise in execution. For more images, there's a Virtual tour of the main apse here, and a class slide list which covers many of the mosaics here (scroll down to the San Vitale section)

Next time: The Bayeaux Tapestry

Paintings that changed the world? - Part I

I recently purchased a book titled Paintings that Changed the World: From Lascaux to Picasso by Klaus Reichold and Bernhard Graf. It has lovely pictures, and I was curious to see which works they chose and why.

I have to say I was a bit disappointed. While I don't have very many quibbles with their choices, I don't think the authors explained why they chose the ones they did. Each painting has a page of text, but that text doesn't tell us what really makes the work so important. Here's an excerpt from the introduction:

Of course, no painting can really change the world! But who can question the influence of art? Who can deny that a painting can change the way we look at the world - or that artists have been influenced by world changes? An evolving world captured in paintings, and paintings that alter our view of the world: past and present, cause and effect.

The authors go on to say that, certain "works of art are paintings which have changed the world either by making history visible or creating history themselves." The first criteria is a bit vague, but I can agree with the second. The problem comes with the discussions of the works themselves. The authors don't really tell us how these works "changed the world." To my mind, many of their choices just didn't, and those that did were not sufficiently explained.

So, as a public service, I have decided to pick a few of the paintings they chose, and see if I can't explain why I think they made the right choice, even if they couldn't explain it themselves.

We'll begin where one should always begin this type of survey: with the caves at Lascaux.

Discovered in 1940 purely by chance, they were thought to be a hoax at first. No one thought primitive man could have produced such wonderful, realistic paintings of animals. The authors of the book say:

Unique in their vitality and remarkable in the skill with which they were executed, these pictures dramatically changed our view of art history. Until well into the nineteenth century, it was thought that art had developed gradually and in stages over time, similar to the way a child's art develops - from awkward beginnings to more polished forms.

This is certainly true, but it is only one way in which the caves at Lascaux have changed our perceptions. No one would ever have thought that 15000 years ago, our ancestors were creating any type of art. There is just so little in existance - a carved bone here, a figurine there - but nothing to tell us that there were incredibly talented artists.

One thing the authors here neglect to discuss is the artists themselves - what does it tell us about them? Scholars believe these were sacred caves - "cavemen" didn't actually live in caves if they could help it - and that the decorations may have had some magical power. This is an educated guess - for all we know, this could have just as easily been a dance hall or brothel as a sacred space. But we can tell that our ancestors were not the primitive, club-wielding creatures we assumed them to be.

And to top it all off, these paintings are stunning works of art.

Next time: the Byzantine Mosaics in San Vitale, Ravenna

The Sarantine Mosaic

I recently read the two-volume novel, The Sarantine Mosiac, on the advice of Joquandor (many thanks, and your new site design is quite lovely and easy on the eyes :-). I had attempted to read an early book by Guy Favriel Kay and found it unreadable. However, these two books, Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors were wonderful. They are catagorized as fantasy novels, but Kay has based his time, place and characters on the historical Byzantine Empire. It is so close to the actual Byzantium that the books read more like historical novels than fantasy. In fact, the fantasy element is mininimal. The magic comes from the "old gods" struggling for their existence as they are edged out by the belief in the one true God. If you have any interest in Byzantium or Early Christian Rome, read these books.

That being said, I just wanted to talk about the main chracter, Crispin the mosaicist, and his mosaics. Cripsin is called to Sarantium (sort of) to decorate the huge new dome being built by the Emperor Valerius II. One cannot sail to Sarantium without being changed, and Crispin is no exception. He is thrown head first into a maze of court intrigues - not as byzantine as in some stories I've read - but complicated enough. Crispin keeps trying to tell everyone that he is merely an artisan, as if one's vocation matters when a pawn is needed. He comes to know personally all the major players in a time of major upheavals.

Kay obviously did some extensive research on the Byzantine Empire as well as the art of mosaics. The most beautiful and most stunning mosaics still in situ are from this time period. Anyone who remembers Art 101 will remember the mosaics at Ravenna.



The image above is the Empress Theodora and her retinue. A very good basic paper on her can be found here. The Empress Alixana in Kay's books is not so loosely based on Theodora.



This is the Emperor Justinian. Both of these mosaics are on the walls of St. Apollinare in Ravenna, Italy, done in the late 6th century. You can see more of the mosaics here

Without giving anything away, let's just say that these images will play a major role in the books. However, as I read his descriptions of the mosaics, I realized he was not talking about early Christian art, but rather late Roman. Early Christian art, as seen above, is very stiff and formal, and not as concerned with rendering images realistically as with representing an idea in icon form. Roman art, on the other hand, was more about the real world and the things and people around us.

I found a great site for examples of Roman mosaics, but the images are BBC copywrited, so just go there and click on the first three images on the list at the top of the page and marvel at the beauty of these images. Where Byzantine mosaics are grand and stately, calculated to overwhelm the viewer with their awesome power and glittering surface, the Roman mosaics are fine paintings, delicately created to capture the essence of the person or thing.

In Sailing to Sarantium, Kay describes Crispin's design for the new dome as a huge landscape showing land and sea and Sarantium itself, as well as an image of the god. There is an amount of detail that just does not appear in early Christian works of any kind. Crispin's mosaic is more of a mixture of the two arts.

Anyway, it's a very good read, and now you have some background for the images. It kind of gives the story an even richer texture when you have these images in your mind. Happy reading!

Art of War

A while back I blogged a the new art book Art of War by Col.H. Avery Chenoweth. I can't find the original link because it was back on Blogspot. Never mind. To my delight, I found the book at Barnes and Noble for the unbelievably cool price of $14.95. You can't beat that with a stick, not for a coffee table sized art book, even one in paperback.

This is a beautiful book. Chenoweth brings experience with the Marine Corps and a degree in art together to present a well thought out document of America at war. His premise is that there are different types of war art, and that combat art - his focus - can only be created by eyewitnesses who do not distort the truth. Any "poetic license" taken by an artist changes the art from combat art to illustration. So, having set up his premise, Chenoweth proceeds to document combat art from the Revolution to the present day.

I loved it when I would turn a page and see a gorgeous reproduction of a truly wonderful piece of art and think, that guy was brilliant. Then I would find out it was Albert Bierstadt or Winslow Homer or Frederick Remington. Definitely worth a look.

Our armed forces have a huge art collection. Because they are owned by the US Government, they are public domain. Give me a day or two and I will post some fo the more spectacular images.