They were free on the library free bookshelf, OKAY?
Not actually free, but only 50 cents was
That’ll learn me to play hooky, I guess. Send help.
(In between The Shadow pulps, naturally. I’m at #189 and counting.)
– The Book of Dreams – Jack Vance. This may have been my very first Vance novel, and as such it’s a great introduction; it’s one of his very most Vancian. That being said, it’s not the very best Demon Princes novel, and as the capstone to the pentalogy, it rather pales in comparison with its predecessor, The Face.
– The Old Gods Waken – Manly Wade Wellman. Dude, you spent an entire book building up to the climactic confrontation and fight, and then solved it by accident in a single paragraph. What the hell?
– Warriors of Blood and Dream – various, edited by Roger Zelazny. This is an anthology of martial arts stories, of various genres and styles, and also of quality. Some of them are actually quite good–the Monkey King’s grandson accidentally ussuring Communism into China, for one; and the final story, wherein a dead and dreaming monster from the city of the Anasazi, the ancient enemy ones, awakens in the present day. (That one ran over its allotted length and you can kind of see exactly when the author checked his pages, winced, and started typing faster. Still quite good.)
– The Prince Commands – Andre Norton. I love this book. It’s a perfect little example of its kind, and if I knew any kids that would read it, I’d buy extra copies for them. (None of the brats I know would read it or even be allowed to, so….)
– Sleepwalker’s World – Gordon R. Dickson. This one starts off very strongly indeed, but Dickson decided to swing away from hard-edged scifi of the sort that did his protagonists well in Wolfling and On Messenger Mountain, in favor of a more psychedelic style….and, unfortunately, stays there. Which is a pity, because he had a really great setup and, frankly, the talking telepathic timber wolf was awesome.
Or, it’s a lot easier to name kids after your favorite SF/F heroes if they’re your kids….
Adam (Reith): Jack Vance’s Planet of Adventure cycle. (Portrayed here by Keir Dullea in 2001: A Space Odyssey, because that’s pretty much what I imagine Adam Reith to look like).
“He looks creepy.”
“He’s this ice cold, stone cold badass space scout guy who gets crash landed on an alien planet. And then he has adventures.”
“Brrr! Look at those eyes!”
“Yeah, ain’t they nice? And then he has to basically build his own space ship to go back home again.”
“…”
“…”
“It’s a good name!”
Aragorn (Lord of the Rings)
“He don’t look like that no more.”
“Doesn’t matter, he’s Aragorn!”
Ben, Benedict (of Amber): The Chronicles of Amber. (Here portrayed by Gary Cooper as portraying Howard Roarke in The Fountainhead. I suppose Howard or even Roarke wouldn’t have gone amiss as entries on this list, but never mind.)
“I dunno who this guy is.”
“He’s a Prince of Amber! He’s the greatest swordsman in the worl–no, he’s the greatest swordsman in the universe. Any universe.”
Brandoch (Daha): The Worm Ouroborous.
“Ohhhh, I remember him.”
“Yes, that’s Errol Flynn. But the character is named Brandoch Daha. He’s this guy in The Worm Ouroborous, he’s a real dandy and he’s also the greatest swordsman in the world.”
“I thought you said that the other guy was the greatest swordsman in the world!”
“No, Benedict is the greatest swordsman in the universe. He’s better than Brandoch Daha.”
“Whatever.”
Carthoris: ERB’s Barsoom cycle. (Here portrayed by Eric Schweig from Last of the Mohicans)
“Car…thoris…? That’s a horrible name!”
“It’s a combination of his parent’s names! John Carter and Dejah Thoris! Car-Thoris!”
“Next!”
Corwin/Carl/Corey: The Chronicles of Amber (AKA, Tyrone Power)
“I remember Corwin.”
“You do?”
“You used to tell me alllllll about him.”
“Yeah, isn’t he cool?”
“Next.”
Duncan (AKA: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, as seen in The Prisoner of Zenda): Dune, Dune Messiah. The greatest swordsman in the universe. (It’s a different universe from the other one.) How great? His enemies were so impressed they brought him back to life after swarming him to death with sheer numbers.
“Y’know, I’m sensing a trend here.”
“Shut up.”
Eric (John Stark): Leigh Brackett’s Mars, Venus, and Skaith.
“Oh, Leigh Brackett!”
“Yes! I mean, I barely blog about her books but they were really good. This guy is like Tarzan.”
“Oh.”
“…on Venus.”
“I can see why you like him.”
“WHATEVER.”
Gilgamesh (Wulfenbach): Girl Genius. The one and only schmott guy. Und hiz hat!
“GILGAMESH? Are you serious?”
“…well, you could call him Gil.”
“…”
“It could be a middle name!”
“…”
“Look, he’s got a hat.”
“NEXT.”
Harry (Copperfield Blackstone Dresden): The Dresden Files.
“Next.”
“Awwww, but I like Harry.”
Julian (of Amber)
“Oh! I know him! That’s Charlton Heston!”
Juss (The Worm Ouroborous) (AKA: Robert Taylor in Ivanhoe), Lord of Demonland (don’t worry, they’re really only from Mercury and he’s actually the hero), Prince among princes, and a really good guy overall.
“Juss?”
“Or Justin. Or Justinian…and you could just call him Juss.”
“Juss.”
“Yeah!”
“Juss.”
“It’s nice, innit?”
“…No.”
John (Clayton, Carter, Dillulo…): Tarzan, Barsoom, and Edmund Hamilton’s Merc Captain in the Starwolf series. It’s a good name, OK? This one happens to be Gordon Scott of the John Clayton fame.
“John. John’s a good name.”
“It’s a classic.”
“So–”
“Keep going.”
Kirth (Gersen): The man who defeated The Demon Princes.
“Kirth. OK, I like Kirth.”
“His family was killed and sold into slavery by these five master criminals, and then his grandfather trained him as an assassin detective and he spent the rest of his life tracking them down one by one and killing them. They were such–they were these criminal overlords, like–they were so powerful and feared that people called them the Demon Princes.”
“Oh.”
“And, he got them all.”
“And then what did he do?”
“Heh, the last page of the last book is him wondering what he’s going to do next.”
Leto (Duke of Arrakis and Caladan): Dune. Leto’s limited screentime doesn’t really get to show how cool a character this guy really is.
“Leto. Leto. It sounds like a middle school name.”
“….uh?”
“It does!”
“…you could be ahead of the curve?–no, you’d be behind the curve.”
“–behind the curve, yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s a cool character though!”
“Next.”
Luke: (The Legend of Luke)Father of Martin the Warrior, foe of Vilu Daskar, blood brother to Ranguvar Foeseeker, liberator of the slaves!
“Whaaaat! Oh, ahahahahahaaa, that’s hilarious. ”
“Those books were really awesome.”
Martin The Warrior: Redwall. Because REDWAAAAAAALLLLLLL! EULALIA! LOGALOGALOGALOG!
“Because Redwaaaaaalll! Yue–Eue–Eulalia! Logalogalogalog! Heh heh heh.”
Miles (Vorkosigan): Lois Bujold’s The Vorkosigan Saga
“Who is this guy?”
“He’s–”
“I don’t know who this guy is. Why is his face on fire?”
“It’s symbolic.”
“Why did you pick a symbolic picture?”
“…because it was symbolic and it represented the character well!”
“His face is ON FIRE.”
“IT IS NOT.”
Solomon (Kane): Robert E Howard’s Solomon Kane mythos.
“Oh! I like this guy. Who is this guy?”
“He’s a Puritan in old England who goes around smiting evil. With a sword.”
“Hm!”
“Down from the hills came Solomon Kane…there’s a poem somewhere. Dang, I should have linked to it or something.”
“He’s very cool looking.”
“He’s very cool.”
“Put a link to the poem up!”
“Oh, ok. Since you asked for it.”
Roger: The man who gave us many worlds, glimpses of grandeur, nobility and fun that might otherwise have been lost to ours. Thanks, man. I loved your books.
“I didn’t read any of his books.”
“Shut up.”
This book is Space Opera–as written by one of the Old Masters, first of the breed, foremost among those that led the way and titan to those that followed–at its finest. I mean, his nickname was “World Wrecker,” you can’t get better than that. There’s a different adventure every 1.5 chapters, a space princess, a scantily-clad space-concubine, grizzled space-captains, battleships, cruisers, phantoms, cunning or treacherous advisors, quarrelsome barons, and grim and gallant fighting men. There’s the lurking menace of the Clouded Worlds’ rebel fanatics and the legendary, unknowable, unutterably fearsome threat of The Disruptor that keeps even their cynical leader in line. There’s also, to make sense of it all, a present-day (1949) protagonist who has had his consciousness transferred into the body of a star-Prince–and thence suddenly into the teeth of the action itself. But what can a man of Earth–our Earth–do when the stars themselves are at stake?
Aaaaand that’s basically it. If you feel you need to somehow know more about this book, then you ought to read it.
It’s a book that reads incredibly quickly and hits every single pulp fiction trope that it possibly can without changing genres (and that even includes the crashed ship being attacked by hostile natives….if there had been space for even a single chapter more there would have been some sort of sword-against-sword action going on.) –but yet there’s a consummate level of skill involved that carries it all off.
Partly, it’s the prose, which sells the sensawunda that can only be achieved by an active imagination, a yearning for stars yet-unreached, deep knowledge of the past that informs the actual doings and behaviors of mankind; and a nimble pen that doesn’t flinch from a little bit of mauve from time to time (see: scantily-clad space concubine.) The other part is that Hamilton actually did know his business, and, preposterous though the plot is, makes it proceed logically from the actions of intelligent and motivated actors, one of which is often–but not always–our hero.
A third and crucial part is that our hero is a hero. Starting out from an ex-soldier with a yearning for more than his old accounting job will offer him, and thrust abruptly into the whirl of galactic politics and treachery, he accounts himself well, never forgetting that he owes a debt to the true Zarth Arn, whose face he wears and whose place he has taken. Also, another tribute to Hamilton’s prowess, although John Gordon is an outsider with only a cursory knowledge of the situation, never once does anyone to sit down and explain things to him (us) in simple language. While he’s no moron, he’s always scrambling to achieve an in-scene, in-person goal–to keep his cover, to bluff the enemy, to not break his morganatic wife’s heart–and he’s doing it with limited resources and high stakes.
The other characters suffer from the fact that this is a pulp novel at heart. They’re colorful, they’re placed to provide maximum interest, and they all give the impression that, given more time to navel-gaze, they could be turned into interesting persons indeed, rather than what is simply given them by their descriptors–space-princess, stalwart captain, sneaky advisor, cynical tyrant.
The one character who does do particularly well in this is, oddly enough, the cynical space-tyrant who leads the fanatics of the (?) Clouded Worlds. Shorr Kan is an odd duck of an antagonist, professing a fanatical hatred against the Empire that he in no ways feels; his own desire is for naked power alone. He’s cunning enough to seed the elitest ranks of the Empire with his own men, assassinate the Emperor and frame his own son for it, cold-blooded enough to use a brain scan device that, on uncovering neural connections, breaks them irreparably….and yet human enough to immediately switch the device off when it reveals that he’s got the wrong man. Mind you, he’s also dumb enough to let his suddenly-ultracooperative prisoner take his girlfriend along on a harebrained scheme that couldn’t possibly go wrong, so…perhaps his defeat was more inevitable than it seemed. Apparently he gets brought back for the sequel, so.
Rated: man once dreamed of the stars!
I have broken the bonds of the narrow land Laid open the book of dreams, Drawn doorways in the sand, a dark traveling With high fellowship or dread companion From the last castle to the end of eternity; strangers and pilgrims in a strange land, The stars my destination. When the world turned upside down, From the earth's core to a starpilot's grave, For a breath I tarried a long time until now: I saw the doors of his mouth open the lamps of his eyes shine A final rose bloom for Ecclesiastes and no night, ever, without stars. I will fear no evil, not the black god's kiss, or the red nails' gleam; Daemon, sidhe-devil, or devil in iron: For the stars are ours, and the stars burn. What's it like out there, Down Skagganauk Abyss, At the birthplace of creation, At the crossroads of time? In this moment of the storm, There is time enough for love, Soul music sung by no woman born, The light of other days upon A many-colored land. The door into tomorrow opens A house of many ways; The eyes of the overworld seek patterns in chaos, Equal rites are observed, And no man sayeth call him lord. Somewhither east of Eden, children of the mind Play peter-power-armor, awaiting childhood's end-- All mimsy are the borogoves! Who goes there, out of the dark To the light fantastic? Creatures there are of light and darkness: When true night falls on the borders of infinity The dark side of the sun casts slithering shadows Down the long tomorrow. Nightfall. After dark, Ancient, my enemy, the old gods waken. Alas, Babylon! The city and the stars! Something wicked this way comes. Beyond the black river, a man rides through, And only I am escaped to tell thee. Soldier, ask not, lest darkness fall, Of unfinished tales or a dry, quiet war. Take iron counsel of the cold equations; Ours is the fury--a high crusade-- To bring in the steel with our brothers in arms, Til the mountains of mourning crumble And a fire is upon the deep, Til the shards of honor are gathered The forever war is won, The guns of Avalon go silent, And the long patrol come home. Where the path of the fury takes us Though foundation and empire crumble, And the stars asunder wrend, If the price of the stars Be the broken sword; If the price of the stars Be the human edge, By God, we have paid it dear! Sleeper, awaken! Out of the silent planet To your scattered bodies go; Sail beyond the sunset in a boat of a million years. Bid farewell again to the homes of men and the cool, green hills of earth. A citizen of the galaxy, I have space suit and I will travel Beyond the farthest star.
People who like words, or who are writers, or who have spent too much time in pursuit of an English degree, are generally aware of the existence of palindromes, words or phrases which are the same spelled backwards or forwards. “Tenet,” or “pull-up,” or 02/02/2020, or “do geese see God.” Slightly nerdier people will be aware of the Sator Square, a historical palindrome phrase which can be read in multiple directions and has either a mystical or a vaguely Christian meaning. The word “tenet” also means “principle,” or “doctrine,” or a belief maintained to be true and followed. (Wow, so are layers of meaning here in a simple title? Woww! That’s incredible! Is your mind blown yet?…no?…uh…why not?) Well, maybe if someone in this movie started discussing theistic and/or electrical geese….
Science fiction readers are aware of the fact that there are not, and never have been, a “science fiction” movie genre. This is because science fiction, at its core, is a genre of wonder, imagination, intelligence, and creativity, attributes which writers of screenplays, producers of movies, directors, or actors, do not have.
But Aliens! But, Terminator! But Star Wars! But, but, but Blade Runner! These movies, alas, prove my thesis: that there isn’t an actual sci-fi genre to film, just other genres dressed up in fancier clothing and with different names thrown in. Aliens? It’s a Western. The Cavalry has been trapped at the scene of the massacre. The Injuns are wearing green rubber masks. Terminator? It’s a straight-up slasher thriller with a few special effects thrown in. (If Cameron had wanted to be an auteur, he would have left out the reveal of the Terminator as an actual cyborg and just let later generations argue over whether or not Kyle Reese was insane….at the least that would have spared us the sequels.) Blade Runner? Guys, it’s a color film noir with anxiety about how Asia was taking over the world. Star Wars is jidai geki in space.
So what does this have to do with Tenet? It’s a terrible scifi movie, that’s what. But it’s a pretty good contemporary action-thriller. Christopher Nolan’s reach exceeds his grasp, which is too bad, because his grasp also exceeds his imagination in this case. Not a single element of the time-travel makes sense. Not one. Not even in-universe. Not even when you try to think about how it could work, the way it does, instead of how it should work, the way it would when you apply those same exact rules and limitations to it. The whole point of mentioning the Grandfather Paradox is figuring out how to work around it, morons: kill him after your father has been conceived; or take a DNA test to find that Grandma was cheating; or become your own grandfather and live out the stable time loop. The whole point of a timeywimey device means that your first wave is a super sneaky recon squad, ri–oh. Oh, okay then.
I haven’t and won’t attempt to summarize the plot of this movie, because a) puzzlement, b) extreme rage will result. This is genuinely a movie that rewards turning your brain off and watching the show. Is that what Christopher Nolan thought he was making? Probably not, but who knows. He might even think he was making a scifi movie.
But! The action is great, the explosions are more than adequately firey, the locations are exotic, lush, and filmed in Technicolor; and there are several setpieces which genuinely appear to have been filmed live. The cast is uniformly very easy on the eyes, and, crucially, the characters are rounded, sympathetic, charismatic, and understandable. The characters are what make this movie, because let me tell you, no one is in it for the plot, including Christopher Nolan.
There’s Kat, the extremely tall but still fragile loving mother–and abused wife–of an evil man. There’s Neil, who knows a hell of a lot more than he says, and who saves the world. There’s…uh, let’s see, there’s that Indian lady. There’s even the bad guy, who, while still being an evil and unsympathetic person, shows enough recognizable human emotion that he’s, yes, an actual character with actual thoughts and actual motivations–not just a convenient hate sink for the audience. (Also: after beating a traitor to death with a gold bar, he checks his fitbit. “Ninety-eight. Not bad for such exertion.”)
Then you have the protagonist, who….
….Well, he’s poorly served by the movie, in a methane-sniffing moment deciding to name him “Protagonist;” there’s really no buildup to support the grand end reveal (that he is the mastermind behind the secret organization protecting the world); there’s zero chemistry between him and The Really Tall Damsel In Distress; and….
But, small idiocies aside….he’s a cool, capable, active hero. You don’t see many of those these days. He should be celebrated for being a cool hero guy who does good, heroic things. And y’know, he saves the world and the girl to boot. That counts as doing a pretty darned good job, these days.
Rated: I’m waiting for Fimbulwinter, myself….
So due to hazardous road conditions in my area I’m stuck at home; and after receiving a ringing endorsement from film-authority for the rom-com Book of Love, I decided to watch Boss Level.
Overall….it’s fun movie. There are some directly meta bits (“Is that a katana?” “Psht, no, that would be Japanese.” “Let’s not bring racism into this.”) which don’t quite stick out like sore thumbs because the entire tone is so self-referential to begin with. There’s also a slam against “liberals,” which made me smile even though it’s the villain who makes it, so.
There’s not a whole lot to say about this movie that hasn’t been said already or made abundantly clear from the trailer. It’s a movie.
It has a beginning, an middle, a twist that raises stakes, and then an end. It has handsome and charismatic Frank Grillo, who handles the rather disappointingly basic action scenes with aplomb. It has Mel Gibson, uttering a performance that wouldn’t have gone amiss in a much better movie. It has about Michelle Yeoh, probably only present because someone in the production acquired compromising photos of her and negotiated her presence on set for an hour or two. I like to imagine she beheaded said producer with a prop sword when filming was done and left the set unchallenged. It has a cute kid who is not even annoying. It has an assassiness with her own tagline (“I am Guan Yin. And Guan Yin has done this!”) which probably really confused my coworkers when I added it to my email signature yesterday.
It’s a fun movie and I rather liked it.
Problem is: this could have been a serious, fun movie. It could have been a contender. It wouldn’t have been very hard, either. All it would have taken was a few more adjustments: a little bit less meandering during the first/discovery half of the movie, a little bit more earnestness during the action scenes, and a lot more focus on Grillo discovering the plot rather than getting humorously killed and reset dozens of times.
(There was also enormous potential for the damsel/girlfriend to be the ultimate villain/ess…given that she unhesitatingly and unapologetically used Roy and sent him to a horrible death literally hundreds of times, without his consent. Her character remains something of a blank because of this. Now, it could have been very simply solved by a very short line of dialogue along the lines of: “It’s been a long time since we were together. Would you still come and rescue me if I needed it?” “Of course!” Or, even with just the assurance at the end that “Hey. When I come back, will you go out with me again?” “Yes. Always.”
People complain about damsels having to be rescued. What they ought to complain about is damsels who don’t deserve to be rescued. As it is, lacking these notes, the damsel-mastermind came across [to me] as fairly unsympathetic, and this whole plot thread in my mind is simply fan speculation, adding depth and complexity to a script that doesn’t have and isn’t interested in such things. Oh well.)
Rated: an act of love and self-defense ought to be praised.
Also rated: I AM GUAN YIN AND GUAN YIN HAS DONE THIS!
TLDR: It’s Jessica. Jessica is the coolest. Also Zamm, Agent of Vega. The Ripley picture is because there are no satisfactory images of The Lady Jessica.
Moms get the short end of the stick in fiction. Most of them just flat-out get killed in childbirth. Others are unceremoniously forgotten in the hero’s quest to Find Out About My Father, because….
Even if they survive, mothers tend to ignored by characters and story alike because they try to keep their kids from going on adventures, aka safe. (This is probably because mothers invest a hell of a lot of resources into their children and tend to want to collect a return on their investments.) Even if they are strong* characters in their own right/focus stories, once children get involved they tend to get pushed out of focus and not have a lot of impact on the plot or the protagonist. See: Padme Amidala. See also: every mother of a Disney Princess, ever.
* Emotionally resilient, self-motivatated, and, if a main character, actively plot-relevant (this is less important if it’s a side character.) Another important trait is: how cool are they?
Anyhow, when moms are recognized, they’re usually only counted when they assume an action role in the story–AKA, Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor. This is primarily because most people are fake nerds and heretics. It’s also because people like to focus on the fact that Ripley and Sarah Connor’s strength, in-universe, to survive and fight comes from the presence of a child to protect. It ignores the deeper reason that having an external motivation for their actions makes them more active and therefore more interesting characters.
Think about it. Ripley without Newt is a PTSD-riddled civilian tagging along on a military mission. She’s cannon fodder. She’s toast. Without Newt, Ripley doesn’t take as dominant a part in the decision-making and doesn’t survive because Burke forces the issue and everyone gets eaten. With Newt, Ripley has the additional motivation of another person to consider and protect. Ripley has a focus to control and override her impulses to freeze up. Ripley has a strong motivation to get everyone out of there and not stop until they are. Without John Connor, Sarah is the perky blonde who gets killed by the indomitable serial killer. With John Connor (and the fate of the human species, too) as her responsibility, Sarah has a serious motivation and more importantly, she has a reason for doing plot-relevant things. A hero or heroine who does plot-relevant things is a hero/ine doing interesting things. And not, say, bumbling around an apartment building at night and getting stabbed to death by a bad guy. That is uninteresting.
That all being said, it took me over a month to write this post because I couldn’t think of very many others. No, of course there’s Cordelia Vorkosigan. There’s Amanda Morgan. There’s Scaramouche‘s Comtesse de Ploughastel, but that’s not science fiction, even honorarily. There’s Eden Perdicaris from The Wind and the Lion, and that’s….well, hey, that’s alternate history! It totally counts! There’s…. uh…. Galadriel, whhhhattt, she’s Arwen’s grandma, come on! But most of these characters’ stories don’t focus on the maternal or nurturing relationship between them and their children. That actually seems to be quite rare.
Cordelia Vorkosigan, although an extraordinarily strong protagonist, is not a major character after Miles comes along; she is more prominently a counselor to characters not her own biological son. Moreover, after Cordelia hands over the protagonist mantle to her son, she’s a fairly passive as far as plot-relevance goes. This doesn’t make her a weaker character, just a sidelined one, given that Miles’ focus is on military and political victories, while his mother has a complete disdain for the military and a distinctly apolitical/anti-political stance towards politics of the Barrayaran style. On the other hand, Ekaterin Vorkosigan nee Vorsoisson has a kid, has a close relationship with him, and is an active presence in her opening storylines. So she counts, even if her kid gets promptly sidelined in later books. And as far as action goes, counter-hijacking the doomsday weapon from a group of terrorists and smashing it into the ground until the rubble bounces is a pretty badass start to an awesome career of….being a loyal housewife and Countess and mother to a parcel of other Vorkosiganlings. Pwah. I guess there’s also Alys Vorpatril, but she kind of sucks.
Amanda Morgan is a borderline example, as the majority of her story-time is focused on the ruthless, pragmatic necessities of defending a planet against armed invasion; she has no time or attention for even the birth of her own grandchild. There are, however, hints of the past: she thinks on and deeply regrets the necessity of the strained, strict relationship she had with her own long-dead son….a son who, the text implies, was an unrecognized psychopath only just held to the right side of the law by his controlling mother’s iron will. (Is a good story, everyone should read.)
Family relationships in Tolkien stories aren’t given a huge amount of weight, and those that are are mostly paternal-focused. (Unless your name is Luthien Tinuviel.) That being said, mothers whose presence has a great impact on their children would include Morwen, Idril, Aredhel. And Luthien’s mother, Melian. And Erendis of Numenor, ouch. And Indis, I guess. Actually, come to think of it, Tolkien does do this quite a bit in The Silmarillion, although the narrative conventions and epic scope of that book keeps these relationships out of close focus.
So anyway, finally to the most triumphant example of my thesis: the Lady Jessica, of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Jessica is THE FREAKING COOLEST character in all of science fiction, and this is an opinion I have held since I was thirteen years old. Jessica makes Paul into the hero he is: what she has taught him makes him capable, perceptive, and able to use his powers when he comes into them. Jessica is instrumental to the plot both actively during their escape via the Voice, their initial manipulation of Liet Kynes, and then through the Missionaria Protectiva itself.–to the Bene Gesserit, it is their sister and agent who is the valuable one, not some half-grown boy of dubious potential. And yet through it all, Jessica is still vulnerable and sympathetic and cool. She is admired and respected by other characters, or through her actions and presence instills that respect in them. Also, she gets the last word (literally.)
In the same mould as Jessica is Delamber from Jack Vance’s The Faceless Man. Delamber is a distinctly more limited character than Jessica, as she is an indentured sex slave in a harshly misogynistic setting. She can only give general guidance to her son–but her warmth and courage prepares him for his heroic path throughout the next two books. As for emotional resilience: Mur/Gastel Etzwane is not her only child, and she refuses to attempt escape with him partly because she wishes to remain behind to protect her daughter; she also faces the loss of rank from “sex slave” to “work slave” and the attempted bullying of the priest-caste men with disdainful equanimity. As for plot relevance, the first book revolves around hero’s efforts to redeem her contract and rescue her (a time-honored SF plot, let us not forget.) Habits learned in the process drive him to eventually take on the responsibilities of leadership and protection for his world. There was no third book, shut up.
With a slight pivot to the least triumphant example: Empress Anais of The Braided Path by Chris Wooding. While this works technically–Anais is a major figure in the plot, is hugely motivated by her daughter and desire to protect her (daughter has magic, girls are not allowed to have magic. Magical girls, in particular, are not allowed to become Empresses. Magical girls are supposed to end up dead)–a) Anais does not interact very much with her daughter, b) Anais ends up dead. Also, c) these books weren’t very good.
My last and other triumphant example is that of Zamm, Agent of Vega (from The Truth About Cushgar) by James H. Schmitz. Zamm is an inverted example: she’s a mother who has lost her family. Zamm subsumes her grief and is firmly controlled by her intelligence and iron will. She uses her pain and longing as a weapon, against others–the (ice-cold manipulative spymaster) Third Co-Ordinator describes her as his “grand champion killer”–and against herself. Throughout the story, Zamm drives herself to look for more clues in her own mind and memories, even when this process could kill her or drive her insane. As for plot relevance, Zamm’s vendetta results in the Confederation winning an entire war…by accident.
And don’t ever try to go up against her with a pirate ship or a gun in your hand.
Anyhow, that’s what I’ve got. Thoughts?
– The Durdane Trilogy (The Faceless Man, The Brave Free Men, The Asutra) – Jack Vance. This is a trilogy that really, really should have ended with the second book. Or at least, had a hard-handed editor crack down on Vance, who allowed his cynicism and (apparent) dislike of the main character invalidate that hero’s entire arc, work, and struggles.
Books 1 and 2 set up a subtle parallel between the main hero, Gastel Etzwane, and the two most prominent supporting leads: the mysterious and neutral Ifness, and the fraught Jerd Finnerack. When Etzwane is a young boy, fleeing from mortal danger, he encounters Ifness–who (bound by a strict policy of neutrality!) refuses to help. Later, when Etzwane encounters Ifness again as an adult, Ifness–ostensibly for reasons of sheer pragmatism but, potentially, also as a subconscious or semi-conscious atonement–makes Etzwane his accomplice and sets the reins of power in his hands, before exiting stage left in the fashion of mysterious mentors.
Meanwhile, when Etzwane was also a boy, he did a great harm to Jerd Finnerack, who was attempting to help him; and when he is able to, recruits Finnerack as his assistant…and sets the reins of power in his hands.
Etzwane is not particularly bitter against the man who harmed him, or at least can control the desire to act on his dislike; Finnerack is, and might–or might not. The conflict between the two grows throughout book 2 as they both increase their abilities–Finnerack more so than Etzwane, and Finnerack with decreasing stability. It is one of the driving sources of tension in Book 2, as our heroes clash even while they are attempting to unify the planet and destroy the barbarian hordes of invaders. –with heroic, protagonistic success, but not without incident–
And then, Ifness comes back and takes over (the neutrality policy has changed! Now his actions are, it is 
revealed, motivated by a desire to embarass and displace his superiors), and Gastel Etzwane’s time, efforts, sacrifice, struggles, worries, plans, and battles are completely forgotten or negated; Jerd Finnerack is destroyed as a character with an almost cruel abruptness. Several fairly important plot threads are completely abandoned in order to make this work. Worse still, this is all done together with a bait-and-switch moment that was aggravating just on the surface of it.
Still, Book 2 provides an overall satisfactory conclusion to the problems of the world Durdane and its leadership, and the journey of the boy Mur, aka Gastel Etzwane, the musician who became its leader.
The way Book 3 ends makes me assume Vance was forced to write another chapter just for the sake of it, disliked the obligation, and decided to deliberately make the readers suffer. Here’s how: he takes a bunch of standard SF tropes and our hero…and then (with malicious intent!) applies “Except Now Reality Happens” to what should be very simple tropes. Planetary barbarians capture spaceship to rescue their womenfolk!….ship is recaptured after a brief siege because the barbarians can’t make it go anywhere, up down or around, and all survivors (did we mention they started killing each other after a week or so, including the named characters that were specifically pointed out as knowing the odds and the risks of a rescue mission and went for it anyway because they loved their daughters) are enslaved along with the girls. Again, it’s not in the content–it’s in the execution; and it’s in the denouement, which is infuriating all on its own without adding the additional insult that it does have.
Will you look at that, turns out I did have something to say about this book. I think it sucked.
As far as the good stuff goes: Books 1 and 2 for the most part are standard and I did like them: they have characters, character arcs, development, motives, and a plot that allows the characters to be proactive and effective. Book 1 Etzwane is largely motivated by trying to redeem his mother’s slave-indenture, making his mother one of the more prominent female characters in the pulp scifi galaxy. And she’s a rather good character as well. Might have to make a “mothers in SF” post one of these days. And I will say that that’s an OK cover to book 3. If only it had a good book to cover. Damnit.
– The Blue World – Jack Vance – See, Vance did know how to write pulp-action scifi. He just had to layer it in elaborate worldbuilding and add sly layers of humorous backstory. I read this one as a palate cleanser. (Literally: I stayed awake another two hours to read it, just to get The Asutra out of my head.)
– Spinning Silver – Naomi Novik – This one has definitely entered the rotation as one of my go-to relax reads, and I’m glad to say it’s held up on each repeat.
– The Fifth Elephant – Terry Pratchett – “Vimes in Uberwald will be more amusing than an amorous armadillo in a bowling alley.”
Stone are my walls, and my roof is of timber, But the hands of my builder are stronger by far. The roof may be burned and my stones may be scattered, But never her light be defeated in war. I am the heart and the core of the Morgans. Many the battle, around me, was fought. Many the year has gone by since my building. Each of my stones, by a life, has been bought. Long was the work and hard was the building From under the hill and the forest so wide. My stone, that is piled in the place of her choosing, Is mortared with bone of the men who have died. Blood paid the price of this hill that I rest on And blood pays the price of these lands that I see. The price; it is fair for the rights that it purchased. Within my gray walls, ye shall ever stand free. I am the heart and the core of the Morgans. Amanda; she built me and I shall remain A home for the heart of the men that may leave me; A beacon for bearing their way home again. Stone are my walls and my roof is of timber, But the hands of my builder are stronger by far. The roof may be burned and my stones may be scattered, But never her light be defeated in war. - Gordon R. Dickson, The Spirit of Dorsai
Riders of Skaith 
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