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RYO Review: Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear
I’m voting for the Hugo Awards this year (for the first time – yay!) and, in order to make informed decisions, trying to catch up on some of the best 2013 titles. This, however, means that I sometimes have more than one volume of a series to catch up on. But Elizabeth Bear has been on my finally-read-something-by-that-author list for a while, so I gladly dove into this epic fantasy.
RANGE OF GHOSTS
by Elizabeth Bear
Published by: Tor, 2012
Ebook: 336 pages
Series: The Eternal Sky #1
My rating: 8/10
First sentence: Ragged vultures spiraled up a cherry sky.
Temur, grandson of the Great Khan, is walking away from a battlefield where he was left for dead. All around lie the fallen armies of his cousin and his brother, who made war to rule the Khaganate. Temur is now the legitimate heir by blood to his grandfather’s throne, but he is not the strongest. Going into exile is the only way to survive his ruthless cousin.
Once-Princess Samarkar is climbing the thousand steps of the Citadel of the Wizards of Tsarepheth. She was heir to the Rasan Empire until her father got a son on a new wife. Then she was sent to be the wife of a Prince in Song, but that marriage ended in battle and blood. Now she has renounced her worldly power to seek the magical power of the wizards. These two will come together to stand against the hidden cult that has so carefully brought all the empires of the Celadon Highway to strife and civil war through guile and deceit and sorcerous power.
WoGF Review: Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear
Clare Fitzgerald (thecynicalromantic) started reading feminist deconstructions of fairy tales in elementary school and grew up to major in literature and something called “discourse studies.” She reads a lot of teen fiction, gothic novels, and retold fairy tales, and is especially interested in feminist issues in fantasy and sci-fi. She reviews books at A Room of One’s Own because otherwise she is liable to forget what she’s read and what she thought about it. She currently works as a technical editor, but aspires to be a vampire witch queen pirate sorceress when she grows up.
Editor’s Note: This review counts for September.
I had the privilege of buying Elizabeth Bear‘s Range of Ghosts directly from the author, along with a few of her other books. She is one of the many awesome people I met at Readercon, so I was happy to pay for shiny signed new physical copies plus shipping rather than buying an ebook, even though I’ve never read any of her other stuff.
I do not regret this decision at all.
Range of Ghosts is a political fantasy and it’s based largely on the medieval Middle East and Asia. A major theme is the rise and fall of empires; the empire that owns most of the known world at the time of this story is the Qersnyk Khaganate, which is largely based off the Mongol Empire—the Qersnyk are a culture made up of a number of nomadic horse tribes from the steppe. The Khaganate is facing civil war after the death of the Great Khagan. Other kingdoms, empires, and former empires—some subject to the Khaganate; some on its borders—have their own cultures and their own reactions to the war within the Khaganate. How closely these other kingdoms seem to be based on other Asian and Middle Eastern cultures varies, or possibly my familiarity with the cultures in question does. The different cultures and the different factions within the political houses are all well-characterized and clearly differentiated. As far as I can tell, there are no white people in the entire book.
WoGF Review: Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear
For Lynn Williams (lynnsbooks) books are much more than a hobby or a pastime they’re really an obsession. If she’s not reading a book, she’s talking about books on her blog, Lynn’s Book Blog, or deciding which books to buy next. Lynn reads all sorts of books, sometimes straying into YA, but her first love is fantasy. Recently she started to cross into science fiction thanks to the suggestions of some very excellent bloggers.
Editor’s note: This review counts for the July review poll.
As part of World’s Without End WoGF reading challenge for July I read Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear. I must say that I’ve been enjoying myself with this challenge. It’s given me the incentive to pick up authors that I haven’t previously read and it’s introduced me to some amazing books that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading. So I expected much the same with Range of Ghosts – after all this book has received a lot of glowing reviews and the author is very well respected (not to mention can I just bring your attention to that gorgeous cover). Anyhow, I won’t say that there was an immediate feeling of love for this and I certainly didn’t feel it started off easily but, after my initial hesitancy, the story did win me over and I will definitely pick up the next book.
The story starts with the aftermath of a fearsome battle. A lone survivor makes his way through the dead bodies. Temur. Injured on the battlefield and suspected dead, he now makes his way South to the mountains to hopefully live out a quiet life in exile. We then skip to a different storyline. To the once Princess Samarkar. Originally heir to an empire her claim ended when her father’s new wife bore him a son and she became a bartering tool, sent to a marriage that ended in failure and bloodshed. Samarkar has renounced her royalty to become a wizard. In doing so she not only renounces all her worldly status but also her ability to bear children.
WoGF Review: Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear
Emily Sandoval (ersandoval) is a bookaholic, whose poison of choice is fantasy and science fiction. At her day job, she’s an engineer working on satellites, and in her spare time she writes epic fantasy novels. She blogs irregularly about writing and the genre, and joined the Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge to force herself to slow down between books and write the occasional review.
Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear is the story of an empire falling apart. The Old Khagan is dead, and his nephew Temur is left for dead on the battlefield. However, in a land where each of the Khagan’s living heirs has his own moon in the sky, his survival is no secret, and his uncle is determined to hunt him down. His first instinct is merely to get away, but when an enemy sends the ghosts of his people to capture his bedmate, he sets out on a quest to reclaim her. Along the way, he joins with the wizard and once-princess Samarkar to stand against a hidden cult that seeks to play Temur and his uncle against each other and conquer their people.
The language in this book was beautiful. Not overly showy, but fluid and graceful, effortlessly leading me through the story. The love scene early on is one of the most poetic I’ve ever read.
Lots of great female characters: wizards, warriors, horsewomen, grandmothers, princesses, an even a female king. And horses; Temur’s mare Bansh truly was a character in her own right. I always love seeing a range of strengths. Looking back on it now, this book was actually very heavily populated with women. Given that a lot of the men all killed each other off before the story started, that makes a lot of sense.
