The Third Section
Jasper Kent
Pyr Books
Trade Paper, 479 p., $17.95
Okay, I know what I want for Christmas. A time machine. That way I can go forward in time and pick up copies of the next two volumes of the Danilov Chronicles and read them. Now. Because I don’t want to wait. Jasper Kent says on his website that the next two books won’t be out until 2013 (provisional title, The People’s Will) and 2014 (provisional title The Last Oprichnik). The world could end before then (like next year, maybe?), and then what would I do?
Oh, well, nothing much I can do about publication schedules. Instead let me encourage you to start reading this series if you haven’t already. Each book is different than the last, but if Kent continues to maintain the quality he has so far, this series will be greater than the sum of its parts.
And if you haven’t read either of the preceding books, Twelve and Thirteen Years Later, reviewed here and here, this review will contain spoilers for those two but not The Third Section.
In the earlier books in this series, we saw a lot of vampire hunting. While there’s some in this book, with Kent again coming up with some clever ways to dispatch the undead, the focus here is more on intrigue. Do you remember how Shakespeare would create the most convoluted plots where the characters would misinterpret words or events or deliberately mislead each other? And how those misunderstandings added to the tension and suspense? In The Third Section Jasper Kent has crafted a web of misunderstanding and deliberate deceit of Shakespearean proportions. Do you remember how Shakespeare used this trick in both his tragedies and his comedies? Jasper Kent hasn’t written a comedy.
The book is set against the backdrop of the Crimean War and takes place over about a year and a half, roughly. There are three viewpoint characters.
First, the lady, Tamara Valentinovna Komarova, daughter of Alexsei and Domnikiia. She’s in her early 30s, has lost her husband and children, and is now working for the Third Section, also known as the Tsar’s secret police. She’s just returned to Moscow from Saint Petersburg and is given an undercover assignment, running a brothel. The same brothel where her mother met her father. One of the prostitutes is named Raisa, and she helped Iuda escape from Chufut Kalye in 1825. One of the others is about to be murdered in a manner similar to a murder that occurred in the same building in 1812.
The man in the secret police Tamara directly answers to is named Yudin, but like some of Tolkien’s characters, he’s known by other names. Richard Cain. Vasiliy Makarov. Iuda.
Dmitry Alexseivich Danilov is a captain in the army, helping defend Sevastopol on the Black Sea. When the book opens, he’s about to get an unwelcome visit from some “friends” of his father’s.
And that’s all I’m going to say about the plot. I don’t want to spoil any of the surprises. And there are plot twists aplenty, almost all the way to the last page.
So rather than ruin the pleasure of experiencing the twists, let’s talk about how Kent handles the characters. This is the first time we’ve seen things from Iuda’s point of view, although he got considerable stage time in Thirteen Years Later. Kent does a good job of showing us Iuda’s motives while not turning him into a sympathetic character. Instead, we have a deeper understanding of how evil he truly is and how he was a monster long before he became a vampire. Yudin, as he’s referred to here, is a master of manipulation, deceit, and betrayal. There were times I was reminded of Hannibal Lector, the way he pulled strings.
As a result of losing her husband and children, Tamara has become obsessed with the idea that she has a set of parents who are her true parents and the parents she’s grown up with are deceiving her. This is a common fantasy of small children who are unhappy with some aspect of their home lives, but it’s not typically an idea entertained by a grown woman. In this case, though, we know it’s correct. Alexsei and Domnikiia left Tamara in the care of the Komarovs when they were exiled to Siberia at the end of Thirteen Years Later.
Finally, there’s Dmitry, who will turn fifty before the book is over. In Thirteen Years Later, he was incensed that his father was betraying his mother by having an affair with, and a child by, Domnikiia. The years have mellowed him somewhat, or at least caused him to understand his father’s motivation and forgive him. Dmitry is his father’s son, especially after he returns injured from the war and his behavior in many ways follows down the same paths as Alexsei’s. Ultimately Dmitry proves that he isn’t the man his father was, and in some surprising ways.
The contrast between Tamara and Dmitry is fascinating. Both of them end up following in their father’s footsteps, and in Tamara’s case, her mother’s as well. Dmitry is an officer in the cavalry, although he is only a major and hasn’t accomplished nearly as much as his father did by his early forties. Tamara is both an agent for the Tsar and a prostitute. It’s this contrast that the title of this review refers to. Tamara excels at both her parents’ professions, secret agent and prostitute, while Dmitry is neither the decorated soldier his father was nor the accomplished vampire hunter. How the children end up fulfilling their parents’ legacies, or fail to, is what makes this book such a gripping read.
Of course, there’s another character, one who doesn’t take an active part in the events, but who nevertheless casts a long shadow over them, and whose influence on the events and people is almost palpable at times. Alexsei Ivanovich Danilov. This was another aspect of the novel that I found so captivating, how Alexsei’s actions from decades before had such an influence and how small details from the earlier books took on greater significance.
With this latest installment of the Danilov Chronicles, Jasper Kent adds to the depth of the series and sets up the conflicts in the remaining two. This series is a generational story of a family, their successes and failures, and there are still two books to go. Family history affects multiple generations. That’s certainly proving to be the case with this series.
Like I said in the opening paragraph, I can’t wait for the rest.
John O’Neill has posted a tribute at Black Gate in which states there is a Harvey story forthcoming in the next issue. If you haven’t read his work, try to track some of it down. It’s worth it.
He will be missed.
Damn it, enough dying already. I’m getting tired of posting obituaries.
Specifically, my suggestion to cut back on the nonfiction in the magazine and focus more on the fiction. If you read his announcement, that’s what Adams is doing with the two magazines. He’s cut the nonfiction back considerably, while leaving the amount of fiction the same. Actually that’s only true if you read the magazine online. If you subscribe, there’s an exclusive novella with each issue.
In other words, here’s a publisher who realizes people read his magazine primarily for the fiction, and furthermore he’s taking steps to ensure they get what they want. I said this was the smart way to run a fiction magazine when I reviewed the last issue of RoF. Now that someone with the credentials of John Joseph Adams thinks the same thing and is willing to act on that idea, I’m going to say “I told you so.”
I wish Mr. Adams and his magazine the greatest success. Oh, and I told you so.
I grew up reading comics, but when Star Wars (the original film) came out, I got bitten by the science fiction bug hard and started reading that almost exclusively. Commercial fantasy hadn’t quite experienced a boom, although there was some around. Not too long after the movie, I noticed a novel (maybe in the library, maybe in the bookstore) that had Darth Vader on the cover. The title was Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, and it was written by some guy named Alan Dean Foster. Although I don’t remember actually doing so, I bought the book, read it, and enjoyed it. (I still have that copy.)
I started looking for more of this Foster guy’s stuff. This was in the late seventies, and Del Rey was publishing quite of bit of Foster’s Commonwealth novels, still one of my favorite universes. I was transitioning from the children’s section of the library to the adult section (YA as we know it didn’t exist in those days) and that shift was mirrored in my buying habits.
I quickly became a fan of the Flinx and Pip novels, and since new ones were being published at this exact time, I bought and read them.
Being a voracious reader, I even read the copyright page, a vice I still practice, and learned the artist’s name was Darrell K. Sweet. I loved the covers of the Flinx and Pip novels. There was detail and color. Action and adventure. Sweet had a unique style. He became the first cover artist I could recognize and identify on sight, although others would follow.
I noticed his work on the mass market paperback editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He did the covers for The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Piers Anthony’s Xanth. Some of the early Well of Souls novels by Jack Chalker. L. E. Modesitt’s Recluse series. Early novels by James P. Hogan, Robert Don Hughes, and Joel Rosenberg.
He seemed to be everywhere. One of my favorite covers was for Lawrence Watt-Evans‘ The Misenchanted Sword, the first in his Ethshar series. The yellow and orange glow of the setting sun, contrasted by the blue glow of the sword and the greens in the clothing and vegetation.
Sweet would later become known for his work on Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, but I’ve never felt those were his best covers.
I can’t say, even after thinking about it for the last two days, what it is about Darrell K. Sweet’s work that resonates so much with me. Some of it is early imprinting for sure, but I still react the same way when I see a new piece by him (new to me at least).
Part of it is the detail. Then there was the way the physical features, especially the facial features, made the people in the illustrations stand out from each other as unique individuals, as though Sweet had captured some essence of that character in his work. His women were always gorgeous and alluring, yet somehow wholesome and pure.
We met on three occasions. One was Armadillocon 14 in 1992, which I think was my first Armadillocon. The second was at Conestoga 8 in 2004. The final time I met him, and the time I had the most interaction with him, was at Fencon III in 2006, when Sweet was the Artist Guest of Honor, Alan Dean Foster the Writer Guest of Honor, and Lawrence Watt-Evans was the Special Guest. At the end of the convention, I told him that when I was a teenager, I didn’t read every book that had one of his covers, but I did pick up and seriously examine every book that did. He seemed to really appreciate the compliment.
That wasn’t just flattery, either. It was true. In thinking back, as well as reflecting on what others have written, I think part of that was because the genre was different then. Science fiction and fantasy were a lot more fun. We weren’t inundated with hot female demon hunting private investigators who engaged in some sort of necrophilia with the dead, the undead, or the mostly dead. Sweet’s art reflected this sense of adventure. I’ve been thinking about how much the genre needs that. Books then were shorter, less heavy in tone and content, and not as likely to try and raise my social consciousness. It was a heckuva lot more fun.
I’ll have some time to hit the second hand bookstores here in town over the next couple of days. I’m going to see what old paperbacks with DKS covers that I haven’t read. Final exams are starting, and I could use some fun.
Well, I had hoped it would never come to this. While Realms of Fantasy hasn’t exactly been my favorite magazine, I’m very sorry that it has ceased publication and this will be my final review. For the time being, at least. It’s come back twice before, so we can always hope.
This issue wasn’t planned as a final issue, so I don’t know if there were any stories still in inventory. I imagine if there were, the authors were paid a kill fee and hopefully some of them will see publication elsewhere.
Publisher William Gilchrist said in his farewell post on the magazine’s website that the October issue would appear in print and would be late. He indicated that the issue should be available by November 15. I haven’t seen it, but it might not have arrived yet. B&N tends to be late getting the print copies. I bought the PDF version from the website.
Anyway, let’s look at the fiction.
There are five stories in this issue. We’ll take them in order.
First out of the gate is “Return to Paraiso” by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz. I’ve not read anything by Ms. Loenen-Ruiz before. This was a well written piece about a girl who is brought back to her village by the army in an unnamed Central American country. She’s pregnant and kept in a cage. She may also be the consort of a god and carrying his child. This story falls into the nature mother’s passivity defeats the evil of masculine machines, a type of story that really doesn’t appeal much to me. However, this one was better written than most things in this vein, and I rather liked it.
“The Man Who Made No Mistakes” by Scott William Carter is by far the most ambitious and morally complex story in this issue and arguably in any issue of the magazine since its last resurrection. It concerns a young man with the ability to go back in time and change the course of events. The only catch is he can’t go further back than the most recent change, whether that’s five minutes ago or five years. He’s in something of a quandary because he’s committed a horrible crime and the way a certain person is affected by that crime is the only thing that keeps civilization from collapsing. Every attempt he makes to undo the crime ends in major disaster. It’s one of the strongest stories I’ve read in months, and I expect to see it on the awards ballots and in some of the Years’ Best anthologies next year.
“Second Childhood” by Jerry Oltion is a ghost story of a sorts. Oltion is a writer that doesn’t always connect with me, in part because I find his work too preachy at times. This particular story isn’t as bad as some, but not a lot happens in it beyond the narrator’s mother comes back from the dead and various discussions the narrator has with her husband about the implications of that event. While some men might find the situation to be a horror story, I couldn’t get too excited about it.
The cover story, “Sweeping the Hearthstone” by Betsy James, is what I think of as a typical RoF story. It’s about a girl who comes to work in an inn, only to discover there’s a spirit inhabiting the hearthstone in the main hall. A spirit who is romantically interested in her, an interest that turns out to be mutual. This one is about emotions. While competently executed, it’s not the sort of thing I prefer to read.
The final story is “Barbie Marries the Jolly Fat Baker” by Nick DiChario, in which the toy knight runs away from home because Princess Barbie is getting it on with the baker toy. Given the author, I expected this one to be competently executed (in this I wasn’t disappointed) and something more original (in this I was disappointed). The ending gave me the impression the author got bored with his scenario and didn’t know where to take it, and so just stopped.
So that’s an overview of the stories in the October 2011 issue of Realms of Fantasy. This is (for now) the last issue. With the exception of the Carter, and to a lesser degree, the Loenen-Ruiz, there isn’t a lot here to recommend it. I realize your mileage may vary.
I hope RoF returns. It’s happened twice before. Maybe it will again. If it does, I’d like to make a couple of suggestions to any potential buyers/publishers.
First, go digital. Several prominent magazines began as print and are now electronic only, including but not limited to Fantasy, Something Wicked, and Apex, while others such as Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lightspeed, and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly started out electronically and seem to be doing just fine. I can’t imagine all the color illustrations are cheap to print. You can get the same quality of illustration electronically. You also don’t have warehousing, shipping, returns, paper, or printing costs.
Second, stop trying to be the one stop shop for all things fantasy. This issue contained 84 pages. By my count, 26.5 of them were fiction, with words from the story on the page. Each story had a full page illustration (not included in the previous page count), plus there were several pages of ads scattered among the fiction. There was more nonfiction relating to fantasy in this issue than there was fantasy itself. I can’t speak for most readers, but I never bought RoF for the reviews or columns. I bought it for the fiction. With less than half of the contents being fiction, even taking ads into account, it doesn’t seem like a good buy for the money. The nonfiction columns, such as “Folkroots” or art features, are fine, but really, do we need 15 pages reviewing games, books (3 columns: general fantasy, urban fantasy, and YA), plus graphic novels? This issue was typical of most I’ve seen. Decide what you want the magazine to focus on, fiction or reviews, then do that better than your competition. Don’t try to be all things to all people.
Finally, get a new editorial team. Shawna McCarthy has been the editor of the magazine since its inception. Every time the publication has been sold, the new owners have kept her on. While I don’t question her credentials, I have reservations about her taste in fantasy. The stories all seem to be about the same. One of the commentators on the Black Gate post about the closing of the magazine called it chick-lit fantasy. I’d have to agree. The primary content seems to be about the emotional lives of women, with fantasy elements thrown in.
I realize there are a number of people who like that type of fantasy, not all of them women. But it doesn’t seem to be a successful formula commercially. If it were, why does it keep failing. I have no problem with one of the stories in each issue being in this vein, and while it’s not my preferred subgenre of fantasy, I do read widely enough that I would read, and possibly enjoy, something along these lines if there were plenty of variety to go along with it. There’s virtually no sword and sorcery in RoF, and what little I’ve seen this past year has been marginally S&S. And while I don’t think each issue should be only S&S either, I do think there should be a great deal more adventure oriented fantasy in the magazine.
To sum up, the final issue, with the exception of the Carter story, was nothing particularly outstanding. Writing that sentence gives me no pleasure, nor does the fact that the magazine has failed again. I do hope someone will bring it back. I think it could survive, given a change of emphasis and direction, especially if published as an e-mag.