Race of Scorpions, Dorothy Dunnett

Gotta say, I did not love this book, and that's unusual for me and Dunnett. She remains my all-time favorite author, but on the whole I'm finding the House of Niccolo books to be really strange when it comes to sex. Every sex scene, or love interest, is completely transactional, and it's a little bit uncomfortable.

Spoilers follow -- I find it really disappointing that Katelina's entire story arc was about Nicholas, whether she wanted desperately to sleep with him, wanted desperately to kill him, or wanted desperately to sleep with him again. She lived her entire life (in these books) revolving around him, which I'm not sure he deserved. And then there's Primaflora, who of course is a high class prostitute, and who of course turns out to be evil and manipulative. Or there is David (in Trebizond) and Jacob (in Cyprus), both of whom want to sleep with Nicholas, and the books treat both of them like monsters for it. It's just uncomfortable to read, and I'm frankly uncomfortable with how often Nicholas sleeps with ladies who then die, or how much his "quest" is driven by needing revenge or sexual relief after yet another lady he slept with dies. It's very Christopher Nolan, and I don't like him, either. 


The plot of this book should have been right up my alley with the plotting and the betrayal and the sieges. But halfway through the book stops to be about how the sugar business runs again, and it's boring. I don't care about Nicholas's trade dealings, or playing the Genoese against the Venetians against the Portuguese. It's too complicated to be interesting, and it's too pedestrian to be the plot of a sprawling novel like this.

I also think this book is entirely too fond of elliptical conversations that imply vaguely about plotting that's going on, and I'm tired of meaningful exchanges and knowing looks that don't actually tell the reader what's going on. I'm going to take reading break before I try the next book, because Right now, despite the beautiful writing, I am not really enjoying this series.

Grade: C
#53 in 2017

The Spring of the Ram, Dorothy Dunnett (The House of Niccolo #2)

I don't know what to say! I still don't love Nicholas like I loved Francis Crawford; I have a much harder time getting a read on his character. Dunnett writes brilliant description, and some of the dialogue here is very funny. I googled something and spoiled myself twice for this book, which took a little of the fun out, which isn't the book's fault. Catherine drove me nuts in a very believable way. I still feel vaguely like the book is implying things I'm not quite picking up on (there is a mysterious and sexy woman who says heavily loaded and implicative things -- this is a trope Dunnett loves). 

Clearly I enjoyed reading it, but I am at a loss to tell you why or why I didn't give it five stars without a few months of thinking about it, or spoiling everything.

Grade: B?
#47 in 2017

Niccolo Rising, Dorothy Dunnett

This is a complicated book to review, because Dunnett's other series, the Lymond Chronicles, are my favorite books ever. And so as much as I liked this book, and as much as I told myself over and over not to compare it, of course I inevitably did compare it. It's also complicated because my Dunnett-reading friends haven't read this one yet, and as always there are twists and reveals I don't want to give away. (There great difficulty of getting people to read Dunnett for me, always, is that if you don't sell some of the upcoming plot, Game of Kings is so hard to get into. But there is no series that benefits more from a 100% cold read with no idea where it's going.)

Something I loved: the book is so beautifully written. The language is evocative and warm and describes life in Bruges (and Italy) so wonderfully that the atmosphere is immediate and enveloping. Dorothy's descriptions are so so so good.

Something I didn't love: a lot of this book involves people making very secret and sneaky trade deals. I teach about the alum trade in the Mediterranean Sea and I was still baffled about half the time, trying to keep the various Italian families and city-states straight. I finally worked out what was going on about 75% of the way through, when Felix did, but it meant that a lot of the book was meaningful meetings and people giving each other hints that I wasn't sure the significance of. (In fairness, as a reader of GoK you often have no idea what Lymond is up to or who he's making deals with, either, but there's enough of Will and Christian that it doesn't feel as overwhelming to me.)

Something I loved: Dorothy is so good at writing teenaged boys with a bad attitude. Felix is completely real in both his good points and his bad points, which makes him very frustrating to read about, even while you totally understand where he's coming from. I also loved (or hated, as appropriate) Katelina, and Simon, and Jordan, and Marian, all of whom felt like well-rounded real people. Oh, and Gelis. I'd read a whole book about Gelis.

Something I didn't love: From the very beginning, I felt like I had a grasp on who Francis Crawford was. Sure, his motivations were secret, but he was drunk and charming and sarcastic, with a bitter side and a noble side, and he was not to be trusted. I've read this book twice now and I'm still not entirely sure I get who Nicholas is. The descriptions of him in the first third of this book are baffling, and while I know that different characters see him differently, I never felt like Dorothy totally landed on an explanation of his behavior and attitude that I entirely understood. (No, not even at the end, when you learn a lot more about him.) The book cover describes him as a "good-natured dyer's apprentice who schemes and swashbuckles his way" through history. But that's not totally what happens. I could absolutely love a book about a nice guy who's secretly scheming, or a street-wise apprentice who's smart way above his station and fights his way to the top (which my kindle suggests is the plot). But without spoiling anything, that's not how he's described, especially at the beginning. I liked Nicholas. But I can't love him without understanding him better. Maybe in the next book??

Grade: B
#43 in 2017

Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett

Where have I been? Well, I have been reading this book (kindle estimated reading time: 15 hours) and then ALSO accidentally rereading the 1st book in the series, because I know someone reading it who wanted to ask questions, and -- anyway, all the Dunnett. ALL OF IT.

So how to talk about the last book in a series, without spoiling the whole thing? Honestly, it would be hard to spoil if you hadn't read 1-5 because you won't know who everyone is or why they're so important, or why I cried so hard at the end. Books one and two are comedy-action-adventure, with a gut punch of feelings at the end. Three and four are action-adventure but the serious kind, with life or death hanging in the balance and our hero relentlessly pursuing justice and/or revenge no matter what the cost. Five was his attempt to run away from his friends, family, and feelings, but because he is This Kind of Hero, six is where he is dragged back to face all the messes and solve all the problems he's created along the way. We get most of our assembled band of heroes back, we get war on a grand scale, and we get, finally, the romance that kicked off in the last book.

You'd either love or hate the way the book treats the romance; it gets very nighttime soap opera "oh my god, PLOT TWIST, THEY CAN NEVER BE TOGETHER, OR CAN THEY??????" They are soulmates, and the book makes it very clear that they not only literally complete each other but basically read each other's minds and are connected in their very souls. This is fine with me, because if Francis is the smartest guy in Europe, and the most ruthless, and the hottest trash fire, then she (I am being deliberately ambiguous) is smarter, more sensible, and puts up with none of his self-pitying bullshit. She's better than he is, which he realized at the end of the last book. Every character in the series has a strong opinion on either them being soulmates who must be brought back together, or that they will only ruin each other and must be separated. The Queen of Scotland has an opinion. The King of France has an opinion. Nostradamus has an opinion. It is both hilarious and hilariously over the top, and I love it -- but I'm happy to read a romance about two people who really genuinely complete each other, even if it gets so poetic and mildly ridiculous that at one point the entire French army appears to be discussing whether or not Francis will die if he can't have sex with her. (That happened. It was great.) This is, gloriously, historical fan fiction, which is to say Francis is a Mary Sue of the highest order, and so like any good fic protagonist, everyone is absolutely obsessed with his love life. Also, everyone loves him even when he doesn't deserve it (and bless the characters who smack him when he needs it). But also HE NEEDS A LOT OF LOVE, HE'S SO SAD, SECRETLY.

With 22 minutes left in the book, I was absolutely sure (even though I've read it before) that there was no possible happy ending. And then with 5 minutes left in the book, I was sobbing with joy. It's a beautiful end to the series. It wraps up a lot of things, and leaves the future of the characters delightfully open to what might happen next. Francis says over and over that he's retiring, but a character like his would never really just go home forever. Everyone in these books feels so amazingly real, I can't believe that half the characters are fictional. I'm going to spend a lot of time rereading the last few pages to make sure the happy ending really did happen, and imagining how beautiful all their futures are going to be.

Grade: A
#47 in 2016

The Ringed Castle, Dorothy Dunnett

A reread, of course, and I have a lot to say but I'm not sure how to talk about it without spoiling everything.

Ten years ago I got halfway through part two of this book and put it down for six months. My memories of this book are misery, Lymond being really mean, and endless scenes of description of Russia. I knew it set up important things for Checkmate, though, so I wasn't going to skip it in my reread.

Me from the past, I have good news and bad news.

The bad news: you could BASICALLY skip all of part two, Lymond's Adventures in Russia, and not miss that much plot. Or any plot. I'm genuinely not sure any forward story momentum would be lost if you just read part one (In Which Philippa Is The Best) and then skipped straight to part three (Back In England). Well, you'd miss a pretty great fight scene, you'd miss a pretty great sex scene, and you'd miss Diccon Chancellor, who I like a lot. (Don't google him, he's a real guy, you'll spoil yourself for good stuff.)

The good news, though, is that I got through this book in four days, so no, it's not an unreadable slog. Part one is a delight, as it's 90% narrated by Philippa, who is my favorite character in the series. (Petition to rename books four, five, and six The Legendary Philippa Chronicles.) Part three has a lot of stuff I can't talk about without spoiling really important plot that readers shouldn't be spoiled for. Francis is, indeed, a total jerk for a lot of the book, but he's not the icy monster I thought I remembered. He's sad, and he's struggling, and he has perfectly good reasons for everything he does, if you look at it from his point of view. There is some brutally emotional stuff where everyone is furious with everyone else, and it makes sense no matter who you sympathize with.

Very mild spoiler, I guess: Francis gets the punch in the mouth he's been basically begging for the whole book, and it's delivered by someone who richly deserves a chance to punch Francis in the mouth.

The REALLY good news: Dunnett hits nearly all the swashbuckling tropes in these books. There are sudden rescues, noble self sacrifice, near-death experiences, sudden reveals, sudden reversals, chess games and card games fraught with tension, prophecy, disguise... I mean, it's all here. But it's not until The Ringed Castle that you get romance, with all its over the top tropes, including fainting, pining, and sudden revelations of "oh no, I fucked up; I love her."

(DID I MENTION PINING? THERE IS PINING.)

And at the end there is some unbearable -- no, you know what, even to name the trope would be to spoil it, mildly, so I won't. I'll just sit here shouting at my Kindle and highlighting virtually every sentence to reread, possibly while crying, later.

Grade: .......this is as close as I'm coming to giving any of these books a B, because you really can skip the middle, but damn the end is SO GOOD. A.

#40 in 2016

secret reread: part 4 of The Game of Kings

This section has everything: a high-stakes card game, a trial, a duel, a chase, noble self-sacrifice, sarcasm, amazing ladies saving the day (Agnes, Christian AND Sybilla all get to be phenomenal in this section, and shout-out to Kate for also being awesome), brothers being brothers, and A HUG. THERE IS A HUG.

These books are either your jam or they aren't, but god, I love them. I laughed out loud at the following bit. Here's the set up: Francis is an outlaw, and for the first 2/3rds of the book his brother Richard has been chasing him. Francis is a sarcastic monster, and my favorite. Francis doesn't want Richard to catch him, because Richard is so mad that he'll murder Francis and end up hanging himself. ...plus Francis doesn't want to get murdered, I suppose. 

Anyway, due to circumstances entirely beyond Francis's control, Richard DOES find him, and BURSTS INTO THE ROOM very dramatically, and Francis sighs and says:

"I know. Aha, oho, and every other bloody ejaculation. Let's take it as read. You're delirious at the idea of manhandling me and can't wait to start. I in turn may say I find your arrival offensive and your presence blasphemous, thus concluding the exchange of civilities and letting us get out of here. If there's anything novel or extra you want to add, you can think of it on the way home."

IT'S SO FUNNY. And then they fight to the death (kind of). 

After GGK I needed a little breather in a similar genre, so I reread this, and even though I know how it ends I was still super tense and worried through the last bit, and then got all teary at the end. I love this book.

The Disorderly Knights, Dorothy Dunnett

Part of an ongoing reread of the series, which is my favorite.

THIS BOOK IS SO GREAT. It starts off with Francis-and-Richard shenanigans, and then you get a lot of people trying to beat up or murder Francis, and you get Jerrott, finally, and um.... spoiler spoiler spoiler SPOILER spoiler SPOILER SPOILER!!!!!!!!! I will never forget how it felt to read this the first time, and getting to the end of the book, and going, "Oh holy shit, no. NO. OH MY GOD!!!!" when the reveal came through.

Note: Francis does a thing in here that seems unforgivable, but turns out just to be kind of shitty. I'm not delighted by it, but A) it's the 16th century, and B) it was written in the 1960s. Anyway, he pays for it, more or less.

Jerrott couldn't be more in love with Francis, or angrier about it, and I'm still delighted.

Grade: A

#13 in 2016

Pawn in Frankincense, Dorothy Dunnett

Part of an ongoing reread of my favorite series in the world, Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles.

Still brilliant, still heartbreaking, still the perfect denoument to the two part story of how Francis Crawford takes on a brilliant, truly evil villain. In order not to spoil all the phenomenal twists, I can't say much except: the end is still so tense I had to read it secretly at work all day, I cried at the end even though this time I knew what was coming, and this is the book where Philippa overtakes Francis as my favorite character. That scene at the end with them, man... Oh boy. Ohhhhh boy.

Grade: A

#19 in 2016

Niccolo Rising, Dorothy Dunnett

I'm trying to decide how I feel about this book.

On the one hand, it's Dorothy Dunnett, so it's full of intrigue and historicity and interesting characters and great women and complicated relationships.

On the other hand, I had a pretty easy time guessing what was coming next a lot of the time. Either I'm way smarter than I was with the Lymond books or there's some repetition here. And I liked Nicholas, but I didn't love him the way I loved Lymond. 

I will probably read the rest of the series, but I'm not feeling a huge compunction to do so right now.

Grade: B. Ish.

Originally published 2008

Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett

You will just have to believe me that I never, ever, cry at movies, and when I “cry” at stories and books that means my eyes kind of sting and my chest feels all funny.

I am sitting here with tears streaming down my face and it’s the fourth time during the last 200 pages that it’s happened.

I can’t even. I just. 

I will not claim it’s a perfect book or a perfect series. But oh my god, it’s so perfect for what it is. I can't begin to talk about what I liked and disliked in the last book without ruining the first five, and I am not going to be coherent about it for days, at any rate. 

Oh my god, Francis.

Grade: A

Originally posted 2008

The Ringed Castle, Dorothy Dunnett

Fifth book in the series, and the fifth time these books have made me INCOHERENT with love. If I ever manage to write a character as complicated, internally-consistent, and readable as Francis Crawford of Lymond I will die happy. (Phillipa runs a very close second in the favorite character ever sweepstakes.) He is both an incredible anti-hero and an incredible hero, sometimes in the same scene. I hate him and I’ve cried for him, and every book in the series is my favorite.

Er, except this one, which took me six months to get through. I don’t know, Lymond was especially mean, and the plot felt a lot like killing time (or Dunnett showing off her research into Russian history). So I stopped 3/4 of the way through in August, and picked it back up in January.

The last 50 pages, for the record, are AMAZING.

I am already on page 97 of the sixth (and final) book. If everyone does not get their shit together in romantic type ways soon, I will lose my mind. The thing is, though, these books are *mean* and no one is promised a happy ending. It is taking all of my will power not to read the last page just to see if my suspicions are correct. It ishorrible wonderful terrible torture. It is also entirely possible that, when I get to the end, I will just pick up book one again, because that SCENE with Francis and Richard, oh my GOD, I just keep re-reading it and trying to figure out how I can steal it for a story of my very own.

*flail*

Grade: A

Originally posted 2008

Pawn in Frankincense, Dorothy Dunnett

I can't say anything about the plot of this, the fourth book, without giving away both huge plot twists from the third book. Well, I can say three things: First, this is by far the darkest book. Second, the ending made me scream and cry and put the book down repeatedly so I wouldn't hyperventilate. 

Third, the book starts off with our hero punching a nun. I mean, come on. You have to love that.

PS -- Yes, I was totally going to take a few days off before reading this one, but then I went to the store and they didn't have it, which made me mad, so I ended up going to three more stores to find it, and then it was just sitting on my couch, taunting me...

Grade: A

Originally posted 2007

The Disorderly Knights, Dorothy Dunnett

It is apparently possible to read a 500 page book in one day, if you're willing to start at 8 AM and read straight through without pause until 11:30 PM. However, I don't recommend it, because by the end of the day I had the same sort of hung over feeling one gets from staring at the internet all day. Ow, my head.

The third Lymond book is great. In this book, particularly the second half, Francis Crawford does some really nasty things to people who seem quite nice -- I almost put the book down at one point, shaking my head, thinking "Well, that's unforgivable," (his brother Richard agreed with me, and kicked him out of the family again). And then I remembered the key idea of these stories, which is you don't know the whole story yet. In all three books so far there's been a major -- and fairly shocking --  revelation about a character near the end of the story. In the first book it's that Francis Crawford is not a bad guy; in the second book it's the identity of the man trying to kill the Queen, and in this book it's a secret that Francis worked out on about page 20, and then decided not to tell anyone else until page 414. (He had reasons; none of these books are predicated on the Harry Potter Just Don't Tell Anyone Anything Useful plan.) 

Awesomely, for the first time in the series Lymond meets another character who can keep up with him, and he doesn't much like it. In fact, I'm not sure you couldn't argue that he's only the second-smartest person in the series now. (Up to this book the only other characters even on the same playing field were his evil ex-girflriend who almost killed him a couple of times, and his mom.) Oh, and a character I'd gotten really fond of gets killed. But around that, because Lymond is in such a snit for most of the book he's really hilarious. 

'But in the end,' said Dragut peaceably, 'the peacock angel was made by Allah lord over all the rest. Carry with thee this tale. I have always thought,' he added with sudden  encouragement, 'that there are in thee the talents for a wonderous peacock.'

'My God, in Scotland?' said Lymond, swinging round, all the mockery back in his voice. 'An army of angels would merely dissolve in the rain.'

*******[Lymond and the rest of the Knights Hospitallers in Tripoli are all scheduled to be killed when the city falls -- and then Lymond's old friend, Thompson, a Scottish pirate shows up in the harbor and offers to smuggle two of them out.]
'My child, the Grand Master must know. The Turk may fall upon Malta next. We do not know. And he will believe me. If we do not escape, then nothing has been lost. But the fewer who try it the better.' Graham's tranquil smile deepened. 'We shall meet in Malta, Jerott. Pray for us all. God has been good tonight.'    'Thompson has been rather splendid too,' said Lymond cordially, and waved a cheerful farewell.

This book ends on the lead in to the next book, and even though I'm desperate to find out what happens I think I'll take a few days off. I haven't done a damn thing but read all week. 

Grade: A

Originally posted 2007

The Game of Kings and Queen's Play, by Dorothy Dunnett

I have stayed up ALL NIGHT ALL WEEK reading the first two books in this series and I ADORE THEM. So much so that I couldn't contain myself to a couple of paragraphs, and instead have written many, many spoilerific pages about how awesome they are. If you enjoy historical fiction, go and read them and then come back. (Don't give up on the first book half-way through like I did in high school; the payoff for all that confusion is worth it, I promise.) A couple of weeks ago I was whining because all the good books are gone, but I managed to find some after all, and the hero (he's really more of an antagonist, in that everyone else in the books can't stand him -- is it possible I have a weakness for a smug jackass with a heart of gold? Never!) is excellent.

Mild spoilers ahoy? Nothing specific, but these books rely on plot twists, so be careful.

The sad part is I started this book years ago and didn’t finish it. I understand why; for huge chunks of time reading the first half of it I had no idea what was going on. First, it’s written in a historically accurate style, so the characters throw around 16th century verbs and quotations that I didn’t follow. Second, I know virtually nothing about the wars between Scotland and England, so I was never sure who was doing what or why. (There is a lot of strategy, there is little explanation.) Third, nothing is actually explained until the end, when in a big courtroom scene our protagonist is forced to finally explain everything he’s done in the book. Fourth, nearly every scene in the first half of the book starts off with a new character in a new situation, (sometimes it’s someone we’ve already met in disguise, just to fuck with me), and I’m not great at keeping track of 7 intertwining plots. I admit, that does not sound like a ringing endorsement.

However. I’m not sure a book has ever taken me so much effort, but I also felt extraordinarily rewarded. Francis Crawford of Lymond is not an easy character to figure out, but he is awesome. He’s sort of a re-telling of Robin Hood, recently outlawed, currently bandit-ing and drinking and causing trouble for the English. His brother, Richard, who is a decent guy, absolutely hates him and has sworn to track him down and kill him for betraying Scotland; Lymond is also in the process of (maybe) seducing Richard’s bored wife Mariotta. Nothing about Lymond is particularly sympathetic; he humiliates other people to get his own way and uses them shamelessly (he manipulates a blind girl into doing his dirty work for him, for example). He lies to everyone all the time. He is also charming and charismatic and a good fighter and a great leader, but refuses to use any of that to actually help himself in any way. I didn’t like him much for the first half of the book, because we see him through someone else’s eyes, and he doesn’t want to be liked; it isn’t until the last third, when he loses control over the situation that the reader gets anything approaching the “real” Lymond, who is sympathetic.

That last third of the book alone, however, is worth the price of admission. Lymond gets caught, his only allies are killed, the letter he needs is stolen, and he ends up the only person who knows that Scotland is about to be betrayed. So while Lymond is trying to catch the man who will betray Scotland, everyone else is trying to catch him, and he ends up having to make a momentous decision, in a heroic moment that changes the whole tenor of the story. Even that goes wrong for him, however, and in the last few chapters we finally see the young man behind all the sarcasm and plotting. Awesomely, because I love nothing like a reconciled family plot, he gets thrown together with his brother for a while, trying to convince him that he never actually committed treason 6 years earlier. The only man who could have exonerated him has just died, and no one else will believe him, particularly not his brother Richard. The trial, of course, allows the reader to figure out what in hell was going on in the first half of the book (and made me immediately need to re-read the entire fucking thing.) Awesome? Awesome.

The second book, Queen’s Play, is also excellent; the Queen of Scotland wants Francis Crawford to go to France and protect her daughter, Mary, because he is so fucking awesome. Only he can’t tell anyone his mission, because it would be really insulting to the French King. Naturally, someone is trying to kill Mary, and that person is perfectly happy to try and kill Lymond, as well. He goes undercover (for the first 65 pages of the book we know he’s around, but not which character he is; the eventual reveal is totally worth the annoyance) and gets super popular for his ludicrous ineptitude at the French Court. As always, Lymond is really good at everything (juggling, singing, drinking, making fun of himself and everyone else) except getting the people he’s trying to help to like him. By the end of the book his closest allies are trying to figure out how to help him save the Queen and simultaneously expose his duplicity to the court, to ensure the King of France will hang him. No one is as mean to Lymond as he is to himself, however.

My favorite moment of the book – I’m sorry, I must gush -- is when Richard (his brother) shows up briefly in France. Richard is around just long enough to holler at his younger brother for being a total moron and risking his own life over and over. Richard is still just as annoyed with his brother as he was in the first book, but now he understands him -- he may be the only person in either book who does. Did I mention I love a reconciling brothers plot? 

Lymond is such a fascinating character because Dunnett is so willing to let him be bad. We know he’s a good guy with good motivations; he’s just incredibly ruthless about getting things done. I’ve read the first two books in a marathon four day session (these are not books that can be read in two days each without staying up all night to finish) and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t gone to Amazon to read excerpts from the third already. This series has ruined all my plans to get work done this summer.

Grade for both books: A!!!!!!!

originally posted 2007