Book Club Thread 6: Illusion by Paula Volsky

Which Book Shall We Read This Month?

  • Arrows of the Queen

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • Cinder Spire

    Votes: 3 30.0%
  • Illusion

    Votes: 4 40.0%
  • Off Armageddon Reef

    Votes: 3 30.0%
  • Spearhead

    Votes: 2 20.0%

  • Total voters
    10
  • Poll closed .

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey
Chosen by the Companion Rolan, a mystical horse-like being with powers beyond imagining, Talia, once a runaway, has now become a trainee Herald, destined to become one of the Queen's own elite guard. For Talia has certain awakening talents of the mind that only a Companion like Rolan can truly sense.

But as Talia struggles to master her unique abilities, time is running out. For conspiracy is brewing in Valdemar, a deadly treason that could destroy Queen and kingdom. Opposed by unknown enemies capable of both diabolical magic and treacherous assassination, the Queen must turn to Talia and the Heralds for aid in protecting the realm and insuring the future of the Queen's heir, a child already in danger of becoming bespelled by the Queen's own foes.

Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher
Jim Butcher, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Dresden Files and the Codex Alera novels, conjures up a new series set in a fantastic world of noble families, steam-powered technology, and magic-wielding warriors…

Since time immemorial, the Spires have sheltered humanity, towering for miles over the mist-shrouded surface of the world. Within their halls, aristocratic houses have ruled for generations, developing scientific marvels, fostering trade alliances, and building fleets of airships to keep the peace.

Captain Grimm commands the merchant ship, Predator. Fiercely loyal to Spire Albion, he has taken their side in the cold war with Spire Aurora, disrupting the enemy's shipping lines by attacking their cargo vessels. But when the Predator is severely damaged in combat, leaving captain and crew grounded, Grimm is offered a proposition from the Spirearch of Albion—to join a team of agents on a vital mission in exchange for fully restoring Predator to its fighting glory.

And even as Grimm undertakes this dangerous task, he will learn that the conflict between the Spires is merely a premonition of things to come. Humanity's ancient enemy, silent for more than ten thousand years, has begun to stir once more. And death will follow in its wake…

Illusion by Paula Volsky
One of fantasy's brightest new stars makes her Bantam debut with a colorful, sweeping high fantasy epic set against the fires of revolution. In the land of Vonahr, the Exalted have ruled by virtue of their legendary magical abilities for centuries, heedless of the misery of the lower classes. Now revolution is in the air. . . .

For two hundred years the Exalted classes have used their dazzling magical abilities to rule Vonahr. Now, their powers grown slack from disuse and their attention turned to decadent pleasures, they ignore the misery of the lower classes until the red tide of revolution sweeps across the land. Thrust into the center of the conflict is the beautiful Eliste vo Derrivalle, spirited daughter of a provincial landowner, who must now scramble for bread in the teeming streets of the capital. With the key to her magical abilities an elusive secret, she must suddenly find a way to survive in a world gone mad ... with liberty.

Illusion is a work of fantasy on the grandest scale - a seamless web of passion, danger, heroism, and romance that will hold you spellbound from the first page to the last.

Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber
An extremely interesting combination of science fiction and historical fiction... what if there was an alien threat to humanity that seeks to genocide the human race... and humanity loses...

Spearhead by Adam Makos
From the author of the international bestseller A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner's journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel—and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.

When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner's seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent: He's a natural-born shooter.

At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division—"Spearhead"—thought their tanks were invincible. Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next. Soon a pattern emerged: The lead tank always gets hit.

After Clarence sees his friends cut down breaching the West Wall and holding the line in the Battle of the Bulge, he and his crew are given a weapon with the power to avenge their fallen brothers: the Pershing, a state-of-the-art "super tank," one of twenty in the European theater.

But with it comes a harrowing new responsibility: Now they will spearhead every attack. That's how Clarence, the corporal from coal country, finds himself leading the U.S. Army into its largest urban battle of the European war, the fight for Cologne, the "Fortress City" of Germany.

Battling through the ruins, Clarence will engage the fearsome Panther in a duel immortalized by an army cameraman. And he will square off with Gustav Schaefer, a teenager behind the trigger in a Panzer IV tank, whose crew has been sent on a suicide mission to stop the Americans.

As Clarence and Gustav trade fire down a long boulevard, they are taken by surprise by a tragic mistake of war. What happens next will haunt Clarence to the modern day, drawing him back to Cologne to do the unthinkable: to face his enemy, one last time.

The Glorious History of the Sietch Book Club! To date we have read:
Jake's Magical Market
Sword Diplomacy
Witch World
Airborn
All Systems Red
 

Argent

Well-known member
So I voted for Illusion and Cinder Spires.

Cinder Spires becasue it is on my to read list. It is also an action adventure story with some political drama thrown in and sound like a fun read.


I also choose Illusion. It sounds fun and after some steampunk and sci fi maybe some magic could be a nice change.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Huh, after 6 months of trying it looks like Illusion might finally win. Persistence pays off!

Does this mean if I keep nominating the extremely woke Arrows of the Queen for a few years TS will choose it?
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
If you've jinxed it, I will find a way to make you suffer. I was looking forward to recommending a different book next month.
ME? I just jinxed myself, I was trying to see if I could get a book rec with zero votes whatsoever and look where that got me.
 

Robovski

Well-known member
Just ordered a copy of Illusion off of Thrift books since you can't just get an ebook. Going to be a bit before it comes.
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
Had a bit of a late start thanks to a recent bout of obsession with Factorio, but I've made it about 10% of the way through (which was slightly difficult as my digital copy was a bit scuffed in parts, with stuff like missing quotation marks and the spaces between certain words), and I have some thoughts.
I'd forgotten how unbearably naïve and shallow the main character was, and how monstrous the nobility is portrayed from the outset. Her father is an aspiring Josef Mengele, and the rest of her family (barring her kindly uncle) clearly did everything they could to indoctrinate her to look down on the lower classes as less than human like they do. It's a wonder she still manages to feel some measure of empathy for them, in any capacity.
 
Last edited:

Robovski

Well-known member
My copy came today in much less than the 4-6 weeks they advised so I will crack it open tonight.

I'll try not to be distracted by the other book I bought
FsbTNsSakAARi95
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
I'm at 12% now and finding this book hard to get into. There's clearly a decent story buried in here somewhere but...

It's just a blunt instrument of morality and bald preaching. Every word on the page is dedicated to emphasizing how unfair the world is, how spoiled the nobles are, and how downtrodden the serfs are. The escape has been the highlight of the story so far because it's the only wordcount that hasn't been devoted to some manner of telling us how awful the Exalted Nobles are and how terribly abused the serfs are.

I really wish there was some worldbuilding in here somewhere, especially since this level of abuse by the nobles makes no sense. Why is the Baron still alive at all? I mean, the story says that at some point the Exalted had some magic but goes out of its way to point out the Baron himself doesn't, nor do any of his family except Quiz who isn't interested in politics and treats the peasants well anyway. The Baron doesn't have any men-at-arms or even a militia (He needs to use the blacksmith for whipping and guard duty indicating a lack of anybody better). He's a country bumpkin who doesn't have the respect of his peers and is isolated from any authorities. He's not even apparently armed nor in decent shape himself. There's literally nothing keeping any random peasant from hitting him over the head with a log of firewood, followed by the rest of the baron's family, and then burning the manor down to hide the evidence as a "tragic accident" if some distant authorities are going to be a problem six months down the line. This world simply doesn't work and its lack of consistency feels like grimderp just for the sake of grimderpness.
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
I'm at 12% now and finding this book hard to get into. There's clearly a decent story buried in here somewhere but...

It's just a blunt instrument of morality and bald preaching. Every word on the page is dedicated to emphasizing how unfair the world is, how spoiled the nobles are, and how downtrodden the serfs are. The escape has been the highlight of the story so far because it's the only wordcount that hasn't been devoted to some manner of telling us how awful the Exalted Nobles are and how terribly abused the serfs are.

I really wish there was some worldbuilding in here somewhere, especially since this level of abuse by the nobles makes no sense. Why is the Baron still alive at all? I mean, the story says that at some point the Exalted had some magic but goes out of its way to point out the Baron himself doesn't, nor do any of his family except Quiz who isn't interested in politics and treats the peasants well anyway. The Baron doesn't have any men-at-arms or even a militia (He needs to use the blacksmith for whipping and guard duty indicating a lack of anybody better). He's a country bumpkin who doesn't have the respect of his peers and is isolated from any authorities. He's not even apparently armed nor in decent shape himself. There's literally nothing keeping any random peasant from hitting him over the head with a log of firewood, followed by the rest of the baron's family, and then burning the manor down to hide the evidence as a "tragic accident" if some distant authorities are going to be a problem six months down the line. This world simply doesn't work and its lack of consistency feels like grimderp just for the sake of grimderpness.
I won't lie to you; I've been finding it a bit harder to read myself than I remember it being. I'm hoping it gets better eventually, because this used to be one of my favorite books.
 

Robovski

Well-known member
I have to agree, this has been slow so far so I've not made a lot of progress. I will try again tonight.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Up to 15% now.

The story improved quite a bit with the carriage trip across country as we got a touch of worldbuilding that wasn't a massive infodump about how terrible the Exalted are. Unfortunately, it was fairly slim and as soon as Eliste reached her grandmother we got back to it. I felt this was just very... straw. Eliste has zero ability to counter, even with a memorized rote truism, her maid's question of why being a mistress for a wealthy noble is different from being a hooker, or several similar ones. This is the hallmark of straw argumentation, the other side is just plain unable to answer at all or provides only the weakest explanation for the innocent reasonable questions presented by the other side. It's also, I'm realizing, got a bad case of pop culture nobility. Nobles are bad because they have power, peasants are good because they're downtrodden, all the nobles are vain, frippery-obsessed weaklings who live only for pleasure, especially the pleasure of bullying the weak, while the peasants come in two flavors: valiant-but-abused heroes and vile quislings. The nobles are in colorful garb while the peasants are all dressed in drab clothes because real is brown doncha know?

Eliste randomly getting the same forbidden book was odd but acceptable to get some idea of what was in it. Because they were able to use magic ages ago, the Exalted gained immunity from taxation and so all taxes fall on the serfs now three hundred years later. It's apparent this system is falling apart which excuses some of the sloppy worldbuilding but I can't help but notice what's most missing here: enforcers. Such a world, strained to the breaking point and obviously on the cusp of revolution, should have its brownshirts, its brutal police, its banditry already nipping at the edges, its military beating down the uppity peasantry food rioters. But there isn't.

Perhaps a bandit attack on the carriage would have been cliche, I don't mind that it didn't happen. But we see no soldiers, no gendarmes, no city guards, nobody who's actually forcing this doddering system to work. This too would be excusable if the Exalted actually had magic but we keep getting it emphasized that the Exalted mostly haven't got that anymore so who's actually (barely) holding things together?

"This is treason! Why hasn't somebody stopped it?" Eliste cries out when she repeatedly sees peasants denouncing the nobility and nearly rioting, obscene shows mocking the king, and people handing out pamphlets explaining how evil the Exalted are. And I second that, why hasn't anybody? Where are the enforcers here? If the peasants are this abused, and this angry, why aren't any of the Exalted hiring thugs to break it up?

On the positive side I will note this author has a serious talent for descriptions. The cities are vibrant, the taverns are well enough detailed I could almost draw a floor plan, the shops are bustling and we get a good sense of how they work from the detailed explanations of how they're organized, what's on the shelves, and the attitude of both the clientele and the workers. Even better, this is conveyed succinctly and efficiently, often only a paragraph is needed to frame the scene. I do find it somewhat amusing that, somehow, there is an 80s shopping mall completely out of time. It's described as a collection of shops all together in two stories under a great glass roof where the nobility both shop and sip drinks while gossiping. This is clearly a modern-ish mall in a quasi-medieval setting.
 
Last edited:

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Alright, so this kinda took a bit of a hit when I was AFK for weeks due to a tornado. Going to get things back on track, we'll start taking nominations now for our next book and then start reading on the first of next month.

Born to die and be born again, Gell, the Jellyfae must discover her strange connection to the horrible monsters called humans, that speak with words she understands, but seem to want nothing but her death. Driven by a desire for safety and freedom, she ventures forth to Tread the Sky, and finds more worlds than one.

This one's LitRPG but reverses the typical conventions, it's known for being one heck of an emotional tear-jerker which is a somewhat bizarre but impressive accomplishment for a genre known primarily for making Number go Up.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top