[stone monkey]

MODGOD WARNING IF YOU'RE JUST STARTING THIS THREAD
THIS THREAD FOR DISCUSSION OF THE COLD COMMANDS
THE STEEL REMAINS
AND ALL ALL ALL OTHER WORKS BY RICHARD MORGAN INCLUDING THE TAKESHI KOVACS BOOKS
SPOILERS UNBLOCKED AFTER THE FIRST TEN POSTS OR SO
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

100 pages in and a thought has just occurred to me - spoilered for spoilery stuff

Spoiler

I'm getting hints that these books are actually Deep Future sequels to the Takeshi Kovacs books - Ringil's conversation with the Salt Lord (who may even be Kovacs if I read things right) is full of them. And the Helmsman that falls from the sky to give a message to Archeth seems to hint at such a thing too

Or possibly Morgan is just messing with his fans...

This post has been edited by Abyss: 26 October 2011 - 02:22 PM
Reason for edit: to add modgod warning

[Tapper]

Holy fuck, this book is brutal so far. Poppy Snarl may be queen of the stone cold nasty bitches, but that whole bit made me throw up a little in my mouth. Nasty, very nasty, mister Morgan.

Spoiler

@ Stone Monkey: it might be. The name of the Salt Lord is most definately a hint of sorts, although in nothing does the Salt Lord fit what we know of Kovacs or the conflicts he has been in. Then again, I guess if you can be uploaded into bodies, any type of bodies, you are practically immortal and can take a weird nonhuman form. Secondly, the way the Helmsman talks is most certainly in no way alike to the speech of others in the book and is a lot closer to what you could expect from a Kovacs novel...

[stone monkey]

That chapter really shows Morgan stretching the definition of what a hero is to encompass some truly monstrous actions. You end up thinking to yourself "We're supposed to be on this guy's side? Really?"

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 12 October 2011 - 07:42 PM

[Werthead]

Briar King, on 13 October 2011 - 12:05 AM, said:

What is this about? Stand alone novel or part of a series?

It's the second in a trilogy called (in the US anyway), A Land Fit For Heroes. The first (somewhat weaker) book is The Steel Remains, the third one will apparently be called The Dark Defiles.

The trilogy is also set in the distant future of one of Morgan's existing SF universes, though you don't need to be familiar with that to enjoy these books.

Spoiler

Yes, the trilogy is set in the Takeshi Kovacs universe. As well as Kovacs himself turning up as a 'god', there's also mentions of the Ahn-Voys (Envoys), discussions about needlecasting (flitting between the stars) and the ring of debris around the Earth used to be a body called 'Muhn' (Moon) which was destroyed in some prior cataclysm.

[stone monkey]

So I have actually finished this now and I'm a bit ambivalent. The usual (and quite possibly very unusual) nastiness is there. As well as some hints about what it truly is we're actually reading. But I'm somewhat disappointed by the end; it just ends without doing much.

Gripping and appalling simultaneously, an expansion of the world - but it still doesn't quite hit the spot... I think Morgan needs to pull it out of the fire for the last book in the trilogy or it will go down as an heroic failure.

[Obdigore]

I'm about 3/4 through it. Somewhat frustrated by the fact that very little to move the story forward has happened.

Not that I'm not enjoying reading the story, or the characters, or the weird events in the possibilities between realities being balanced by the almost standard reactions of the 'normal' humans.

I'm going to be very disappointed if (spoiler for about 3/4 the book below)

Spoiler

Egar is killed or ends up going along on the expedition to the watchtower floating city. Either one of those endings to the book is going to be extremely frustrating to me.

Will be back after I finish regarding how it ends.

No, I have not read any of the Kovaks novels.

[Obdigore]

Finished it. The ending was surreal. A cliff-hangerish ending but an ok place to stop the story I reckon as the book was getting a little long.

I really like the different races/beings he has introduced, but I'm freaking lost regarding what is happening to Ringil.

Spoiler

So he can command the unrealized possibilities of the people he knows?

[Tapper]

Obdigore, on 18 October 2011 - 03:46 AM, said:

Finished it. The ending was surreal. A cliff-hangerish ending but an ok place to stop the story I reckon as the book was getting a little long.

I really like the different races/beings he has introduced, but I'm freaking lost regarding what is happening to Ringil.

Spoiler

So he can command the unrealized possibilities of the people he knows?

Spoiler

Command is a bit too much at this point, I think. Summon is perhaps better... but there seems to be affinity building between the grey paths and himself and him able to manifest part of it.

I guess it's rather obvious, but just to check my own sanity: anyone else who is fairly certain that Ringil is the Ilwrack Changeling returned?

After all, Risgillen was of Clan Ilwrack, Seethlaw was her brother, and in the first book Seethlaw mused that he had had a human lover long, long, long ago - if 1 and 1 is 2, that makes Seethlaw the one who created the Changeling the first time around. Who's to say he didn't do so again, only this time, he just sowed the seed and Ringil erratically teaches himself - in addition he's half marsh blood himself, and that blood contains a bit of dwenda, too, after all?

[Obdigore]

Spoiler

I'm not sure Seethlaw knocked up Ringil's mother. I could see it being passed down through the bloodlines and 'activated' if you will by his journey with Seethlaw? Either way your theory means Ringil was doing either his real father or his great-great-great-great grandpa.

Does anyone else think that Ringil is the 'dark thing approaching' that the Navigators (the spice must flooow!) are seeing? PS - could the one that was a satellite have been sent to safeguard the old Illwrack Changeling, and they are going to find him on on the dwenda island which they will find from the engineer-people island. (I'm terrible with names, better with descriptions)

Also 1) Was the thing in the alley when the bounty hunters had Ringil cornered one of the 3 things following Ringil around when he went into the sorcerers camp in the Grey places, which were apparently Him as he could have been? Am I reading/understand that as other people are?

And 2) the prophet thingy Ringil went to in the grey places, the one with the 6 extra arms that gave him a hug - 2 of the things he told Ringil would happen have come true. First him stepping off the boat into the crowd, it was written exactally the same. And then he is covered in blood and going to meet the Emperor without washing off, who wants to bet that the scene of their meeting follows what was layed out there?

This post has been edited by Obdigore: 18 October 2011 - 04:53 PM

[Tapper]

Obdigore, on 18 October 2011 - 04:52 PM, said:

Spoiler

I'm not sure Seethlaw knocked up Ringil's mother. I could see it being passed down through the bloodlines and 'activated' if you will by his journey with Seethlaw? Either way your theory means Ringil was doing either his real father or his great-great-great-great grandpa.

Does anyone else think that Ringil is the 'dark thing approaching' that the Navigators (the spice must flooow!) are seeing? PS - could the one that was a satellite have been sent to safeguard the old Illwrack Changeling, and they are going to find him on on the dwenda island which they will find from the engineer-people island. (I'm terrible with names, better with descriptions)

Also 1) Was the thing in the alley when the bounty hunters had Ringil cornered one of the 3 things following Ringil around when he went into the sorcerers camp in the Grey places, which were apparently Him as he could have been? Am I reading/understand that as other people are?

And 2) the prophet thingy Ringil went to in the grey places, the one with the 6 extra arms that gave him a hug - 2 of the things he told Ringil would happen have come true. First him stepping off the boat into the crowd, it was written exactally the same. And then he is covered in blood and going to meet the Emperor without washing off, who wants to bet that the scene of their meeting follows what was layed out there?

Spoiler

The Changeling was fostered/adopted by the Ilwrack, the same (albeit as a grown man) happened to Ringil... so he may not be the Changeling, but he most definately is following the same trace.
And yeah, I think the new Helmsman is either an AI or a satellite. In the Kovacs novels, we see the development of semi-sentient AIs at several times - sometimes as self-assembling machines, but also as a weird, weird weapon that adapts to everything it encounters. The Helmsmen are one step further.

Also, and I curse myself for not noticing this any sooner, Kelgris = Quelcrist Falconer. It seems Kovacs and she won their little revolution.

[Obdigore]

Hey now, Less Kovacs spoilers, I just purchased them today!

[Tapper]

Obdigore, on 19 October 2011 - 07:24 AM, said:

Hey now, Less Kovacs spoilers, I just purchased them today!

Oh, you're going to love them.

And sorry for the spoilers... seeing how A Land Fit For Heroes is interwoven with the Kovacs business, it is hard to keep them apart. I'll be more careful though

[Obdigore]

Give me over the weekend and I will be be back with Kovacs knowledge.

[Tapper]

Obdigore, on 19 October 2011 - 07:49 AM, said:

Give me over the weekend and I will be be back with Kovacs knowledge.

My pleasure

[polishgenius]

Woo, good book. I love the Kovacs links.

Ringil in the Marshes confuses me, I'm gonna have to reread those bits to get my head round it properly. I found interesting parallels to China Mieville's books, especially The Scar, what with a world blistered by maybe and, for some reason, the tales of Dwenda domination reminding me of the Ghosthead. Lot more in your face than The Scar, though, those aspects. I wonder if the inspirations came from the same place- the acknowledgments include a thanks to M John Harrison for the inspiration that provided, and I wonder if that includes the whole possibility thing, which is less a plot point in Viriconium (so far as I've read into the collection) but definitely there.

I also liked the suggestion that Time has broken down, which includes the definite implication that our fairy tales and legends come from the Dwenda and Kiriath etcs. Especially with Ringil getting Ravenscalibur back from the Newt Lady of the LakeSwamp. >_>

[Obdigore]

Halfway through the third Kovacs novel. I want this future, as bleak as it is. Sleeves and Datastacks sound so much more interesting than say the culture.

[Morgoth]

Obdigore, on 25 October 2011 - 05:33 AM, said:

Halfway through the third Kovacs novel. I want this future, as bleak as it is. Sleeves and Datastacks sound so much more interesting than say the culture.

Stagnation and corruption rather than Utopia? Each his own I guess.

[Morgoth]

polishgenius, on 20 October 2011 - 02:10 PM, said:

Woo, good book. I love the Kovacs links.

Ringil in the Marshes confuses me, I'm gonna have to reread those bits to get my head round it properly. I found interesting parallels to China Mieville's books, especially The Scar, what with a world blistered by maybe and, for some reason, the tales of Dwenda domination reminding me of the Ghosthead. Lot more in your face than The Scar, though, those aspects. I wonder if the inspirations came from the same place- the acknowledgments include a thanks to M John Harrison for the inspiration that provided, and I wonder if that includes the whole possibility thing, which is less a plot point in Viriconium (so far as I've read into the collection) but definitely there.

I also liked the suggestion that Time has broken down, which includes the definite implication that our fairy tales and legends come from the Dwenda and Kiriath etcs. Especially with Ringil getting Ravenscalibur back from the Newt Lady of the LakeSwamp. >_>

I get a much stronger resemblance to Wolfe and Vance than Mieville to be honest. The whole distant future with magic and science living hand in hand through that famous quote by Arthur C. Clark

[Abyss]

Werthead, on 13 October 2011 - 08:48 AM, said:

...

Spoiler

...As well as Kovacs himself turning up as a 'god', there's also mentions of the Ahn-Voys (Envoys),...

Thanks Wert... that 'Ahn Foi' reference by Rinskillen was driving me NUTS.

[polishgenius]

Morgoth, on 26 October 2011 - 01:49 PM, said:

I get a much stronger resemblance to Wolfe and Vance than Mieville to be honest. The whole distant future with magic and science living hand in hand through that famous quote by Arthur C. Clark

Oh aye, it's definitely a Dying Earth-style setting (Viriconium is that as well, and as I say he acknowledges that influence). It's just those specifics that put me in mind of Mieville.