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eclairedelune's review against another edition
1.0
This is an eminently stupid book whose only saving grace is that large chunks of it are thoroughly skippable.
In my previous review for this series, I said the only thing that made these books worth reading were the female characters. Well, unfortunately, by the time this installment was concluded, most of those characters had been thoroughly sidelined: Irene and Shakuntula, who both despite attaining thrones, became reduced on-page to doting wives and mothers, Theodora practically written out entirely, and Sati a complete robot. The new female characters introduced were practically all carbon copies of each other: spunky, nubile teenagers, devoted to the husbands chosen for them, who like to read because they're "not like other girls." Of course, every time a female character that the narrative wants you to like is introduced, the point is sure to be made that yes, she likes to read, to the shock of all the men around her! As if female illiteracy was a universal constant or as if being able to read is the only indicator of a person's intelligence.
Multiple marriages are arranged in this book, and in every single one the women are treated like chattel, traded around and arranged for without a single consideration of what they might want. The most notorious example of this is Valentinian and Anastasius, middle-aged men, deciding for themselves that they want to marry two teenage girls they rescued out of sex slavery, and not once does the narrative depict what feelings those girls might have on the matter other than a casual "they're fine with it." Far more time is spent on their father's thoughts than their own.
Speaking of arranged marriages, the subplot of Photius and Tahmina, and the way it depicted the nascent sexual awakening of a ten-year-old child was so thoroughly offputting to read I cannot fathom why it was included in the first place. Those were easily the most uncomfortable passages in the entire book, with the exception of...
When I read that the requirement to be a vessel for Link was not only being female, but autistic, my jaw practically dropped. To take autism, a condition already belittled and harshly stereotyped for being unfeeling and subhuman, and present it as a requirement for being characters who are not only stripped of their souls and possessed by an evil supercomputer but unfailingly depicted as coldly logical, unfeeling, and eerie, is such a stunning act of ableism that I had to do a double take.
Some other minor thoughts:
In my previous review for this series, I said the only thing that made these books worth reading were the female characters. Well, unfortunately, by the time this installment was concluded, most of those characters had been thoroughly sidelined: Irene and Shakuntula, who both despite attaining thrones, became reduced on-page to doting wives and mothers, Theodora practically written out entirely, and Sati a complete robot. The new female characters introduced were practically all carbon copies of each other: spunky, nubile teenagers, devoted to the husbands chosen for them, who like to read because they're "not like other girls." Of course, every time a female character that the narrative wants you to like is introduced, the point is sure to be made that yes, she likes to read, to the shock of all the men around her! As if female illiteracy was a universal constant or as if being able to read is the only indicator of a person's intelligence.
Multiple marriages are arranged in this book, and in every single one the women are treated like chattel, traded around and arranged for without a single consideration of what they might want. The most notorious example of this is Valentinian and Anastasius, middle-aged men, deciding for themselves that they want to marry two teenage girls they rescued out of sex slavery, and not once does the narrative depict what feelings those girls might have on the matter other than a casual "they're fine with it." Far more time is spent on their father's thoughts than their own.
Speaking of arranged marriages, the subplot of Photius and Tahmina, and the way it depicted the nascent sexual awakening of a ten-year-old child was so thoroughly offputting to read I cannot fathom why it was included in the first place. Those were easily the most uncomfortable passages in the entire book, with the exception of...
When I read that the requirement to be a vessel for Link was not only being female, but autistic, my jaw practically dropped. To take autism, a condition already belittled and harshly stereotyped for being unfeeling and subhuman, and present it as a requirement for being characters who are not only stripped of their souls and possessed by an evil supercomputer but unfailingly depicted as coldly logical, unfeeling, and eerie, is such a stunning act of ableism that I had to do a double take.
Some other minor thoughts:
- Anna and Calphodius' storyline made no sense and was very uninteresting.
- Really the only interesting character was Antonina.
- The good guys almost always won everything and even their losses turned out all right in the end, and the bad guys were very stupid. I would have almost welcomed a downer ending because it would have proved that for all his arrogance, Belisarius wasn't unbeatable.
Boy, am I glad to be done with this.
18thstjoe's review against another edition
4.0
Didn't quite have the payoff I was expecting...but still great alt-history SF milfic
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