Jo Graham

Back in the 1990s, there was a time when I considered Melissa Scott appointment reading, when she was writing space fiction with a filigree of cyberpunk. Situations change though and Scott fell out of my reading rotation, mostly because I don't read tie-in novels and Scott's idea of fantasy didn't appeal to me.

Flash forward 30 or so years, and one day I was wondering what Scott has been up to, in part when thinking about a constellation of female writers from the 1990s who are either out of circulation, or are no longer with us, and discovered "The Order of the Air." My thought being this should be right up my alley.

Unfortunately, the execution did not match my hopes. The high concept is cool. The prose is better than workmanlike. The characters are at least acceptable. The big problem is that this story has all the narrative snap of a wet noodle. I plowed through it but the overall execution doesn't make me want to rush right out and hunt down the rest of the series. To put it another way, all the components were there for a thriller, or a story of gothic atmosphere, but Mmes Scott & Graham just didn't seem to have that sort of novel in them, and that's unfortunate. Silvia Moreno-Garcia would have had a field day with this material.

My final thought is that narrative drive might always have been a problem with Scott's novels, even in her prime writing for Tor, and that's why I don't remember those novels better.… (mere)

Lydias of Miletus, formerly a slave's son and horse groom, sneaked out to join Alexander's army after Hephaistion bought a horse from Lydias's former master. Now Alexander is dead, the successors are warring over regency while Roxane's son is an infant, and Ptolemy sets Lydias to divert Alexander's hearse for Egypt. Reading this right after Philip and Alexander made for a nice contrast in terms of telling stories and evoking myths, and while featuring the succession wars, focused on building Alexandria and finding a way to live outside Alexander's adventures.… (mere)