book: A Confusion of Princes
Mar. 13th, 2014 12:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraIt's not surprising that A Confusion of Princes, Garth Nix doing YA SF, is not as good as Sabriel, because Sabriel is *so* good that everything else he could ever write is always going to be in that shadow. It's maybe more fair to compare Princes to the Keys to the Kingdom series (which I reviewed here), with which it has more in common plotwise/thematically anyways (more about that below), and with which it compares favorably: where the Keys series was gimmicky and bloated, Princes, as a standalone book, is compact and solid. (And grippingly action-packed, after a pacing acceleration midway.) Surprising number of mind-controlled sex slaves for a YA novel (which is to say, any at all), but points for default, un-remarked-upon bisexuality. Plotwise, it's sort of Ancillary Justice meets The Hunger Games, with enhanced Princes struggling for power in an Empire run on distributed intelligence and mind control.
Nix makes some interesting choices in the resolution. The Empire is pretty evil, and Khemri, our main character, comes to realize this, and has the opportunity to become Emperor, where he would have twenty years of absolute political power and could potentially try to reform it. But instead he throws up his hands, concludes that the Empire is too entrenched in its ways for him to be able to do anything, leaves power in the hands of a typically bloodthirsty/indifferent fellow Prince, and runs away to live out an ordinary life on the fringes of the Empire with the Love Interest. Which, yay for him, HEA, but sort of unsatisfying for the trillions of people left in subjugation. I suppose it's a very realistic ending, for our cultural times - there is no real chance that frustrated young people will ever reform our increasingly totalitarian government or oligarchic financial system, and the best anyone can hope for is to find happiness on a personal scale - but I feel like cynicism is for real life and I want heroic optimism in my fantasy reading.
This ending of Princes is also an interesting mirror to the Keys to the Kingdom series, which ends exactly the opposite way - the Keys main character, at the end of all of his tests and contests, *does* assume absolute power (in the really absolute creator-God sense). Keys is aimed at a younger audience - does Nix think power-fantasy is for youngers and cynicism for olders? In Keys, Arthur's first act as God is to recreate his lost friend, whereas Khemri believes that Imperial power would preclude any relationship with the Love Interest - friendship can survive power differential, but romance demands equality? I guess, to me, "embrace omnipotence" and "eschew power entirely" are both frustratingly over-simple, and neither is a really satisfying resolution to the problems of power Nix brings up in his stories. I would like to read the fanfic where Khemri does become Emperor, I guess, and doesn't entirely give up on the Love Interest either, and what happens next is messy and imperfect and painful and so much *more* than the cop-out ending.
Nix makes some interesting choices in the resolution. The Empire is pretty evil, and Khemri, our main character, comes to realize this, and has the opportunity to become Emperor, where he would have twenty years of absolute political power and could potentially try to reform it. But instead he throws up his hands, concludes that the Empire is too entrenched in its ways for him to be able to do anything, leaves power in the hands of a typically bloodthirsty/indifferent fellow Prince, and runs away to live out an ordinary life on the fringes of the Empire with the Love Interest. Which, yay for him, HEA, but sort of unsatisfying for the trillions of people left in subjugation. I suppose it's a very realistic ending, for our cultural times - there is no real chance that frustrated young people will ever reform our increasingly totalitarian government or oligarchic financial system, and the best anyone can hope for is to find happiness on a personal scale - but I feel like cynicism is for real life and I want heroic optimism in my fantasy reading.
This ending of Princes is also an interesting mirror to the Keys to the Kingdom series, which ends exactly the opposite way - the Keys main character, at the end of all of his tests and contests, *does* assume absolute power (in the really absolute creator-God sense). Keys is aimed at a younger audience - does Nix think power-fantasy is for youngers and cynicism for olders? In Keys, Arthur's first act as God is to recreate his lost friend, whereas Khemri believes that Imperial power would preclude any relationship with the Love Interest - friendship can survive power differential, but romance demands equality? I guess, to me, "embrace omnipotence" and "eschew power entirely" are both frustratingly over-simple, and neither is a really satisfying resolution to the problems of power Nix brings up in his stories. I would like to read the fanfic where Khemri does become Emperor, I guess, and doesn't entirely give up on the Love Interest either, and what happens next is messy and imperfect and painful and so much *more* than the cop-out ending.
