PoC SFF Book Club discussion

I'm so glad that other people suggested two weeks per book instead of one book! I'm only about a third of the way through Servant of the Underworld at this point, but I have LOTS to talk about and I'm really excited to finish the rest.

I mentioned this before on Tumblr, but reading this book has been very emotional for me. I studied Spanish and Mexican literature in Mexico City (formerly the Tenochtitlan of our hero Acatl) and I've actually been to many of the places mentioned in the book. The district of Coyocán, for example, is where Frida Kahlo used to live, and where I spent a summer subletting an apartment. The smell of copal, mentioned frequently in the book, is also so evocative!

If you'd like to see a really cool depiction of Tenochtitlan in its heyday I can't suggest anything better than Diego Rivera's murals.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil...

de Bodard throws us into the middle of things (as a good writer should) and it took me a while to get my bearings. I'm interested by the fact that Acatl is a TOTALLY atypical fantasy hero. Most high fantasy has viewpoint characters that are moving through society at the top or the bottom, or moving from the top to the both or vice versa. Through their social movement, we get a sense of the unfamiliar world. That's why the #1 clichéd choice of high fantasy hero is Chosen One Prince Actually Raised as a Farmboy.

In mysteries, on the other hand, whether fantastic, historic or not, the protagonist has to be kind of middle-class. They can't be the King of Everything or the Head of Police because then their job would be mostly telling other people what to do. But they have to wield power in their society in order to get about the business of investigating. The tension of a mystery novel comes from unstable, fluctuating ability to access information.

So that's where Acatl is. He's got a lot of prestige and power, but he's also operating in an elite world where most people have MORE prestige and power. At the beginning we think OMG he's a priest of the god of Death he must be a creepy necromancer… but then, as the lines of this society become clearer, we realize he's more like a county coroner. His job is actually very relatable (aside from the animal sacrifice, that is). He's accountable to a lot of superiors, accountable to the common people, and often hobbled by bureaucracy/customs.

I love how we're slowly exploring the world through Acatl's patient but somewhat jaded eyes. There are fascinating parallels with modern Western society and also depths of difference. Let's say this is the fifteenth century, but it's NOTHING like what we imagine medieval or Rennaissance Europe (the typical template for both historicals and fantasy) looks like. Just a few differences off the top of my head:

Slavery. Definitely more like what we see in the pre-Christian Roman world than slavery in the modern (1600-1900) sense. People can sell themselves into a kind of temporary slavery and have rights even when they're slaves.

Human Sacrifice. The big difference. The system of "The Wars of the Flowers" was semi-voluntary. If you signed up to be a warrior, you knew you would have an intense but short life. If you were captured by the enemy and sacrificed, it wasn't necessarily a dishonor… you were helping keep the world going according to their religious belief system.

Sexism. Definitely prevalent, although in a much different form. The fact that adultery means a harsh, equal death penalty for both the man and the woman, for example, and the presence of women at high levels of religious power and education.

So far my big questions are…

What kind of character growth is Acatl going to have? Will he reconcile with his family?
How involved will the gods be in this plot?
Is Eleiua still alive?
Are the priests right about the sun possibly going out? Or is the metaphysics more complicated than that? How much do the gods need the humans?

I love the writing style, which is nice and clear, at times somber, with just the right level of detail. I have some issues with the dialogue tags, but since I'm a writer my perspective is going to be wonky and nitpicky on that end, so I'll save it. It's not perfect... but it's damn impressive for a debut novel. The care in the historical research is especially impressive.

I have a bunch of thoughts comparing this to the only other Aztec-based fiction I've ever read, Gary Jenning's Aztec, but I'll save that for later this week when i finish the book.

What do you think? What are your impressions of where you are in the book? Do you have a favorite part or favorite character? Any burning questions? If you'd prefer to comment on Tumblr the open post is here.

So I totally took advantage of my working at home privileges to finish the book this morning even though I promised to read it tomorrow on the train. Whoops.

Initially, I had a hard time getting into the story because I thought the pacing was too slow. But I think that's due to the rich worldbuilding and me having to absorb the Aztec culture, which I had no real knowledge of prior to reading this book. In fact, I don't think I felt overwhelmed by the details of the setting which is a testament to de Bodard's skill in balancing the right amount of information without overloading the reader.

I'm still not sure what to make of Acatl's character, although I can see that he falls under the reluctant hero type. I didn't feel an emotional connection with him until the part where he talks about his only past student even though prior to this he discussed his parents' disappointment in him and being compared to his "perfect" brother, Neutemoc. I really enjoy(ed) the rapport/relationship between Teomitl and Acatl, especially since there is such a distinct prejudice(?) between warriors and priests. It was interesting to see that Teomitl, a young man, held more tolerance and respect for Acatl's occupation as a priest than some of the older warriors who clearly look down on Acatl.

de Bodard uses the existence of gods and goddesses interestingly well without making them all-powerful yet still limited in what they can do. I'm always interested in how writers incorporate deities into their works without giving them too much agency and still make them vulnerable. I found it fascinating how distinct each god/goddess was and that there were specific types of sacrifices they required.

As for the mystery element, I'm really impressed with the way de Bodard used what were first concluded as dead end clues turn out to be keys to solving the questions surrounding Eleiua's disappearance and Neutemoc's imprisonment/past. I will definitely go back and re-read how the threads ended up converging in the end. Hope the first few sentences of this paragraph aren't considered spoilery.

Genre-wise, detective and mystery stories are my absolute fave, after fantasy and science-fiction. From a young age, I’ve adored them. I started on British stories and their authors like Agatha Christie, and hell, even Enid Blyton—British Imperialism, you know, and I’m always on the look-out for more mystery stories.

Usually in detective stories, the mysteries can tend to dominate the narrative. Balancing act between main puzzle and the characters can be tricky. I've embarrassed myself and finished the whole trilogy, but am slowly re-reading the books again.

Like KC mentioned, Acatl definitely is a reluctant protagonist type, but reading the trilogy there is a sense of how he came into his own. He's new to the position of High Priest, dislikes political games and is a pretty methodical character. I think his role as the Keeper of the Boundaries acts fits within the detective narrative; the investigator of events that interrupt the status-quo and restores it back.

The Aztec-based setting is very new to me, so but its descriptiveness is lovely with just enough detail to make it lived in. I don't know if I can answer most of the big questions except the last one because spoilers.

I think the Gods need humans more since they sacrificed much to create the Fifth Sun, and are dependent on the living blood in the setting. Its interesting how much the world is made and re-made in a newer form.

I finished the book and left a video review here!. And I'll throw out some more rambling reactions.

I loved the ending. The pacing of this book was a little jerky, but by the end it was humming along like a freight train. The sheer ingenuity of a battle in the middle of a lake surrounded by freaky monsters! I had to look up the ahuizotl:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahuizotl...
The creature is described as dog-like, its waterproof fur often clumping up to create spikes (hence its name). The ahuizotl has hands capable of manipulation and an additional hand on its tail. The ahuizotl is feared due to its liking for human flesh, especially nails, eyes, and teeth. It is said to live in or near the water and to use the hand on the end of its tail to snatch its prey, dragging the person into the depths to drown him or her. Victims of the ahuizotl, Aztec beliefs state, are destined for the paradise of the god Tlaloc.[2]
The ahuizotl included within Book 11 of the Florentine Codex, which describes it as:
“ "...very like the teui, the small teui dog; small and smooth, shiny. It has small, pointed ears, just like a small dog. It is black, like rubber; smooth, slippery, very smooth, longtailed. And its tail is provided with a hand at the end; just like a human hand is the point of its tail. And its hands are like a raccoon's hands or like a monkey's hands. It lives, it is a dweller in watery caverns, in watery depths. And if anyone arrives there at its entrance, or there in the water where it is, it then grabs him there. It is said that it sinks him, it plunges him into the water; it carries him to its home, it introduces him to the depths; so its tail goes holding him, so it goes seizing him ... [When the body is retrieved] the one it has drowned no longer has his eyes, his teeth, and his nails; it has taken them all from him. But his body is completely unblemished, his skin uninjured. Only his body comes out all slippery-wet; as if one had pounded it with a stone; as if it had inflicted small bruises ... When it was annoyed - had caught no one, had drowned none of us commoners - then was heard as if a small child wept. And he who heard it thought perhaps a child wept, perhaps a baby, perhaps an abandoned one. Moved by this, he went there to look for it. So there he fell into the hands of the auítzotl, there it drowned him..."

I feel like Acatl is a bad fantasy hero (in terms of his reluctance) but a good mystery one. He ended up with a lot more character development than I expected. He became closer to his brother and sister, resolved issues with his dead father and made his moral stance clear.

I agree that using gods in human form is always tricky, as KC notes! Like superheroes, if you give them too much power, you ruin the conflict of the story. The way the intrigue among the gods mirrored human intrigue was really well done, I thought. Adultery or cheating was the main axis (Tlaloc, Neutemoc) and it wasn't linked to sexual jealousy as much as it was a political and social issue.

What did people think about the role of women in the book? This is definitely a male-centered story, but it has an interesting theme about women's access to political power that seems really universal across a lot of cultures.

The idea that the world is cyclical also strikes me as universal, or at least widespread. It's not Christian but it pops up in different worldviews like Norse mythology, Hinduism, many Meso-American belief systems. In practical terms, I think it makes people feel better about death and change. Usually when epic fantasies end on a bang they rely on a non-cyclical "OMG THE WORLD IS GONNA BE DESTROYED IF OUR HEROES DON'T PREVAIL" but I also liked Acatl's fatalistic approach to the end of his world, and found it just as compelling. He knows if the Fifth World ends another will take its place... but he'd rather live in The Fifth World for a while longer, because it's his world. It reminds me of that saying "everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die"... who made up that quote?

I agree about the ending. I finished it standing up on the train and was riveted. How specific are we getting about plot points in this space?

I would have liked a little more development of Acatl. I loved the idea of him as someone who just wanted to do his duties and be left alone, who then has to come to terms with being a leader. But I felt like this was told to us a little more than shown. He's got the makings of a cool character. I enjoyed that the societal warrior-priest conflict is played out in his psyche, and that he is actually pretty tough in his own right. But those elements didn't totally come to fruition for me in this book. Has anyone read farther in the series? Does Acatl continue to develop?

As Solace mentioned, the glimpses of women in this book are brief but fascinating. They each represent different strategies of navigating a structured society. (Actually, that is a big theme for all the characters in the book.) Of the women, Mihmatini stood out to me. She quips and she is strong and smart, but she is essentially there to patch up the heroes, keep the wards strong, and take care of the children. She says that she wants to marry and have children, but will she be happy doing only that? Do we know enough about her at this point to judge that? I think de Bodard said in her afterward that Mihmatini and Teomitl have a bigger part to play in the next book, so I guess we will find out.