Burning Tower

This book purports to be a pseudo-history of meso-america, with proto-cultures where magic is still (just about) real and the things we currently consider to be legend - flying snakes, rain arrows and the like - work. There are also merfolk and other such wonders. At that level, it's entirely satisfying.

However, as you might expect from two such well known science-fiction authors there are elements that can be read as a twist on today's culture. The huge "evil empire" with massive numbers of poorly trained troops and a massive reliance on their technology to cope with the vicissitudes of life. The same empire has an emperor who will do anything to cling to power, and won't hear bad news because no one is brave enough to tell him. The show more much smaller, heroic, highly-trained other empire who goes out and integrates with the natives and learns from them to some extent at least and is able to hide amongst them when needed.

Maybe it's a stretch, but I kept reading it as a commentary on the US and UK foreign policies (the US being in the role of the evil empire, the UK in the role of much smaller and playing the 'hearts and minds' card), but also as the US and the terrorists - the "reasonable behaviour" of the evil empire by their standards clearly makes you think they're mad and shouldn't be allowed to spread their influence everywhere. The terrorists are tiny by comparison but dedicated and work hard to preserve their own sense of right and wrong.

After all of that, it's also a love story, and a rollicking good yarn. show less

Burning Tower picks up a year after Burning City concludes, Yangin-Atep is myth, the Greenroad is open, and no one knows how Tep's Town will survive exposure to the outside world. The focus of the book is on the budding romance between Sandry, the finest young Lord of his generation, and Burning Tower, the youngest of Whandall Feathersnake's children. Whereas in Whandall's story, we saw an entire lifetime in one book, Burning Tower slows down time so that we can see Sandry and Tower begin to love one another, and overcome the obstacles that could keep them apart.

Sandry and Tower come from different worlds. Sandry is Lord Sandry, representative of the legalistic and militaristic Lords of Lordshills. We get to see much more of the Lords' show more society in Burning Tower, see what they do and why they do it. Tower's mother and father represent the other two factions of Tep's Town, the kinless and the Lordkin, but Tower is more a child of the Hemp Road.

Dynastic politics is both bane and boon to Sandry and Tower. Normally, Lords marry within their own kind, but Whandall's escape from Tep's Town and subsequent success as a merchant prince has both elevated his status and set in motion a chain of events that threaten to undermine the power of the Lords, and the stability of Tep's Town. The possibility of marrying into a trading empire allows Sandry the opportunity to follow his heart, and it leads him from Tep's Town, across the Mohave, up the Mogollon Rim, and past Meteor Crater to Aztlan.

As a secret history, Niven and Pournelle based this book upon existing art, legend, and archeology, with their own special twists. I greatly enjoyed their version of the foundation myth of the Aztecs. There is a little bit of fun metahistory, some unusual tidbits thrown in for color, and perhaps just a bit of snark towards bureaucracy. A really, really, fun book. Anyone who likes Niven and Pournelle will like this one, and fans of secret histories should as well. show less

Feels like a formula fantasy book written to be one of many in a series. You know the style. But, you never loose the feel of a Niven/Pournelle novel either. There's attention to detail in lots of areas most authours ignore, and some more typical details breezed right past. If you enjoy their style, you'll enjoy the book.

I do wish they could have set up the climax better - they ended up reducing the IQ of the entire cast by about 50 points temporarily to pull it off, the ones they didn't just drug for the duration that is. Then they cap it off with a pretty pat ending.

Nonetheless, enjoyable.

Two good things about this: I got it from the library and I did not read the prequel :-)

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