Technomage Novels

[sindatur]

Actually Iz, I got the impression PC was referring to Morden's claim that he was an emissary of the Rook when she referenced the first 141 pages.

[iznardy]

Well, i've always thought of the techno-mages as gutless wonders. Some species bailed in the shadow war after getting trounced. The mages decided to bail without even trying. It's significant, i think, that in all subsequent B5 stories (Call to Arms, Legion of Fire) it is renegade mages that actually come out of hiding to help other races.

I've got no problem with background as long as it isn't crammed down my throat in 100 non-stop pages. Frankly, i still think the story, up until page 141, is mostly filler--the kind of notes and background that an author keeps in a drawer for their own information, but which in this case was stuck between covers as a "novel." It's almost like someone took JMS's notes and printed them, then added a few connective fragments of dialog. I've been in enough creative writing workshops to know that that's poor technique, so when i see it in print, it gets my ire up.

Legions of Fire makes a good comparison. in that series, the author holds back information, dropping it into the plot bit by bit, so you are always hoping he will tell you more. he could have started the novel be giving us the entire history of the drakh--but that would have killed the story. There are surprises in that book right up to the very last chapter.

The strong point in Casting Shadows was the intigue of the Circle--much more could have been done with that. The confrontation with the shadows was more like a cop show car chase than something I would have expected from the B5 universe.

And the appearance of Mr. Morden on the cover--well, let's face it--it was just window dressing to help sell the book. We learn nothing new about Mr. Morden in this book (okay, except that he routes for Michigan State in basketball and grew up in Summit, New Jersey). He isn't really all that important in the plot, and not nearly as chilling or insidious as he was from the very first in the T.V. series. It would have been better to leave out the drakh and the shadows so that Galen and Isabella had to directly confront Morden and deal with him. If you're gonna have a formidable adversary, you should at least use him.

Now--don't get me wrong. It's not like I hate this book. I just really really really really (really) don't like it.

iz

[iznardy]

on the mages in legions of fire

well, my guess is that galen will be to the techno-mages what delenn was to the minbari. he will probably be inducted into the Circle and will then break the Circle, refusing to do things by council, and creating a New Order. he was clearly on the outs with the council in crusade. galen is a "new" kind of mage and i think with his coming the Circle will be dissolved.

the cloister mages appear to have a mandate to go out and advise--the same sort of mandate the vorlons had--but they are closely watched by full mages. this goes along with my feeling that in the post-Shadow War galaxy, the drakh are the new instruments of darkness (the lesser shadows) and the techno-mages are the new observers and advisors (the lesser vorlons). thus the doings of the first ones still influence events, they just no longer dominate them.

[iznardy]

in fact, from what i recall, the drakh and the techno-mages are antithetical, just like the shadows and the vorlons. each sees the other as "wrong" as as interfering in the natural course of things. which makes me wonder if the mages weren't, in fact, some sort of creation of the vorlons rather than the shadows. the vorlons, after all, created telepaths, and the shadows immediately tried to co-op this creation to their own use. the vorlons don't seem to like the way the mages have grown in power over time--but this could just be another example of a vorlon experiment that they later regretted.

[sindatur]

Well I've been following PC and Iz's debates and I gotta tell ya Iz. I disagree with ya about that first 141 pages. I'm still only on page 100 and I see the set ups for alot of the things you two have been debating. Setting up Isabel through Burell as the scientist. Morden going around asking "The Question". Morden representing himself as just the envoy for the Rook. The chrysalis background. The way everyone goes around marking everything with a rune. Galen has already used his spell a 2nd time (involuntarily a second time). The list goes on.

I think this Trilogy is starting out the same way threads get exposed in the series. Briefly mention it in Act one, set it up in Act 2, tip over all the tables in Act 3.

[iznardy]

i don't debate the information, just the presentation. what can i say. i skimmed pages 40 to 100 because, although there were lots of things said, it wasn't enjoyable reading. it was slow, needlessly digressive, and just didn't have much in the way of suspense or foreboding to make me want to turn the next page. everything that was done in 141 pages could have been done in 75.

maybe i dislike this book because i had just finished two books in the legions of fire series which were very fast-paced, very well constructed, and has a cliff-hanger at the end of every chapter. in any case, the praise heaped upon the technomage book on the inside cover and back flap is just plain bull--i wouldn't ever trust a review by those folks again.

i didn't like sherri tepper's Grass, either, for much the same reason. too slow. lots of people disagreed. i guess that's good for tepper, because she wouldn't make a living off of readers like me.

:-)

[ProfCrash]

Morden's first appearence is bringing the crates of food for the gathering, that is when he introduced himself as an emissary of the Rook. Elric's comment in chapter 9 comes after he places Morden as an observer at eh time Galen's cast the spell. Elric then remembers Morden's first appearence, the mess with the food, as an attempt to misdirect his presence at the convocation.

[ianviking]

Ssssshhhhhhh!

My copy arrived this afternoon.....

[AsIs]

LOL, well read it already Ian!

I liked this book,especially the begining, but I tend to like character interaction more than action

[iznardy]

on elizar

okay, galen is clearly the protagonist in this series and elizar is clearly the antagonist. that means there well eventually be a reckoning between the two.

it could come in book two, with book three being dedicated to the shadow war; or it could be that elizar survives the war and book three will end with a final confrontation between him and galen.

does anyone remember if elizar made an appearance in crusade. i recall one episode on the well of souls, or whatever it was; and i thought there was another one in which galen went off on a quest for private vengeance, tracking down another technomage.