Disclaimer: I have yet to read Death's
Heretic, so some of the overarching themes of Salim's story are lost on
me. I thought about reading it first, but after a conversation with James
Sutter at GenCon about seeing people like me (aka homosexuals) in fantasy
literature, he indicated that I'd probably be more interested in reading The Redemption Engine. I
had read Sutter's serialized stories Boar
and Rabbit on the Paizo blog.
Those were our first introduction to Bors and Roshad. Finally, this review is intended to be spoiler-free, but that's really impossible unless the review is a blank page or just says, "This is a good book." (It is, by the way). So, while I've left out the plot points, you are going to learn a thing or two about the book. It is, to quote Emperor Palpatine, inevitable.
The Redemption
Engine is at heart a
story about coming to terms with who you are. Salim Ghadafar, a former
officer in the Rahadoumi Pure Legion made a bargain with Pharasma, the Goddess
of Death. Salim got what he asked for and in exchange he gets to be
Pharasma’s immortal enforcer.[1] Salim’s worldview remains staunchly Rahadoumi
athiest[2]
despite finding himself as the servant of one of them. I’ll deal with the homosexuality issues later. For now, I’ll just say that it was refreshing
to read a novel with gay characters that focused on self-actualization that
wasn’t about the gay characters’ attempts to come to terms with living within
their own skin.[3] In this installation of Salim’s story, he’s
off on a new mission for the Lady of Graves in Kaer Maga.
Salim spends a good portion of the novel
trying to come to grips with his role as Pharasma’s enforcer. Pharasma’s power within him is colorfully
described as being highly unwelcome. But
when Salim can’t access it he feels barren and empty. Is he coming to terms with his choices? Regardless, he keeps his sense of humor. At one point while reading on a plane, I
laughed aloud, stunning the guy in the seat next to me.
Sutter also provides us with a perfect
Salim foil in the psychopomp Maedora. The Redemption Engine is a police drama
(for what is Salim, but an investigator, hot on the chase?). Maedora represents the feds in relation to our
plucky local cop, Salim. The rightness
of Pharasma’s divine mandate is slowly insinuating itself into Salim. At the same time, the psychopomp believes
unhaltingly in Pharasma’s will, but can she learn the perspective and humor
necessary to any investigator that would view the world through her quarry’s
eyes? Without giving away the ending, we
are left with the feeling that locking Salim and Maedora alone in a room would result
in either a fight to the death or them becoming the best of friends.
James Sutter also wrote City
of Strangers, the Campaign Setting supplement detailing Kaer Maga the
city where the story starts. Kaer Maga
has been around a very long time. It
predates even Azlant and Thassilon.
Hexagonal in shape, Kaer Maga sits at the top of a great cliff. It’s a home for those who are fleeing another
life, hence its other name, the Asylum Stone.
You can tell that Sutter wrote the campaign sourcebook, he delves into
all parts of the city and brings its anarchic, yet strangely ordered, politics
to life.
At one point in the story Salim travels
deep below the city. As a reader, I
found this journey riveting, but as a Pathfinder player I was somewhat
disappointed. In City of Strangers, James Sutter created not just a world beneath
Kaer Maga, but worlds buried beneath worlds buried beneath still other
worlds. His decision to take the reader
all the way to the bottom is riveting from a plot perspective, but undermines
so much of what makes the space between the two interesting in the
sourcebook. Despite this small quibble,
Sutter has brought the city and its subterranean environ to life in a way that
made me want to pull down my copy of City
of Strangers and design some urban intrigue.
But The
Redemption Engine isn’t just confined to Kaer Maga or even to the Material
Plane. Salim Ghadafar is a plane-hopper
extraordinaire, which gives Sutter an opportunity to explore the inherent
paradoxes behind the Outer Planes’ focus on alignment. We can see the disorder in Heaven and the
balance in the Maelstrom in the book.
Having started playing during Second Edition AD&D, at first I had
trouble suspending disbelief in this narrative.
But without some flexibility, there’s no narrative space in any of the
Outer Planes to tell any stories. Even order has to change over time, so even the lawful planes must have some level of dynamism. If the
planes are all exactly the same, what’s the point of them and without
difference how can there be any stories at all? And those stories should be the greatest of myths that come to be retold
on Golarion! Once I was able to jump
this mental roadblock, the book made for fascinating reading.
Finally, in Bors and Rochad Sutter has
given us two strong homosexual characters.
On the one hand, I really enjoyed the way that Sutter portrayed the two
of them as being comfortable within their own skin. These are not two naïve twinks, dedicated to
each other but unsure of themselves. The
two of them are steadfastly in love and unafraid to show that love to the
world. But no one cares that they are
homosexual.
Perhaps I’m lingering in Stockholm syndrome
of the real world, but isn’t one of the formative experiences of homosexuality (or
of any other minority) that you will experience prejudice and that your
reaction to it will be indicative of your character? When he first introduced Bors and Roshad in
his web fiction, “Boar and Rabbit,” Sutter did have them fighting against
oppression and on a very personal level.
Not so here. Their homosexuality
is accepted, but it’s accepted by everyone without comment. Certainly not all fiction featuring
homosexuals need focus on the difference, but pretending there’s no difference
at all comes close to whitewashing.
Sutter’s web fiction and background writing Kaer Maga as a place where
no one cares about another’s business shows isn’t what’s happening here, but it
makes the two characters a little difficult to relate to.
I compare Bors and Roshad with Richard K. Morgan’s
Ringil Eskiath from The
Steel Remains and The
Cold Commands. Ringil’s
constantly second-guessing his personal choices, but not his martial
skill. In fact, he’s a badass that could
go toe-to-toe with Salim Ghadafar.[4] More to the point are Morgan’s other
characters, Ringil’s friends that find themselves missing “that faggot.” This feels real. This is acceptance won through fire.
It’s also the heart of my concern with the
portrayal of Roshad and Bors in The
Redemption Engine. Sure, the Kaer
Magans don’t care about Roshad and Bors’ personal life. But Salim Ghadafar is not Kaer Magan. He’s simultaneously unconcerned about the two’s
homosexuality yet threatened by it when he believes they are inviting him for
an amorous three-way.[5]
Ultimately though, The Redemption Engine is a fun fantasy book and that’s what I’m
reading Pathfinder Tales novels for. As
this isn’t a queer theory or gender studies class but my own free time, I’m
free to say that on balance I really liked the book. Salim is a fascinating character that we get
to see grow internally over the novel’s 500+ pages. By foiling him with the psychopomp Maedora,
we can see that growth works on a two-way street. Sutter hitches us to Salim’s wagon and takes
us on a rollicking ride across the planes to solve a mystery. Who dunnit?
I’m not telling. Will local cop
Salim and federal agent Maedora learn to work together? You’ll have to find out for yourself. All I’ll say is that you should.
Four out of five stars.
Like review posts? Leave a comment below!
Like review posts? Leave a comment below!
[1] The exact terms aren't dealt with here. Presumably they were dealt with in Death’s Heretic. James Sutter, I am NOT complaining about this
AT ALL. When reading serial fiction, I
hate the inevitable summation of the previous installation’s plot over 1-5
pages. THANK YOU for not doing
this. Now, I can go back and read Death’s Heretic without feeling like I read
a book report on it.
[2]
Essentially, he believes that the gods exist, they just aren’t worth
worshipping.
[3]
Yes, for those of you that read it, that little twist was intentional.
[4] My
money’s on Salim in that fight, but then again, as Salim says, “It’s likely I
can’t die.”
[5] Points
to you there, Sutter. I’ve seen more
than one straight guy think he was in that situation (and a smaller pool that
actually were) and Salim’s reaction rings perfectly true—at least for the ones
that declined.
No comments:
Post a Comment