Friday, May 8, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie




Bonds of Brass is a space opera novel, the first in a trilogy, by Emily Skrutskie and one which very prominent features a M-M sexual pairing as its forefront (I've seen rumors it started as a StormPilot - Finn/Poe - slashfic).   I'd originally skipped out on it, but enough people I like were hyping it up that I had to try it out myself - and hell, as a big Star Wars fan, the obvious star wars inspirations were naturally appealing.

And Bonds of Brass is definitely good and a really interestingly done novel, being a space opera novel with an M-M relationship at its heart with some clear Star Wars inspirations, but also featuring interesting themes of Empire and Imperialism that the Star Wars movies never dealt with.  Our central protagonist is really strong, as a former citizen of a conquered empire that has tried to move on by entering the new empire's service, only to fall in love with his roommate, who turns out to be the heir to said conquering empire.  And the tertiary major character, a scrappy girl from the streets, is a major highlight.  That said, the final act developments may not work for every reader, and the book's conclusion is satisfying for now, but it absolutely will not leave any reader looking for a stand alone experience happy.


-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------------
When the Umber Empire invaded and conquered the Archon Empire, Ettian was left orphaned in the chaos.  Lost with nowhere to go, Ettian eventually enrolled in the Umber military academy that was built on planet and learned to become the best pilot he could be.  Ettian tried as hard as he could to put his past behind him, to enjoy piloting, and to gaze longingly at his roommate Gal, the teenage boy he might love if Gal ever loved him back.

But when a bunch of other Archon-born classmates breakup an exercise to try to assassinate Gal, Ettian desperately acts to save Gal.....only to find out an impossible secret: Gal is the heir to the Umber Empire itself, and son of the monstrous and murderous Empress herself.  And when an ambitious governor promptly makes a play to kidnap Gal, Ettian is forced into a choice: protect and help Gal go on the run, or let the heir to the Empire that destroyed his life die....and he chooses Gal.

Yet as Ettian and Gal go on the run, and Ettian finds himself drawn closer to Gal's sweet personality and looks - an attraction that is clearly reciprocated - Ettian begins to learn that the Archon Empire isn't quite as dead as it looked - with a growing resistance on the horizon.  And as Ettian clings desperately to the idea that Gal's peaceful ways will make him a worthy Emperor that would do good things for the Galaxy, he finds himself still having doubts about it all that he's doing the right thing in following his heart and saving Gal.....as he finds more and more choices in his path if he wants to save Gal from their enemies in the first place....
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Bonds of Brass is written entirely in first person, from Ettian's point of view.  This has benefits and downsides, but it mostly allows Skrutskie to tell a really interesting story based upon Ettian's dilemmas throughout, even if this is as much Gal's and the third major character Wen Iffan's stories at times.  Romantic stories featuring lovers from different sides of a conflict are hardly uncommon - just as stories where protagonists have a conflict of prioritizing love vs duty are hardly uncommon in this genre.  But Bonds of Brass' fist person narration allows it to pull a nifty trick in that Ettian isn't sure whether or not he's in either of those situations, and a large part of his conflict is figuring out what side he should really be on and does he have a duty at all that conflicts with his love, which is the central internal conflict for him - to go along with all the external ones he has to get in and out of.

This works really well for the most part because Ettian is a very understandable character.  It's a classic an often glorified idea that a conquered people should always resist their imperial conquerors and that collaborators are to be despised.  But when the resistance has been utterly crushed for years, what is there left to do but try to go on?  That's Ettian's mindset from the start - to him, his past and his country's past is just that - the past - and it's something he tries to forget about.  He's a bit ashamed of this as he meets more and more people who take the opposite tack - that it should be remembered and fought for at all costs.  And the book's tone interestingly, doesn't judge him for his own actions, but he certainly judges himself.

Especially as it comes to his relationship to the other two characters in this book.  Gal is the boy he wanted to love, and to find out he was the heir to the Umber Empire throws Ettian for a loop, as it means the past he wanted to forget can't help but be close to his own mind.  Is it possible for Ettian to really love him?  And can putting Gal on the throne really help things?  Is it possible to improve an evil empire by replacing the leader with someone who wants peace?  That's a question a lot of books have tackled, and Bonds of Brass complicates it by never showing us inside Gal's head - and what we see from outside suggests to Ettian that Gal may have inherited more of his mother's cruel means that Ettian would hope.  And all of this is complicated by Ettian knowing that Gal can never understand what it means to have everything taken from him and to have to build back up from the ashes.

By contrast, the other major character, Wen Iffan, clearly knows from the start what it means to be sent from the top straight to the bottom and to lose everything, and Ettian can't help but want to not only help the girl, but be desperate for answers from her.  Wen is an absolute blast of a character and the utter standout of the novel, reckless and feisty as hell, but always moving forward to try and fight for what should be hers - first some idea of her mother's place, and then to get away from those who would hunt her.  She's so great, and Ettian can't help wonder at what lets her keep trying to fight to go forward and regain some of what she's lost, when he responded in the opposite way.

All these character dynamics center an action filled space opera plot that steals more than a little bit from Star Wars - the middle arc where Gal and Ettian try to escape to a neutral foreign planet feels more than a bit ripped off from SW, but Skrutskie keeps it always fun and exciting.  And the new characters and situations presented create not just fun conflicts to be solved, but internal debates for Ettian that keep the themes and issues of this story moving.  It all leads to an ending that resolves this arc of the plot, but is a heavy cliffhanger that makes me want more.

It's not a perfect ending - it relies upon a twist that is a bit telegraphed from the start, but which works even as it feels like it depends upon the mother of all coincidences.  More of a big deal for me is that the ending provides at least a temporary resolution of Ettian's ethical dilemmas...but does so in a way that doesn't require Ettian to make a choice that he was struggling against all along.  Still this just means I'm very interested to see how things going forward, when Ettian will be forced to make a choice, and I'd love to see the rest of the trilogy branch out into Gal's point of view for those aspects, but I'll take anything from here.
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