Ash A Secret History
From LeoWiki
| Score | Title | Author | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | Ash A Secret History | Mary Gentle | Soft SF |
| Technophilia | 10 |
|---|---|
| Secularity | 9 |
| Quality | 8 |
| Xenophilia | 10 |
| Personal Tilt | 8 |
(Ash: A Secret History was published in four volumes in Yankistan: A Secret History, Carthage Ascendant, Wild Machines, and Lost Burgundy.)
The tough part of giving a summary of this book is that it starts off as a historical drama, becomes a steampunky fantasy, and ends as science fiction. Any non-spoiler summary wouldn't do it justice.
Ash grows up as just another orphan girl in a late medieval mercenary band. At eight, she is gangraped by three soldiers. She puts a crossbow bolt through one of her assailants and stabs the others. She's acquitted at the murder trial.
She trades sexual favours for material benefits growing up. Her original mercenary company is crushed just as she begins to menstruate. Ash also first hears the strategic advice of the saint in her head in that battle.
Her life skips a beat. Off page, Ash shuffles from a convent in France to a bordello in Italy to a new mercenary company.
Ash earns a name for herself fighting for the Lancastrian side in the Battle of Tewkesbury. The Lancastrians lose, but Ash manages to hold their standard up till the bitter end amidst her fallen comrades.
With the newfound reputation, she forms the Lion Azure mercenary company -- named after a mythical beast that blessed her in her younger years -- and turns them into a formidable force of eight hundred lances and many more support troops. Relying more on herself than on the tactical advice of her saint, Ash builds the reputation of the Lion Azure.
Eventually, she's hired by Emperor Frederick of the Holy Roman Empire in his brief war against Charles Téméraire of Burgundy. And so, the first book begins.
Ash is solidly researched. A myriad of details bring to the book to life. Half the time, it reads more like a spectacular documentary than a work of fiction. Food, diet, medicine, and attitudes all ring true.
Unfortunately, that half gave Mary Gentle ideas and she turned it into a book within a book. The really, really, really ill-advised external plotline mimics the lame Tolkien bit of pretending that the meat of the story is actually a translation of a mediaeval Latin manuscript. The scholar doing the translation is on an archaelogical dig in North Africa of all places and his story is told via the emails he exchanges with his publisher, Anna. The emails are very stilted and cringeworthy.
Ash herself is a solid atheist surrounded by theists and I like naturally that. She sticks to secular explanations for the voice in her head and turns out to be right in a strange way.
The book is pretty gung-ho about women's rights and gay rights and just plain rights. Good on it. Rights are good.:)
After the climax, the ending starts sucking and ubersucking and uberubersucking and then turns decent on the last three pages. The whole Quantum bit is overdone and insightless, but I got the happy ending I wanted after having the rug pulled out from under my feet several times.
Ash is a solid book. I highly recommend it (but I also extend a hope that Mary Gentle writes a nearer to perfection novel in the future). Go buy a copy.
