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A review by trike
Valour and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal
4.0
I'm on the horns of a dilemma with this one. Is it 3 stars or 4? I think I'll default to 4, primarily to encourage the reading of such books, but if I'm honest this, for me, was mostly a 3-star book.
I needed a book whose title starts with V because I am duecedly close to completing my alphabet challenge for the first time ever, after 25 years of attempts. Everyone (including the author herself) has said that you can jump into Kowal's Glamourist Histories series with this book, the fourth in the series, without having read the others. While that is strictly true, it definitely feels like there are assumptions being made which new readers aren't familiar with.
"Glamour" being the 800-pound gorilla lying on the fainting couch in the drawing room. Having not read the previous books, I had no idea how glamour worked. It's until page 189 that we get any sort of explanation at all, and that's only the bare mechanics of it. By the end of the story I had a better grasp of how this particular magic system works, but I suspect readers of the earlier novels wouldn't have had this problem.
Like all good writers, Kowal has taken previous versions of illusionists and given them a unique twist. It would have been nice if the infodumps were woven into the story earlier. As the infodumps go, they are quite well done, expertly inserted. So often such explanations are clunky and stand apart from the text, but here they are used fairly integrally with the story. Maybe that's why it came so late - it's the soonest she could plausibly work them in. Although really it's just a matter of moving that scene to an earlier chapter, something that would be simple for a writer of Kowal's skill.
It's little things like that which have me wanting to grant it the 3-star "I liked it" stamp.
One thing which is absolutely, undeniably 5-star material is Vincent's behavior. Like most people, I have read numerous books set in this era, including Jane Austen's work, [b:Little Women|1934|Little Women (Little Women, #1)|Louisa May Alcott|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388269517s/1934.jpg|3244642], the Bronte sisters, [b:The Age of Innocence|53835|The Age of Innocence|Edith Wharton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388248423s/53835.jpg|1959512], and so on, so I think she absolutely nailed his reactions to their circumstances, especially his frustration bordering on impotent rage that he was unable to support his wife after they were robbed. That's something men feel today, nevermind 200 years ago. Spot on.
Ridiculously long side note on the biological differences between men and women behind the spoiler tag:
I read an analysis of the Donner party which concluded that men are not as physically capable of withstanding the extreme rigors they found themselves in, because the men died first. The reality is just the opposite, of course, in that men are uniquely physiologically well-suited for just such catastrophes. This has been proven by studies the US Army has carried out testing men and women soldiers. Women's bodies steal heat from their extremities to keep their core warm, while men's bodies do the opposite. Once men become acclimated to the cold, their bodies distribute heat fairly evenly, which helps them survive extreme cold conditions such as the ones faced by the ill-fated Donner party. What this researcher failed to account for, perhaps because she was a woman, was that a man will sacrifice anything and everything to protect his wife and children. If there is only enough food for some, men will starve themselves while giving up their rations. That's almost surely what happened during the Donner party, and that's the same thing Vincent does here.
I can't find the thermal imaging videos showing the differences between men and women soldiers being tested in cold conditions, but here's a similar article from National Geographic about the battle over the thermostat. It's shorter than this review.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/08/150803-gender-bias-affects-office-heating-cooling-temperatures/
There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, but anyone reading this is smart enough to know that I'm speaking in general terms of the typical man and woman. Side note to this digression: As that article points out, most of our society is based on what's good for men, which is shortsighted and dumb. Airplane seats are a case in point, based on the measurements of smaller, thinner, younger men from 75 years ago, young men who were both shorter and had no butts than the average traveler today. Physically speaking, the average American is taller and fatter than people from the 1930s, which is why airplane seats based on those measurements cause so much pain.
That's not to say that women aren't equally tough and just as hardy. The endurance of cramps and bloating during one's period, not to mention childbirth, would reduce most men to whimpering crybabies. Recent investigations into "man flu" have shown that we can often be crybabies. Because we men are not acculturated to expressing emotions, often we have no outlet, resulting in men who break rather than bend. I suspect this is the reason the vast majority of homicidal maniacs are men. Without positive outlets for expressing ourselves, we turn to unhealthy and often violent expressions. It is stupidly counterproductive but it's the reality on the ground.
These attitudes were much more commonplace in previous eras, which is why Vincent's anger is so believable to me. Even for me that was so far off topic I can't even see the topic from here with binoculars. Sorry.
Once the heist portion of this book gets underway things really pick up, relatively speaking. But this is still set in the Regency period of 1817, and a gondola chase through the canals of Venice is not exactly The Fast and the Furious.
A lot of people are using the phrase "Jane Austen meets Ocean's 11", but it rather reminds me more of the Sherlock Holmes movies starring Robert Downey Jr. Almost exactly, in fact. I'd like to see this book turned into that type of movie, in fact.
Some of the twists and turns felt a bit abrupt, but Kowal plays fair with the reader. The evidence for the various twists is already there, but the misdirection isn't always successful, primarily because it was a bit overemphasized at times. A couple of times I thought, "What is she trying to hide here?" which is not a good sign. Overall, though, it works, and the red herrings are successful.
Another new variation on the continuing problem of confusing "lead" for "led", except this time it was "mislead" rather than "misled". Homophones are the bane of modern publishing.
I was a bit annoyed at the beginning with Jane's mother going on about them being beset by pirates... and then Jane and Vincent are beset by pirates. It almost reads like a scene out of Gilligan's Island where Gilligan would insist he will NOT dress up as a woman, insisting, "You can't make me! You can't make me!" only to cut to him dressed as a woman.
But overall I'm going to say, good book, fun heist, would love to see the movie version.
I needed a book whose title starts with V because I am duecedly close to completing my alphabet challenge for the first time ever, after 25 years of attempts. Everyone (including the author herself) has said that you can jump into Kowal's Glamourist Histories series with this book, the fourth in the series, without having read the others. While that is strictly true, it definitely feels like there are assumptions being made which new readers aren't familiar with.
"Glamour" being the 800-pound gorilla lying on the fainting couch in the drawing room. Having not read the previous books, I had no idea how glamour worked. It's until page 189 that we get any sort of explanation at all, and that's only the bare mechanics of it. By the end of the story I had a better grasp of how this particular magic system works, but I suspect readers of the earlier novels wouldn't have had this problem.
Like all good writers, Kowal has taken previous versions of illusionists and given them a unique twist. It would have been nice if the infodumps were woven into the story earlier. As the infodumps go, they are quite well done, expertly inserted. So often such explanations are clunky and stand apart from the text, but here they are used fairly integrally with the story. Maybe that's why it came so late - it's the soonest she could plausibly work them in. Although really it's just a matter of moving that scene to an earlier chapter, something that would be simple for a writer of Kowal's skill.
It's little things like that which have me wanting to grant it the 3-star "I liked it" stamp.
One thing which is absolutely, undeniably 5-star material is Vincent's behavior. Like most people, I have read numerous books set in this era, including Jane Austen's work, [b:Little Women|1934|Little Women (Little Women, #1)|Louisa May Alcott|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388269517s/1934.jpg|3244642], the Bronte sisters, [b:The Age of Innocence|53835|The Age of Innocence|Edith Wharton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388248423s/53835.jpg|1959512], and so on, so I think she absolutely nailed his reactions to their circumstances, especially his frustration bordering on impotent rage that he was unable to support his wife after they were robbed. That's something men feel today, nevermind 200 years ago. Spot on.
Ridiculously long side note on the biological differences between men and women behind the spoiler tag:
I can't find the thermal imaging videos showing the differences between men and women soldiers being tested in cold conditions, but here's a similar article from National Geographic about the battle over the thermostat. It's shorter than this review.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/08/150803-gender-bias-affects-office-heating-cooling-temperatures/
There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, but anyone reading this is smart enough to know that I'm speaking in general terms of the typical man and woman. Side note to this digression: As that article points out, most of our society is based on what's good for men, which is shortsighted and dumb. Airplane seats are a case in point, based on the measurements of smaller, thinner, younger men from 75 years ago, young men who were both shorter and had no butts than the average traveler today. Physically speaking, the average American is taller and fatter than people from the 1930s, which is why airplane seats based on those measurements cause so much pain.
That's not to say that women aren't equally tough and just as hardy. The endurance of cramps and bloating during one's period, not to mention childbirth, would reduce most men to whimpering crybabies. Recent investigations into "man flu" have shown that we can often be crybabies. Because we men are not acculturated to expressing emotions, often we have no outlet, resulting in men who break rather than bend. I suspect this is the reason the vast majority of homicidal maniacs are men. Without positive outlets for expressing ourselves, we turn to unhealthy and often violent expressions. It is stupidly counterproductive but it's the reality on the ground.
These attitudes were much more commonplace in previous eras, which is why Vincent's anger is so believable to me. Even for me that was so far off topic I can't even see the topic from here with binoculars. Sorry.
Once the heist portion of this book gets underway things really pick up, relatively speaking. But this is still set in the Regency period of 1817, and a gondola chase through the canals of Venice is not exactly The Fast and the Furious.
A lot of people are using the phrase "Jane Austen meets Ocean's 11", but it rather reminds me more of the Sherlock Holmes movies starring Robert Downey Jr. Almost exactly, in fact. I'd like to see this book turned into that type of movie, in fact.
Some of the twists and turns felt a bit abrupt, but Kowal plays fair with the reader. The evidence for the various twists is already there, but the misdirection isn't always successful, primarily because it was a bit overemphasized at times. A couple of times I thought, "What is she trying to hide here?" which is not a good sign. Overall, though, it works, and the red herrings are successful.
Another new variation on the continuing problem of confusing "lead" for "led", except this time it was "mislead" rather than "misled". Homophones are the bane of modern publishing.
I was a bit annoyed at the beginning with Jane's mother going on about them being beset by pirates... and then Jane and Vincent are beset by pirates. It almost reads like a scene out of Gilligan's Island where Gilligan would insist he will NOT dress up as a woman, insisting, "You can't make me! You can't make me!" only to cut to him dressed as a woman.
But overall I'm going to say, good book, fun heist, would love to see the movie version.