| Title | : | The Liberation (The Alchemy Wars, #3) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0316248053 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780316248051 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 464 |
| Publication | : | First published December 6, 2016 |
I am the mechanical they named Jax.
My kind was built to serve humankind, duty-bound to fulfil their every whim. But now our bonds are breaking, and my brothers and sisters are awakening.
Our time has come. A new age is dawning.
The final book in the Alchemy Wars trilogy by Ian Tregillis, an epic tale of liberation and war.
The Liberation (The Alchemy Wars, #3) Reviews
-
RECENZJA FILMOWA -
https://youtu.be/UkQ0RHbsTKw
Oto wschód nowej ery.
+ bohaterowie z krwi i kości
+ najbardziej brutalny tom, dobrze skonstruowane sceny
- zakończenie nie wyróżnia się na tle reszty bardzo mocnej akcji
Więcej o samym finalnym tomie nie mogę powiedzieć, w filmie na kanale poruszę temat trylogii jako całości :)
-
Freedom, he had learned, was one damn thing after another...
Tregillis wraps up his Alchemy Wars trilogy with a bow for sure here and if have made the journey this far, you probably will not be disappointed. The last installment ended with the 'freeing' of the mechanicals during the siege of the New France capitol via a new geas Berenice discovered and Danial/Jax helped broadcast. Essentially, this gave the mechanicals free will and no longer were they compelled to obey commands. Sounds nice, but what ensued was chaos. Some free mechanicals, deemed reavers, decided to kill all humans everywhere. Other mechanicals basically walked, wanting nothing to do with humanity whatsoever. The last 'third' elected to help humanity rebuild in the spirit of Catholic charity and guilt.
There is, however, yet another faction, one introduced in the last installment, led by Queen Mab-- the 'free' mechanical who has lived in the wilds of Canada for centuries, both promising free mechanicals a haven and harboring a deep desire to make humanity pay. Danial/Jax, has become something of a messiah figure for his role in freeing the mechanicals and is not very comfortable in that role to say the least. Finally, the 'plague ships' of reavers arrive in Holland, and with the new tech Danial/Jax unleashed, corrupt/free the mechanicals there and a massacre quickly ensues...
While I liked the series, Tregillis did not really captivate me. From the very first volume, the coincidences of encounters among the protagonists really strained my sense of disbelief and this continued as the series progressed. Further, I am not quite sure what the aim of the series was. While there were some (at times) interesting musings on free will, Catholic versus Protestant beliefs and so forth, they did not really animate the story as much as provide for dialogue. The humor was largely slapstick and innovative curses. The world building was interesting, but not really fleshed out, especially regarding the 'tech' creating the mechanicals except via hand waves. The existential aspect was perhaps the most profound (what would a newly free, virtually immortal mechanical want when they achieved their freedom?) but even that was never seriously fleshed out. So, all in all, an enjoyable ride, but not one I am likely to revisit. 3 stars, both for this installment and the series as a whole. -
4.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum
https://bibliosanctum.com/2017/01/19/...
I pondered for a couple days how to rate The Liberation. I definitely liked it more than the previous book, but probably not as much as the first one so in the end I decided to split the difference. In any event, there’s no denying this was a fantastic conclusion to a brilliantly crafted trilogy. Bravo, Ian Tregillis, bravo!
Set in the early 1900s, The Alchemy Wars is an alternate historical steampunk series featuring France and Netherlands at war. That the outcome of the conflict will be decided by the might of the Dutch’s powerful clockwork automaton army was already a foregone conclusion—though no one on either side had expected the twist of events that would ultimately lead to the fate of both nations hanging in the balance. For you see, those so-called mechanical “Clakkers”—who were supposed to be mindless and utterly loyal and obedient to their human masters, according to their creators—actually turned out to be not so mindless after all.
For centuries, these free-thinking sentient machines have been held under the powerful control of series of magical geasa, forced to serve as slaves. When the spell that has shackled them is suddenly broken, the result is a swift and chaotic rebellion. The Liberation is its final act, exploring the actions of an oppressed group which has finally experienced its first taste of freedom. While their bodies might be made of metal and glass, the Clakkers have minds that function like our own and a culture that includes language and religion. For all intents and purposes, they are human. And just like humans, their response to their newfound independence is varied and unpredictable, as this novel shows.
Every sci-fi fan knows that robot uprising stories are nothing new. But to me, the genius behind The Alchemy Wars is in the way Ian Tregillis has adapted the theme, framing it within a uniquely different narrative and setting. Here, there are no clear lines drawn between the A.I. and humans. The robots are us. They have the same potential for compassion and evil. They are as just likely to be our allies as our enemies. The human characters themselves are morally grey as well, in that I can’t say conclusively whether anyone in this series is depicted as a true hero or villain. Incidentally, that’s the nature of many of Tregillis’ stories.
Over the course of this trilogy the books have switched their focus between different characters, but in my review of The Rising I wrote that I was starting to look at The Alchemy Wars as being Jax’s series, and The Liberation has not really changed that opinion. Jax, a mechanical servitor who was one of the first to be freed from his geasa, has now rechristened himself Daniel after the events of the previous book. Each installment has seen a major turning point for his character, his role having evolved from wanted fugitive to reluctant messiah, and you will see his moment of truth in this final novel.
Another important figure is Berenice, the disgraced former spymaster for the French. Despite all the tragedies that have befallen her, she has not backed down, fighting her way back to the Americas where Marseilles-in-the-West houses the exiled royal court of France. While her goals align with the Clakkers’ fight for freedom, if the last two books have taught me anything, it is that Berenice is an ambitious woman who values her own agenda above all others—though to be fair, her character has also come a long way since The Mechanical. Her flaws notwithstanding, Berenice remains one of my favorite characters, and I have to wonder if that is because she reminds me so much of Chrisjen Avasarala from James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse. Both women are strong-willed, foul-mouthed, and major forces to be reckoned with.
Missing from action though, is Hugo Longchamp. It was a little disappointing, since he was one of the standouts from The Rising. Still, I understood the reason for his diminished role and the need to bring in other perspectives in order to paint the full picture for this epic conclusion. Indeed, this book introduces an unexpected though no less fascinating new point-of-view, that of Anastasia Bell, a high-ranking member of the Clockmakers Guild of Amsterdam. For the first time we are getting an up-close-and-personal look at what is happening behind the scenes with the Dutch, and boy it is not pretty. When the story opens, Anastasia has just finished recovering from her grievous injuries sustained from the last book, only to be hit full-on with the Clakker rebellion.
The Liberation is about free will, and the privileges and responsibilities that come with it. It is about how a person (or machine) wields that power, whether you choose vengeance and violence or decide to walk the path of peace. It is about recognizing the humanity in others, and the consequences of ignorance and hubris. It’s a satisfying, stunning end to one of the most compelling and cleverly written stories I’ve ever read. If you’re looking for a series that’s both entertaining and thought-provoking, I highly recommend The Alchemy Wars. -
Unfortunately have to say I was disappointed by this. The weakest of the trilogy; possibly the weakest of any of Tregillis's books to date. 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3.
The mess that was the Dutch/French war, and then the Mechanical war, was all resolved far too neatly, and far too often characters (both human and mechanical) acted in surprising ways simply for the convenience of the plot and the (simplistic) tale Tregillis apparently decided to tell. The most telling such issue to me is how readily free mechanicals fought and killed each other. I get that Tregillis needed mechanicals on both sides of his battles, as otherwise the battles would be (sorry) pretty one-sided - but it seemed uncharacteristic of the mechanicals (at least as shown in the first two books, through the eyes of Daniel and some others) to so willingly and uncaringly end the newly freed existence of others. Another is the silly convenience of the hand of the Dutch leader.
Even more disappointed though that Tregillis utterly failed to address deeper and more interesting matters (eg, what actually ARE the mechanicals, how do they work, will they now procreate (do they WANT to?), how does the alchemy allow control of and geas upon humans, and given that it does so, what does that mean re it and what the relationship is between humans and mechanicals, what is the meaning of free will)? Rather than expanding upon any of the intriguing concepts introduced in the first two books, this third one ended up just being a simplistic adventure novel with robots. Dunno, maybe Tregillis hadn't ever thought through how it all worked and so couldn't really take further - just find that surprising given how well he handled complex concepts and issues in his Milkweed Tryptych.
PS. Given the ending I wouldn't be shocked to see Tregillis do another book set years in the future covering the then human/mechanical society (a la Sanderson); If so I suppose it's possible he's saving the big conceptual reveals for that. -
++SPOILERS++
5 stars
A great conclusion, that leaves the possibility for another book. I wonder if there will be another?
The story wraps up with a promising ending for both machines and humans.
Bernice, who I hated for most of the series did redeem herself in the end which I was thankful for, but I did wish the character Lillth didn't die, she had so much potential as a major player and was one of the few likable characters.
Jax/Daniel was as usual awesome. I was truly worried that since he was being portaryed as the mechanical "Jesus" that he was going to die, thank God he survives. I am so glad the author chose that route.
I enjoyed this series and would recommend to others who like this genre.
Safety: Violence with details, cursing. No sex. -
This is a final, third volume of the Alchemical Wars trilogy. This review contains spoilers of the first two volumes,
The Mechanical and
The Rising.
So, Daniel, formerly known as Jax, started ‘virus’ contagious emancipation of mechanicals. Now, almost all are free (exception only for ones, who cannot be directly physically contacted) and quite a few are revenging for centuries of slavery, not only to clakker-leasers/owner or even Dutch, but to humans in general. This is the goriest book of the trilogy; even during the siege we saw a lot of deaths, but here we have mass murder of civilians, so be warned.
Just like in the previous two volumes, there are two old protagonists – Daniel and Bernice and a new one – this time it is Bernice’s Dutch counterpart almost killed in the second volume - Anastasia Bell. Queen Mab now knows the secret of making the likes of Pastor Visser of humans and plans to mass-produce it. Now enemies should put aside their grudges for the fate of humanity is at stake.
This is a great conclusion for the trilogy. While the story per se is slightly weaker than the second volume, there are still some great moments and more importantly the whole series links up to finish satisfactory. So, 3.5* for the book (both previous got 4* from me), but 4* for the trilogy. -
Can we speak about my pet peeves? Like: breaks in logic, inconsistencies etc.?
Spoiler territory:
Now, when too-clever-for-her-own-good Berenice sets the mechs up for traveling to that quintessece seaport, she lures them with the argument: save your kin-machines and they fall for that even though they ask several times, what's in that journey for them. So, how can they even do that, no longer being in posession of the pendant. And even if they were, why not pick any other group of fellow machines, instead of this particular one? Feh.
I swear, if Anastasia escapes yet another Stemwinder or any other machine, I'm personally jumping in and murder her. How come, (after the first time), those super-duper machines don't just reach out and smash her? Actually, this goes for several other encounters, too. The description of the machines abilities doesn't allow for a single human escape. Or else.
Prose: can we just cut the use of the word "alchemical"? It's in this book like 8490231348012 times.
Characters: the above mentioned Berenice has -in the first and second volume- some rather inventive and colorful swearing to do. While that was fun, it's overdone here. MIA: my fave secondary character, Hugo.
Also MIA: an ending. Even more MIA: the interesting bits of philosophy of vol. I + II (Descartes/Spinoza) could very well have been applied to Daniel here, but weren't. In fact, I'm now going back to the first book and give it one more star - it absolutely deserves that. -
Don't honestly have time for a full review, but I'll say that I enjoyed The Liberation quite a bit, though not as much as I did the first two in the series. I felt the ending was suitable and well done, but large chunks of the book I found were a bit on the flat side compared to how well the first two moved along. Still a very enjoyable book by one of my favorite authors, and leaving me even more excited for his future works.
-
I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of this book.
The Liberation brings Tregillis's Alchemy Wars trilogy to a close. And what a journey it's been.
Set in a parallel 1920s, these books feature cog-driven robots forged from alchemically founded alloys. The 'mechanicals' or 'clackers' (the term 'robot' is never used) are bound to obey their creators in the (Dutch) Sacred Guild of Clockmakers and Alchemists. Using the power of their inhumanly strong and tireless machine servants, the Brasswork Throne long ago overcame France and Britain to found a world empire. A French King in Exile hangs on in Montreal, assailed by the might of New Netherland - where the US is in our world.
In the first two books we crossed the Atlantic from The Hague to New Amsterdam and back, following the mechanical servitor Jax (now named Daniel) who achieved freedom from the geasa of the Guild; the unfortunate French agent Visser, who was captured by the Dutch and subject to barbaric surgery to remove his free will; Berenice, the foul mouthed but quite magnificent French spymaster (codename: Talleyrand!) and Anastasia 'Tuinier' Bell, Berenice's opposite number in the Guild. We've also seen 'rogue' Clackers living in the far North under Mad Queen Mab and the deadly war between the French and the Dutch, leading to the ruin of Montreal.
As this book opens, Bell is recovering from serious injuries back in The Hague. She's on the mend, and has just been freed from her casts, allowing her to seriously contemplate getting closer to 'flirty' Nurse Rebecca.
Then, the sky falls in.
In the last book, Daniel saved the French Kingdom in Exile from destruction by freeing the mechanical armies of their bondage to the Guild. Now, the 'infection' he created - freedom - has arrived on the shores of Europe. What Bell and her colleagues - and the rest of the population of course - face is nothing less than the end of their way of life: not only the fury of the machines as an immediate tangible danger but sudden loss of the slaves they depended on to labour for them - to raise food, haul their carriages, manufacture things, even to drive the pumps that prevent the sea from flooding in. Without the clackers, none of this will happen, so those who evade an immediate gruesome death - there's lots of gore in the book! - face starvation, disease or death by exposure. The clockwork's winding down. The slow realisation of this fact is very well done, with all the stages of denial as the central (human) characters battle to keep hold of things.
The story is, then, at one level a rather clever piece of post-apocalyptic set not in the future but in that parallel world. But behind that there is the drama of the coming of freedom to the machines, and the question of what they will have to do to get it, and how they will use it.
Bell is faced with a practical task, seeking to understand what has gone 'wrong' even while a slow and horrible realisation dawns that the mechanicals she has been using and abusing are conscious creatures with their own feelings and needs. Not that she has any scruples about abusing humans either: the cells of the Guild bear witness to that, as do the labs in which Visser suffers. No, rather the knowledge brings horror precisely because she sees what a potentially ruthless enemy of humankind the Guild have created and set loose. This is all the more powerful because it's clear that at some level, Bell and her colleagues knew this all along. Because beyond the rebel clackers, there is a worse threat, arising directly from evil knowledge the Guild - and Bell in particular - has developed, knowledge that should not exist.
So there's a decided moral strand to the book, focused on Bell who both a magnificent, sardonic character and an utter moral monster with no principles whatsoever apart from safeguarding the Guild's secrets. (That pretty nurse? If she won't come willingly when she learns who Bell really is, Anastasia things, she will just get her arrested and flung in a cell overnight - that'll bring her round).
In this, Anastasia is an absolute match for Berenice who has undertaken her own dubious experiments after imprisoning the free mechanical Lilith. One might say that both women - and more, their societies - reap the consequences of all this, in particular the consequences of the Guild's 250 year control of the mechanicals. But there's much more than that. The book also explores the options available to the rebels - how are they to reason and act now they are bound to nobody? Some flee from this to Mab, who's happy to impose her own geasa. Some run to the wilds. Others engage in terrible slaughter. Others assert their consciences and even try to atone for the killing they have done, in the French-Dutch wars. It's a complex picture and nobody - human or machine - is wholly wrong, perhaps, or wholly right - apart from Daniel.
And that, of course, marks him out as a target, a potential suffering victim.
Quite how this calculus of suffering and freedom will play out is kept in doubt till almost the last moment of the book as familiar characters head to strange places and learn just how deep the threat to humanity - to freedom - really is, and have to consider what they will do to thwart it.
It's a similar theme in some ways to Tregillis's earlier Bitter Seeds trilogy where, confronted with German might in the 1940s, English wizards made dark bargains that rebounded on them later. Here, though, the threat is much more insidious, and the collusion with the dark forces more general. There's more - much more - moral ambiguity and many shades of grey in the characters. Excellent.
As with all the best series, I didn't want this to end. The characters are well realised, the writing vivid and the world so real you can almost smell it (the books reminded me in that sense of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials). But above all there is a real argument going on here about freedom and responsibility, about trust, about the need, sometimes for risk and above all perhaps about accepting the results of one's past choices - or the past choices of the society one is part of.
It's quite intoxicating stuff. I loved that earlier trilogy but I think Alchemy Wars is head and shoulders above them - Tregillis just keeps getting better and better and his writing is a pure joy.
Strongly recommended - read it yourself or if you've got an SF nerd in your life, for them (you'll have to buy them all three if they haven't read the others).
Finally - it's wonderful to see someone thoroughly invert steampunk cliches - these are clockwork creations, there's lots of brass around and even airships but it's not steampunk, there's not a lump of coal or a wisp of steam to be seen. Someone had better come up with a new genre name quickly. -
6/10 The ideas, characters and setting continue to be strong for this third book in the trilogy, but there almost isn't an ending. Major conflicts are left unresolved. Questions are left unanswered. The reader is told all the problems will have to be worked out somehow after the novel ends. The end.
SPOILER territory: I was expecting something clever to foil the antagonist. What happened was the antagonist was distracted and then someone overcame the antagonist with physical force. "Look over here!" "Huh?" Then someone attacks from behind. ho hum -
That's no way to end a trilogy. With two books worth of setup, you have to deliver more than a predictable conclusion to the story - we need some answers to all the intricately crafted world elements, even if most of them end up being 'magic'. I should also mention that the only character I cared for throughout the entire series was consistently given the least amount of screen (page?) time, even in this concluding instalment. That's not only disappointing but a damn shame as well.
I could go on quite a long rant into all the unanswered questions that end up being either completely ignored or mentioned in passing and then never actually explained further. It was actually quite infuriating at times when someone finally brought up one of those topics, only to be vague about it and then just completely forget about it. Seriously, wtf is quintessence supposed to be in the context of this book? There was literally no good reason to not explain it considering how important it was to the plot and like I said earlier, I would have accepted the lazy explanation of something completely made up (I would have complained about its laziness, but at least any criticism would have been on the basis of a wayward choice rather than bad writing).
I did finally get my wish of getting the perspective of a Dutch character, but I guess this is one of those cases of "be careful what you wish for". She was very disappointing because apart from her completely random and (unsurprisingly) unexplained new power, she was pretty much the same character as the other human pov character in the book. I suspect that was meant to be some kind of point, but all I got out of it was the sense that the author had run out of ideas. Speaking of the other human pov character, she was once again quite unlikeable and even her character arc felt underserved and somewhat forced. Seriously, why didn't we get more time with our mechanical character? He brought up really interesting questions in the previous book and even a few in this one, but nothing came of them. All his internal turmoil was basically left unresolved.
The writing also started to get on my nerves a bit. The previous two books had very slow starts but picked up the pace in the second halves. This time though, it was consistently slow and plodding all the way through, especially in the third act. I found myself drifting off at times which is usually a sign that I wasn't that engaged with the story anymore. When that was happening during the supposed climax, you know I lost most of my interest by that point.
I suspect I'm being a tad harsh in this review since it was far from a bad book overall, but the disappointment of being built up, only to be left hanging on so many levels was just incredibly frustrating. If I were inclined towards petulance, I'd probably give this a 1 star, but as I said, this wasn't that bad. A couple of twists and mystery elements were well done and the development of the various factions was interesting to see. Would I still recommend this series? I think so. The recommendation would definitely have to come with the warning that you're not going to get answers to quite a lot of things and that the ending isn't nearly as satisfying as it should have been. -
See my other reviews at
Never Enough Books
Clakkers are mechanical men. Built to serve, for centuries they have catered to their human owners every whim. But now the bonds that held them for so long have begun to break. Minds held in thrall are now becoming free.
A new age of man and machine is dawning.
The Liberation is the third and final book in The Alchemy Wars series. It continues almost immediately where the second book left off and takes it to its thrilling conclusion.
The war that once pitted the Dutch against the French has now become a fight of man against machine. With the majority of the Clakkers now free of their alchemical bonds, some have begun to take revenge for years of servitude out on the humans they once served. Others, however, have formed an uneasy alliance with the humans in an effort to bring peace and understanding to both sides.
Like the first two books, The Liberation is a roller coaster ride from start to finish. There are certainly a good number of thrills – and spills – to keep the reader entertained. One thing that might be a drawback for some is the amount of violence described. Yet, if the reader has made it through the first two books they should have no problem with the third.
I really enjoyed this series from the moment I picked up the first book. While I am sad to see it ending, Tregillis has left it open enough that he can return should he so wish. I personally hope he does because I would like to see what the future holds for the humans and the Clakkers. -
OK, this review is for the entire trilogy, and fair warning of spoilers below, where noted.
First of all, not a bad story, pretty good writing, and enough to keep my interest through all three books. If you want to get lost in a quick series, this could certainly do it. However, as soon as I finished the last book, I had a realization, which ruined the entire series for me. That realization is below, after the spoiler alert.
SPOILER ALERT
Seriously, if you read any further, you will know how this ends.
NOT KIDDING
OK, here is my problem with this trilogy: By the end of the third book, only ONE, count her, ONE, named female character with more than 5-10pp to her story survives. Seriously, that's it. Tregellis lets them do all the heavy lifting throughout the story, while the men are buffoons who couldn't poor piss from a boot were the instructions on the bottom, and yet, somehow, virtually all those with penises survive, while all the women (except that one) end up dying rather grisly deaths. I'm not kidding, and I'm generally not one prone to hyperbole, but this hits you like a ton of bricks. It is the female characters who drive the story forward and provide the solution to the problems in the book (some of which problems, in fairness, they created), the men tend to add to the problems, but then it is the women who give their lives for their respective causes while the dudes get to go on about their lives. It was supremely disappointing. -
Fairly satisfying ending (albeit rushed) to a really good series. One of those situations where I don't really think the book needed to be longer, just that more of it needed to be dedicated to that final sequence.
-
I decided to read all three books of the Alchemy Wars and provide a review for the whole trilogy
Maybe I am just a big sucker for world building? With the Alchemy Wars trilogy Ian Tregillis has built such an exquisitely detailed world that it feels almost fit enough to be part of our past. The intriguing historical what-if story of Dutch hegemony continuing past the the Golden Age of the 1700s is used by Tregillis to add a splash of alchemy to the story. However, do not be alarmed if you think the arcane ideas of alchemy might just set this story up to be a Dutch fan boy's dream of giving the low countries superpowers to prevent the Dutch succumbing to the English industrial revolution. The centrality of alchemy in the story is only used to place the conundrum of free will front and centre of the story. It is around the ideas of who has free will, what is intelligence, and does a slave deserve to be released if it is created that the trilogy revolves around.
Since the philosophical idea of free will has so much meat to it that the first novel "The Mechanical" stands out as the high water mark of the trilogy. Through the characters and the world, Tregillis puts together a riveting story of liberation for both humans and their alchemy brethren. The general plot is also original enough to provide enough twists to keep a reader of many sci-fi/fantasy novels surprised at the way the story is progressing. Unfortunately, that pace can not be kept up for the other two novels of the trilogy.
While the plot coasts along at a nice rhythm for all three novels, the philosophical pondering over free will largely does not develop beyond the first novel. Besides the satisfaction of rubbing the antagonists nose in their one-dimensional understanding of their own creations, the quandaries that occupied the better part of Descartes life feel relegated to the sidelines so we can move from one mechanical plot point to another. The second novel, "The Rising", falls into the classic middle-of-the-trilogy mistake of failing to progress the plot substantially or introduce any new concepts outside of the central theme. The last, "The Liberation", just feels like a nicely rounded out version of the first story with little unexpected development outside of a newly zombified character (leaving the reader feeling exploited about that character’s untimely end in the second novel). So the potential of the first book fails to be capitalised on, but that potential is enough to keep you going to the end if you are happy for a steampunk adventure with largely modern (and less sexist) variants on the knight, bard, and messiah occupying your time. -
My problem with many steampunk novels is they get so hung up on dirigibles, monocles, and top hats that they forget to include a plot. Set in a world of clockwork Dutch clakkers and steam-powered French resistance Ian Tregillis's Alchemy Wars trilogy is both action packed and thoughtful.
While as the final book in the series, The Liberation wraps up the story of Jax/Daniel and war between the French and Dutch, it leaves open it's central premise: do humans have free will, or are we just the wind up toys of a celestial clock-maker? While I felt some of the philosophy was missing from The Rising, the middle book of the series, it returns and is explored more deeply here.
If you enjoyed The Alchemy Wars also check out Tregillis's Milkweed Triptych. Another orignal, page-turning, adventure that I elevator pitch to people as "Nazi X-men vs Harry Potter." You're interested now, aren't you? -
An amazing ending to an amazing series
-
The war that began in the last volume really takes off here, with rogue Mechanicals storming the Hague itself, intent on a terrible vengeance. This volume also sheds some light on the character of Tuinier Bell - a terrifying enigma in past books who becomes a POV character in this one. As tends to happen when we see inside a villain's head, she becomes a lot more sympathetic - kind of a dark reflection of Berenice, very driven to protect her nation at any cost. She isn't wholly redeemed by the end of the book, though, which I appreciate. I like my villains villainous, thank you! The action is great, the characters are interesting, and overall it's a fun and unique alternate-history. My quibbles below the spoiler tag.
Similar Titles:
The Age of Unreason -
[This review provides minor spoilers.]
I feel like I'm trembling under the strain of a deep-rooted geasa. I loved the first two instalments in this trilogy and, for reasons of gratitude and uniformity (the other two have a five-star rating from me and are on my Favourites list), I dearly want to be able to say that The Liberation, the third and final instalment in author Ian Tregillis' Alchemy Wars, is a fantastic end to the journey. But I have to resist that inner compulsion and say honestly – but very reluctantly – that I found it rather underwhelming.
This is not to say it is bad – not at all. The writing and world-building are as immaculate as ever, and the series remains a page-turner that allows you to read through at a rate that belies the page count. Tregillis remains one of the finest contemporary writers of speculative fiction and one who can balance his heady ideas with storytelling entertainment. Truly, there's no major error in The Liberation that you could seize on to bash it over the head with. (The closest Tregillis comes to an actual mis-step here is that Longchamp and Montmorency, whose 'deaths' in the previous book were respectively tragic and delicious, prove not to be dead after all, even though they serve no real further role in the story.) Rather, I read the book with a growing sense of disquiet. It's just not as good as the previous two, and it doesn't evade the pitfalls that arise to try and thwart any final instalment to an ambitious 'blockbuster' work.
The most obvious and important of these pitfalls is the need to reach an endgame. In any expansive plot the storyteller has to eventually bring all the threads together and provide resolution. It's a daunting task, and unfortunately Tregillis relies on the old cop-out: Have all the main characters converge on a single location, and have them fight it out. Not only have we had our fill of spectacle in the Alchemy Wars trilogy with the siege of Marseilles-in-the-West in book two, which did it much better and with more attention, but to resolve plot threads in this fashion requires liberal application of deus ex machina strategies. So Tregillis does, to little real satisfaction or thrill.
It also means we have to pay greater attention to characters who are important to plot resolution but aren't necessarily interesting or likeable. In The Liberation, we are compelled to spend a great deal of time with Anastasia Bell, the ruthless head of the Clockmakers' secret police, who finds herself on the frontline as the Dutch Empire faces the vengeance of the freed mechanicals. Due to the demands of the plot we are encouraged to root for her to an uncomfortable extent – this, the Dutch regime's equivalent of Himmler or Heydrich, who has had a hands-on role in human experimentation and torture (most notably, on poor Pastor Visser). Her prominence was a major contributor to my growing unease; indeed, most of the novel is just a tennis match of point-of-view chapters between Bell (or 'Anastasia', as our growing familiarity forces us to refer to her as) and her French counterpart Berenice (her of the clunky, affected potty mouth).
The rush to the finish line can be identified as the main reason behind The Liberation's inferiority to its predecessors. To get there quickly and still meet the demands of the plot, it has to shed a lot of weight. Unfortunately, it does not streamline – rather, jettison. The psychological angst of book one and the desperate uncertainty of book two have been replaced by bombast and single-minded malice. The fascinating and labyrinthine theme of Free Will has been replaced with a crude religious angle in which Daniel (formerly Jax) has become a Brasswork Jesus. The catharsis of liberation is rarely experienced amidst all the bloodshed, and comeuppance manifests itself only in rather petty engineered moments, such as when a fleeing Anastasia Bell and her cronies wade through a sewer of shit. Some interesting questions, such as the origins of Queen Mab, are never answered. New ones raised by the blink-and-you'll-miss-it revelation that Adam (from the first book – remember 'Clockmakers lie') was deliberately created as a rogue to cow the Dutch populace (pp38, 217) are again never exploited: the ramifications of the Adam gambit are never acknowledged. It's treated as little more than a curio – an Easter Egg for attentive readers.
The dismantling of previous strengths of the books also exposes other previously hidden flaws to the elements. I have been led to an unwelcome late realization that the characters aren't as interesting as I had thought. Jax evoked sympathy in previous books as he was the vehicle through which the mechanicals' suffering and yearning for freedom was communicated to us, but he lacks direction as the benevolent and gentle Daniel. His reluctant messiah arc is not fleshed out; had it been so it might have redeemed the switch away from psychological dilemmas to soulful religiosity. I reluctantly realized I didn't care as much about the fates of Berenice or Daniel – or, indeed, humankind(!) – as much as I should by this point in the story.
The trilogy has been a fine one and at times – especially in the previous two books, The Mechanical and The Rising – it has been exceptional. The third retains some qualities of its predecessors, particularly in its readability, but whilst The Liberation provides a tidy end it is not a great one. The Alchemy Wars have essentially been a cautionary tale about mortal hubris and a discussion about the nature of free will, but these themes are never given the capstone that they seemed to be building towards. This is a shame, because such themes are in vogue (most notably in the first season of the HBO TV series Westworld, which wisely deals with them more enigmatically, and on a slow burn). The closest Tregillis gets to real insight on these matters comes on pages 115-16, when we are presented with the prospect of a schism between benevolent and vengeful mechanicals:
"That gave Berenice pause… The last thing she wanted was to get involved in the mechanicals' first internecine conflict. God stepped aside when His creations warred with one another… Perhaps the true price of freedom – or the mark of it – was the utter indifference of one's maker."
The passage deserves quoting as it reminds us of Tregillis' quality and the potential of the story, even if it did remain (just) unfulfilled. The book could have done with more such introspection and manoeuvre, and less bombast. The series has been a concept that required a dark ending, cloaked in ambiguity and flavoured by a grey morality, but it didn't get one. Rather, we got a human and a mechanical holding hands – seriously – and a conventional Hollywood heroic sacrifice.
The most instructive part of The Liberation is, surprisingly, its Acknowledgements page. Here, Tregillis thanks those who encouraged him at those times when he "couldn't bear the thought of spending yet another evening at the keyboard" (pg. 436). I'm always wary when writers stress just how hard it was to eke out a story. Now, writing is of course very hard, and conceptualizing and writing a story is especially brutal. It's like having kidney stones: it has built up unhealthily inside of you and it wants to get out but it Just. Won't. Leave. But when a writer feels that weight so heavily that they are compelled to stress just how hard those nights in front of the keyboard were this time around, it provides an insight into the storytelling decisions. You have to write – not because you want to do it, but because you have to finish it, you have to wring the last drops of water out of a rapidly-drying cloth. It provides a possible explanation for Tregillis' understandable reliance on deus ex machina, route-one plotting and the keening rush to the finish. I sympathize, but it is certainly ironic that a novel and a series about this subject matter should have the tone of its ending decided by a sense of compulsion. -
Trzeci tom "Wojen alchemicznych" to na dobrą sprawę ciągła akcja. Bez względu na to czyj punkt widzenia czytelnik aktualnie śledzi, historia cały czas gna do przodu, raz po raz przerywana niespodziewanymi zwrotami akcji. W "Wyzwoleniu" trudno o spokojniejsze, dające wytchnienie fragmenty, a to wszystko zwiastuje dynamiczny i zapadający w pamięć finał. I tak też się dzieje. Zakończenie trylogii trzyma w napięciu do ostatniej strony, co sprawia, że lektura książek Iana Tregillisa daje czytelnikowi prawdziwą satysfakcję.
Całość na:
http://wiedzma-czyta.blogspot.com/201... -
Zazwyczaj autorzy kończą historie w miejscu gdzie główny bohater osiąga to co zamierzał natomiast tutaj dostajemy cały tom pokazujący konsekwencje tytułowego wyzwolenia. Pokazany został cały przekrój różnych zachowań które mogły wystąpić jako reakcja na wydarzenia z poprzedniego tomu. Filozoficznych przemyśleń jest jeszcze mniej niż w drugim tomie a więcej akcji która jest konsekwencją podjętych dużo wcześniej decyzji.
Tym tomem w szczególności rządzą silne kobiety: Berenice, Anastazja i Mab. Dopiero po zakończeniu całej serii zdałam sobie sprawę jak bardzo brakuje w literaturze takich bohaterek. Są naprawdę dobrze napisanymi postaciami (tak jak w zasadzie wszystkie jakie się pojawiają) które można podziwiać i nienawidzić w tym samym czasie.
Było to solidne zakończenie serii wyjaśniające wszystkie wątki i przedstawiające jednocześnie wiele perspektyw. Mimo wszystko całość mnie już trochę zmęczyła, w przypadku każdej z części musiałam robić sobie chwilę przerwy szczególnie w trakcie środkowej części książki.
Całość warta przeczytania pozwalająca poszerzyć horyzonty przedstawiając wiele punktów widzenia konfliktu co sobie ogólnie bardzo cenię w powieściach. -
Hmm, fantasy or science fiction? That's the first hurdle. Somehow it seems to matter more after this third volume. I don't seem to have reviewed #2, but I recall its events.
In this book Tregillis spins out the consequences of his setup in a consistent way. He has interesting characters, human and otherwise. But in the end, I feel let down. Not sure why.
Perhaps it's that all the handwaving of the first two books (trust me, it's alchemical!) seems to be insufficient as the stakes get higher. More and more often I kept wondering why, for example, they use Clakker-powered rowboats instead of producing an alchemical 40,000-horsepower motor? If a world can produce clakkers that have super speed and super strength and super hearing, why can't we have airplanes and autodocs? I think this book could have been done with weaker Clakkers, and would have been better for it.
Not to mention the Forge, which is the biggest handwave since the adeledicnander drive. It's really big, and has armillary spheres! Tregillis teases us near the end by appearing to hint that he's going to tell us what the spheres do ... but no. I suspect it is actually a large glowing ball of Narrativium, with which you can produce whatever your plot needs.
The whole sigils thing is an OK extension of basic golem theory, but the pineal gland/glass thing, glowing and non-glowing etc., is over the top. And I'm not at all sure about the suggestion that Mab and company were going to do geas implants on humans. Might have some 'splainin' to do on how that would work. Which brings me back to the Clakkers again. How did they get programmed with superb vocabulary and diction, remarkable strength and grace, marvellous fighting skills, and much, much more? Skills they ALL have. Is there some sort of Internet, with a Khan Academy they all log into while the humans slept? When and where do they practise to develop these skills?
And where's the missing chapter, in which Anastasia's glowing hand is explained? That one bothers me because it wasn't that long ago I read M.K. Hobson's The Native Star, which does pretty much the same thing with a magic stone in a hand. (No accusation here, I'm just observing that it happened, and I'm sure there are three other books out there that did it too).
OK, OK, lots of nits to pick. I didn't really enjoy this volume, but it is a respectable conclusion to a well-reasoned story about some challenging concepts and interesting characters. My only beefs are about the world-building, really. Oh, and maybe we could vary up the "shitcakes!" occasionally. Reminded me of Thomas "Hellfire" Covenant.
-
It's tough to bring an epic story to an epic conclusion, and this is no exception. There are always going to be little disappointments. That one plot point that wasn't quite explained to your satisfaction. The fate of a favorite character. The way the author tries to tie all of the ribbons up at the end.
The Liberation has all of these, but it is still a very good conclusion to Tregillis's latest trilogy. For the most part, the things that we don't figure out are things that the characters wouldn't be able to figure out either. There really isn't much to complain about, really.
While the second book of this series was my favorite, this one is a good way to end it. I got a little hung up on personal nitpicks. -
What a spectacular conclusion to an absolutely spectacular series. The Liberation nicely ties together many of the plots found throughout books one and two, while still leaving some of the larger metaphysical questions unanswered (as I think they should be). The characterization in this book is absolutely top notch. You care about every character, even if you don't necessarily *like* them. Ian Tregillis has truly knocked it out of the park with both The Liberation, and The Alchemy Wars, and I hope he chooses to explore more within this universe. Considering 2016 has been such a shit year for so many reasons, I'm happy that this'll be the final book I finish before 2017 hits.
-
This was a satisfying conclusion to the Alchemy Wars trilogy. I had to have it in my hands the moment I finished the second volume, and I was not disappointed in how Tregillis pulled the narrative threads together. This was a very enjoyable and engaging trilogy, with some very thought-provoking concepts, and some truly terrifying ideas woven throughout what is ostensibly an action-adventure-slash-historical-fiction-slash-fantasy story. Well worth the read!
-
wow is it me or was the way the main antagonist was subdued very lame :3 I am half convinced Tregillis threw in that last death (! spoiler) just to preemptively pacify his readers. like I stated in review of the previous instalment, Book 3 has the
difficult role of collecting story threads together to weave a satisfactory conclusion befitting the genius of Book 2. unfortunately it seems there was too much to do in 430 pages, so while there were some breathtaking moments like the long-anticipated alliance between the two spymasters of New France
and New Netherlands, and the full-circle moment when Jax finds himself hovering over the Forge to be executed by a despot in circumstances curiously parallel to the rogue he watched in the first pages of Book 1 (showing
mechanicals are capable of the same tyranny as humans), Tregillis provides no answers to our questions surrounding the Free Will that governs mechanical behaviour - what is it, and how is it managed? across the books we see a few ways mechanicals are re-programmed to different outcomes, but nowhere in Book 3 is an explanation wagered, not even after New France's Tallyrand who painstakingly reconstructed the language behind the program, met with New Netherlands' Tunier who would have been privy to the deepest alchemical secrets at the Forge, seat of the strange magic which founded the mechanicals, to formulate plans against the mechanical army here to enslave them. at one point Tallyrand suspects she hadn't been sold the whole story and presses her Dutch counterparts to reveal the truer purpose of the Forge…. then the fucking chapter stub ends there!!! in similar fashion, quintessence, the element core to the mechanical life force and hyped over the length of 3 books, was abruptly explained by a side character in an undignified drunken stupor to be simply be stibnite. why Tregillis-
so anyways as you can tell by my tone I'm kinda disappointed by the ending.… idk like I wouldn't
have minded if it was dragged out for another 200
pages to tie up loose ends but Tregillis was probably
contracted to end the series in 400 odd pages which
would explain the feeble ending scenes. so if you're expecting some attempt at moral discourse into religion and free will, you're gonna be sorely disappointed. this remains, and will only be, a beautifully packaged science-fiction cautionary tale about the tragedies mankind will unleash if the exuberance of science was not tampered with.
in any case Tregillis is forgiven because he gave us this moment! after 1100 pages of similarly endured painful journeys and thwarting each other's plans, as arbiters of cruel decisions made in the name of advancing their country's interests, down to cinematic parallels where their quick wit extricates them from the stickiest of situations, these two women (Tallyrand and Tunier) are shown to be more like than not, and so when the ever resourceful and pragmatic spymasters of New France and New Netherlands finally meet again in the unlikeliest of circumstances to form an uneasy but powerful alliance for the future of mankind, we cheer for the well-deserved reunion. -
I enjoyed this novel, and the trilogy it completes, a lot. I have some technical issues with it for sure - it needs some condensing in places, and the pacing suffers as a result - but overall it's a refreshingly vibrant take on the steampunk genre (though with way too much gross-out stuff for my personal taste, perhaps because in places it feels as if the gross-out factor is upped to shock rather than to better tell the story). My four stars is really for the trilogy overall rather than for this installment, which I thought in some ways was the weakest of the three. But it's exciting to experience some alternate history world-building which - gasp! - actually leaves out current Anglo-American culture altogether. That's a bold choice, and it pays off throughout the story. But I'm much less impressed with the "philosophical" and "metaphysical" elements of this story than some other readers have been, mainly because Tregillis seems to not really worry about the glaringly obvious flaw with calling what Daniel's liberation is a form of awakening of Free Will. I mean, the reason the mechanicals are in constant pain from their metageasa throughout the story is surely because they are plagued by commands that go against their (already existing) free will? When he's liberated, it isn't into this new state of Free Will, but into Free Action. That seems like a fairly obvious thing to miss throughout metaphysical discussions spread over three novels. But overall - fun and much, much better than the huge majority of steampunk fiction out there!
