Review: The Cold Commands, Richard Morgan

Mild spoilers-through-suggestion throughout which might also be seemingly-spoilers-but-are-actually-misdirection, maybe.

Ugh, I need better lighting

"Do I look like a fucking slave to you?"

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm with you again alot faster than expected. It doesn't happen alot but I practically plowed through this one, the post I mean, I very much took my sweet time with the book itself. I also wrote a whole lot more than I thought I would. 

We have arrived at book 2 in the Land Fit For Heroes Trilogy and right off the bat it becomes quite clear that it's a good one. Something I had previously not noted was the amount of humour on display, not much in the plot or storytelling, but definitely in its style and delivery, in the segways between scenes and the wry, observant, though frequently dark, humour. Needless to say at his point, I absolutely love Morgan's writing style.

There's a great strand of 'show, don't tell' shining through the narrative where he relies on his readers figuring things out in advance so that he can forego clarifying exposition and just take the next logical step in any given scene and when next we see them the characters are already in the midst of responding to it. It's as if you're shouting at the tv for your heroes to hurry up and do something and when the scene switches you're surprised to find that they're already a slight bit ahead of your exasperated suggestions.

His penchant for graphic sex also makes a re-appearance, though a little less graphic and this time testing both sides of the same-sex pond, and I was amused to note that, throughout the first two books at least, there were significantly less instances of the straight than of the gay kind.

Unlike in the first book, religion rears its sand-encrusted head, which, to be honest, I was delighted about. Give me desert-dwelling worshipers anytime. It's just like coming home. Like I noted In my Road of Faith posts; reading the Bible so much at an early age has given me an easy affinity for  devout desert culture, even if it is as throwaway as it is in the Cold Commands.

The mythology, with its Dying Earth trappings, takes a more prominent, or at least less disguised role. You'd think that would take some of the fun out of it but it's quite an accomplishment then that the mythical quality of these elements isn't diminished by their more overt real-life parallels and that instead it adds to the mystery of it all.
Morgan gives us more overt glimpses inside the workings of the mental cogitations of the Helmsmen and machinations of the Dark Court. The usual suspects, ERROR WOULD CONSTITUTE SPOILERS, are also back and despite initial appearances have a more significant than expected, though truncated role in this narrative. I'll be curious to see if the third novel will incorporate them as well.

I felt like I had to mention that because I had a different idea as to how the trilogy would go in regards to its antagonists and I'm having an odd feeling that what I initially thought about it will never even come into it. It's a strange kind of pressure that makes me really want to read the third one right now to see if I was wrong all along. It's not about ideas and guesses, rather just that I had made a wrong assumption based on what little I knew before going in. There's a race I've seen mentioned in every review of the novels, including mine, and yet... it's about the shadow they cast more than anything else, perhaps. I guess I'll have to read it to find out.

Because of how Morgan approached things in book 1, here he manages to keep us on our guard whenever he slyly repeats those story beats to give you an inkling that if things turned out badly before, they might yet again. Tension slowly starts to ratchet upwards as you realise, that the characters you thought would be safe right up to the end of the trilogy might not actually be so.
It's a long-haul tension building masterclass. Where Morgan lets scenes similar in build-up or circumstance point you towards the fact that he is of the Kill Your Darlings school or failing that of the Don't Hesitate to Grotesquely Maim Them academy.

Now bear in mind, I'm not spoiling anything here and I might just be leading you on.

I'm just saying: Damn, dude is good.

As I noted in a previous post, there are less flashbacks this time around, as most, or all, of the horrific backstories have been delivered, which mainly means that there's more time for actual present day-plot.

We again follow around three main characters as they make their individual ways through a grey and morally murky world that is only slightly hell-bent on killing them.

We follow around three characters but it's undeniably Ringil, that's still the linchpin on which the trilogy turns. It's Ringil and his character, this time less in introspection but very visibly in his actions, who progresses forward the most, if it can be called that. 

The others have their place and though always connected, aren't necessarily moved by him.

What was hinted at during the previous novel, seems to become more solid here. Where Ringil's morality was once shades of grey, here it has become tinged by the dark. As extreme acts of violence start to present themselves, acts of brutal savagery, necessary but committed with a callousness worthy of a villain, that another writer would hesitate to let his heroes commit, it becomes obvious that there is a point to this. 

The trilogy's end-goal becomes clearer and guesses made at this junction won't be far off the mark, but about these things it's more of how they come to pass, it's of the road taken rather than of the final climactic moments. And though the road is paved with blood and gristle, it's also ridiculously satisfying in how bad-ass it is.