Customer Reviews

The Maquisarde

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I first read the publisher's description of this novel, I was afraid it would be depressing, but it's not. It's a great story about an unforgettable set of characters whose voices kept returning to me after I finished it. And the future world seems so possible . . . as if it's just a heartbeat away. A great read, and a fast one. Highly recomended!

When the fossil fuels were used up, the world fell apart. Some countries used nuclear weapons on their neighbors while other places used biological weapons. The stock markets crashed and international trade was severely crippled worse than what happened during the Great Depression of 1929. The American and European polities along with Todakai (Japan and the Koreas) joined together in the International Cooperative Alliance, an isolationist organization that has quarantined all nations that don't belong to their organization.

Commander General George Glass of Security Corps rules the alliance with an iron fist and he is the person that Ebriel Serique blames for the death of her husband and child. She is determined to kill him and joins the international resistance movement to achieve that goal. When the time comes to kill her enemy, she finds she cannot do it but she is determined, with the help of some powerful and invisible allies, to see that his regime is toppled from power.

This is the story of a woman who undergoes a metamorphous from an elitist into a revolutionary, a person who comes to symbolize to the world that there is a change needed in the world order. Louise Marley has an uncanny ability to make the reader feel that the events in THE MAQUISARDE are really unfolding sort of like turning the pages of the Neverending Story. The heroine makes mistakes, learns from them, and gets a second chance at happiness. Readers will admire her grit, determination, and courage, but mostly appreciate Ms. Marley's ability to paint a picture of a world turned much colder and nastier than Dickens worse nightmare.

Harriet Klausner

Once again Louise Marley presents us with a timely subject and nudges us to consider the possible outcome of fanaticism. The Maquisarde begins with an act of terror which is so easy to identify with after 9/11! Ebriel Serique is a fully-realized character who leads us through an emotional journey of loss, grief, rage, and finally a search for justice. Underlying all of Ms. Marley's stories, as in this one, is the reminder of how precious a resource are our children. A good, thought-provoking read!

I actually liked "Maquisarde" better than "Glass Harmonica", Marley's award-winning novel. The premise, a resistance against an evil corporate-government entity is not unique, but this is a well-handled rendering of the subject. The novel is in some ways reminiscent of Marge Piercey's "He, She, and It" though without Piercey's richness in creating a future world.

Ebriel, a French flutist, loses her family in a shocking event which is covered up. She goes on a heroic quest to bring the perpetrators to justice, and her personal experience of persecution and her resulting rebellion are really the core of the novel. As usual, Marley brings her own knowledge of music to provide detail and context to her work, a nice touch as always and gives a flavor to the writing that I enjoy. I just couldn't put it down.

Louise Marley's "The Maquisarde" is among the best novels I've read set in the late 21st Century. With respect to style and tone, it most closely resembles John Shirley's "A Song Called Youth" cyberpunk trilogy, especially since it deals with many of the same issues which Shirley wrote about years ago. "The Maquisarde" is a compelling saga about French flutist Ebriel Serique, who loses her husband and young daughter in a terrorist attack which she blames on the military leader of the International Cooperative Alliance (InCo), comprised of North America, Europe, Korea and Japan. It is the late 21st Century and the world has been divided into the industrialized powers which comprised the alliance and the rest, most of which are ravaged by disease, poverty and the lingering effects of nuclear conflict (most notably between India and Pakistan). Ebriel undergoes an amazing transformation from a splendid classical musician to a committed revolutionary terrorist determined to aid those who are not InCo citizens. Marley's dismal, yet still optimistic, view of the late 21st Century is one of the best examples of world-building I have come across in science fiction, and her heroine Ebriel is surely among the most captivating.

The Maquisarde is the story of Ebriel, a woman who loses her husband and daughter in a supposed terrorist attack. Distraught with bereavement, she is offered the opportunity to join the Chain, a self-styled "resistance" movement. Running parallel with her story is that of James, a military officer with a troubled past of his own, who begins to doubt the integrity of those he serves. And then their paths finally cross . . .
I wanted to like this book better than I actually did. I found the setting problematic. The International Cooperative Alliance, where Ebriel and James begin, is made up of first world countries who have formed a protective alliance to establish a quarantine between them and other regions, which are supposedly racked with war and disease. But this setting is never delineated clearly enough to give the story a really solid background and highlight the differences between InCo and everyone else. Was InCo lying about the need for the quarantine or not? The bad guys are cartoonish, the good guys are undoubtedly heroic - there are few shades of grey in this story. Everything is resolved far too easily at the end.
However, the biggest problem I had with the book was Ebriel herself. For a character who supposedly embodies resistance, she's remarkably passive. She never questioned her life in InCo. The Chain found her, not the other way around. She contributes no great ideas, no special talents - she just exists to get sent on whatever mission comes next. It's James who saves her life and finds the evidence to destroy her enemy. This book is also emotionally hollow. How can we grieve with Ebriel for her husband and daughter when they are barely mentioned and her life with them is not described? How can we lament the loss of her old life when she seems to have no trouble adjusting between that old life and the new? Why bother making her a musician when music plays so minimal a role in the story? Ebriel goes along with whatever is happening then suddenly decides to do something different, but when we see no gradual change in her thoughts and feelings over time (and the passage of time is hard to pick in this book) - we are just told she now feels different about something.
I was disappointed with this book after the glowing reviews I read. It's a competent adventure/romance tale, with a minimal science-fiction element. Louise Marley does a lot of telling, but not much showing.

I started this book and couldn't put it down..The main character is admirable and strong. The theme is thought provoking and includes romance, mystery and intrigue. I highly recommend it.

I enjoyed this book. The transformation of Ebriel from a rather self-centered musician to a revolutionary was interesting, as were the out-of-the ordinary locales uses in the book. It was an interesting change-of-pace story.

I did have a few quibbles with it, though. Given the fact that the Line of Demarcation was an artificial construct, drawn after nuclear and biochemical warfare, it just seemed a little strange to me that drift didn't seem to be taken into consideration. There also didn't really seem to be anything wrong with the people on the opposite side of the line, other than the destruction of some of their industrial base, and lack of food and medical care. I didn't quite find it believable that the USA would have gone along with the plan, and allow its military control to be subsumed by the new order. It also didn't make sense to me that a woman as driven as Ebriel was, who continued to plan her own agenda even while seemingly to go along with the plans of the Chain, who had such hatred toward General Glass, would, when finally presented with the opportunity to kill him, would have a sudden change of heart. That seemed more of a plot contrivance than a logical extension of the character's behavior.

I've enjoyed Marley's work before, but this one left me a bit disappointed. Mostly that was because I was reading it during the days of the Beslan tragedy, when real resistance/rebel fighters took real lives. This book was just too tv-like for me by the end. Everything was neatly wrapped up - sure there was work left to do, but it was just work, not the Big Struggle.

I will say that Marley writes well, and I will continue to read her books.