Customer Reviews

A Secret History: The Book Of Ash, #1

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is the first installment of an impressive new novel (or novel series) by Mary Gentle. In brief, it's the story of a female mercenary captain, Ash, in the 1470s, at the time of the fall of the Duchy of Burgundy. (By coincidence, these events occur at about the same time as yet another unusual alternate history/fantasy, John M. Ford's The Dragon Waiting.)

The Book of Ash purports to be a straight-forward translation of a few contemporary manuscripts about Ash's life, and indeed there is a frame story consisting of letters and email between the translator and his editor. As such, they start out seeming to be "normal" historical fiction, with a very realistic and believable portrayal of Ash's childhood as a mercenary camp follower, then jumping to portrayal of her role as the Captain of some 800 mercenaries at the age of 19 or 20. All this is presented starkly: Ash's rape at the age of 8, and her subsequent killing of her attackers; the filthy conditions in her camp; the blood, pain, and discomfort of battle. Throughout, we get very nice details of such things as what sort of armour was worn. But slowly we realize that the world described doesn't seem to be part of our own history.

At first, we notice little details, such as the voices Ash hears, or the references to a different-seeming variety of Christianity, involving the "Green Christ", or the odd mention of Carthage and the Eternal Twilight. As the book goes on, we learn that somehow Carthage has survived into the 15th century, or has been re-established, and, more strangely, that the Sun never shines in the area of Carthage. Before long, we are encountering robots (Stone Golems) used as weapons of war, unusual speculation about parallel worlds, long-term breeding projects, and other decidedly fantastical (or perhaps even science-fictional) devices. But the centre of the story remains Ash, a charismatic character, wholly believable as a leader of her men, wholly sympathetic but thoroughly a professional killer, harrowed by bitter personal questions about her identity, her lust for a man she cannot abide, her affection for a man whose love she cannot return, her loyalties to all her company. I found this book terrifically exciting, with well-described battle scenes, fascinating weird background concepts, and a compelling overarching story-line.

Besides the exciting adventure plot, the characters in these books are very well done: their motivations are real, they face difficult decisions and don't always choose rightly, they seem reasonably true to their time. Even the villains are believable, and by no means thoroughly evil. The 15th-century milieu is realistically presented. And the revelations of the secrets behind the scenes are made with great cleverness and subtlety. Here the frame story, as well as footnotes, are used to very good effect. I am eagerly awaiting the final three installments.

Ash is a compelling dual story about a (fictional) female warrior/general in medieval times and the academic who studies her life in the near future. The book we read is a combination of book that the academic *nearly* published about Ash, and the e-mails that pass between him and his editor (this works better than it sounds).

The Ash story is compiled from the academic's translation of medieval latin texts (rendered into modern English, so Ash's soldier cursing has been translated into modern strong cursing), and is written as an entertaining novel with some pseudo-academic footnotes.

At first, the story would appeal to any historical novel reader (as long as they're OK with strong language and violence), but later in the series it gets into fantasy and also explores the possible nature of time and space quite a bit.

The long chapter-less parts make for late night reading (while you wait for a good place to stop), but I had no regrets for the dark rings around my eyes in the morning.

If you can't wait for the final volume, the whole work is published as a huge trade paperback in Britain (although reading it like that in one go can send you around the bend!), available at Amazon UK.

A Secret History, the first of the four "Books of Ash", is difficult to categorize. While the book itself is stamped "Fantasy" on the spine, all the topics above apply at one time or another. And that, perhaps, is why several of the reviewers got annoyed with this book, because it refuses to stick to one category and stay there. This is not a failure on the book's part, but a success; this work is a tour de force.

The tale starts off as a translation of a 15th century manuscript, with notes from the (purported) author to his editor, and then we are absorbed into the story of Ash, Renaissance Battle Babe (well, mercenary company leader). Mary Gentle has done her homework on this period, and you will experience almost everything to make it real by dwelling on the discomforts. You will march through muck, mud, and mire, don and doff heavy armor more times than you will care to, while overhearing political calculations in where the next mercenary contract should come from. And the more you take in, the more twists are in store.

The breezy correspondence between the translator, Pierce Ratcliff, and his editor, Anna Longman, at first seems jarring compared to the long, complex, and thorough descriptions and adventures of Ash and her company. But do follow them, because they hint from the beginning that this book is not a mere swords without sorcery tale. The editor mentions that she studied Ash in college, yet we know Ash is fictional. And then all of Pierce's source materials either disappear or get reclassified as fiction. Not only do we wonder what will happen to Ash, trying to own land to keep a mercenary company in a land where women cannot own land; we wonder where Pierce's book will ever see the light of day. And why would his sources... change?

There are enough similarities to the Late Middle Ages to seem familiar, but here and there some differences catch you up. Europe is Christian, but the worship is different. There are temples to Mithras. There are Visigoths still around... and they're in Carthage, and not the Carthage sacked by Rome.

At the end of this book, the mostly-solid reality of life in 1486 is starting to unravel, and this will be further explained (and complicated) in the next book. History becomes fantasy, which becomes alternate history, and on to the science fictional parts. Do stay with it, for it is indeed worth the trip. My only complaint is that the book so pulled me into Ash's world and wouldn't let me out because there are very few stopping places!

Note: This work is not a "series" in the true sense, because Gentle conceived and wrote it as one novel. In the US it was published and released as four books, but in the UK, where she lives, it was published as one tremendous novel.

I read the entire series as one novel (the UK edition), so I am perhaps less qualified than the other readers here to judge the merits of the first quarter of it as a novel in its own right.

Having said that, I was hooked from page 1. The characters, including Ash herself and the "supporting cast", are first-rate, and drawn in Gentle's typically unflinching style. The setting is fascinating: not exactly history, but historical enough to be interesting as a narrative as well as an exploration of a particular period.

It's definitely not a book for the faint-hearted. It's brutal, filthy and extremely violent. Not violent in that epic-fantasy glamourised-sadistic way, but violent in the way that you'd expect medieval life and warfare to be. Hardened and accepting of human suffering as a fact of everyday life. When Ash says that she doesn't expect to live to middle age, you believe her -- and more importantly, you believe that this is a character who lives her life in the knowledge that it's going to be short and bright and in the end, ugly. There are no modern-day sensibilities transposed onto a medieval setting; Ash is as real as it gets.

True, this is by no means a perfect book. Others have pointed to the "buttressing" structure of the interspersed emails as annoying; I agree -- but on the other hand, the emails are relatively simple to skim-read, and you can always ignore them if you're really irked. It feels a bit gimmicky, but to be fair, does eventually grow into a plot of its own, with its own resolution.

The other problem I encountered was the increasing importance of the supernatural/sci-fi element in the later parts of the book. While I love sf, and appreciate the skilful combination of it with fantasy, it just didn't completely work for me here. I really wanted it to, but ultimately I was just too intererested in Ash as a realistic character and in her world as a real setting to be engrossed by the idea of golems and machines. The fault, if there is one, lies merely in how brilliant the "alternate history" part of the book is; it didn't need the golems and emails and other gimmicks to sell the character and her world to me.

Don't let these relatively minor gripes put you off. This book really is a rare find: a solid story about a strong, genuine, flawed, utterly believable girl leading an army. If you're sick of female heroes who worry about breaking a nail in combat, but you still believe that they could be attractive and even (yes, that word) feminine in a realistic way -- Ash is your girl. If you want a gritty, richly detailed medieval setting, swords and castles, without the constraints of real medieval history -- "Ash" is the story for you. But if you're after a swords-and-sorcery epic where there is no filth in the streets and everyone has perfect teeth -- walk away now.

This book is really the first quarter of a complete novel. Be sure to pick up parts 2, 3, and 4 for a complete story. You won't regret it.

Ash skillfully intertwines the story of Ash in 1476-77 with the modern story of a man researching Ash's life and writing a book about her. Other readers complain about the email portions of the novel, but don't listen to them. The "modern story" is as important as the historical story, each one supporting the other. Mary Gentle manages, in her historical story, to create a world that is dirty, ugly, realistic, and extremely fascinating. Here, there's no off-stage indoor plumbing or laundry facilities. People live rugged, and often short, lives. Battles are messy and bloody, with little heroic action, only a desire to survive. And out of all of this, comes an absorbing story.

Skip that "Wheel of Neverending Boredom" stuff and read Ash instead.

Gentle certainly deserves applause for the verisimilitude that she brings to her alternative history novel of 15th century Burgundy. She brings the mercenaries and the time to life in a way that only the best historical novels have managed to do.

However, the sequences with the current historian researching Ash annoyed me to the point of wanting to put the book down. It may be that if you read the book as it was intended (as one book) then this is less troublesome. Unfortunately, split the way it is I failed to see the point. I just was not interested enough for the mystery of it all to move me very much.

I may pick up the second installment and see what happens, but I will not go out of my way to read it.

Readers who like their fantasy mixed with strong historical fiction will probably enjoy A Secret History. Perhaps you will be better able than I to tolerate the modern storyteller character. Be aware that the book is detailed in more than one sense-- the descriptions are brutal and very violent.

I am less impressed with Mary Gentle's writing than other reviewers - I often found myself confused about what was going on and who the secondary characters were, and like at least one other reviewer, I found the device of inserting emails from the contemporary fictional translator distracting. There are interestingly detailed medieval battle scenes, but only a few. The main character's dreary reliance on profanity wore on me. But most disappointing was the utter lack of resolution in any of the plot lines at the end of the book. If you weren't planning on buying further books in the series, don't bother with this one, because the story just hangs in mid-air at the end. I would have preferred more candor about this - I'm not taken enough with the character or the writing to bother with more of this, so that truly made this partial tale a waste of time. However, if the character intrigues you, or you want to read every alternate history book ever written, by all means go for it.

This book or series of books was very thought provoking. After I finished it I immediately reread it because I felt that in my first reading I had missed a lot of the details that became important later. What also made this a definite repeat read is the complex layers upon layers of events and the genre transcending plot. This is not just a fantasy novel, nor it is completely science fiction, there is history and alternate history, loads of military history, a bit of time travel, and a gutsy heroine that stands out amid the blood and gore. This book is broken into four part in the US the are, A Secret History, Carthage Ascendent, The Wild Machine, and Lost Burgundy. The first book had a particularity beautiful cover with a mesmerizing female warrior in silvery armor that reflected a landscape.
The books are presented as the work of a scholar that decided to do a book on the history of Ash, a fifteenth century female mercenary. Using a series of e-mails the scholar communicates with his publisher about the bizarre things that are happening. The manuscripts he based the book on either mysteriously disappear or just as mysteriously get reclassified from history to romantic fiction. He continues to write his book but amid questions about the authenticity of his work. Then suddenly archaeologist discover a ruin of "Carthage" in the sea off Africa in an area that has always been barren. This Carthage shows signs that it existed until just five centuries ago contradicting the historical fact that Carthage was destoryed by Rome over two thousand years ago. But it is exactly where the Ash manuscripts say it is.

So who is this Ash? We meet her at the age of eight as she kills two men who rapes her. This earns her the attention of the captain of the mercenary band she is with. As she grows up in mercenary camp the reader starts to realized that the world she lives in is not quite the one we know from history. The people worship the green Christ, and the city of Carthage is still a power base in Africa. After an encounter with a lion in the forest, Ash believes she is blessed by it. As evidence she hears a voice that tells her military strategies that helps her win battles. Before she even turns twenty, Ash was already commanding her own mercenary army.
Suddenly Carthage launches an all out assault on Europe and quickly conquers most of Europe. Ash realizes that her voice is really that of a machine in Carthage that seems to be behind the attack. And riding at the head of the invading army is a women that looks exactly like Ash, and she hears voices too.
Strangely the machine insists that Burgundy Must Die. Why Burgundy? What is the machine's Agenda? Who is Ash, really?
These questions and the questions of the reappearing artifacts in modern Africa are answered in the subsequent books. The plot is too complex to explain in a review but it is very intricate and at times confusing. The author has a degree in War Studies and she uses her knowledge well in crafting believable battle scenes and gives an un-glorified account of the battlefield conditions as well as the conditions of a city under siege.
The character of Ash is perplexing. She is strong and practical to the point of ruthlessness. She is at times vulnerable emotionally but has such mental focus that it is scary to see her plan an attack while standing the bodies of her sliders. There is so many layers to her that with every reading you'll discover something new.
I absolutely loved this book. The scientific questions it raises at the end are very interesting and Ash is wonderful to see in action. There is little romance but there are relationships that are explored galore. What is also plentiful is gore filled battle scenes that might be too much for some. So stay out of the way of the spurting arterial blood if that is not your thing, but otherwise pick up the one volume British edition or all four US editions.

In a time when empires and alliances shift like sand, the Visigoths with their mighty army and magic-powered machines arise out of Africa to darken the sun. Literally, and for weeks at a stretch, not unlike the ninth plague of Moses' day. Setting their sights on Burgundy, opulent and powerful 15th-century jewel of Europe, the Visigoths begin devouring every nation in their path, spreading the darkness in their wake.

Until they encounter Ash.

Born in the mud and dung of a mercenary camp, of unknown parentage, she slew her first man at age eight. While most young women occupy themselves attracting men to their beds, Ash attracts men to her banner. They follow her because she wins, and she wins because of the unerring guidance of a sacred voice wise in the ways of war. And because she genuinely cares about the eight hundred men and women of her mercenary band. This concern shines through her vulgar and masculine demeanor.

Though religious, Ash is no virginal Jeanne d'Arc. Money alone motivates her, not some Higher Cause. That begins to change when she realizes she may be the only obstacle between the Visigoths and their conquest of Europe.

A Secret History features a literary device that at first I dismissed as a gimmick. Ash's story unfolds as though it were a hitherto undiscovered medieval manuscript suffering translation by a late 20th century historian, complete with footnotes. Transcripts of email correspondence between the historian and his editor appear at intervals throughout the text. Don't give into the temptation to skip these sections. Rather than detracting from the flow, the email transcripts form rungs of a ladder to propel the novel onward, containing information that aids the suspension of disbelief.

This is not a book for the faint-hearted -- consider yourself warned! Graphic violence and vulgarity abounds. But if you crave a unique fantasy that eschews the object-oriented quest cliché, then refill your digitalis prescription and buckle yourself in for the ride.

...Not compelled to grab the next book in the series. I enjoyed many aspects of this book, but wasn't really hooked.

This is a 15th century historical fiction novel with only a hint of SF/F in it. I'd say there is only about 5% of the fantasy that you would find in your typical fantasy book- though I hear it becomes much more in the later books of the series. However, if you don't mind historical fiction, don't let this stop you.

The story is about Ash, a female commander of a mercenary company who does more than anyone thought a woman could in the 15th century. But here is where it really twists off from historical fiction: A great, unknown nation from Northern Africa invades Europe, bringing with it a large assortment of technological machines, featuring large brass golems. Ash and her army-for-hire end up in the middle of this nation-crushing conflict!

I loved the setting she chose for her story- a point in history where guns and canons have been incorporated into European combat, but archers, lances, and armor are still the main scene. And a mercenary band is ALWAYS great to read about in any book as far as I'm concerned. It was fun seeing how they operated autonomously- separate of any of the nations or religions of the time. They choose their contracts among themselves as a council. No matter what their political interests are, they pretty much want to make sure they are on the winning side!

The book started off very well, and drew me in, but by the end- I'm not really in any hurry to continue the series. In fact, it can't really be considered a series... From what I hear, you have to read all four books end-on-end to get the whole effect- and from the ending in this one book- that certainly seems the case.

One feeling I got was that Gentle seemed desperate to write women into history, or even this fictional history. I was quite fascinated with Ash's character at the start- "She's like Joan of Arc," I thought. I'm interested. But then it starts to feel like Gentle is trying to show us that every time a woman is in charge- things get done right. But men are portrayed as completely incompetent or are good soldiers at best. Of course, one would have to admit that there are WAY MORE fantasy novels that cater to the opposite extreme, so one can't complain too loudly about the ladies getting the spotlight! :)

All in all, I didn't have any major gripes here- Just that Gentle's style didn't really keep me enthralled. So instead of grabbing book 2, I'm off to try my luck elsewhere!

-Lysander