#3: Tobias S. Buckell, Crystal Rain

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

When the ferocious Azteca threaten to overwhelm the world of Nanagada, John deBrun holds the key to its salvation. The problem is that he's been an amnesiac for twenty-seven years, since he washed up on the shores of his adopted country. Now he must race to recover the ancient device which could save his people before the Azteca and their gods destroy everything he's learned to hold dear.

Easily the best thing about Crystal Rain is its excellent, unusual worldbuilding, based on Caribbean culture. Even though he's clearly got a huge amount of background worked out, Buckell is really good about not infodumping, just adding in details as he goes along to create a more and more complex picture of the world he's created. One small issue: like sanguinity, I did wish he'd explained where the Azteca civilization comes from, as I don't see how a dead culture could have been imported to the world the same way the Caribbean culture was (though I wonder if the Teotl are responsible for it somehow). I hope he'll explain this more in future books.

I have to admit I was never all that invested in the characters, and I really, really wished there were more women. I felt that the prose was a little clunky in spots, but the dialogue was great, with the easy rhythm of the Caribbean-inspired speech and the more formal language used by a few characters. But even with a few nitpicks, the plot moves along at such a pace that I was pulled along with it, and the worldbuilding made me very much want to read more by Buckell. I guess I'd better get my hands on Ragamuffin soon!

Comments

[sanguinity]

There's a throwaway line in the second that I couldn't figure out if we were supposed to read as if the Teotl were responsible for it. But even if it DID mean the Teotl were responsible for it, it doesn't really help me. I keep imagining the Teotls sitting around with anthropological works about the Aztec, and directing people how to dress and speak and stuff. :-/

There are more women in book two! Lots more!

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

I want to think it was the Teotl, because I can't think of any other explanation, but yeah, it doesn't really convince.

[sanguinity]

I just began book three. An Azteca boy offers this history-in-a-nutshell thought about his people: "His ancestors [were] tricked into believing things borrowed from a lost culture on a distant Earth by cruelly manipulative aliens."

So, as suspected, the Teotl created the Azteca. I still want to know how the aliens had this idea, and how they induced a new language in the people, and, and, and... But either that will be revealed someday, or it won't be.