What do you think?
Rate this book
Faction Paradox #9
Faction Paradox: Against Nature
'You will make war with the beast of the city, and the people will be grateful, and in this way will your fame be fortified.'
Every fifty-two years, the God Xiuhtecuhtli — incarnate for the purpose as a young Mexica male — would give himself in sacrifice in order that the universe should be renewed and the passage of time would continue as it had done before. Those born to other cultures and other eras might be forgiven for their failure to appreciate this great and selfless act.
It was therefore strange that such a profound understanding should arise in one so far removed from the heart of this world, both veteran and victim of the terrible, endless war in heaven, a man the Mexica knew briefly as Coahualxiu bearing a death wish the size of creation...
Every fifty-two years, the God Xiuhtecuhtli — incarnate for the purpose as a young Mexica male — would give himself in sacrifice in order that the universe should be renewed and the passage of time would continue as it had done before. Those born to other cultures and other eras might be forgiven for their failure to appreciate this great and selfless act.
It was therefore strange that such a profound understanding should arise in one so far removed from the heart of this world, both veteran and victim of the terrible, endless war in heaven, a man the Mexica knew briefly as Coahualxiu bearing a death wish the size of creation...
304 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2013
64 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 29, 2013
There are some issues with the use of language in this novel: Lawrence Burton's knowledge of Mexica culture is rich and detailed and his research is meticulous, but Against Nature doesn't work with the reader to allow them to understand it as well as he does. In some ways that's admirable – as a reader I'm always willing to put in some work to understand a book rather than having its meanings handed to me on a plate – but despite the culture's inherent fascinations, the sheer profusion of unfamiliar terms did become a little alienating.
However, it's exactly the same approach taken to the material set among the inhabitants of the Great Houses, which I found much more comprehensible, and indeed to the contemporary US scenes – we're so immersed in the viewpoint of the current primary character that what they see is presented to us with no more explanation than they themselves would need. I'm confident that an early 16th-century Mexica cleric or a Homeworlder, if they were somehow able to read the book, would find exactly as much that was baffling about the contemporary sections.
As I say, I don't mind putting in the work to understand a story – it’s a common expectation in SF (see such books as Neuromancer or A Clockwork Orange), and one becomes used to it – but it’s not exactly restful to read. Couple that with the fivefold alternation between what for much of the book are separate plot strands, and a family life which means that I mostly get to read when I’m already tired, and I quite often picked up the book and found that I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I found it quite slow going.
Much of that is to do with my reading habits, though – I’m sure a younger, more intellectually agile reader would have had no issues with it. The one place where I thought this approach seriously compromised the book was in the suggestion that the actions of the various time-active participants had altered the mythology of the Mexica people, since without a comprehensive knowledge of said mythology it was impossible to detect which aspects of the myths depicted had been culturally imperialised.
That’s it for the negatives, though. In a more general way, I loved the use of Aztec myth, religion and ritual, and the descriptive tours of Tenochtitlan and its environs, as well as its modern-day counterpart and the connections between the two. The bruja Ultima, with her matter-of-fact approach to ritual magic, was a particularly fine character, but Momacani (the Mexica cleric whose passages are naturally the most steeped in Nahuatl vocabulary) was also reassuringly sympathetic. The play with alternative timelines was fun – not just the revelation about Todd’s relationship to Primo, but also the fractured present-day USA in which the former apparently finds himself about halfway through the book.
The book is crammed full of fascinating ideas, in fact, and its plot is wonderfully twisty, yielding up unexpected linkages between its apparently disparate strands, and building up to a climax whose ill-defined, partial and ambiguous nature is entirely in keeping with the book’s presentation of the numinous and sacred. The biggest question of all – – is ultimately unanswerable without an insight into the Ordnance-Tetrarch’s thought processes which the book denies us, and I felt it was all the more satisfying that way.
I loved the House Meddhoran sections of the book, and their depiction of an alien but codified world being invaded by the weird, irrational and macabre. (From a smugly personal point of view, I was gratified to see that the Great Houses’ vocabulary now includes a couple of my own coinages, specifically "archemathics" and "childe".) The eventual humanisation of these childrene whom the Houses have rejected was touchingly done.
It’s difficult for me to rank Against Nature in quality with the six previous Faction Paradox novels from Mad Norwegian and Random Static, even leaving my own horse out of the race... but as the first full-length novel Obverse Books have published, it’s suitably impressive, and gives me a great deal of confidence in the quality of the range to come.
However, it's exactly the same approach taken to the material set among the inhabitants of the Great Houses, which I found much more comprehensible, and indeed to the contemporary US scenes – we're so immersed in the viewpoint of the current primary character that what they see is presented to us with no more explanation than they themselves would need. I'm confident that an early 16th-century Mexica cleric or a Homeworlder, if they were somehow able to read the book, would find exactly as much that was baffling about the contemporary sections.
As I say, I don't mind putting in the work to understand a story – it’s a common expectation in SF (see such books as Neuromancer or A Clockwork Orange), and one becomes used to it – but it’s not exactly restful to read. Couple that with the fivefold alternation between what for much of the book are separate plot strands, and a family life which means that I mostly get to read when I’m already tired, and I quite often picked up the book and found that I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I found it quite slow going.
Much of that is to do with my reading habits, though – I’m sure a younger, more intellectually agile reader would have had no issues with it. The one place where I thought this approach seriously compromised the book was in the suggestion that the actions of the various time-active participants had altered the mythology of the Mexica people, since without a comprehensive knowledge of said mythology it was impossible to detect which aspects of the myths depicted had been culturally imperialised.
That’s it for the negatives, though. In a more general way, I loved the use of Aztec myth, religion and ritual, and the descriptive tours of Tenochtitlan and its environs, as well as its modern-day counterpart and the connections between the two. The bruja Ultima, with her matter-of-fact approach to ritual magic, was a particularly fine character, but Momacani (the Mexica cleric whose passages are naturally the most steeped in Nahuatl vocabulary) was also reassuringly sympathetic. The play with alternative timelines was fun – not just the revelation about Todd’s relationship to Primo, but also the fractured present-day USA in which the former apparently finds himself about halfway through the book.
The book is crammed full of fascinating ideas, in fact, and its plot is wonderfully twisty, yielding up unexpected linkages between its apparently disparate strands, and building up to a climax whose ill-defined, partial and ambiguous nature is entirely in keeping with the book’s presentation of the numinous and sacred. The biggest question of all – – is ultimately unanswerable without an insight into the Ordnance-Tetrarch’s thought processes which the book denies us, and I felt it was all the more satisfying that way.
I loved the House Meddhoran sections of the book, and their depiction of an alien but codified world being invaded by the weird, irrational and macabre. (From a smugly personal point of view, I was gratified to see that the Great Houses’ vocabulary now includes a couple of my own coinages, specifically "archemathics" and "childe".) The eventual humanisation of these childrene whom the Houses have rejected was touchingly done.
It’s difficult for me to rank Against Nature in quality with the six previous Faction Paradox novels from Mad Norwegian and Random Static, even leaving my own horse out of the race... but as the first full-length novel Obverse Books have published, it’s suitably impressive, and gives me a great deal of confidence in the quality of the range to come.
May 25, 2017
Woah.
20% into this novel, I was convinced I was reading the deranged ramblings of an utter madman and wondering how on Earth he'd gotten any of this drivel published. 50% into it, things were starting to make sense, and I'd begun taking notes; 80% in, I was cheering and applauding. One of the most intricate, beautiful, well-researched and well-crafted Who stories I've ever read, and the first one I've found that manages to be more complicated than The Book Of The War. It's an incredible accomplishment and I don't even know how to describe it aside from "imagine Anthony Burgess playing Riven on Gallifrey..."
Just fantastic. I can't wait to read it a second time.
(Also, there's an utterly random Señor 105 cameo. Because why not.)
20% into this novel, I was convinced I was reading the deranged ramblings of an utter madman and wondering how on Earth he'd gotten any of this drivel published. 50% into it, things were starting to make sense, and I'd begun taking notes; 80% in, I was cheering and applauding. One of the most intricate, beautiful, well-researched and well-crafted Who stories I've ever read, and the first one I've found that manages to be more complicated than The Book Of The War. It's an incredible accomplishment and I don't even know how to describe it aside from "imagine Anthony Burgess playing Riven on Gallifrey..."
Just fantastic. I can't wait to read it a second time.
(Also, there's an utterly random Señor 105 cameo. Because why not.)
February 4, 2018
Supporting Obverse to say it's a mind blower. Noone's read writing like it. It's a great read.
June 23, 2013
(Crossposted from my blog)
Full disclosure before I start this -- I am friendly with the author and the publisher, and I also potentially have a book coming out from this publisher. I don't think that this has biased my opinions in any way -- I became friendly with them because we shared a lot of tastes, so it's unsurprising that I would then enjoy this book -- but it's only fair to point out up-front.
I've been putting off reviewing this one for quite some time, because as I've said before I've not been thinking very well for the last few months due to ill-health, and this is a book that deserves a more considered, thoughtful response than perhaps I am able to give. However, I'm still not fully well, and don't know how long I would have to wait otherwise, so this is my best assessment given my limited faculties.
Against Nature is a fascinating, difficult book, that makes no concessions to the reader but is all the better for it. It's dense, allusive, and expects its reader to think -- but it gives plenty to think about. This is Faction Paradox in big, important, thoughtful mode, rather than light adventure mode -- think Newtons Sleep or, especially, This Town Will Never Let Us Go rather than Erasing Sherlock or Warlords Of Utopia. I've read it twice, and I still haven't got all of it, but that's a good thing -- this is a book that absolutely rewards rereading.
I loved it.
Against Nature is about sacrifice, and the nature of sacrifice, about dying-and-resurrected gods (and ones that die without resurrection), about what it means to be cut off from one's culture and one's past. It's a book that could only have been written by someone profoundly disconnected from his own culture -- and it's no surprise that between writing the early drafts of this, and its final publication, Lawrence emigrated to the US.
One of the ways in which Lawrence creates this effect has been misunderstood by several of the readers, particularly on some Doctor Who forums (Faction Paradox still has a residual connection to what Lawrence refers to as Magic Doctor Who Man Telly Adventure Time). The book is set in multiple times, in multiple locations, with multiple cultures. Two of those cultures -- the Great Houses and the medieval Mexica people (the people we think of, wrongly, as "the Aztecs") are ones which are very, very different from the likely cultures of any of the readers, not only in behaviour and attitudes, but in language.
Lawrence throws us in at the deep end, cutting rapidly, every two or three pages, between wildly different locations and time periods, with stories that parallel and comment upon each other, but do not link up until near the end. Each of these different cultures is presented to us without comment or explanation, so our first glimpse of the Great Houses' culture comes with:
while the Mexica strand of the story starts:
The cultures involved are ones which Lawrence has an expert understanding of -- he has been studying the Mexica people for decades, and has been involved in Faction Paradox fandom (for want of a better word) for almost as long. The result is that he can write about these cultures fluently, from the perspective of someone who lives there, because he does, at least internally.
Several readers complained about the fact that they had to keep track of unfamiliar names like Emioushameddhoran and terms like Ce Izcuintli, and there is no question that this does make the book many times more difficult to read than it otherwise would be. But this seems to me to be entirely intentional -- the reader experiences a miniature culture shock every two to five pages, and has to assimilate everything with no background. One is as rootless as Todd, the closest thing to an audience-identification figure in this book.
But I'm making this sound like it's a hard slog, something to read out of a sense of duty, and it's anything but. It's a clever, thoughtful, sometimes funny, always thought-provoking book, and will almost certainly prove the best novel I read this year.
Against Nature can be bought from Obverse Books as a paperback or ebook.
Full disclosure before I start this -- I am friendly with the author and the publisher, and I also potentially have a book coming out from this publisher. I don't think that this has biased my opinions in any way -- I became friendly with them because we shared a lot of tastes, so it's unsurprising that I would then enjoy this book -- but it's only fair to point out up-front.
I've been putting off reviewing this one for quite some time, because as I've said before I've not been thinking very well for the last few months due to ill-health, and this is a book that deserves a more considered, thoughtful response than perhaps I am able to give. However, I'm still not fully well, and don't know how long I would have to wait otherwise, so this is my best assessment given my limited faculties.
Against Nature is a fascinating, difficult book, that makes no concessions to the reader but is all the better for it. It's dense, allusive, and expects its reader to think -- but it gives plenty to think about. This is Faction Paradox in big, important, thoughtful mode, rather than light adventure mode -- think Newtons Sleep or, especially, This Town Will Never Let Us Go rather than Erasing Sherlock or Warlords Of Utopia. I've read it twice, and I still haven't got all of it, but that's a good thing -- this is a book that absolutely rewards rereading.
I loved it.
I'm mistletoe, Todd thought, I was living on that tree, and now I'm cut off, just moving forward until I sputter out. He wondered if this life might present him with other obvious symbols for his consideration, truths revealed in the everyday details. It felt a little like this whole world was all for his benefit, so maybe.
Against Nature is about sacrifice, and the nature of sacrifice, about dying-and-resurrected gods (and ones that die without resurrection), about what it means to be cut off from one's culture and one's past. It's a book that could only have been written by someone profoundly disconnected from his own culture -- and it's no surprise that between writing the early drafts of this, and its final publication, Lawrence emigrated to the US.
The same injustice had befallen Europe a few centuries earlier, barbarians at the gates and so on, swords turning out to be mightier than pens despite the proverb. It was always the stupid idea that caught on, the story that even the village idiot could follow without giving himself a headache. Human history was a ratings war, and people would always choose the flashing lights, special effects, and generic hero pleading you don't have to do this! over things of value.
One of the ways in which Lawrence creates this effect has been misunderstood by several of the readers, particularly on some Doctor Who forums (Faction Paradox still has a residual connection to what Lawrence refers to as Magic Doctor Who Man Telly Adventure Time). The book is set in multiple times, in multiple locations, with multiple cultures. Two of those cultures -- the Great Houses and the medieval Mexica people (the people we think of, wrongly, as "the Aztecs") are ones which are very, very different from the likely cultures of any of the readers, not only in behaviour and attitudes, but in language.
Lawrence throws us in at the deep end, cutting rapidly, every two or three pages, between wildly different locations and time periods, with stories that parallel and comment upon each other, but do not link up until near the end. Each of these different cultures is presented to us without comment or explanation, so our first glimpse of the Great Houses' culture comes with:
The blinkers were fashioned from the clothing of the deceased, specifically a pressure suit once belonging to Herrare, the material cut to form a collar of hide curving around the eyes in the manner of goggles. Emioushameddhoran vel-Xianthellipse adjusted the knotted strips of fabric which kept the blinkers in place and took a moment to inspect herself in the cheval glass
while the Mexica strand of the story starts:
It was the day Ome Ozmatli of the trecena Ce Izcuintli as reckoned by the Tonalpohualli calendar of the Mexica -- Two Monkey, presiding Deities being Xochipilli, Xipe Totec and Quetzalcoatl. This was hardly an auspicious combination by which to embark upon travel, but there being only nine days left before the occasion of the impending New Fire Ceremony, Momacani was left with little choice.
The cultures involved are ones which Lawrence has an expert understanding of -- he has been studying the Mexica people for decades, and has been involved in Faction Paradox fandom (for want of a better word) for almost as long. The result is that he can write about these cultures fluently, from the perspective of someone who lives there, because he does, at least internally.
Several readers complained about the fact that they had to keep track of unfamiliar names like Emioushameddhoran and terms like Ce Izcuintli, and there is no question that this does make the book many times more difficult to read than it otherwise would be. But this seems to me to be entirely intentional -- the reader experiences a miniature culture shock every two to five pages, and has to assimilate everything with no background. One is as rootless as Todd, the closest thing to an audience-identification figure in this book.
But I'm making this sound like it's a hard slog, something to read out of a sense of duty, and it's anything but. It's a clever, thoughtful, sometimes funny, always thought-provoking book, and will almost certainly prove the best novel I read this year.
Against Nature can be bought from Obverse Books as a paperback or ebook.
August 19, 2017
exceptionally brilliant book, the multiple story-lines all dance around each other for the coolest story-line prize, before they come together in a grand conjunction and catharsis is enjoyed :)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews