Defiance is a book with a lot of moving pieces, and continues the “Ilisidi and Bren on a Train Trip Chasing Down the Shadow Guild and Making Alliances,” storyline begun in Resurgence. This book takes a worryingly retrospective turn when it becomes apparent that Ilisidi is not well and appears to be operating under the assumption that she has a limited amount of time to finally establish her ultimate goal. (Which is apparently uniting the all of the continent’s geopolitical associations.) Since Ilisidi is the cornerstone of all of these developing alliances, there’s an immediate panic when she collapses at a train station-because if she falls ill and dies, the entire Jenga tower of alliances and agreements will fall apart.
Among the panicked parties is of course Bren, her grandson Tabini, and her great grandson Cajieri. Everyone’s favorite catalyst for plot complications is panicked enough to…not to run headlong into trouble by himself this time. He does however still manage to get into hot water due to involving Great Uncle Tatseigi and Reijiri of Dur (everyone’s favorite pilot) in the situation. The kid’s allegiance toward his grandmother and having less of a man’chi toward his parents while also being very much a leader-type results in Cajieri not understanding “you should probably have consulted with your father instead of going headlong into the situation again.” (Cajieri would not be Cajieri if he was not causing someone somewhere a migraine.) Cajieri as of Defiance also has been given more responsibilities, and has been given a position that will be instrumental to getting the refugees off of the space station. (Before the space station literally falls apart because there are too many people living in terrible conditions. It is not a situation with a quick or easy solution due to communication breakdowns and a lack of an ability to evacuate the refugees quickly.)
So again, a lot of moving parts, and Bren is mostly at a loss because Ilisidi is keeping him in a near total communication black out. You can however get a sense for why she’s probably doing it–Bren tends to work really well under pressure, and it’s clear she’s putting him in a situation where he can have lots of it! This is great if you need a solution and are Ilisidi, but much less great if you are Bren Cameron who has to pull miracles out of your unique perspective as a human translator/diplomat up to his neck in nonhuman politics.
Defiance is not a great book to start with if you are just entering the series. (Which is a given since the series is a long one at twenty books or so.) Some of the plot threads are engaging, but there is also a feel that this is all somewhat drawn out more than it has to be. (Though that’s my usual feeling about very long series.) Any of the later Foreigner books are going to be bad places to start off from, but this one especially requires an understanding of the what’s happened previously.
Some highlights I found engaging:
- Lord Tatiseigi arriving to fuss at Ilisidi due to Cajieri setting him up with a plane ride (via Our Favorite Pilot).
- Lord Tatiseigi who has come a long way from the distant and hostile lord he was at the beginning of the series being friendly (well, for values of friendly including “atevi don’t do friendly”) with Bren and also considering Rejieri an associate/a neighbor!
- Cajieri’s continuing character arc of “becoming more mature and developing a greater understanding of the larger world.” We get to see a lot of how his thinking has been shaped by both his great grandmother and Bren. We also see his continuing struggles to relate in a meaningful way with his parents.
- There are some epistolary bits from an atevi biography/history book about Ilisidi and her goals/successes/history. A lot of it is stuff we already know from what Bren learned earlier in the series but it’s an atevi history book so it reads like “outsider point of view.” And I love me some Outsider POV.
- Various characters having to deal with Ilisidi taking such huge risks with her health while in pursuit of her goals.
- Ilisidi herself and her interactions with the Edi, who are a different ethnic group from the Ragi. (A marginalized ethnic group that the Ragi have not generally treated very well or very fairly.)
This review is based on a galley copy of the book received from NetGalley.
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