Sunday Story Ratings #19: The Jackal of Nar
The Jackal of Nar by John Marco (Tyrants and Kings #1)
Originally published 1999; this edition 2000
Publisher: Millennium / Victor Gollancz
R18+
(V, L, N, H, S, D)
Strong Violence {R 18+ violence / R 18+ sexual violence; attempted rape, preludes to battlefield gang rape, graphic and messy battlefield violence, chemical warfare, attempted genocide}
Coarse Language {MA15+}
Nudity {G}
Supernatural themes and references {no weight}
Sexual References {PG}
Drug Use {PG}
Representations
Gender:
Primarily male characters. Multiple perspectives, a couple of them female. Many characters display various forms of sexism, including in some cases a belief in women as property by divine decree, including some but definitely not all of the women in the story. Even the male character who is consciously anti-sexist and pro women's rights is frequently paternal and essentialist, to the frustration of the women he is trying to help or live with. There is one conversation between women that I recall without men present, primarily focusing on tension around whether sexist cultural norms are good for women or not (i.e. for Bechdel purposes I am counting it as probably 'about men').
Sex:
Sex acts take place off-screen, the nearest exceptions are characters attempting to rape each other, but this is not depicted on-screen either. One antagonist is mentioned as bisexual in passing. Some villainous characters suggest in mockery a non-villainous character may be into boys for refusing to participate in rape. Rape is used as a weapon of war and terror.
Race & Ethnicity:
The looked-down-upon superstitious foreigners are notably white. Had been taking as implicit the inhabitants of the 'civilised' conquering empire are people of colour since they remain mostly undescribed and white skin used in descriptive contrast, but it becomes increasingly implicit these people are white in the real-world 'pink' sense, and those other actually white in a way humans tend not to be. They also seemed to be coded according to the Indian subcontinent in a few ways, while the empire is coded mainly as industrial Roman. Many of the imperial characters display racism toward them, and while the ethnicity and the slurs are invented, I still found it upsetting in places. Likewise as for gender above, if we consider the Triin as people of colour (white), I don't think we witness a conversation that isn't about a white guy or nation, so this is Johnson fail too.
Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:
One character is impaired due to having been tortured in the past. One character suffers a debilitating illness and believes this due to divine judgement. Several characters are trying to cheat old age and death. Several characters are injured and recover during the story; I found it difficult to judge how long this took.
Tropes:
The Empire (Industrial Roman flavour)
The Dark Side Will Make You Forget (actually listed on the site)
Utopia Justifies the Means (likewise mentioned above)
Crystal Dragon Jesus (where the crystal dragon is Yahweh?)
Hollywood Acid (as artillery)
Obligatory War Crime Scene (several)
Awards
None of note.
This was a difficult novel to read, mainly for how much focus was given to the War is Hell aspects. Many gruesome injuries and deaths, plenty of fantasy racism being thrown about, friendships torn apart and people ending up on opposite sides through the cruelty of happenstance. I felt in places that the story was much about the atrocities caused by those who commit war for personal or political gain, or who enjoy it too much. Several times while reading I wanted to weep for the horror and pointless misery of it all.
This is a fantasy setting where the empire is enjoying an industrial revolution of sorts, a combination I almost never see. The imperial capital has smokestacks and skyscrapers, its troops use trench warfare where appropriate and use flame cannons as defensive emplacements. The empire also uses tanks armed with either flame cannons (they seem to be something different from flame throwers, although fueled with kerosene) and acid launchers and its ruling elite have chemically extended lifespans, administered intravenously. And it can be breathtakingly cruel in ways that make me twitch to think about weeks later.
I quite liked that even though there is magic in this story, at the beginning it is sensible for characters not to believe it exists. Also that although most characters are religious to varying degrees of devoutness or particulars of belief others are atheistic or agnostic without being forced by the setting into Flat Earth Atheism to do so. Paraphrased: "Yep, that's magic. But I don't see any compelling evidence that it is divine magic".
On the other hand, the main character too often comes across as a petulant, sulky brat for someone who is a prince (later king) and who successfully held his troops together over two years of a losing war. It is jarring for what I'd expect from someone of his backstory, and especially irritating later on when he essentially refuses to eat the food of the culture hosting him for a while (It is Indian food, more or less, and he spends a couple of weeks subsisting on naan and water). Too many people telling too many other people to grow up and face the situation at hand.
By the end of the book I was definitely looking forward to reading something up-beat and happy. But, it's the first book of a roughly 2300-page trilogy, so no dice.
I don't remember precisely the circumstances in which I bought the book. It would have been around 2000 and, like with Alastair Reynolds and science fiction, I wanted to get in on a new fantasy author at the start of their career. Sadly Marco seems to have made almost no impression on the reading public and I've yet to encounter anyone who has heard of him. I read The Jackal of Nar at the time, and a few years later I bought the sequel, as well as the first book of the next series he wrote. But that was when I was in my non-reading period and I did not touch either of them until this year.
(the trope list is an experiment. we'll see how it goes, or whether I can keep it up each week.)
I feel a need, even though the racism in this story regarded fictitious ethnic groups, it still bothered me a lot because it felt realistically applied. Also that the cultures in this setting are variously sexist, and even the overtly anti-sexist, anti-racist protagonist from the 'least oppressive culture' manages to have an annoying white knight complex and turn up his nose at the weird foreigners when actually among them. I think that's intentional realism, else he'd be incongruously perfect, but it still isn't the most fun to see in a character.
Okay, I be done now.
