Associations with Achaya
Achaea is undoubtedly the greatest achievement of Earthman, both in volume and style. This is one of the books that brought me back to reading fantasy; They “pressed” it to me by my dad and my uncle, big fans of fantasy in every edition. The rich language and well-thought-out structure of the entire cycle still impress me. I like writers who encourage the reader with simple entertainment, and then catch a decent world-creation, extensive plot and character development.
If you only know the first volume of the Achaean series , you may think that this author specializes in grotesque violence and role-play, he calls too much “sex sells”, and the heroines serve to shave and humiliate. It’s been a long time since I returned to this book, but I must admit that when I started Toy Wars, I had moments of doubt. Perhaps, however, all this criticism of Ziemiański makes sense, and the writer brazenly insists that he is interested in strong female characters?
Kim jest Toy?
Toy, której wojnę będziemy poznawać, to drobniutka dziewczyna, laleczka i okularnica, którą los i przybrany ojciec zmusili do zostania prywatnym detektywem. Cudem udało jej się wyrwać mafii, która sprzedawała ją z krawężnika jako towar naprawdę niskiej wartości. Zostały jej po tym mózg zniszczony narkotykami, niska samoocena i umiejętność zaprzyjaźnienia się z każdą prostytutką na Ziemi (i poza nią). Jak widzicie, można się powoli zżymać, zwłaszcza że Ziemiański nie ma oporów przed dokładnymi opisami wrażeń i ciała Toy. Skojarzenia z księżniczką Achają są tu oczywiste – to bardzo podobny typ postaci.
Here comes the detective’s first assignment. It is rented by the commander of a mercenary unit undertaking all secret and impossible missions, the girl will be a “dog”, a scout. The whole team goes to the moon to solve a problem of a large corporation. The narrative is a confusion of the chaos associated with the inconvenience of travel (little Toy and the big jumpsuits) with jokes about wave, violence and rape – a typical greeting for a new female soldier. The heroine copes with the joyful hostility of her colleagues perfectly, she manages to manipulate the entire squad and convince the girls who belong to her. But… it was hard for me to read the first chapter. Ziemiański describes Toy’s experiences as if they were meant to be funny, as if she herself found them irritating but funny, and I bristled internally, grinding my teeth.
Camo camouflage
Toy Wars, however, is not a pornographic read. It is entertainment literature, but it takes on a heroine who has been hurt quite a lot. When she somehow manages to free herself, she has to deal with a distorted view of reality. As a person after an ordeal, he feels like a fish in water in a life-threatening situation – this is the only normalcy he associates. You will not read it directly in Ziemiański, it is not a psychotherapeutic book, but the further you go into the chapters, the more clearly you will see it. Of course, at the beginning, the writer strongly disguises himself with the slogan sex sells . Along the way, there will be a lot of close-ups on the bust, and curses, including the “M word”, because in the understanding of mercenaries, “black” is already a diplomatic protocol.
There is a profound cunning in this book, an irony that is contained not only in the text, but also in the structure of the whole. It begins with an excessively fit heroine who has no right to function normally. Violence is spoken of in a light, joyful tone. However, to capitalize on a common statement in the text, a book, like Toy’s brain, works slowly but surely. The girl will save two victims of the mafia (corporate and ordinary), who will become her family. It will tidy up a piece of Africa. Finally, in a style worthy of the Matrix and Inception, she would learn how she had survived it all.
Sometimes with a good book it is so that the worst pulp fiction begins , only after a dozen or so pages to catch a distance from the convention and show the reader something more interesting. Not everyone is satisfied with this and I understand the choice of those recipients who do not want to play such tricks, are not amused by jokes of violence, are annoyed by the taste of the heroine in the style of the infamous “Mary Sue” scheme and do not expect the author to ever explain anything to them in interesting way. But if such a perversity is for you, or you just like espionage cloaked in the tone of a military colleague, Toy Wars has been resumed for you.
