The inevitable comparison of Ash, mercenary captain of the Lion Azure, with Jeanne D'Arc is finally made explicit in the fourth book of Mary Gentle's The Book of Ash series, Lost Burgundy.
Note for New Readers
This series begins with A Secret History and continues in Carthage Ascendant and The Wild Machines before finishing in Lost Burgundy. This review covers only the fourth book, and thus may contain spoilers for earlier books.
Lost Burgundy
After the events of The Wild Machines, Ash becomes a hero to the citizens of Dijon - and a rather unwilling one at that. The people call her the "Maid of Burgundy" and various other names; the former Duke's right-hand man, Olivier de la Marche, gives over control of the Burgundian army to Ash and her company. The responsibility is enormous: previously, Ash needed only to concern herself with the few hundred men of the Lion Azure; now she has to consider the Burgundian garrison, some few thousand men, as well as the citizens of Dijon, and still protect her former company physician, Florian, as she assumes the mantle of Duchess of Burgundy.
Florian, too, is having a hard time of it. She left the life of the nobility long ago, when she chose to become a surgeon, and she's not particularly interested in taking it back. Yet whatever ability Duke Charles had that kept the sun shining over Burgundy has now passed to Florian: there's no way for her to opt out of this job.
Outside Dijon, the Faris is removed from command of the Cathaginian troops when King-Caliph Gelimer, with his German and French allies, arrives to press the siege. With a bit of good luck, though, Ash's allies arrive as well - her employer, John de Vere, returns from the court of the Turkish Sultan with borrowed troops. Unfortunately, circumstances only get worse for the defenders of Dijon.
Things are becoming even stranger in the present day as Pierce, Anna, and Isobel continue to investigate Ash's "history" and attempt to locate more archaeological evidence to prove their hypothesis. But it seems the present is more mutable than they expected, and evidence may appear - or disappear - at whim, making the investigation that much more difficult.
There is, of course, a great deal more that happens in the book, but I hesitate to reveal more here, as much of the story focuses on character development, and I've always found it better to discover such elements naturally, as the author chooses to reveal them, instead of knowing ahead of time how the characters will react to the various pressures and stresses of their existence.
Commentary
Lost Burgundy follows the siege of Dijon to its conclusion. The ending goes on a bit too long, as Gentle must give the present-time scientific explanation for everything that has happened, but the resolution of the siege was incredibly realistic. The philosophical discussion between Pierce and Vaughn Davies is interesting in that it covers some basic philosophical ideas and some of the new developments in physics, but the tone is too much of a shift from Ash and her fellows. The interweaving of present and past highlights that Ash's story is the more action and emotion-laden one, while Pierce's is the more theoretical and jargon-laden one. Thus some of the impact is dulled because both stories must have their own endings, and, at the last, it seems that Gentle is more interested in the present-time resolution, while I simply wanted to end with Ash (which she eventually does, after a fashion). However, the book really does wrap up everything: character threads from earlier books in the series that I had thought gone or forgotten by the author are picked up again; readers may not like how they develop, as Ash certainly didn't, but I felt that Gentle was always honest to the peculiarities of the characters, even when it resulted in aggravation.
Gentle's writing continues to be straightforward, often blunt, matching the attitudes of her mercenary characters. The details are once again thoroughly researched and sometimes footnoted. I believe I've learned more about arms and armor from this series than from any other medievally-set fantasy series I've read; for its realism, I'd have to give The Book of Ash a place ahead of Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion in the category of unflinching military fantasy. A warning to the squeamish, though: Gentle's battle sequences are detailed renditions of hacking, slashing, trampling, burning, maiming, etc., - when I say realistic, I mean you'll be on that battlefield, so you might want to make that a light lunch, or forgo food altogether.
Overall I've been pleased with this series, and especially pleased with Lost Burgundy. With the exception of the "second" ending, which I feel has been done before and sometimes to death in SF literature, this is the best book in the series, as befits a conclusion.
Recommended:
