Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Roger Zelazny Book Review: Roadmarks -The miles ticked inside me like years

For what's ostensibly a Roger Zelazny blog, I don't really do a whole lot of actual writing about his works. Just the occasional allusion to his something he wrote, every so often. (Typical post: "Lily is cute, Lily is smart, Roger Zelazny shout out!") So, I'm going to review Roadmarks today.

I can't remember if Roger Zelazny's Roadmarks was the first or second book of his that I read. My father's girlfriend lived down the street from us when I was about fourteen or so. I was at her house one day in the summer, looking for something to read, and she gave me her ex-husband's shoebox full of sci-fi paperbacks. I grabbed two that looked nifty, Roadmarks (aka Last Exit to Babylon) and Creatures of Light and Darkness. Here's the cover to Roadmarks. (Zelazny wanted to call it Last Exit to Babylon, but his publishers vetoed that, so he just asked the artist to put it on the sign on the cover as a compromise.)

I'm sure I started reading Roadmarks first, but it was just confusing. There were two alternating chapters, "One" and "Two", and the book opens with "Two". So I may have put it down and finished Creatures first instead. I've read them both so many times, and it was so long ago that I first picked them up that I really don't recall. But the strange format actually makes sense. It's a book about a certain type of idiosyncratic time travel and the "One" chapters follow the main character, Red Dorakeen, in a linear progression and the "Two" chapters are scrambled up events that happened in Red's past or future.

Zelazny himself on the structure of the book:

"And since the Twos were non-linear, anyway, I clipped each Two chapter into a discrete packet, stacked them and then shuffled them before reinserting them between the Ones. It shouldn’t have made any difference, though I wouldn’t have had the guts to try doing that without my experience with my other experimental books and the faith it had given me in the feelings I’d developed toward narrative."
'
And on how he had the idea for time as a highway:

I got the idea for [Roadmarks] during an automobile drive. I was coming up l-25, which is a nice modern highway in New Mexico, and just on a whim, I turned off at random on a turn off I'd never taken before. I drove along it for awhile, and I saw a road which was much less kept up. I turned onto that one, and later on I hit a dirt road and I tried it, and pretty soon I came to a place that wasn't on the map. It was just a little settlement. There were log cabins there, and horses pulling carts, and it looked physically as if I'd driven back into the l9th century. I started to think about the way the road kept changing, and I said, 'Gee, that would be neat, to consider time as a superhighway with different turnoffs.' I went back and started writing Roadmarks that same afternoon.

The gist of the story is that a Black Decade, ten legal attempts at assassination, has been declared against the protagonist, Red Dorakeen. He travels along "The Road", which is a superhighway that spans time rather than space.

The deal with the Road is that the more a path is traveled, the stronger it becomes. Red is trying to recreate a set of circumstances that he only half-remembers, in order to return to a byway that has fallen into disuse. We first meet Red when he's stopped by the local authorities while trying to smuggle modern weapons back to the Greeks in order to change history so they can win the battle of Marathon. (I thought this was kind of clever, because as you may know, the Greeks were the victors at the battle of Marathon.) An example from the book:

"Supposing you'd run over Stonewall Jackson?"

"Okay, I'm supposing."

"...And then you had turned around and come back. You would have noticed a fork in the Road where there had been none before--off there somewhere in the hinterlands--another way merging with your own, to form the route back here. Thereafter, on returning this way, you could take the branch to the place where that accident had occurred, or the other, to the place where it did not. The former would be a very bad road, however, and would probably disappear through disuse before too long. On the other hand, if it became sufficiently well-traveled, then the other might fade. This is unlikely, but if it were to occur, you would find it increasingly difficult to locate various later routes--Cs back up the Road--and there would be new ones, somewhat different from those you had known. It would be possible to lose yourself down some byway and never get back to your point of departure."

It's amazing how literate his books are, and how many levels on which they can be enjoyed. My education was appallingly incomplete when I first read the book, (it's not all that great now, but I'm continually trying to rectify that) An inn-keeper says of John Sunlight "Hands such as Modigliani might have painted somewhere or other..." a reference whose meaning I could divine from context, but which I never really fully appreciated until I saw several Modigliani paintings at the Barnes Foundation just this past weekend. The book may be the first place I ever heard the koan "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" It's certainly the first place I ever encountered Baudelaire.

Red is Zelazny's characteristic laid-back, easy-going, wise-cracking, homicidal protagonist. (Something I observe with great affection.) His foil in his travels is a sophisticated computer disguised as a copy of "Flowers of Evil".

Flowers is just one member of an excellent supporting cast. Some of my favorites are:

Mondamay was a fantastically sophisticated death machine, designed to destroy anything from a single virus to an entire planet, but he suffered a massive systems failures. He couldn't be repaired, and his creators felt a little sorry for him since he was sentient, so they left him with his hobbies and his disguises. He felt like making pots, so that's what he did.

Timyin Tin: "Timyin Tin worked in the monastery garden, apologizing to the weeds as he removed them. A small man, whose shaven head made his age even more difficult to determine, he hoed with great enthusiasm, his movements sharp and supple." I really like that description. Timyin Tin was an assassin who was captured, brainwiped and sent back in time to live as a monk in 14th century China. His memory is restored, but it does not overwrite his experiences as a monk and he carries with him a strange sort of conscience.

Sundoc and Toba: I think of them as the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the work. They have the unenviable task of going out and recruiting the assassins. Sundoc is described as a "very tall, copper-haired man, whose skin was pale, whose eyes were blue." Toba is a dark-skinned ("dark as the departing night") man with the beard.

My cast:
  • Red Dorakeen: Kurt Russell (or possibly Morgan Freeman if I'm feeling whimsical. "Because I'm Irish")
  • Timyin Tin: Jet Li or Collin Chou (Seraph from the later Matrix Movies). My friend Tim asked me once if it was ever stated that he's Asian. I don't think it is, but since he's blending in in 14th century China, that was the impression that I got.
  • Leila: Julianne Moore (though I'm tempted to cast Katie Sagal just for giggles)
  • John Sunlight: Cillian Murphy
  • Doc Savage: Gotta go with the Rock.
  • Mondamay: Dileep Rao (Yusuf the chemist from Inception)
  • Archie Shellman: My first instict was to go with some big huge wrestler. (There's never any shortage of them for this kind of role.) But he's described as "A hundred kilos and tall enough to be slim." so I don't know.
  • Strangulena: Angelina Jolie. She's just skanky enough to pull it off.
  • Sundoc and Toba: Since they are the closest the book has to comic relief, I think I'll try some stunt casting and go with Conan O'Brian and Luis Guzmán.

I always thought Zelazny's Roadmarks was the most cinematic of all his books. It lends itself to such great visuals. I'd love to see Hitler driving around in his black VW looking for the place where he won, the fight between Archie and Timyin Tin, Mondamay the potter raising his hand and setting the sky ablaze, Doc Savage throwing John Sunlight over his shoulder and ripping his shirt in the process and of course, "The death of Chadwick! By Tyrannosaurus rex! Under the direction of the Marquis de Sade!"

I would watch the hell out of this movie.

34 comments:

  1. I just finished rereading Roadmarks for maybe the third or fourth time. It seems to get better every time I read it. I guess I didn't think too much of it the first time I read it, probably not long after it first came out in paperback -- I think the whole "dragon" thing put me off (I used to be a knee-jerk dragon hater). Now, every time I read it I see more going on in the two intertwining story lines, and more going on within and between the characters. For me the book succeeds in every way I think Bridge of Ashes failed -- the technical trick Zelazny works out in Roadmarks enhances the story and in no way overwhelms the characters.

    Since Zelazny said the order of the "Two" chapters doesn't matter, this time I read them in random order, skipping throughout the book. I'm not sure I agree the order is *completely* irrelevant (if I wasn't already familiar with the book, a few things would have been unclear), but there's certainly a lot of flexibility there.

    It's a fast fun read, and I think that makes it easy to overlook the book's depths. I'm looking forward to rereading it again soon.

    --Chris DeVito

    P.S. I agree that it could make a great movie, too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A question just occurred to me: Who or what made Flowers and Leaves? Does Zelazny explain this? If he did, I missed it. Flowers, at least, appears to be extremely advanced. She even identifies what's wrong with Mondamay and helps him fix himself, something the aliens who built him couldn't do.

    --DeVito

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love Roadmarks. There's really nothing else like it. I really wish Zelazny would have returned here for a sequel.

    Leaves says that she was first tested on the Mitsui Zaibatsu satellite Tosa-7 on March of 2086, but I think that's the only detail we get, I believe. In light of that, I always figured that they were some manner of standard model.

    The only way I could justify the repair of Mondamay by a machine is that comparatively primitive is to suggest that our technologies advanced along entirely different paths and that Flowers has lower processing power, but the advantages of an entirely novel approach.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "novel approach" - perhaps "poetic license" would be more accurate.

      Delete
  4. Another fun thing about Roadmarks is Zelazny's use of "real people" as characters. (He did something sort of like that in Bridge of Ashes, too.) The marquis de Sade in charge of a writer's workshop -- that's just brilliant ("From Olympus to Tartarus in only a few blocks..."). I like this exchange between the marquis and Chadwick:

    "...And I am enthralled by the development of letters since my own time. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarme, Verlaine--and that wonderful man Artaud! I saw it all coming, of course."

    "I am certain."

    "Particularly Artaud, as a matter of fact."

    "I would have guessed as much."

    "His call for a theater of cruelty--what a fine and noble thing!"

    "Yes. There is much merit to it."

    "The cries, the sudden terror! I--"

    The marquis produced a silk handkerchief from his sleeve and blotted his brow. He smiled weakly.

    "I have my sudden enthusiasms," he stated.

    Not sure who I'd cast as the marquis for the movie -- Christopher Walken? John Malkovich? I could see either one of those guys riding a T. rex, shouting "The death of Chadwick! By Tyrannosaurus rex! Under the direction of the marquis de Sade!"

    --DeVito

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oooh, good call on the casting. That scene would definitely conclude the trailer, too.

    ReplyDelete
  6. And of course, Terry Gilliam should write and direct it.

    --DeVito

    ReplyDelete
  7. The last time I (Chris DeVito) read Roadmarks, I looked up the poetry online and copied some of the variant translations, so I'd have them immediately available while rereading the book. Here are the Baudelaire quotes (page numbers from the original hardcover):

    Le Voyage (quoted on p. 21)

    Pour l'enfant, amoureux de cartes et d'estampes,
    L'univers est égal à son vaste appétit.

    To a child who is fond of maps and engravings
    The universe is the size of his immense hunger.
    —William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

    For children crazed with postcards, prints, and stamps
    All space can scarce suffice their appetite.
    —Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

    For the boy playing with his globe and stamps,
    the world is equal to his appetite —
    —Robert Lowell, from Marthiel & Jackson Matthews, eds., The Flowers of Evil (NY: New Directions, 1963)

    The child, in love with globes and maps of foreign parts,
    Finds in the universe no dearth and no defect.
    —Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

    For kids agitated by model machines, adventures hierarchy and technology
    The indulgent reins of government sponsorship/research can quell their excitement. [Say what? --comment by DeVito]
    —Will Schmitz

    ... the traveller finds the earth a bitter school!
    a dwindled waste, which boredom amplifies!
    —Lewis Piaget Shanks, Flowers of Evil (NY: Ives Washburn, 1931)

    For the child, adoring cards and prints,
    The universe fulfils its vast appetite.
    —Geoffrey Wagner, Selected Poems of Charles Baudelaire (NY: Grove Press, 1974)

    Une Martyre (quoted on p. 70)
    Dessin d'un Maître inconnu

    Combla-t-il sur ta chair inerte et complaisante
L'immensité de son désir?
    Réponds, cadavre impur!

    A Martyr
    Drawing by an unknown master

    Did he use your inert, complacent flesh to fill
    The immensity of his lust?

    Reply, impure cadaver!
    —William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)
    [Las line variantly translated as "Reply, defiled corpse!" or "Reply, violated corpse!"]


    La Vie antérieure (quoted on p. 137)

    J'ai longtemps habité sous de vastes portiques
    Que les soleils marins teignaient de mille feux,
    Et que leurs grands piliers, droits et majestueux,
    Rendaient pareils, le soir, aux grottes basaltiques.

    My Former Life
    For a long time I dwelt under vast porticos
    Which the ocean suns lit with a thousand colors,
    The pillars of which, tall, straight, and majestic,
    Made them, in the evening, like basaltic grottos.
    —William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

    Former Life
    I've lived beneath huge portals where marine
    Suns coloured, with a myriad fires, the waves;
    At eve majestic pillars made the scene
    Resemble those of vast basaltic caves.
    — Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

    Rêve parisien (quoted on p. 182)

    De ce terrible paysage,
    Tel que jamais mortel n’en vit,
    Ce matin encore l’image,
    Vague et lointaine, me ravit.
    —Charles Baudelaire

    Parisian Dream
    This morning I am still entranced
    By the image, distant and dim,
    Of that awe-inspiring landscape
    Such as no mortal ever saw.
    —William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

    Of the dread landscape that I saw,
    Where human eyes were never set,
    I still am ravished by the awe
    That, vague and distant, haunts me yet.
    —Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

    ReplyDelete
  8. And here’s a bunch of variant translations of the Mallarmé poem on p. 156 (I [DeVito] found these online; only the last version is a published translation, far as I can tell):

    The whole soul invoked 

    In our slow exhalings 

    Plural rings of smoke 

    Vanishing in other rings

    Attest to some cigar 

    Burning sagely while 

    The cinders keep apart 

    From the clear kiss of fire

    As the choir of romance 

    Flies up to your smile 

    Keep out if you commence
    The real for it is vile

    The clear sense makes unsure
    Your vague literature.

    * * *
    The whole soul summed up
    When slowly we exhale it
    In several rings of smoke
    Vanishing in other rings

    Attest to some cigar
    Burning cleverly a little
    As long as the ash keeps apart
    From his clear kiss of fire

    As the choir of Romance
    Flies up to your lips
    Exclude from it if you begin
    The Real because it’s vile

    Too precise a meaning erases
    Your mysterious literature.
    [or] The mystery of your literature.

    * * *
    The entire soul invoked
    In our slow exhalings
    In many rings of smoke
    Vanishing in other rings

    Attest to some cigar
    Burning sagely while
    The cinders keep apart
    From the clear kiss of fire

    The chorus of romances
    That your lips inhale
    Will keep the other chances
    The vile real would fail

    The clear sense makes unsure
    Your vague literature

    * * *
    We express our whole soul
    When we slowly exhale
    Those several rings of smoke
    Driven out by other rings

    That attest to some cigar
    Briefly, brilliantly smoldering
    Separated by an ash
    From the clear kiss of fire

    Thus the choir of romances
    Rises to your lips—
    If you begin, begin by
    Excluding reality. It is vile.

    Too much precision of sense erases
    Your vague literature.

    * * *
    The entire soul invoke
    Through our slow exhalings
    In several rings of smoke
    Driven out by other rings

    Attest to some cigar
    Whose clever burn inspires
    As long as ash stays far
    From the clear kiss of fire

    In the romantic song
    That flies to lips beguiled
    The real does not belong
    Exclude it, it is vile

    Precision will obscure
    Your vague literature

    * * *
    We express our whole soul
    When we slowly exhale
    Those several rings of smoke
    Driven out by other rings

    That attest to some cigar, briefly, brilliantly smoldering 

    -- Separated by an ash -- 

    From the clear kiss of fire

    Thus the choir of romances
    Rises to your lips— 

    If you begin, begin by
    Excluding reality. 
It is vile.

    Too much precision of sense erases
    Your cloudy literature.

    * * *
    The entire soul invoked
    Through our slow exhalings
    In several rings of smoke
    Dissolved in other rings

    Attest to some cigar
    Whose clever burn inspires
    As long as ash stays far
    From the clear kiss of fire

    In the romantic song
    That flies to lips beguiled
    The real does not belong
    Exclude it, it is vile

    Exactness is erasure
    Of cloudy literature.

    * * *
    All the soul indrawn
    When slowly we exhale it
    In many rounds of smoke
    Lost in other rounds

    Proves that some cigar
    Burns skilfully how-so little
    Its ash withdraws itself
    From the clear kiss of fire

    So the choir of songs
    Flies it to your lip
    Exclude if you begin
    The real as being base

    Its too sharp sense will overscrawl
    Your vague literature
    —Roger Fry (1951)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wow, very cool. I'm glad to have these for a reference for the next time I read Roadmarks.

    ReplyDelete
  10. It helped me a lot -- I'm no expert in poetry, especially untranslated French poetry, so the poems were meaningless to me. But Zelazny is helping to drag my surly little mindset toward something resembling an education, even after all these years. I think Roadmarks is an unjustly overlooked novel. I think it's my nomination for most underrated Zelazny novel, in fact.

    --Chris DeVito

    ReplyDelete
  11. I just finished reading Roadmarks for the first time, and there was something in it that reminded me to make a suggestion to your Zelazny drinking game, Josh.

    At some point, someone (I forget which character; it could have even been in the narration) mentions that by changing history and creating a new branch in the Road you're effectively reshaping the world in the future beyond that event (assuming the new branch of Road is well-traveled enough). This sorta falls under the "create your own world/god-complex" theme that often comes up in Zelazny's books (though I'm not sure it comes up enough to warrant being added to your drinking game).

    I've been reading through a lot of Zelazny in the past year, and even though I haven't read all of his books, I've come across several examples of this: the Princes in the Amber books (remember, one of the family's great philosophical discussions was whether worlds exist waiting for a prince to walk to them, or the princes create the worlds *by* walking to them), Kai Wren's bottle worlds in Lord Demon, Francis Sandow's worldscaping in Isle of the Dead, the branches in Roadmarks, etc. Heck, you could probably even make an argument for Render's dream-worlds in He Who Shapes.

    Anyway, just a suggestion, feel free to shoot it down. =P

    ReplyDelete
  12. Also, something funny I noticed about Roadmarks: remember how Corwin said, "While I had often said that I wanted to die in bed, what I really meant was that in my old age I wanted to be stepped on by an elephant while making love" in The Guns of Avalon? (I had to look up the quote to remember which book it was from; my memory's not that good.)

    Well, in Roadmarks, when the Marquis is driving the T-rex, the dino steps on a couple making love at the moment of climax.

    I kinda wondered if this was a reference to the earlier Corwin quote. =P

    ReplyDelete
  13. Funny thing about Roadmarks/Last Exit to Babylon. In some ways it seems, to me, to be a thematic variation on the original Amber series. The last time I read it I worked up a whole theory about this, but at the moment my sluggishly shloshed post-midnight brain can't quite work up a coherent summary. But I thought I'd throw it out there.

    --Chris DeVito

    ReplyDelete
  14. The two concepts certainly had similar origins. Zelazny conceived of shadow walking when he was walking around a city and things kept changing around each corner (sun going behind clouds, buildings become more decrepit, rain starting, etc.). And he conceived the concept of time as a road as he was driving down some turnoffs from a highway and quickly went from modern buildings to something looking like it was out of the 18th century.

    Chris Kovacs

    ReplyDelete
  15. Zach, that's an awesome observation about the T-Rex!

    Regarding the creating your own worlds, it's also a theme in Creatures of Light and Darkness, where one of the characters is capable of teleporting to any place he can imagine, and he engages in musings similar to what Corwin had observed. I hadn't noticed that.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I agree, that's an awesome observation about the T-Rex. If I get the opportunity to annotate the Zelazny novels, I'll be sure to mention that.

    Chris Kovacs

    ReplyDelete
  17. Chris, if you had a book that was *just* annotations from Zelazny novels (I mean, without the novels themselves included, 'cause that'd obviously make for a very long book), I would buy it. I would buy it *so hard*. The annotations in the Collected Stories (not to mention ". . . And Call Me Roger") were some of the best parts of those books. Your recent award nomination is well deserved!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Zach: Thanks for the kind words. The idea of a book of annotations hadn't occurred to me. If the annotated novels don't happen, then maybe a stand-alone book of annotations could. And if no publisher is interested, the annotations could be put up on a website somewhere for people to provide feedback and revisions.

    I'm planning to work on annotating the novels for my own education and amusement, so they will exist eventually. But sooner if a tentative project to republish the novels gets the go-ahead.

    Chris Kovacs

    ReplyDelete
  19. There's a tentative project to republish the novels? Like, all of 'em? Because, holy crap, that's awesome, especially for someone (like me) who had never read any Zelazny stuff but Amber up until about a year ago; so many of his books are out of print, and my library doesn't have 'em all!

    And if I could get those stories + Kovacs annotations, well, shit--that's fanTAStic news! You must keep us updated on this!

    ReplyDelete
  20. I've activated a LiveJournal account so that I don't have to keep posting anonymously.

    Zach: I'll certainly keep everyone informed. Right now it's a tentative plan that won't be acted upon for a year at least, but it seems quite possible it will happen. No promises though.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Reading this and the other reviews on this site is bringing back fond memories.
    My 'reading hopper' is full to bursting, but I am going to have to toss my Zelazny paperback in again. And its not like I haven't read RZ lately, I went through the Zelazny Project books a few years back; and I read 'Lonesome October' every year.

    This brings me, circuitously, to my point. When, if ever, will we see Mr. Zelazny's works in ebook format? For me, they would be an instant re-buy. I know many people still prefer physical editions, but some of my RZ softcovers are 35-years-old. And they smell kinda bad.

    -Brent Jablonski

    P.S. Annotations on RZ from Chris Kovacs; put me down as a buyer!

    ReplyDelete
  22. I'm glad that you like the site. It's disappointing that Zelazny doesn't have the kind of web presence a writer of his stature should merit. I supposed part of it is because he passed before the Internet was as ubiquitous as it would become.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Hi
    Is there an error in the text?
    In the fourteenth "Two" segment, it appears Leaves is incorrectly referred to as Flowers.."I warrant a pronoun these days," Leaves said slowly and with a touch of menace, "and it is feminine."
    "Sorry, old girl," Leila said, patting her cover. "Correction noted. No offense." She turned toward Randy and smiled. "What is your name, anyway?"
    "Randy Carthage. I don't understand—”
    "Of course not and it doesn't matter a bit. I've always been very fond of Carthage. Perhaps I'll take you there one day."
    "Take her up on it," Flowers said, "and you'll be into back braces for a while."
    Leila slapped the cover with more force.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for pointing that out. I've got a couple different editions at home, so I'll check them out later and see if it's ever corrected.

      Delete
    2. Sorry it took me so long! I checked, and you're right about Leaves being called Flowers, at least in the copies I have, which are the 1979 hardcover first printings and two copies of the the first paperback printings. Maybe it gets corrected in later editions, but it's wrong in these.

      Delete
    3. To follow up a little more on this, I checked in the Ides of Octember and it seems Roadmarks recieved comparatively few versions, so I would conclude that the typo probably never gets corrected in a US edition.

      Delete
  24. Hi
    I also just noticed that Strangulena is actually Leila.
    Correct?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That wasn't my read of the scene. Toba seems to be looking for Strangulena when he encounters Randy. When they meet Leila, he seems to treat her as someone entirely different.

      That said, I only read that chapter, and it's been a while since I read the rest of the book, so I might be missing some context provided in other sections.

      Delete
  25. Thanks for taking the time to reply!
    I'm trying to compile a rudimentary "annotation" of the book.
    I will try and post it somehow when I've finished.
    I've split the text into "ones" and "twos" and created two files trying to put them in order.
    Interesting exercise.
    Maybe the question will be resolved when I've finished, but Chadwick says Strangulena just quit and disappeared with someone, which seems to be when she deserts Toba for Randy at the tavern.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would be very interested in hearing your conclusions, if you'd be interested in sharing them.

      I believe Zelazny wrote the chapters in sequence and then mixed them up before sending them to his publisher, so there is a "right" sequence to it. I wonder how it would read. In the past, I've read just the Red chapters, and it's a pretty cohesive narrative.

      Delete
    2. Hi
      How I read it...
      Toba recruits her in the future - as Strangulena - and they both go to the C sixteen tavern.
      Still there three days after the black man assassination attempt, and discovered by Red in a burning bed. Red departs.
      While there she goes off with "The Victorian Gentleman" (Jack the Ripper - not explicitly stated) and kills him (I think).
      This causes an argument with Toba.
      Randy and Leaves arrive. She recognises Leaves and leaves (sic) with them - abandoning Toba.
      In Two (10) - Chadwick says“The woman with the deadly hands and the custom you found so delightful. She simply vanished. Went off with a new boyfriend and never came back.”
      In addition, both Strangulena and Leila are described as having flaming red hair.
      Interesting that both the and Red have red hair and tolerant to fire - dragon heritage?
      If there is some way to send it to you, I can share the notes and split chapter files. My email is martindudley61@yahoo.com.

      Delete