Under One Banner

[jsburbidge]

I suspect that until now, Graydon's Commonweal books have been the equivalent of a deep breath before a dive, a setting up of the conditions for the real core of the story arc of the series.

Until now, a reader's view of the Commonweal has been conditioned by carefully narrow viewpoints, who for various reasons take the exercise of substantial militant power matter-of-factly, and have little reaction to the presence of the Twelve.

With Under One Banner we finally get to see the world from an informed regular (and Regular) viewpoint.

We also get to see how the Second Commonweal is diverging from the First.

One theme of the book is transformation so great as to be viewable as the death of the former state in becoming the latter state. It leads off with Eugenia, who is very near to a probable final death and escapes it due to sorcerous intervention of a scale sufficient to make a clear disjunction between her former self - a reflection in some ways of the First Commonweal - and her latter self, "artificially ancient and merciless", who can provide effective service to the Second. There are other instances; one becomes gradually aware that this applies in some sense to the Second Commonweal itself.

I suspect that this is the real beginning of the real roller-coaster ride of the series. It terminates the Reems arc which began with The March North, is set in the wake of The Fight Below the Edge, and starts to put in place the constitutional and military changes needed to get the Second Commonweal into the future.

From this point of view, it looks like an arc dealing with the birth and maturation of the Second Commonweal as a whole.The Fight Below the Edge, under this view, is a pebble which starts a whole landslide moving - and the events shown here are the first cascade of change.

We get new perspectives on the Shot-Shop, Chloris' cousin Mel, Blossom, Grue, the Independent Order, one of the Twelve we haven't seen yet, the Empire of the Spider, and Clerk Francis, last seen musing about a disconsolate unicorn.

The ride is worth it. If you haven't read the former books in the series, it's recommended before diving into this one. Graydon's post provides locations where it may be procured.