Snow and finished

We had barely a dusting of snow, more's the pity, but more is on its way...

I finally finished "1634: The Bavarian Crisis" and am now reading Kevin Anderson's "The Last Days of Krypton. It's the story of Jor-El, Zor-El, General Zod, Aethyr-Za and Kara Lor-Van, an artist who eventually becomes Zor-El's wife.

Krypton is twice doomed, once by being a planet in orbit around a red giant star, and also from within, with structural instabilities leading to increased volcanism and earthquakes. Jor-El and his brother, Zor-El, are both brilliant scientists who are concerned for the future of their planet. Jor-El is more concerned about the sun of Krypton, Rao, while Zor-El is more concerned about the planet's volcanism.

Krypton is ruled by the High Council, 12 men of prominent family who guide Krypton and make decisions. A smaller council determines which scientific advances are allowed. Krypton is an extremely isolationist society, since they believe contact with other races will degenerate their society. So the Council, mainly, live in fear of other races. Travel beyond the planet is forbidden, but Jor-El has built solar probes that he uses to keep track of the state of Rao.

Jor-El discovers the Negative Zone, and manages to enter it, but is trapped, only to be released by Lara, a visiting artist. Zor-El visits the uninhabited southern continent of Krypton to monitor the eruptions occurring there. He gets the information and readings he needs, but is attacked by Hraggas, scaly hunters that are native to Krypton, and loses the pack which contains the data. While he is there, he sees the lava turn green, as some mysterious mineral or rock is brought up from the inside of Krypton, then vanish back into red, molten rock.

Zor-El and Jor-El approach the council with their findings, but they will not believe either scientist without further proof. Zor-El attempts to find further proof, but Argo City is hit by a Tsunami when an Earthquake hits under the ocean, and Zor-El must stop his investigations to deal with the disaster in his city, which he rules with the help of his wife, Alura.

Meanwhile, Krypton is approached by an alien named Donodon, and while the council is terrified of him, Jor-El agrees to host the alien on his estate. As they talk, Jor-El sounds Donodon out about the structural instabilities within the planet. Between them, they construct a machine to find out what is happening within the planet, but Zod has his henchman sabotage the device, wanting to take out not only Donodon, but Jor-El as well, seeing the scientist as a barrier to his ambitions. The device explodes, killing Donodon and injuring Jor-El and Lara. While the Council wishes to try Jor-El, Zod decides to put Jor-El in his debt by helping Jor-El in his defense. A few days before the trial is to start, Jor-El asks Lara to marry him, and she accepts. Zod marries them, and they go to their honeymoon in a place built by Jor-El's father for he and Jor-El's mother's honeymoon.

As Zod returns to Kandor, Capital of Krypton, an alien spaceship arrives and shrinks Kandor, capturing it in a bottle. Zod confronts the controller of the craft, The Brain Interactive Construct, who claims it has taken Kandor to preserve it, not destroy it. Zod, happy to see the council, who he has always resented, gone, lets the creature he calls Brainiac take the city. He will take the rest of Krypton for his own.

Zod tells others of his encounter with the creature, painting Brainiac as a villian without emotions or morals. He seizes the reins of power to help the citizens left from Kandor recover, and to put himself in the position of ruler. Aethyr-Ka, investigating the ruins of Xan City, discovers the powerful weapons of the ancient ruler Jax-Ur, which were anciently used to destroy one of Krypton's moons. She tells Zod about her discovery, then helps him gather like-minded second and third sons of the reigning noble families to create his own council of sixteen, called "The Ring of Strength". Zod woos Jor-El by giving him permission to delve into any area of science he wishes, create any device, so long as it will help Krypton. The people he guides by using fear of another alien attack, playing on their fears so that they will not question his actions.

But not everyone agrees with Zod's actions. Rulers of the other cities on Krypton decry his methods and actions, and one by one, they begin to disappear after leaving notes explaining that they have changed their minds, and are retiring from public life. Zor-El is warned by one of these men, before the man also disappears. While Zor-El cannot accused Zod publicly, without proof, he resolves to watch Zod, as he finds that he, himself, is being watched.

Zod continues to gather power, renaming Xan City Kryptonopolis, and having Lara make art to make the city beautiful as well as strong and powerful. He also appoints Lara as writer of his own history, and sets up a statue of himself in the place where a statue of Jax-Ur once stood.

At this point, Lara is pregnant, and Zod sets up another task for her, to paint his portrait, showing his true face, which he assures her will be one of nobility. But she is unable to prevent her picture from showing his coolness and arrogance. Zod cannot see this, however, and thanks her for the picture.

Jor-El and Zor-El manage to halt disaster from the interior of Krypton by using Jor-El's Rao beam to dig a hole into the earth in the hole where the former city of Kandor once stood. They use a force field to keep the earth open, a larger version of the force field that once protected the small devices Zor-El used to investigate the magma inside the planet. By giving Krypton another point to dissipate the energies within, they save the planet from exploding.

Soon after, Rebellions rise up against Zod, and he uses the Rao beam to destroy the city where most of the Rebels have gone to ground. Jor-El manages to warn the city, however, but the use of force brings most of the rebel leaders to submit to Zod. Jor-El sabotages the Rao beam so it cannot be used in that way again. He is now thoroughly disgusted with Zod, but Zod keeps him so close that he cannot flee with Lara.

Zor-El, though, has now become the de facto leader of the rebels. Zod suspects that it is Zor-El who destroyed the Rao beam, and sets off to make Zor-El submit to him. At first, two of his men try abducting Alura and Zor-El's mother, but they manage to fight off the men. The next day, Zor-El denounces Zod in front of all Kryptonopolis, by using the crystals of the city as communications devices. Zod is enraged, and marches off to conquer Argo City, but not before Aethyr-Ka discovers Lara's true history of Zod, and shows it to the conqueror. He has Lara imprisoned, and uses her to make Jor-El help him. Jor-El also finds that a comet is about to strike Krypton, and will destroy it if it isn't stopped.

Jor-El, covertly defying Zod, and Zor-El manage to modify the shields they used to drill with the Rao beam to cover the whole of Argo City. So even when Zod attempts to use the old devices he once confiscated from Jor-El to try and conquer the city, the shields hold. Zod, defeated and enraged, marches back to Kryptonopolis, and attempts to fire off the old weapons used to destroy the moon at Argo City. But Jor-El has reprogrammed them to strike the comet instead, saving the planet, and then Zod is imprisoned within the very same shields that protect Argo City, along with his men and the Ring of Strength, installed by Jor-El when Zod was marching to war.

The Rebels take over and put Zod on trial. Jor-El and Lara discover where Zod hid away the Negative Zone portal, and release the men that Zod used to test it, and all the leaders and people who supposedly had changed their minds about Zod and retired from public life. They all testify at the trial of Zod, but Zod only considers them insects and imbeciles. He is sentenced to eternal imprisonment in the Negative Zone.

Now that the war is over, Jor-El is suprised when many of the rebel leaders don't seem to want anything to do with him. He finds out it is because they view him as a collaborator with Zod, based on his behavior in the early days of Zod's reign, when Zod was actively seeking to woo him. The rebels don't want anything that reminds him of Zod's reign, not even the art that Lara had been comissioned to provide for the city, and it is detroyed in an orgy of pure destruction.

The Council is reconstituted, and Jor-El is pointedly ignored, despite his many contributions and good deeds. Zor-El is asked to join, and he suggests that the council be changed so that votes may be decided by simple majority instead of complete agreement. When the council votes that in, Zor-El tells them he only wants to run Argo City, and tells the council that he will offer the seat they offered him to Jor-El instead.

Jor-El takes his seat on the council, and the council decide that the Negative Zone device must be destroyed. Jor-El tells them it is impossible, but they do not believe him. As he is about to continue his argument, Lara goes into labor, and he hurries to his Manor house near where Kandor used to be, for her to give birth. There, she gives birth to his son, and they name him Kal, for the councillor Kal-Ik, who gave truthful advice to Jax-Ur and was killed for it. Jor-El takes time off from his duties to spend time with Lara and his son, and in his absence, the Council votes to destroy the Negative Zone device by dumping it and the controls into the core of the planet. One of the council warns Jor-El, but not in time for him to stop it. Because of the way the device works, it will suck energy from the planet until it implodes. Krypton is doomed.

Jor-El works to save his family as much of the rest of Krypton goes about its normal business, heedless of the cataclysm to come. Jor-El struggles to refit the stardrive from Donodon's starship to a larger body, but cannot get it to work. Lara makes crystal libraries filled with the knowledge of Krypton, and in the end, Jor-El can only make a ship large enough to save one Kryptonian. He wants to save Lara and his son, but she insists she will not live without him. In the end, he can only save his son. As Jor-El watches his son's ship rise into the sky, Zor-El puts up the forcefield around Argo City to save his people for as long as possible. Jor-El and Lara kiss one last time as the planet dies, declaring their love for each other. And the baby flies to a place Jor-El glimpsed in Donodon's computer in a record of his travels. Earth.

I really enjoyed this book. Kevin Anderson set up many different ways for Krypton to die: Stellar supernova, Interior Instability, Cometoid Collision, and then went with a way nobody really expected: dumping the Negative Zone device into the Planet's molten interior. Of coursse, the book brought to mind some of the things we have in modern-day America, a ruler unable to see beyond himself and all too ready to do horrible things in the supposed name of peace, and section of society that demonizes science and wants to get rid of things they don't understand.

Instead of making Krypton's destruction a fait accompli by outside forces, Krypton is doomed by its own people's short-sightedness and unwillingness to listen. The new council thinks they can do away with things and ignore the consequences just because they don't like the outcome, so they refuse to believe it can happen. When they finally come to their senses and demand and beg for Jor-El to save them, it's already too late and can't be undone. In the end, their choices and unwillingness to listen to reason doom them.

Next up, another book from the Library (yes, I'm weak. I admit it). Diana Palmer's "The Morcai Battalion", a science fiction romance under the Luna imprint.