The Rising Is a Fantastical Alt-History Study of the Gears that Move the World

It’s no accident that the most morally clean character in The Rising is a robot. The human characters are, by and large, bent on scheming and war-mongering, while Jax, the clakker, revels in his newfound agency. He’s on quest for other free clakkers, unbound from the geas that subverts their autonomy enslaves them to humanity. That quest doesn’t go so well; it’s not unlike when us humans matriculate into our own sense of self: turns out, there isn’t a utopia just around the next bend. (Spoiler alert?) I just wanted to hug him, poor guy.
Berenice Charlotte de Mornay-Périgord, disgraced former spymaster of France, continues machinations to protect her homeland, trying to unlock the secrets of the metageasa that bind the clakkers to the Dutch. I’ve got a shine for women of a certain age who swear like sailors (or spymasters, I suppose), and Berenice is one of them: scheming, ruthless, almost hasty. I love her insouciant, cocky bearing, a cover for a deep, implacable love for her country. If she’s occasionally blasé, that’s when you need to look out—she is not playing around.

Capt. Hugo Longchamp, tasked with defending Marseilles-in-the-West from the Dutch war machine, is almost a foil to Berenice. He’s got a soldier’s fatalism and grim humor. He knows the French are likely doomed, but doggedly sets about building their defenses. Where Berenice is voluble, he’s stern, though like her, his taciturn nature belies his real commitments. He’s preparing to die for France, because that’s pretty much the only option left.
Meanwhile, former French spy Luke Visser, who was forcibly bound with the same geas as the clakkers (in the most horrifying torture sequence of all time) is wound up, against his will, and set against his people. The concept of the geas—the binding magic of either allegiance or servitude—is in some ways the pivot point of the series. Who do you live for? Who will you die for? What compels you? And what can compel you, force you to act against your will? There’s an old saw that goes: with a big enough lever, you can move the world. You don’t even need that big a lever to move a person, a class of people, a city, a country, an empire. It’s all just layers of conflicting compulsions.
Sometimes the middle in a trilogy can feel a little mechanical (heh): either a placeholder, or the necessary maneuvering to get the pieces in place for the final showdown. The Mechanical started leisurely, an acclimatizing stroll through a profoundly alternate world. By now, Tregillis trusts you to keep up. The Rising runs fast and hits hard, a vigorous, brutal tumble towards a conclusion that is nowhere near forgone. I have no idea how this story is going to end, and that’s a good thing.