Book Binge 2009-2010, Part II
If you're wondering why these things are taking so long, blame Dorothy Dunnett and Francis Crawford of Lymond. Blaming Lymond in particular seems to be a time-honored tradition, so you'd only be joining in. Otherwise, the book binge continues! Once again, spoilers in the discussion of series books, but nothing major.
3. Chronicles of Elantra (the Cast in books) by Michelle Sagara
I actually read these three months before - at least a couple visits to Cleveland ago, when I picked up the first and third from HPB. Nevertheless, they're here for completeness sake:
A. Cast in Shadow: Kaylin Neya is a private in one of the three branches of law enforcement in the city of Elantra. The Hawks (of which she is a part) are your detectives, The Swords are your typical enforcement/muscle (crowd control, etc.), and the Wolves are the branch that hunts fugitives. Kaylin herself is only 20 or so. Some 7 years ago, she was an orphan living in the fief of Nightshade - one of seven, we're initially told, fiefs that circle Elantra, areas where the Emperor's laws don't extend and areas which are ruled by a completely unorganized lot of fieflords. There are six races (known as Castes) in this world - humans, Dragons (who have a human-like form they compact into), Barrani (the faux-elves), Leontines (human/lion hybrid), Aerians (human/eagle hybrids), and the Tha'alani (human-like in appearance except for two stalks growing out of their forheads - the telepaths of the world). The Emperor is a Dragon whom most of the populace never sees (and would very much prefer to keep it that way).
Kaylin herself is unique - her limbs and back covered with writing that appeared on her skin one day, that no one can read. Not much is known about them, except that children are being murdered with similar markings, and Kaylin can heal people. At the beginning of the book, Kaylin is ordered to be one third of a team investigating those killings in the fief of Nightshade. Her companions are unusual - one of the Wolves, with whom she has A History (TM), Severn Handred, and the youngest member of the Dragon Court, Lord Tiamaris. Together they investigate Nightshade, meeting with her eponymous Lord, who chooses to mark Kaylin and gift her with his true name for reasons known only to himself.
Reader, I devoured the book. My husband could not drag me away from it. But, at the same time, it had serious flaws of clunky writing. As does the series as a whole. If I have to read one more time that Teela is a bad driver, I may throw the damn book across the room (it's only salvation is if I'm reading it on a Kindle). Same goes for how Kaylin doesn't like to get up before noon. Also, Kaylin's got a buttload of tropes hanging off her - she's really intelligent, but doesn't like to study anything that she doesn't consider practical (which causes everyone to exposit at her at the requisite points); she's traumatized by her past and tries to make up for it by doting on children, especially orphans; she's rash, but somehow appealing. It's like she was written as a White Wolf character sheet before she was written as a character. "I'll max out physical, mental, and talent stats, but take little in social (excepting appearance), and nothing in the knowledges. Also, give me tragic past, tragic flaw, curiosity, intolerance (mind-reading), and overconfidence. Give me lots of Glamour/Arete, and ridiculous quantities of Willpower." (Ok, I had to look up some old sheets to do that, but still - it's very accurate.)
All that said, it's highly entertaining and engaging, and it definitely sets up the world and mysteries inherent to it quite well. The supporting cast is quite fun, and I was very drawn in. So I ran off and bought...
B. Cast in Courtlight: wherein Kaylin and Severn (who is now a Hawk) head to Barrani High Court after Teela (a Barrani member of the Hawks) summons Kaylin to help heal a Barrani Lord with her magic. This is my second favorite of the ones out so far, and owes it's place to the plot and supporting characters. There's slightly more Nightshade exposition, and way more Severn & Kaylin backstory. Both of these are good things, as is the way the ending is handled (though, to be honest, I saw it coming a mile and a half away). The dragons don't get much word time here, but the one that does rocks the house.
C. Cast in Secret: This book might as well be subtitled "Kaylin overcomes her prejudices." She definitely grows in this one, and we get a bit more understanding of what her powers are. The downside is the lack of advancement on the series plotline. We do meet more dragons, but it's starting in this book that I get fed up with another repetitive phrase - Kaylin can't meet the Emperor, see, though he's curious about her, because she will so offend him, that he'll just eat her. That may well be true. But show, not tell, is a desired process. I think part of the issue I have with all these repetitions is that they are telling/expositing, instead of showing. I tire of that quite fast. (That the Barrani Hawks get drunk and tear up bars out of boredom is another repetitive line.) In any case, the actual plot of this book involves a disturbance in the Force a magical place, which ties into the disapparance of a Tha'alani boy and girl (the mind-readers). Kaylin and Severn investigate, which results in Kaylin having to confront her fear of this particular Other and, with understanding, abolish it. And then save Elantra. As usual. There is very little Nightshade in this book, which has caused the Amazon critics to revolt (and really, I'd be right with them, but I'm more patient), but what little there is of him comes out firmly in the Contender for Romantic Interest category.
These I read because my husband has a Kindle, and he gave me the reading of them (along with a cookbook) for Hanukkah:
D. Cast in Fury: This one follows right on the heels of CiSecret, as a direct result of which, the Emperor has commissioned a play to tell the populace of Elantra at large that the Tha'alani don't want to kill them all. While consulting on that (which turns out way better handled than I expected, and shows significant progress in terms of the writing), Kaylin and Severn learn that their Leontine Sargent has been indicted (sort of) on murder charges. The underground investigation of that is actually what takes up the bulk of the book, with the play being largely relegated to B-Plot status. Actually, the whole book feels much better written than the previous three (barring the same repetition as mentioned above), and we gain a somewhat better understanding of the overarching series plot here. Unfortunately, the final confrontation pops out of nowhere fast, and there's not nearly enough denouement for me.
E. Cast in Silence: has the distinction of being my favorite book of the series, and not only because the writing here has also improved. Kaylin is growing up a lot here, and facing her past. The hole between what happened in Nightshade and how she popped up in the Halls of Law gets filled in, we learn even more about the magic of the world and the ultimate badness, and we get excellent character development for Tiamaris and Nightshade, as well as Kaylin herself. After leaving Nightshade seven years prior to the start of the series, Kaylin crossed the border into the fief of Barren. There, she worked for some six months as a petty thug and assassin before being sent across the river by the fief lord on an assignment she could never have hoped to survive. Now, Barren the fieflord thinks he can blackmail her into helping him with a serious breakdown in the fief, and the Dragon Court, the Barrani High Lord, and everyone save the people who are interested in her well-being, are keen on her helping him without the blackmail. Thus, Kaylin and Tiamaris, empowered with some excellent knowledge courtesy of Nightshade, head into Barren to prevent the unstable magic ripping the fief apart from ripping the other fiefs and Elantra itself apart. There's a brief detour into the distant past, a new understanding of what makes a fieflord a fieflord, and all kinds of cool fallout from this one. And we get personal growth. (I do have a severe nitpick with something at the end, but it's such a minor thing in the context of the larger book, and it's a spoiler.) I'm really interested in reading the next one.
4. Magic or Madness Trilogy by Justine Larbalestier
A. Magic or Madness: Fifteen year old Reason Cansino is very good at math. She has also, for almost all of her life, been on the run from her grandmother, Esmeralda, with her mother, Sarafina. Sarafina claims Esmeralda believes in magic and superstitions, killed Sarafina's cat and made her watch, does all kinds of freaky shit. Sarafina took off at twelve, had reason at fifteen, and has been trying to keep them under the radar since. Unfortunately, at thirty, Sarafina goes crazy and tries to kill herself. Reason is packed off to Esmeralda's house, and Sarafina to a hospital nearby. Reason spends the time plotting her escape and to run off by herself, only to be befriended by the boy next door - Tom - and encounter a door from Sidney, Australia to New York City in Esmeralda's kitchen. Forced to admit to herself that magic is real, Reason tries to come to grips with where she is, how she got there, how to get back, and what to do with her mom. In the process, she befriends another fifteen year old - Jay-Tee (Julieta) - and her brother, Danny (who is cuuuuutttteeee). She meets her arch-nemesis, Jason Blake (who rarely goes without the last name), and she comes to grips with the choice she faces: to use magic sparingly and still die young, or to not use any magic at all, and go insane like Sarafina.
B. Magic Lessons: Right as Reason, Tom, and Jay-Tee are settling down in Sidney to learn how to use their magic and not waste it, something weird starts happening to the door to NYC. Reason is sucked through, coming face-to-face with an odd old man who sends her on her way. She finds Danny, who is the only person she knows in NYC other than Jason Blake, and tries to coordinate her efforts to return to Sidney with what's going on there. Tom comes to some hard truths about other people, and Jay-Tee comes to some hard truths about her life. Reason gets pregnant (we're told by her magical relatives), and gains a new form of magic she doesn't yet understand.
C. Magic's Child: Reason begins changing with her newly-acquired magic into something alien, and her relatives struggle for control of her. All the magic users attempt to come to grips with their choices, and question who they are and their abilities without magic. It's a total spoiler to go into any more detail, so I'll leave it there.
The books are tight, and action moves fast, and the choice cost/benefit analysis they ask the protagonists and the reader to perform is well done. And yet, there's something about them that I just can't say "OMG I love these!" They're problem books. The magic system, for all that terrible choice, is not explained well at all. And, let's be honest, the biologist I am went, "Wait, WHAT?" all over that. There is some serious selection pressure against magic, which is an inherited trait (presumably autosomal dominant), and yet I can see no easy benefit to having it around. All the people dying at 25 max doesn't leave them a lot of time to procreate, either. It feels like these things should be bred out of the gene pool except for the random mutation.
The magic that Reason acquires at the end of the second book is also poorly handled. No explanation of how it came into being and why more people don't have it exists. I will say people knowing you're pregnant 12 hours after sex is also ridiculous. (Ok, you can get fertilization in that window. Implantation? I don't think so. That requires 5 days. And really, do you know just how often a fertilized egg doesn't implant??) I think that was the hardest thing to swallow, really. But I do wish she'd done more to explain the magic system and its roots.
Next up, Soulless and Deerskin. By which point I should be done with the Lymond Chronicles, and more paying attention to life will happen.
3. Chronicles of Elantra (the Cast in books) by Michelle Sagara
I actually read these three months before - at least a couple visits to Cleveland ago, when I picked up the first and third from HPB. Nevertheless, they're here for completeness sake:
A. Cast in Shadow: Kaylin Neya is a private in one of the three branches of law enforcement in the city of Elantra. The Hawks (of which she is a part) are your detectives, The Swords are your typical enforcement/muscle (crowd control, etc.), and the Wolves are the branch that hunts fugitives. Kaylin herself is only 20 or so. Some 7 years ago, she was an orphan living in the fief of Nightshade - one of seven, we're initially told, fiefs that circle Elantra, areas where the Emperor's laws don't extend and areas which are ruled by a completely unorganized lot of fieflords. There are six races (known as Castes) in this world - humans, Dragons (who have a human-like form they compact into), Barrani (the faux-elves), Leontines (human/lion hybrid), Aerians (human/eagle hybrids), and the Tha'alani (human-like in appearance except for two stalks growing out of their forheads - the telepaths of the world). The Emperor is a Dragon whom most of the populace never sees (and would very much prefer to keep it that way).
Kaylin herself is unique - her limbs and back covered with writing that appeared on her skin one day, that no one can read. Not much is known about them, except that children are being murdered with similar markings, and Kaylin can heal people. At the beginning of the book, Kaylin is ordered to be one third of a team investigating those killings in the fief of Nightshade. Her companions are unusual - one of the Wolves, with whom she has A History (TM), Severn Handred, and the youngest member of the Dragon Court, Lord Tiamaris. Together they investigate Nightshade, meeting with her eponymous Lord, who chooses to mark Kaylin and gift her with his true name for reasons known only to himself.
Reader, I devoured the book. My husband could not drag me away from it. But, at the same time, it had serious flaws of clunky writing. As does the series as a whole. If I have to read one more time that Teela is a bad driver, I may throw the damn book across the room (it's only salvation is if I'm reading it on a Kindle). Same goes for how Kaylin doesn't like to get up before noon. Also, Kaylin's got a buttload of tropes hanging off her - she's really intelligent, but doesn't like to study anything that she doesn't consider practical (which causes everyone to exposit at her at the requisite points); she's traumatized by her past and tries to make up for it by doting on children, especially orphans; she's rash, but somehow appealing. It's like she was written as a White Wolf character sheet before she was written as a character. "I'll max out physical, mental, and talent stats, but take little in social (excepting appearance), and nothing in the knowledges. Also, give me tragic past, tragic flaw, curiosity, intolerance (mind-reading), and overconfidence. Give me lots of Glamour/Arete, and ridiculous quantities of Willpower." (Ok, I had to look up some old sheets to do that, but still - it's very accurate.)
All that said, it's highly entertaining and engaging, and it definitely sets up the world and mysteries inherent to it quite well. The supporting cast is quite fun, and I was very drawn in. So I ran off and bought...
B. Cast in Courtlight: wherein Kaylin and Severn (who is now a Hawk) head to Barrani High Court after Teela (a Barrani member of the Hawks) summons Kaylin to help heal a Barrani Lord with her magic. This is my second favorite of the ones out so far, and owes it's place to the plot and supporting characters. There's slightly more Nightshade exposition, and way more Severn & Kaylin backstory. Both of these are good things, as is the way the ending is handled (though, to be honest, I saw it coming a mile and a half away). The dragons don't get much word time here, but the one that does rocks the house.
C. Cast in Secret: This book might as well be subtitled "Kaylin overcomes her prejudices." She definitely grows in this one, and we get a bit more understanding of what her powers are. The downside is the lack of advancement on the series plotline. We do meet more dragons, but it's starting in this book that I get fed up with another repetitive phrase - Kaylin can't meet the Emperor, see, though he's curious about her, because she will so offend him, that he'll just eat her. That may well be true. But show, not tell, is a desired process. I think part of the issue I have with all these repetitions is that they are telling/expositing, instead of showing. I tire of that quite fast. (That the Barrani Hawks get drunk and tear up bars out of boredom is another repetitive line.) In any case, the actual plot of this book involves a disturbance in the Force a magical place, which ties into the disapparance of a Tha'alani boy and girl (the mind-readers). Kaylin and Severn investigate, which results in Kaylin having to confront her fear of this particular Other and, with understanding, abolish it. And then save Elantra. As usual. There is very little Nightshade in this book, which has caused the Amazon critics to revolt (and really, I'd be right with them, but I'm more patient), but what little there is of him comes out firmly in the Contender for Romantic Interest category.
These I read because my husband has a Kindle, and he gave me the reading of them (along with a cookbook) for Hanukkah:
D. Cast in Fury: This one follows right on the heels of CiSecret, as a direct result of which, the Emperor has commissioned a play to tell the populace of Elantra at large that the Tha'alani don't want to kill them all. While consulting on that (which turns out way better handled than I expected, and shows significant progress in terms of the writing), Kaylin and Severn learn that their Leontine Sargent has been indicted (sort of) on murder charges. The underground investigation of that is actually what takes up the bulk of the book, with the play being largely relegated to B-Plot status. Actually, the whole book feels much better written than the previous three (barring the same repetition as mentioned above), and we gain a somewhat better understanding of the overarching series plot here. Unfortunately, the final confrontation pops out of nowhere fast, and there's not nearly enough denouement for me.
E. Cast in Silence: has the distinction of being my favorite book of the series, and not only because the writing here has also improved. Kaylin is growing up a lot here, and facing her past. The hole between what happened in Nightshade and how she popped up in the Halls of Law gets filled in, we learn even more about the magic of the world and the ultimate badness, and we get excellent character development for Tiamaris and Nightshade, as well as Kaylin herself. After leaving Nightshade seven years prior to the start of the series, Kaylin crossed the border into the fief of Barren. There, she worked for some six months as a petty thug and assassin before being sent across the river by the fief lord on an assignment she could never have hoped to survive. Now, Barren the fieflord thinks he can blackmail her into helping him with a serious breakdown in the fief, and the Dragon Court, the Barrani High Lord, and everyone save the people who are interested in her well-being, are keen on her helping him without the blackmail. Thus, Kaylin and Tiamaris, empowered with some excellent knowledge courtesy of Nightshade, head into Barren to prevent the unstable magic ripping the fief apart from ripping the other fiefs and Elantra itself apart. There's a brief detour into the distant past, a new understanding of what makes a fieflord a fieflord, and all kinds of cool fallout from this one. And we get personal growth. (I do have a severe nitpick with something at the end, but it's such a minor thing in the context of the larger book, and it's a spoiler.) I'm really interested in reading the next one.
4. Magic or Madness Trilogy by Justine Larbalestier
A. Magic or Madness: Fifteen year old Reason Cansino is very good at math. She has also, for almost all of her life, been on the run from her grandmother, Esmeralda, with her mother, Sarafina. Sarafina claims Esmeralda believes in magic and superstitions, killed Sarafina's cat and made her watch, does all kinds of freaky shit. Sarafina took off at twelve, had reason at fifteen, and has been trying to keep them under the radar since. Unfortunately, at thirty, Sarafina goes crazy and tries to kill herself. Reason is packed off to Esmeralda's house, and Sarafina to a hospital nearby. Reason spends the time plotting her escape and to run off by herself, only to be befriended by the boy next door - Tom - and encounter a door from Sidney, Australia to New York City in Esmeralda's kitchen. Forced to admit to herself that magic is real, Reason tries to come to grips with where she is, how she got there, how to get back, and what to do with her mom. In the process, she befriends another fifteen year old - Jay-Tee (Julieta) - and her brother, Danny (who is cuuuuutttteeee). She meets her arch-nemesis, Jason Blake (who rarely goes without the last name), and she comes to grips with the choice she faces: to use magic sparingly and still die young, or to not use any magic at all, and go insane like Sarafina.
B. Magic Lessons: Right as Reason, Tom, and Jay-Tee are settling down in Sidney to learn how to use their magic and not waste it, something weird starts happening to the door to NYC. Reason is sucked through, coming face-to-face with an odd old man who sends her on her way. She finds Danny, who is the only person she knows in NYC other than Jason Blake, and tries to coordinate her efforts to return to Sidney with what's going on there. Tom comes to some hard truths about other people, and Jay-Tee comes to some hard truths about her life. Reason gets pregnant (we're told by her magical relatives), and gains a new form of magic she doesn't yet understand.
C. Magic's Child: Reason begins changing with her newly-acquired magic into something alien, and her relatives struggle for control of her. All the magic users attempt to come to grips with their choices, and question who they are and their abilities without magic. It's a total spoiler to go into any more detail, so I'll leave it there.
The books are tight, and action moves fast, and the choice cost/benefit analysis they ask the protagonists and the reader to perform is well done. And yet, there's something about them that I just can't say "OMG I love these!" They're problem books. The magic system, for all that terrible choice, is not explained well at all. And, let's be honest, the biologist I am went, "Wait, WHAT?" all over that. There is some serious selection pressure against magic, which is an inherited trait (presumably autosomal dominant), and yet I can see no easy benefit to having it around. All the people dying at 25 max doesn't leave them a lot of time to procreate, either. It feels like these things should be bred out of the gene pool except for the random mutation.
The magic that Reason acquires at the end of the second book is also poorly handled. No explanation of how it came into being and why more people don't have it exists. I will say people knowing you're pregnant 12 hours after sex is also ridiculous. (Ok, you can get fertilization in that window. Implantation? I don't think so. That requires 5 days. And really, do you know just how often a fertilized egg doesn't implant??) I think that was the hardest thing to swallow, really. But I do wish she'd done more to explain the magic system and its roots.
Next up, Soulless and Deerskin. By which point I should be done with the Lymond Chronicles, and more paying attention to life will happen.