Bear, Elizabeth: Blood and Iron
Blood and Iron: A Novel of the Promethean Age
Writer: Elizabeth Bear
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 432
Two disclaimers concerning this review:
1) Of all the magical creatures that populate fantasy-land, fairies don't hold my interest. Yes, I adored Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely, but I didn't buy it for the fairies, nor did I love it because it had fairies in it. And while I know that elves are in many stories/myths considered part of the fae, but my experience with elves is limited to Tolkien, Terry Brooks, and Justina Robson. Not exactly very fae, if you get what I mean.
So I'm barely familiar with tropes concerning fairies. I don't know what's common, and I don't know what's not. And when it comes to the literature involving fairies, let's just say I didn't pay too much attention to Spenser and I never studied Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream when I was in school, though I've seen the play, I've seen a movie, and that's it.
The point: fairies are not part of my fantasy vocabulary.
2) I've been interested in reading Elizabeth Bear's work for a while. I've already read two of her short stories, "The Something-Dreaming Game" in Fast Forward 1, which was fantastic (the story and the book), and "Follow Me Light" from Best New Paranormal Romance, which perplexed me enough to read twice, but I really enjoyed the story and wanted more. Said enjoyment prompted me to survey her titles, and I bought Carnival. Then a friend of mine sent me a copy of Undertow, which I didn't mind getting my hands on either. In fact, there's quite a few Bear titles I'm interested in. I just haven't read them yet.
But of all her books, Blood and Iron never caught my eye. Part of it was the premise, part of it was the cover (though now that I've seen the cover in person, the lion transforming from a statue is beautifully done). So imagine my amusement when emerald_ibis dared me to read the one Elizabeth Bear book I had no interest in for my January/February dare. But I trust my friend, as she's dared me to read many a great book before, and accepted the dare.
With all of that in mind, here be the review. Spoilers ahead.
This is one of those books where I'm not sure if the problems I had with it are my fault, the author's, or a mix of both. And the words "problem" and "fault" are pretty heavy, because I can't say there was anything wrong with this book. It was complex. Fascinating. Rich in language and demanded to be consumed at a slow, steady rate. Like the fairies in the book, Bear isn't eager to give up the answers to the tale, and makes the reader work hard to get them and/or figure said answers out on their own.
Blood and Iron takes place in the modern world, around 1997, if I remember reading Bear's timeline correctly. There's the real world we know and love, and then there's the realm of the Faerie. Seekers are sent out into the real world to kidnap children and return them to the Faerie world, and those children, from what I understand, are usually half-Fae.
Because of this, a group of magicians, who collectively call themselves the Prometheus Club, seek to destroy the Faerie. The modern world of steel has weakened the Faerie Realm, and Mages seek out faeries to stop them no matter what.
But now the time's come when both groups have the seek the same prey: a Merlin, a being isn't someone who welds magic, but IS magic, and the Merlin's alliance will give the necessary push for one side to defeat the other.
That's not even half of it. We've got werewolves. We've got Arthurian legend. We've got a Dragon. Emissaries from Hell. Family drama that's enough to make a soap opera blink twice at the complexity of. Oh, and a unicorn.
Confused? Good. ;) I was too.
The good thing is, Bear is a solid writer. Even though she throws the reader in and expects the reader to swim, she gives us plenty to swim in. She builds layer after layer after layer of story, and just when you don't think ANY of this is connected, BAM! Suddenly it all fits together and we have a plot about saving the Fae and a woman stopping at nothing to save her son from inheriting the throne of the Faerie. And not because she wants it herself, but because she can't stand to see him live his life without a heart.
Besides the complexity, what makes this book hard to talk about is the fact that I was never really emotionally engaged. And the funny thing is, the distance works for the book. The scenes between Elaine and Keith told me all I needed to know about them. I didn't want more emotion, even though I wasn't emotionally engaged. Same with Elaine and Whiskey. Elaine and Carel. Yes, Elaine has three lovers.
But that's one thing I had a problem with. Not the fact she had three lovers (a werewolf, a Kelpie, and the Merlin), but the fact WE NEVER SAW THE SEX. Bear closed the door after giving us just enough hint what was going to happen, but in two specific cases, I wasn't sure if sex was the result or not. The first was Elaine's encounter with Keith right before she slept with Whiskey for the first time (Keith held her all night, and there's talk of getting dressed, but then when she gives in to Whiskey, part of the reason is that it's been so long), and the other was Elaine's decision to do what she was bid to do and seduce Carel, but while Carel wanted Elaine, Carel DIDN'T want to be bound to her, so even though there was some lips on neck action, I never got the impression they did the deed, but after that moment, Carel acts as a hurt, jealous lover, so I guess they slept together?
I don't know. While I respect the author's choice to show as much or as little of the sex as necessary for the book, I felt like the sex was important here, because Elaine had THREE different lovers, THREE different aspects of her personality coming out of these relationships. I felt like the reader could've learned more about Elaine had we seen the difference of sex between her and Keith, her and Whiskey, and her and Carel, particularly Carel, because that was the relationship that interested me the most, the relationship I felt didn't get enough meat on the bones, though some things were certainly clear. Carel was never bound by Elaine, and Carel used her boon to free Elaine of her bond, which was a huge gift.
And I complain about this because I really LIKED these relationships. Even more so when Elaine tricked Whiskey and gave him her Name and her soul, and we saw Elaine from a more distant first-person POV where we learn the difference between human and Fae, soul and soulless. Fantastic touch, that. I loved seeing Whiskey become something like Elaine's daemon, though Whiskey was much more than an animal embodiment of her soul. The principles were the same, that Whiskey's actions mirrored what should have been Elaine's emotions.
Plot-wise, I feel like there's a lot of gaps, and like I said, I'm not sure if those gaps are due to my own lack of knowledge or maybe Bear didn't get it on the page or maybe a little bit of both. For all of the importance placed on the Merlin, I don't feel Carel was used to her fullest potential. For all Matthew's devotion to Jane and the Prometheus Club, the betrayal didn't hit hard enough, because it was too sudden, out of no where. There's the fact that I simply assumed Elaine knew that her mother was indeed her enemy's leader, so learning she didn't was another unwelcome shock, because it changed my assumptions of the reading. That happened a lot. Something in the text would give me a firm picture in my mind of how things really were, and then that image would get shattered, and not in a good way. More in a I-wish-it-hadn't-been-so-subtle/wish-it'd-been-built-up-more way. Like until I found out Elaine had a son, I thought she was a teenager based on the early descriptions in the book.
And the book did end rather abruptly. I like that the major things got tied up in the end, but yet I felt I was left hanging. On one hand, that's not a bad thing. Elaine doesn't have time for rest and relaxation now. Life goes on, and she's created a helluva mess she's got to deal with. Plus, there's an sequel, Whiskey and Water. On the other hand, I feel it could've ended with a little more introspection, something more than the umpteenth repetition of Tam Lin, which--for the record--I had to look up the myth so I could figure out the parallels, which were powerful at times, but at others, rather intrusive, because I wanted answers, not songs.
I loved Whiskey. I loved Morgan. I really liked the relationship between Keith and Elaine, though I didn't care for Bear's brand of werewolves, and I think that's because I'm used to the rough and tough and down-to-earth werewolves a la Carrie Vaughn and Kelley Armstrong. Bear's werewolves were a little too aristocratic for me for some reason. I think it was because of the whole inheritance of the pack thing. And the constant use of titles like "sire" and "younger brother/elder brother." That's me.
For all my ire over the overuse of dragons in fantasy, I did love Mist, who was really cool, though an enigma and rather confusing. And once I figured out what the hell the Dragon Prince was and what all that was about, I thought that was a really cool thing too.
There are a lot of really, really cool things in this book. And there's moments of pure beauty in the writing. Yet I can't say I'm too inclined to pick up the next book in the series, Whiskey and Water, because I know it's going to be just as complex and I'm not sure I want to dive into it without knowing if the questions I have, the arcs I want pursued, will be resolved in a satisfactory manner. So I'll say this: if anyone's READ Whiskey and Water, shoot me an email and spoil the hell out of it for me, okay?
As far as how this stacks up to other books focusing on the Fae, I have no idea. It's different from what I've read, but as you know, I haven't read much. Like I said, the book's complex, and I think any literary geek, any fan of Arthurian legend, or any fan of urban fantasy ought to give this a shot. It's definitely different from the urban fantasy I've read, and for that, it's very cool.
Next up: The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald