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lizshayne 's review for:
An Apprentice to Elves
by Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
So they absolutely Neal Stephensoned the ending, which I only realized because I looked down when I expected to see two hours left and discovered about twelve minutes remaining. I'm not too mad, though, as they did kind of earn a sudden people called Romanes, they go the house .
What remains interesting about this series is the sense that the world feels incredibly inhabited, as thought Monette and Bear could come back to another part of the world or story and have a whole nother narrative waiting. They are interested in different things than Guy Gavriel Kay, but the sense of historical/fantastical place has the same depth to it.
I made the mistake of reading other reviews (yes, yes, I know) and one of the most interesting takes that I see expressed but not interrogated is the sexual politics of the world which, yes, apparently began as a pastiche -
PSA to audiobook creators - PLEASE INCLUDE THE AUTHORS NOTES!
- but very swiftly became "what if we played this out and to the hilt". What I think gets ignored in the conversation about the dubiousness of the consent is 1) the way in which modern assumptions about what sex ought to be like are brought to a text that is trying to situate itself outside of modern mores and 2) the way that Isolfr in particular but brothers bonded to female wolves in general experience, well, marriage. Their bodies are bartered in order to create community and they range from being excited by it to dreading it. And, yes, it is more complex than this facile analogy, but marriage is also relatively more complex than it gets credit for being. And what strikes me as so interesting is that, especially by this book (but even in the first one with the smiths and mothers of the svartalfar), the authors are already thinking about the way that identity dictates destiny in a culture and what it looks like to break it.
So, like, yes, obviously, this book should not be taken as a blueprint for a healthy relationship and, also, what it is doing with animal companions and the way it thinks about the individual's place in community is so much more interesting.
What remains interesting about this series is the sense that the world feels incredibly inhabited, as thought Monette and Bear could come back to another part of the world or story and have a whole nother narrative waiting. They are interested in different things than Guy Gavriel Kay, but the sense of historical/fantastical place has the same depth to it.
I made the mistake of reading other reviews (yes, yes, I know) and one of the most interesting takes that I see expressed but not interrogated is the sexual politics of the world which, yes, apparently began as a pastiche -
PSA to audiobook creators - PLEASE INCLUDE THE AUTHORS NOTES!
- but very swiftly became "what if we played this out and to the hilt". What I think gets ignored in the conversation about the dubiousness of the consent is 1) the way in which modern assumptions about what sex ought to be like are brought to a text that is trying to situate itself outside of modern mores and 2) the way that Isolfr in particular but brothers bonded to female wolves in general experience, well, marriage. Their bodies are bartered in order to create community and they range from being excited by it to dreading it. And, yes, it is more complex than this facile analogy, but marriage is also relatively more complex than it gets credit for being. And what strikes me as so interesting is that, especially by this book (but even in the first one with the smiths and mothers of the svartalfar), the authors are already thinking about the way that identity dictates destiny in a culture and what it looks like to break it.
So, like, yes, obviously, this book should not be taken as a blueprint for a healthy relationship and, also, what it is doing with animal companions and the way it thinks about the individual's place in community is so much more interesting.