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I didn't bother spoiler tagging, so this entire review is hidden for spoilers.
To talk about this book and NOT to talk about Ebenezer McCoy and Lara Raith is difficult. They're two characters Harry spends the most relationship-development time with, and not all of it is good. McCoy was basically one note this entire time, though I suppose he served as a way for Harry to firmly define his own boundaries and just how set in stone his morals are in terms of taking care of his family -- even if it means bombing his relationships with others.
And then there's Lara Raith. LARA FUCKING RAITH. Yes, she's a White Court vampire and yes that means she's a succubus, but did it have to be so unrepentantly horny? Did we have to spend a good 30% of this novel inside Harry's head as he talks about how hot Lara is and how horny he is for her and how devastatingly sexy she is and how naked she is and how his Winter Mantle HOOOWWWLLLS for her jfkdsja;lfjal;f oh my god I'm getting mad just thinking about all my time wasted on this shit. SHE LITERALLY FUCKS A GUARD TO FEED WHILE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PRISON BREAK. GODDAMIT, BUTCHER. WHY.
The worst part is that Lara has the potential to be incredibly interesting. She's the flip side of the same coin Harry is when it comes to Thomas. They both love their brother and will do anything for him, but to have her reduced to almost nothing more than a Sexy Succubus Vampire ruins any and all credibility this Thomas plot had. There are only three times Lara is actually interesting and engaging as a fully realized character outside of her sexiness: when she explains to Harry how she can't diplomatically save Thomas, when she forces Harry's assistance by using Mab's Favor, and when she thinks Harry has betrayed her in the end. There were tons of ways to really play that up and have Sexy Succubus be a PART of her character, not THE WHOLE OF IT.
I'm not even going to fucking touch the bits where Harry has inappropriate thoughts about two different girls he knew as children. Doesn't matter if he knows he shouldn't be thinking those thoughts, Butcher, IT'S STILL GROSS.
Going back to the stakes that have been raised by the Fomor and a literal Titan Goddess showing up to wreak havoc...I have no idea where Butcher can go with this. And if he does pull it off tremendously in the next book, then he's going to have a very difficult time increasing the stakes and getting Harry in and out of various trouble. He's already a Super Wizard Fairy Knight Demon Jail Warden at this point.
I just remembered all the Star Born, once in 666 years, Chosen One stuff that was hinted at and dropped in this. Soooo Harry was born special in a way that makes him mentally powerful enough to resist the Outsiders, and the end of the book asks if Harry is powerful enough to trap a Titan in Deamonreach...yeah, I can kinda see where this story is going to go.
I originally gave this 3 stars, but then I started writing this review and kept writing and realized that I'm way more disappointed and angry about it than I thought and dropped it down to 2. Because the actual good plot part makes it more than just "it was okay," but I'm not sure I can bring myself all the way up to "liked it." The series has had books that were so much better than this, honestly.
Spoiler
This is an odd entry into the series, but I suppose with the stakes Butcher has raised, it needed more than just a one and done book. It makes sense that he'd split this story across two books, but that is a detriment to Peace Talks, which just simply does not stand on its own merit. Splitting the story just let Peace Talks go into a lot of side story meandering and overly long scenes with side characters. Yes, I love Butters, but was that scene and the tee hee you're in a threesome reveal necessary? What came out of the scene with Butters and Sanya -- I'm assuming the payoff from learning about the changes in the Sword of Faith comes in the next book?To talk about this book and NOT to talk about Ebenezer McCoy and Lara Raith is difficult. They're two characters Harry spends the most relationship-development time with, and not all of it is good. McCoy was basically one note this entire time, though I suppose he served as a way for Harry to firmly define his own boundaries and just how set in stone his morals are in terms of taking care of his family -- even if it means bombing his relationships with others.
And then there's Lara Raith. LARA FUCKING RAITH. Yes, she's a White Court vampire and yes that means she's a succubus, but did it have to be so unrepentantly horny? Did we have to spend a good 30% of this novel inside Harry's head as he talks about how hot Lara is and how horny he is for her and how devastatingly sexy she is and how naked she is and how his Winter Mantle HOOOWWWLLLS for her jfkdsja;lfjal;f oh my god I'm getting mad just thinking about all my time wasted on this shit. SHE LITERALLY FUCKS A GUARD TO FEED WHILE IN THE MIDDLE OF A PRISON BREAK. GODDAMIT, BUTCHER. WHY.
The worst part is that Lara has the potential to be incredibly interesting. She's the flip side of the same coin Harry is when it comes to Thomas. They both love their brother and will do anything for him, but to have her reduced to almost nothing more than a Sexy Succubus Vampire ruins any and all credibility this Thomas plot had. There are only three times Lara is actually interesting and engaging as a fully realized character outside of her sexiness: when she explains to Harry how she can't diplomatically save Thomas, when she forces Harry's assistance by using Mab's Favor, and when she thinks Harry has betrayed her in the end. There were tons of ways to really play that up and have Sexy Succubus be a PART of her character, not THE WHOLE OF IT.
I'm not even going to fucking touch the bits where Harry has inappropriate thoughts about two different girls he knew as children. Doesn't matter if he knows he shouldn't be thinking those thoughts, Butcher, IT'S STILL GROSS.
Going back to the stakes that have been raised by the Fomor and a literal Titan Goddess showing up to wreak havoc...I have no idea where Butcher can go with this. And if he does pull it off tremendously in the next book, then he's going to have a very difficult time increasing the stakes and getting Harry in and out of various trouble. He's already a Super Wizard Fairy Knight Demon Jail Warden at this point.
I just remembered all the Star Born, once in 666 years, Chosen One stuff that was hinted at and dropped in this. Soooo Harry was born special in a way that makes him mentally powerful enough to resist the Outsiders, and the end of the book asks if Harry is powerful enough to trap a Titan in Deamonreach...yeah, I can kinda see where this story is going to go.
I originally gave this 3 stars, but then I started writing this review and kept writing and realized that I'm way more disappointed and angry about it than I thought and dropped it down to 2. Because the actual good plot part makes it more than just "it was okay," but I'm not sure I can bring myself all the way up to "liked it." The series has had books that were so much better than this, honestly.
What a huge improvement for me from the last book (still mad and grossed out by Dorian.), and a nice change of pace from the past couple of dominant male/submissive female pairings. Hmm...Judd and Brenna have been my favorite couple so far, and are now joined by Riley and Mercy. Not surprising, since the dominant changeling/submissive woman pairings don't work as well for me.
The romance was great here, pitting Mercy's uncompromising dominant personality against Riley's dominant personality. There was a lot of headbutting, a lot of passion (like WHEW, these two), and a lot of struggling with how their pairing would work in terms of their working relationship as pack liaisons and with their own incredibly important roles in their own packs. The way it was worked out in the end was great, and other than a few hiccups here and there, I think this was nicely handled on both sides. There was the typical dominant male crap that's the bread and butter of the romances in this series, but Mercy held her own and wasn't a pushover.
As for the larger world plot...HELL YES. The macro story continues to grow, and Nalini Singh truly shines in the constant growth and expansion of this Psy-Changeling world. The alternating chapters that included various POVs from other characters in the larger plot were great. The constant machinations of all the Council members continues to delight, and I'm so obsessed with The Ghost. Who is he? Why would him breaking Silence?? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS. Oh and Lucas and Sascha
As for Hawke and
On to book 7...I'm blowing through these on audio like they're candy.
The romance was great here, pitting Mercy's uncompromising dominant personality against Riley's dominant personality. There was a lot of headbutting, a lot of passion (like WHEW, these two), and a lot of struggling with how their pairing would work in terms of their working relationship as pack liaisons and with their own incredibly important roles in their own packs. The way it was worked out in the end was great, and other than a few hiccups here and there, I think this was nicely handled on both sides. There was the typical dominant male crap that's the bread and butter of the romances in this series, but Mercy held her own and wasn't a pushover.
As for the larger world plot...HELL YES. The macro story continues to grow, and Nalini Singh truly shines in the constant growth and expansion of this Psy-Changeling world. The alternating chapters that included various POVs from other characters in the larger plot were great. The constant machinations of all the Council members continues to delight, and I'm so obsessed with The Ghost. Who is he? Why would him breaking Silence
Spoiler
break the entire PsyNetSpoiler
are pregnant!As for Hawke and
Spoiler
Sienna...so, SO glad that the tension that was being seeded in the last few books is directly touched on here. She's too young for Hawke right now and that's explicitly stated, which I'm so glad to see. Sienna going off with Kit at the end of this one is going to prove to make for one intense book when I finally get to their story. I also LOVE that Sienna is getting some interesting story with her possibly(?) being an X-Psy...so much to mine there in terms of world building. Very exciting.On to book 7...I'm blowing through these on audio like they're candy.
Can't believe I went from the high of [b:Branded by Fire|5628753|Branded by Fire (Psy-Changeling, #6)|Nalini Singh|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334968711l/5628753._SY75_.jpg|4606059] to the absolute depths of suckage that was Blaze of Memory.
Dev is the actual worst. He ruined any hopes I had of enjoying ANY part of this book.
Dev is the actual worst. He ruined any hopes I had of enjoying ANY part of this book.
Iron Widow came to my attention because it sounds pretty damn great. Who doesn't want a book about giant mech fighting based in Chinese fantasy with "400 pages of feminist rage"? It's Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid's Tale! Hell yeah! I was so down for it.
Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot much more to Iron Widow.
The story is pretty straightforward: in this world based in Chinese culture and myths, boys pilot giant transforming robots to battle aliens beyond the great wall. Unfortunately, to pilot the mechs, the boys need to pair with a concubine to help use her mental energy and qi...and most of these girls die after one battle. Our hero Wu Zetian becomes a concubine on purpose, in hopes of pairing with the pilot that killed her older sister.
From there, it's discovered that Zetian has a very high spirit energy, and in this universe that means she could possibly match with a pilot, instead of having the pilot kill her. But she kills the pilot she intended to, earning the name Iron Widow, and is paired with another much stronger pilot that always kills his concubines. Surprise surprise, she survives her next battle with him.
Zetian gets to know the tragic backstory of the pilot Shimin, and somewhere along the way her childhood friend, a rich boy named Yizhi, finds his way back into her life and becomes an integral third part of their pilot process.
As all this is happening, we get treated to the 400 pages of feminist rage that keeps being promised. While the rage is there, the writing is just so simplistic that there is nothing else to Zetian. She's angry and lashes out or kills a pilot, then she's punished. Sexist men say something sexist to her, so she says something angry and feminist back, and she's punished. Someone else says something sexist to her and she feels beat down mentally, but then 2 paragraphs later she says F THAT, I'M MORE THAN WHAT THEY SAY and she thinks some great feminist thoughts that make for amazing blurbs but are completely boring when it's the 50th time she's had the same thought. Rinse and repeat for 400 pages.
This is such simplistic Telling and not Showing writing. I'm no writer myself, I can't claim to know what the writing process is like, but I know what I feel as a reader. And as a reader, this got old super fast. I wanted more from Zetian than just spitting rage and cool feminist lines. I wanted some more depth and nuance.
I suppose there's some attempt at depth when it comes to the romance, and this is where I thought Iron Widow would really have its chance to shine in the sun and stand out on its own. Bisexual rep! A ménage à trois! Hell yeah!
The romances are instalove. Just pure instalove, on all sides of the triangle.
There's maybe some build up for one side of the triangle, but the other two just sort of happen. When the three of them finally come together as one, its with a couple of paragraphs about damning society because society doesn't give a damn about them, etc etc. There's just no nuance to the writing at all. Maybe if the taboo of a male/male romance or a throuple romance hadn't been hinted at in the text, then the simplistic coming together would have worked. Instead, we have Zetian thinking about how they love each other and society can go fuck itself, and so they're now together. That's it.
As for the actual plot line, that was mostly a muddle and served only to provide waypoints for Zetian's story to move forward, simply because she had to move forward to advance the story. There are lots of gross sexist pigs, there are terrible military people who don't care about women or those beneath them, there are people in power who make decisions without caring about women or those beneath them...it's the same simplistic ideas over and over again. There are no moments to take a step back and breathe in this world, to let the history and society and culture of the world building really settle in. It's ZETIAN MAD and FEMINIST RAGE and CHRYSALIS SMASH -- which is all fine and good if that's what the book wanted to be! But no, Iron Widow wants to be a novel that is fun but also hulk smashes the patriarchy, and while it does that, there's nothing else to it.
I won't go too much further into the rest of the actual plot (what little there is) because it'd involve spoilers and, quite frankly, I hated the ending. This writing and the very shallow world building did not deserve that ending at all.
With all that said, did I actually like this book?
...sort of. When I could turn my brain off and just enjoy the wish fulfillment that Zetian represented, I had a better time of it. But the writing and world building simply wasn't good enough for me to truly enjoy this world or the characters.
(Thank you NetGalley for providing an ebook copy for review.)
Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot much more to Iron Widow.
The story is pretty straightforward: in this world based in Chinese culture and myths, boys pilot giant transforming robots to battle aliens beyond the great wall. Unfortunately, to pilot the mechs, the boys need to pair with a concubine to help use her mental energy and qi...and most of these girls die after one battle. Our hero Wu Zetian becomes a concubine on purpose, in hopes of pairing with the pilot that killed her older sister.
From there, it's discovered that Zetian has a very high spirit energy, and in this universe that means she could possibly match with a pilot, instead of having the pilot kill her. But she kills the pilot she intended to, earning the name Iron Widow, and is paired with another much stronger pilot that always kills his concubines. Surprise surprise, she survives her next battle with him.
Zetian gets to know the tragic backstory of the pilot Shimin, and somewhere along the way her childhood friend, a rich boy named Yizhi, finds his way back into her life and becomes an integral third part of their pilot process.
As all this is happening, we get treated to the 400 pages of feminist rage that keeps being promised. While the rage is there, the writing is just so simplistic that there is nothing else to Zetian. She's angry and lashes out or kills a pilot, then she's punished. Sexist men say something sexist to her, so she says something angry and feminist back, and she's punished. Someone else says something sexist to her and she feels beat down mentally, but then 2 paragraphs later she says F THAT, I'M MORE THAN WHAT THEY SAY and she thinks some great feminist thoughts that make for amazing blurbs but are completely boring when it's the 50th time she's had the same thought. Rinse and repeat for 400 pages.
This is such simplistic Telling and not Showing writing. I'm no writer myself, I can't claim to know what the writing process is like, but I know what I feel as a reader. And as a reader, this got old super fast. I wanted more from Zetian than just spitting rage and cool feminist lines. I wanted some more depth and nuance.
I suppose there's some attempt at depth when it comes to the romance, and this is where I thought Iron Widow would really have its chance to shine in the sun and stand out on its own. Bisexual rep! A ménage à trois! Hell yeah!
The romances are instalove. Just pure instalove, on all sides of the triangle.
There's maybe some build up for one side of the triangle, but the other two just sort of happen. When the three of them finally come together as one, its with a couple of paragraphs about damning society because society doesn't give a damn about them, etc etc. There's just no nuance to the writing at all. Maybe if the taboo of a male/male romance or a throuple romance hadn't been hinted at in the text, then the simplistic coming together would have worked. Instead, we have Zetian thinking about how they love each other and society can go fuck itself, and so they're now together. That's it.
As for the actual plot line, that was mostly a muddle and served only to provide waypoints for Zetian's story to move forward, simply because she had to move forward to advance the story. There are lots of gross sexist pigs, there are terrible military people who don't care about women or those beneath them, there are people in power who make decisions without caring about women or those beneath them...it's the same simplistic ideas over and over again. There are no moments to take a step back and breathe in this world, to let the history and society and culture of the world building really settle in. It's ZETIAN MAD and FEMINIST RAGE and CHRYSALIS SMASH -- which is all fine and good if that's what the book wanted to be! But no, Iron Widow wants to be a novel that is fun but also hulk smashes the patriarchy, and while it does that, there's nothing else to it.
I won't go too much further into the rest of the actual plot (what little there is) because it'd involve spoilers and, quite frankly, I hated the ending. This writing and the very shallow world building did not deserve that ending at all.
With all that said, did I actually like this book?
...sort of. When I could turn my brain off and just enjoy the wish fulfillment that Zetian represented, I had a better time of it. But the writing and world building simply wasn't good enough for me to truly enjoy this world or the characters.
(Thank you NetGalley for providing an ebook copy for review.)
As a powerful matriarchy reshapes the world, two men—old friends—confront the past and future in a bracing speculative short story
But what was the point??
The only speculative thing about this was the idea of creating a world with a gender reversal of our own society. Women are the powerful ones because they do all the work to create life. Men are outlawed from masturbating because it wastes possible future children. They're expected to marry and support their wives, who take on the work and traditional bread winning roles. Everything about our messed up gender roles are reversed in this short story and, okay, fine. That's a neat idea. BUT WHAT WAS THE POINT?
Adichie creates a quick glimpse into the life of a man who is married to a powerful, hard working woman. An old friend comes to visit him in Nigeria after having lived in America for a while, and he has some frustration with their current societal norms. And then the story ends.
Was the point to show how absurd it would be if gender roles were reversed and the men were the ones who had to stay at home? This story was too short to do anything except present this world that Adichie thought up, and nothing else. It felt like the creation of the world itself was supposed to speak as commentary and an indictment of our cultural ideals, but it still felt very weak in that regard.
Not the best start to this short story collection on Kindle Unlimited, but I'm hoping we can only go up from here.
But what was the point??
The only speculative thing about this was the idea of creating a world with a gender reversal of our own society. Women are the powerful ones because they do all the work to create life. Men are outlawed from masturbating because it wastes possible future children. They're expected to marry and support their wives, who take on the work and traditional bread winning roles. Everything about our messed up gender roles are reversed in this short story and, okay, fine. That's a neat idea. BUT WHAT WAS THE POINT?
Adichie creates a quick glimpse into the life of a man who is married to a powerful, hard working woman. An old friend comes to visit him in Nigeria after having lived in America for a while, and he has some frustration with their current societal norms. And then the story ends.
Was the point to show how absurd it would be if gender roles were reversed and the men were the ones who had to stay at home? This story was too short to do anything except present this world that Adichie thought up, and nothing else. It felt like the creation of the world itself was supposed to speak as commentary and an indictment of our cultural ideals, but it still felt very weak in that regard.
Not the best start to this short story collection on Kindle Unlimited, but I'm hoping we can only go up from here.