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This was one of those surprising books where the sequel books set several centuries later actually feel like they came out of this world, but also feel like, y'know, stuff happened in the meantime and culture evolved. I enjoyed this book, though not as much as the Fall of Ile-Rien.
This is an appalling way to start a review, but had I finished this book two minutes earlier, I would have been three for three with this series in one day.
As you can see, I enjoyed it enough to tear straight through it. It's my kind of epic fantasy, which is to say that the stakes are high, the characters are complex, the view-points shifts aren't excessive and the dialogue is clever. I approve.
As you can see, I enjoyed it enough to tear straight through it. It's my kind of epic fantasy, which is to say that the stakes are high, the characters are complex, the view-points shifts aren't excessive and the dialogue is clever. I approve.
This book was one of those "very good at what it does and kinda not for me" books that I could appreciate even as I kinda wished it was a bit happier and less horrifically dystopic.
I loved what Hurley did with religion/culture/ideology, not just because I enjoyed playing "spot the peoples of the book!", but because the world she creates out of a fidelity to and break with Islam in particular, but Judaism and Christianity to a lesser degree is brilliant and visible.
Her writings of the callousness, devastation, repercussions and psychological effects of a long, ongoing war are also very well done. Part of what I like about this is that everyone kinda comes out looking awful, which is usually the case in ongoing battles that no one really knows why we're fighting them, and I never get the impression that one side is morally superior for the way they approach religion.
Which is also to say everyone's terrible and I like my books with a bit more optimism.
One final thing that I just want to mention because I was surprised both at its presence and its comparative absence anywhere else: the devout characters are portrayed as neither fundamentally god-touched and divine or absurd for their beliefs. Prayer, in particular, is treated as the human reaching out for the divine in a way that provides a sense of stability, emotional security and--given that this character's faith developed out of Islam--submission.
I wanted to like this book so much more than I did because it did everything right. It just goes to show how much individual tastes and content predilections matter.
I loved what Hurley did with religion/culture/ideology, not just because I enjoyed playing "spot the peoples of the book!", but because the world she creates out of a fidelity to and break with Islam in particular, but Judaism and Christianity to a lesser degree is brilliant and visible.
Her writings of the callousness, devastation, repercussions and psychological effects of a long, ongoing war are also very well done. Part of what I like about this is that everyone kinda comes out looking awful, which is usually the case in ongoing battles that no one really knows why we're fighting them, and I never get the impression that one side is morally superior for the way they approach religion.
Which is also to say everyone's terrible and I like my books with a bit more optimism.
One final thing that I just want to mention because I was surprised both at its presence and its comparative absence anywhere else: the devout characters are portrayed as neither fundamentally god-touched and divine or absurd for their beliefs. Prayer, in particular, is treated as the human reaching out for the divine in a way that provides a sense of stability, emotional security and--given that this character's faith developed out of Islam--submission.
I wanted to like this book so much more than I did because it did everything right. It just goes to show how much individual tastes and content predilections matter.
My unending love for Patricia McKillip's poetic treatments of both traditional and original fairy tales is well-documented, right?
K, just making sure.
K, just making sure.
So much fun to read, so good and so...glib about the future.
Not that I mind the optimism, God knows I need it given the gutting of higher education, the money we're not putting in to K-12, the devaluing of both science and the humanities...but Laurel ends on this note that idolizes future possibilities that are, inherently, problematic.
Yes, there's so much cool stuff left to do and all is nowhere near lost. But she lacked the nuance that lets one speak well of good, but problematic things.
Not that I mind the optimism, God knows I need it given the gutting of higher education, the money we're not putting in to K-12, the devaluing of both science and the humanities...but Laurel ends on this note that idolizes future possibilities that are, inherently, problematic.
Yes, there's so much cool stuff left to do and all is nowhere near lost. But she lacked the nuance that lets one speak well of good, but problematic things.
I came across this, cough, gem of a story in my "hmm, what's eligible for the Hugos that I'm never going to get around to reading" work and it was just a gorgeous little piece that pushed all my fantasy buttons. I'm so glad I found it
So I just wrote what practically amounts to a long blot post or a short article about romances and then I decided to delete it because this is a review, damnit, not a dissertation.
The point of that diatribe was that Milan (not exclusively, although relevantly) does an excellent job of writing the inside of character's heads and I sometimes think that romance novels could give the rest of fiction a tutorial in the conventions/tropes of affective language in the novel. Romances have developed a dialect of emotions where the signifiers manage to...signify more than usual by virtue of being in a romance novel. Familiarity with the conventions gives the language more weight and makes it easier to write about emotions because a system of signification has developed around the genre.
And that was the short version.
Anyway, this was a nice short read for that four hour layover I had in LAX today and only maybe kinda resulted in my purchasing the next book in the series. (My current mantra is "books are cheaper than clothes so buy books" although they are less reusable.)
The point of that diatribe was that Milan (not exclusively, although relevantly) does an excellent job of writing the inside of character's heads and I sometimes think that romance novels could give the rest of fiction a tutorial in the conventions/tropes of affective language in the novel. Romances have developed a dialect of emotions where the signifiers manage to...signify more than usual by virtue of being in a romance novel. Familiarity with the conventions gives the language more weight and makes it easier to write about emotions because a system of signification has developed around the genre.
And that was the short version.
Anyway, this was a nice short read for that four hour layover I had in LAX today and only maybe kinda resulted in my purchasing the next book in the series. (My current mantra is "books are cheaper than clothes so buy books" although they are less reusable.)
This was fun!
Thank you, [a:Tansy Rayner Roberts|599287|Tansy Rayner Roberts|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1260507275p2/599287.jpg] for blogging about Regencies and making me want to pick these up. Definitely improved my day in airports.
This book reminded me of everything I liked about [b:The Secret History of the Pink Carnation|84351|The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (Pink Carnation, #1)|Lauren Willig|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1389072630s/84351.jpg|2950861] series with fewer flowers.
Thank you, [a:Tansy Rayner Roberts|599287|Tansy Rayner Roberts|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1260507275p2/599287.jpg] for blogging about Regencies and making me want to pick these up. Definitely improved my day in airports.
This book reminded me of everything I liked about [b:The Secret History of the Pink Carnation|84351|The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (Pink Carnation, #1)|Lauren Willig|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1389072630s/84351.jpg|2950861] series with fewer flowers.
I feel a bit like Darcy: this book was tolerable, but not compelling enough to tempt me into the rest of the series. It worked fine, but I found the characters both to be a bit too inconsistent in their characterization and I think that MacLean's style, overall, doesn't work for me quite as much as others.