Books 11-13
The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I thought I had read all of the Prydain books but listening to this audio book I'm not so sure any more. Nothing was familiar and everything was disappointing. This should have been Eilonwy's story but it wasn't. If you look at the blurb, you're certainly expecting it, even knowing that yes, Taran is the main character of the series. I kept reminding myself that this was written in the mid 1960s so I shouldn't have been shocked that the only girl in the series is basically benched and waiting for rescue. (it's not wonder there was such a wave of self-rescuing princesses and why as a child I identified so hard with Princess Leia who played a large role in her own rescue).
Eilonwy is sent away from Caer Daerban and Taran to a small kingdom to learn how to be a young princess vs being brought up on a farm with an assistant pig keeper as a best friend. Eilonwy is upset by this, Taran is even more so to the point he and Gurgi go with her to the kingdom just so he can check it out and hope it's good enough for her. Once there things go from bad to worse when Taran catches wind of the fact the king and queen plan to marry her off to their hapless son, Prince Rhun who has never been challenged a day in his life and is utterly useless at most things (to his credit he's somewhat aware of this and wants to change it which is his arc in this thing)
Just as Taran runs into both Flam and Gwydion (who just so happen to be there, knowing something bad is about to go down), Eilonwy is kidnapped by the king's top man who is a servant of Archen who still wants her own power back and to rule all of Prydain. Naturally the men go off to rescue her and I'm actually okay with that part. I should want her friends to help.
What bugged me was we almost never see her again until the last quarter of the book (so for about half this short novel she's M.I.A.) and when we do, Archen has her bespelled and mindless. SIGH. Worse, Eilonwy is taken because she's of a powerful magical lineage and is on the cusp of womanhood and being able to access those powers. That's why Archen wants her. She has the potential to be more powerful than any of the men in this story (as does Archen).
So how are the only two women in the book treated? SPOILERS!!!
They are broken. Yes, you read that right, they are broken. To save everyone and herself, Eilonwy burns up all her magic (or some equivalent nonsense). Her magic is gone. She is crushed. She is not okay. The one thing she wanted to be an enchantress has been stripped from her forever (and I know how this feels when an injury robbed me of the ability to do the only job I ever truly wanted within a few years after achieving that goal). She is broken.
She heartbrokenly says "I'll only be just a girl,"
Prince Gwydion responds, "That is more than enough cause for pride." And yeah okay that's problem feminist and forward thinking for the freaking 60's but damn, yeah it is but she just had all her potential ripped from her for very little reason. There should have been another way to do this and it smacks of worry the girl might overshadow our male hero. Eye roll.
Worse, she's left with Prince Rhun's family (adamant she will chose who she marries and not some older man, we'll see how that turns out) because now she needs to be trained to be a lady even more than before because of the changes. Sure Taran (and Rhun) get their big growth moments, what was Eilonwy's? Not losing it after all that was done to her? Sigh.
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Hellboy, Vol. 1: Seed of Destruction by Mike Mignola
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Set in the 40s and (I think) the 90s, this looks at Hellboy's origins with a team of WWII allies race to stop a Rasputin-esque (Or potentially actually Rasputin now immortal) and his allies as they try to raise a demon to help bring Ragna Rok (sic) about (tapping straight into the Nazi's paranormal interests). This is how Hellboy ends up on earth.
Fast forward to the present day (again this was pubbed in the mid 90s) to a moment when Hellboy loses the man who raises him, sending Hellboy along with Abe and Liz to find out what is going on. The trail leads to a cursed house, a family obsessed with arctic exploration and an old enemy.
The story and the action were good but there were artistic choices in this that I didn't like. The heavy use of black shadowing made Mignola's art muddy. Also Hellboy himself is inconsistent, often having this huge torso on tiny legs that was unsettling (and other times he's still huge but his legs fit the body).
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Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is everything I'd want from a prequel to L&L. Viv is young here, fresh to adventuring and not fully engaging all her brain cells so ends up injured severely. She's left in Murk to recover which feels like death to an active (and humiliated) orc.
She uncovers a failing bookshop with two utterly endearing characters, Fern, a rattkin, and her pet, Potroast. There is also Pitts, the orc whose job is hauling things about and Maylee, the dwarf who owns the local bakery and a young gnome who wants to join Viv's adventuring company, so you have this wealth of great supporting characters.
Bored, Viv starts up conversations with Fern who is relatively rubbish at running her dad's bookstore which is dirty, smells and an utter mess. She is, however, excellent at picking books for people and picks one for a bemused Viv, starting them on the path to friendship. Viv does have a lot of business sense and manages to talk Fern into changes that will eventually save the shop, she hopes.
This very soft, mundane major plot line is set against the necromancer Viv and company had been tracking. She might have sent minions into Murk and after Viv specifically, putting her at odds with the town's head guard (another interesting character).
The funny thing is if I was presented a save this store (plus side romance) as a contemporary story I'd avoid it. Make them orcs, rattkins, dwarves and gnomes and I settle right on in. I find that weird but I'm not arguing. I think it's the characters more than the plot that drew me in. Viv and the rest are great characters that I care about. I loved this and the epilogue sets up a sequel for L&L as well that I hope we'll get.
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