Book-It 'o15! Book #2
The Fifty Books Challenge, year six! ( 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014) This was a library request.
Title: Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness
Details: Copyright 2012, Penguin Books
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap):
"Together we lifted our feet and stepped into the unknown
A Discovery of Witches introduced Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and reluctant witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont, two otherworldly being who found themselves at the center of a battle over a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, and in pursuit of Diana's spellbound powers, the two now embark upon a timewalking journey.
Book two of the All Souls trilogy plunges Diana and Matthew into Elizabethan London, a world of spies and subterfuge, and a coterie of Matthew's old friends, the mysterious School of Night. The mission is to locate a witch to tutor Diana and to find traces of Ashmole 782, but as the net o f Matthew's past tightens around them they embark on a very different journey, one that takes them to the heart of the fifteen-hundred year old vampire's shadowed history and secrets. For Matthew Clairmont, time travel is no simple matter; nor is Diana's search for the key to understanding her legacy.
In Shadow of Night, Harkness again weaves a rich and splendid tapestry of alchemy, magic, and history. The love story deepens as she takes us through the loop of time in a tale of blood, passion, and the knotted strands of the past to deliver one of the most hotly anticipated novels of the year."
Why I Wanted to Read It: You may remember that I stepped into this series and reviewed the first book here. I was aware it was a three-fairly-heavy-book-series, and took it in stride (as well as planned/reviewed accordingly) for the fact it's a trilogy.
How I Liked It: Nearly all of the issues of the first book (bloat/lack of an editor, telling not showing, misrepresentation, plot holes) are amplified in the second, which makes a truly dodgy turn in time traveling, as the main character (and her vampire plus one) hide out from the forces of evil in, of all places, Elizabethan England.
Time-travel generally works differently for each imagination, but this author's imagination is especially curious. You can time-jump to anywhere and not run into yourself somehow, and despite the fact it's over four hundred years into the past, you'll be able to pick up where you were in your life at the time with relatively little confusion (at least, if you're a vampire). The changes you make in the past do effect the future, but it turns out that maybe you were supposed to do it, in which case, you'd better do it, so that trope holds true. As this is not an era I'm particularly interested in, I can't vouch for much by way of historical accuracy, but I can wonder why exactly they thought it'd be a good idea to bring a female historian back to a time/place when women were still largely perceived as baby ovens and easy gates for the devil, and (w)itches were being persecuted en masse.
Pressing issues we had at the close of the first book find no resolution nor even furthering of their plot lines until at least a third of the way in. The author is clearly a fan of Elizabethan England, where she spends a lengthy amount of time establishing the setting and the fact the vampire main character is chums with just about anyone who's anyone there, including the Queen of England (who he actually calls "Lizzie"). The mixing of actual historical characters serves little to no purpose other than the writer's own enjoyment, sadly not the readers'. Most troubling is probably the fact the author casts Christopher "Kit" Marlowe as a demon who's also a viciously jealous, murdering queen (and thus far the only gay male depicted in the entire story), furious that his love/lust for Matthew is apparently unrequited and hating the main character in all her femaleness. Now's a great time to comment on what an excellent job the writer did in making just about every character, real or fictional, demon, human, or (w)itch, absolutely unlikeable and unrelatable. Even a starving urchin that tries to pick the main character's pocket is saved and presumably there to serve the purpose of imagining what Matthew will be like as father quickly runs to obnoxious, selfish, and annoying.
The book picks up considerably once it stops fawning over the author's insertion of her faves from the era needlessly into the story and calls back to actual plot she established when the main character runs into her own father, time-traveling from 1980 (he recognizes his daughter instantly, despite her being a toddler when he last saw her, but that's slightly more excusable given that he could read the future). FINALLY getting to the point of why exactly they were in Elizabethan England (to escape as well as learn about the main character's powers) and not playing "The-author-really-wanted-to-write-about-Elizabethan-England-so-here-is-an-interlude" mad libs, we find some footing, but it's dashed a bit by the lack of emotion (again, relatability) that such a reunion you think would inspire. You can't help but feel a little cheated when you come across such a fictional improbability that ISN'T used to further character insight/development.
Unlike the first book which is at least fast-paced, comparatively, I was counting the pages down, even after the main character's father appeared. It's just that bogged down and tedious, and apparently having exhausted her main characters' introductions in the first book, "tell not show" is all the more in effect (how many times do they both have to repeat that Diana is independent when she's actually... not very? Does insisting make it so and cover up for shoddy writing?). The book hits with a bombshell at the end just in place to make sure you'll slog through the next six hundred page book for resolution.
Notable: I discussed in the first review how the representation of Witchcraft and Paganism (and the Goddess) in the first book made me uncomfortable. In the second, it's somewhat distracted by the fact it largely takes place four hundred years in the past, but there's still an overwhelming feeling that the author is probably lapsed/casually Christian (Paganism/Wicca isn't discussed as a religion, you're a "creature" if you're a (w)itch and apparently Christianity is still the author's default, plot device visions of the Goddess aside) and they wanted to write a "supernatural" book series as "accurately" as possible, even if it means (as I pointed out before), that you're using a mentality (we aren't quite human) that got millions of people killed.
On a lesser scale, but still annoying is the relationship between Matthew's "son" Marcus (a grown man centuries old who appears to be in his twenties; vampires refer to the person who made them a vampire as their parent, as Matthew did to Marcus consensually some centuries ago) and auction coordinator Phoebe. We are set with vignettes in "the present day" meaning tracking how what the time-traveling characters were doing were having an effect on the present. We meet Phoebe when Marcus is on duty for his "grandmother" to hunt down miniature portraits of the two main characters painted in the 1500s. Marcus is an auction customer and Phoebe is a low-ranking associate sent to serve him, and he's pretty rude to Phoebe and violates a lot of her boundaries, and basically harasses her into a date with him. While we'd root for most women (or anyone to whom this was happening) to punch this entitled jackass in the face, instead it's seen as them "meeting cute" and the entry to their relationship. This is what's generally referred to as glorifying abusive behavior. The book has its cues from Twilight in the "emotionally unresponsive/dangerously possessive and unstable" vampire-partner, and there's only so much we can excuse of Matthew of the times to which they've traveled back (he has not-that-consensual sex with Diana more than once, which consent seemed only addressed as an afterthought by the author via a conversation between them after the fact, rather than actually rewriting the damn scenes). At best, this adds to the unlikability/unrelatability of the characters, at worst, it is, as I said, glorifying abusive behavior as "passionate". I think it's pretty fair to say it's a dangerous cross between the two.
Title: Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness
Details: Copyright 2012, Penguin Books
Synopsis (By Way of Front Flap):
"Together we lifted our feet and stepped into the unknown
A Discovery of Witches introduced Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and reluctant witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont, two otherworldly being who found themselves at the center of a battle over a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, and in pursuit of Diana's spellbound powers, the two now embark upon a timewalking journey.
Book two of the All Souls trilogy plunges Diana and Matthew into Elizabethan London, a world of spies and subterfuge, and a coterie of Matthew's old friends, the mysterious School of Night. The mission is to locate a witch to tutor Diana and to find traces of Ashmole 782, but as the net o f Matthew's past tightens around them they embark on a very different journey, one that takes them to the heart of the fifteen-hundred year old vampire's shadowed history and secrets. For Matthew Clairmont, time travel is no simple matter; nor is Diana's search for the key to understanding her legacy.
In Shadow of Night, Harkness again weaves a rich and splendid tapestry of alchemy, magic, and history. The love story deepens as she takes us through the loop of time in a tale of blood, passion, and the knotted strands of the past to deliver one of the most hotly anticipated novels of the year."
Why I Wanted to Read It: You may remember that I stepped into this series and reviewed the first book here. I was aware it was a three-fairly-heavy-book-series, and took it in stride (as well as planned/reviewed accordingly) for the fact it's a trilogy.
How I Liked It: Nearly all of the issues of the first book (bloat/lack of an editor, telling not showing, misrepresentation, plot holes) are amplified in the second, which makes a truly dodgy turn in time traveling, as the main character (and her vampire plus one) hide out from the forces of evil in, of all places, Elizabethan England.
Time-travel generally works differently for each imagination, but this author's imagination is especially curious. You can time-jump to anywhere and not run into yourself somehow, and despite the fact it's over four hundred years into the past, you'll be able to pick up where you were in your life at the time with relatively little confusion (at least, if you're a vampire). The changes you make in the past do effect the future, but it turns out that maybe you were supposed to do it, in which case, you'd better do it, so that trope holds true. As this is not an era I'm particularly interested in, I can't vouch for much by way of historical accuracy, but I can wonder why exactly they thought it'd be a good idea to bring a female historian back to a time/place when women were still largely perceived as baby ovens and easy gates for the devil, and (w)itches were being persecuted en masse.
Pressing issues we had at the close of the first book find no resolution nor even furthering of their plot lines until at least a third of the way in. The author is clearly a fan of Elizabethan England, where she spends a lengthy amount of time establishing the setting and the fact the vampire main character is chums with just about anyone who's anyone there, including the Queen of England (who he actually calls "Lizzie"). The mixing of actual historical characters serves little to no purpose other than the writer's own enjoyment, sadly not the readers'. Most troubling is probably the fact the author casts Christopher "Kit" Marlowe as a demon who's also a viciously jealous, murdering queen (and thus far the only gay male depicted in the entire story), furious that his love/lust for Matthew is apparently unrequited and hating the main character in all her femaleness. Now's a great time to comment on what an excellent job the writer did in making just about every character, real or fictional, demon, human, or (w)itch, absolutely unlikeable and unrelatable. Even a starving urchin that tries to pick the main character's pocket is saved and presumably there to serve the purpose of imagining what Matthew will be like as father quickly runs to obnoxious, selfish, and annoying.
The book picks up considerably once it stops fawning over the author's insertion of her faves from the era needlessly into the story and calls back to actual plot she established when the main character runs into her own father, time-traveling from 1980 (he recognizes his daughter instantly, despite her being a toddler when he last saw her, but that's slightly more excusable given that he could read the future). FINALLY getting to the point of why exactly they were in Elizabethan England (to escape as well as learn about the main character's powers) and not playing "The-author-really-wanted-to-write-about-Elizabethan-England-so-here-is-an-interlude" mad libs, we find some footing, but it's dashed a bit by the lack of emotion (again, relatability) that such a reunion you think would inspire. You can't help but feel a little cheated when you come across such a fictional improbability that ISN'T used to further character insight/development.
Unlike the first book which is at least fast-paced, comparatively, I was counting the pages down, even after the main character's father appeared. It's just that bogged down and tedious, and apparently having exhausted her main characters' introductions in the first book, "tell not show" is all the more in effect (how many times do they both have to repeat that Diana is independent when she's actually... not very? Does insisting make it so and cover up for shoddy writing?). The book hits with a bombshell at the end just in place to make sure you'll slog through the next six hundred page book for resolution.
Notable: I discussed in the first review how the representation of Witchcraft and Paganism (and the Goddess) in the first book made me uncomfortable. In the second, it's somewhat distracted by the fact it largely takes place four hundred years in the past, but there's still an overwhelming feeling that the author is probably lapsed/casually Christian (Paganism/Wicca isn't discussed as a religion, you're a "creature" if you're a (w)itch and apparently Christianity is still the author's default, plot device visions of the Goddess aside) and they wanted to write a "supernatural" book series as "accurately" as possible, even if it means (as I pointed out before), that you're using a mentality (we aren't quite human) that got millions of people killed.
On a lesser scale, but still annoying is the relationship between Matthew's "son" Marcus (a grown man centuries old who appears to be in his twenties; vampires refer to the person who made them a vampire as their parent, as Matthew did to Marcus consensually some centuries ago) and auction coordinator Phoebe. We are set with vignettes in "the present day" meaning tracking how what the time-traveling characters were doing were having an effect on the present. We meet Phoebe when Marcus is on duty for his "grandmother" to hunt down miniature portraits of the two main characters painted in the 1500s. Marcus is an auction customer and Phoebe is a low-ranking associate sent to serve him, and he's pretty rude to Phoebe and violates a lot of her boundaries, and basically harasses her into a date with him. While we'd root for most women (or anyone to whom this was happening) to punch this entitled jackass in the face, instead it's seen as them "meeting cute" and the entry to their relationship. This is what's generally referred to as glorifying abusive behavior. The book has its cues from Twilight in the "emotionally unresponsive/dangerously possessive and unstable" vampire-partner, and there's only so much we can excuse of Matthew of the times to which they've traveled back (he has not-that-consensual sex with Diana more than once, which consent seemed only addressed as an afterthought by the author via a conversation between them after the fact, rather than actually rewriting the damn scenes). At best, this adds to the unlikability/unrelatability of the characters, at worst, it is, as I said, glorifying abusive behavior as "passionate". I think it's pretty fair to say it's a dangerous cross between the two.