Firebird by Mercedes Lackey
Series: Fairy Tales
Publisher: Tor, 1996
Genre: Fantasy
Sub-genre: Fairy tale
Rating: 3 pints of blood
I love the colours and composition of the cover art. The green/gold of the background contrasts with the red/gold of the Firebird, and I like that she overlaps the border edges, as though she's stepping right out of the book. I probably get extra geek points for admitting this, but I really like the font chosen for the title, too. It feels appropriate somehow. I'm much less certain about the anatomy of the Firebird, though. Her legs are twisted one way, her torso in the opposite direction, and she seems to be balanced on her toes. I mean, she's not entirely human, so I suppose it's possible the artist is hinting at physiological differences, but it still looks awkward and contrived to my human eyes. The feathers are beautiful, though.
I've mentioned before that I'm a bit of a dance junkie, and being familiar with the ballet Firebird, based on the Russian fairy tales, I was gleeful about a novel based on the same. And, uh, that's pretty much the story of how I wound up with this book.
Prince Ilya, middle and least favoured son of the minor tzar Ivan, has been different from his brothers for as long as he can remember. He wants no part in the scheming or aggressiveness of his family, and has no ambition for his father's throne. Ilya is content with being left to his leisure, but the suspicious nature of his father and brothers ensures he's constantly being bullied by family members certain that his desire to be left to himself indicates scheming on his part.
When the late-blooming cherries from Tzar Ivan's prized trees begin disappearing, the tzar is filled with rage and demands the thief be caught. When attempt after attempt fails, he becomes desperate enough to promise that whichever of his sons can catch the thief will be his heir. More intrigued by the mystery than by the promise of a throne, Ilya discovers the thief is a legendary Firebird. Instead of catching her, he protects her from his father, and in gratitude the Firebird gives him a gift that starts him on the path to great adventures throughout Russia.
Lackey has done a lot of reading on Firebirds and the stories surrounding them, and I love that she chose to keep the setting in Russia rather than move them to fairytaleland. The problem with basing a story on the Firebird fairy tales, though, is that unlike Cinderella or Rumplestiltskin, there are several different tales featuring the Firebird. Lackey has tried to include as many of them as she could, which results in a meandering and disjointed story rather than something cohesive that comes together in a natural climax. Ilya himself doesn't have any concrete goals until the last act, someone who floats through life without much in the way of ambition. The story is something that happens to him, not something he actively participates in, which makes him difficult to root for or relate to. At times he feels more like a plot device or a prop than a character, since he has no motivations of his own and just sort of goes where the story puts him.
Fortunately, some of the secondary characters are more interesting to visit with, and a few of them I liked very much. I ran into a bit of frustration here, though, because of the way the story drifts from one thing to another. Firebird makes a habit of introducing something or someone interesting, the beginnings of a subplot, and then dropping it without warning. It does imply that the world keeps moving on when Ilya isn't there to watch it, but it also robs the reader of seeing any sort of resolution for these secondary characters and the issues facing them.
I also have mixed feelings about the ending of the book. Without producing spoilers, I'll say that part of me really appreciates the twist on the fairy tale ending, the attempt to do something unconventional with it, but that ultimately it didn't quite work for me. The ending was too rushed for the twist involved, and I was left thinking "uh, what?" instead of "oooh, how fun and different!" I love to see the conventional fairy tale tropes given a good crank, but the build-up to set the pieces in place for this one was almost completely lacking, which made the ending far less satisfying than a more typical ever after would have done.
In the end, I think Lackey did a number of very interesting things with Firebird that I can appreciate on an intellectual level when I sit back to look at them, but most of them didn't work for me on a storytelling level.
Firebird is available in trade paperback
.
Publisher: Tor, 1996
Genre: Fantasy
Sub-genre: Fairy tale
Rating: 3 pints of blood
I love the colours and composition of the cover art. The green/gold of the background contrasts with the red/gold of the Firebird, and I like that she overlaps the border edges, as though she's stepping right out of the book. I probably get extra geek points for admitting this, but I really like the font chosen for the title, too. It feels appropriate somehow. I'm much less certain about the anatomy of the Firebird, though. Her legs are twisted one way, her torso in the opposite direction, and she seems to be balanced on her toes. I mean, she's not entirely human, so I suppose it's possible the artist is hinting at physiological differences, but it still looks awkward and contrived to my human eyes. The feathers are beautiful, though.
I've mentioned before that I'm a bit of a dance junkie, and being familiar with the ballet Firebird, based on the Russian fairy tales, I was gleeful about a novel based on the same. And, uh, that's pretty much the story of how I wound up with this book.
Prince Ilya, middle and least favoured son of the minor tzar Ivan, has been different from his brothers for as long as he can remember. He wants no part in the scheming or aggressiveness of his family, and has no ambition for his father's throne. Ilya is content with being left to his leisure, but the suspicious nature of his father and brothers ensures he's constantly being bullied by family members certain that his desire to be left to himself indicates scheming on his part.
When the late-blooming cherries from Tzar Ivan's prized trees begin disappearing, the tzar is filled with rage and demands the thief be caught. When attempt after attempt fails, he becomes desperate enough to promise that whichever of his sons can catch the thief will be his heir. More intrigued by the mystery than by the promise of a throne, Ilya discovers the thief is a legendary Firebird. Instead of catching her, he protects her from his father, and in gratitude the Firebird gives him a gift that starts him on the path to great adventures throughout Russia.
Lackey has done a lot of reading on Firebirds and the stories surrounding them, and I love that she chose to keep the setting in Russia rather than move them to fairytaleland. The problem with basing a story on the Firebird fairy tales, though, is that unlike Cinderella or Rumplestiltskin, there are several different tales featuring the Firebird. Lackey has tried to include as many of them as she could, which results in a meandering and disjointed story rather than something cohesive that comes together in a natural climax. Ilya himself doesn't have any concrete goals until the last act, someone who floats through life without much in the way of ambition. The story is something that happens to him, not something he actively participates in, which makes him difficult to root for or relate to. At times he feels more like a plot device or a prop than a character, since he has no motivations of his own and just sort of goes where the story puts him.
Fortunately, some of the secondary characters are more interesting to visit with, and a few of them I liked very much. I ran into a bit of frustration here, though, because of the way the story drifts from one thing to another. Firebird makes a habit of introducing something or someone interesting, the beginnings of a subplot, and then dropping it without warning. It does imply that the world keeps moving on when Ilya isn't there to watch it, but it also robs the reader of seeing any sort of resolution for these secondary characters and the issues facing them.
I also have mixed feelings about the ending of the book. Without producing spoilers, I'll say that part of me really appreciates the twist on the fairy tale ending, the attempt to do something unconventional with it, but that ultimately it didn't quite work for me. The ending was too rushed for the twist involved, and I was left thinking "uh, what?" instead of "oooh, how fun and different!" I love to see the conventional fairy tale tropes given a good crank, but the build-up to set the pieces in place for this one was almost completely lacking, which made the ending far less satisfying than a more typical ever after would have done.
In the end, I think Lackey did a number of very interesting things with Firebird that I can appreciate on an intellectual level when I sit back to look at them, but most of them didn't work for me on a storytelling level.
Firebird is available in trade paperback
.