Reading roundup
49. Lynn Flewelling, The Oracle's Queen (Tamir Trilogy #3) -- I read the first two books of this a long time ago, before I started my LJ, but I remember really liking the first one -- it was the good kind of creepy. The second one must've been somewhat of a letdown (as middle books of trilogies often are), because I didn't bother tracking down the last book when it was published, or any of Flewelling's other stuff (until lunasariel lent me the Nightrunner books a little while ago). She also let me borrow the third Tamir book and I finally, finally got around to reading it. After the first couple of pages of Mahti (whose POV I never warmed up to really) I enjoyed it -- maybe not as much as Bone Doll's Twin, but I think more than all the other Flewelling books I've read, It feels like a decent conclusion to the trilogy, too.
I did find that, other than Tamir, Ki, and Arkoniel, and, very vaguely, Korin and Lhel, I could not remember who any of these people were; this is clearly not a book that can be read without the preceding two for context. I still don't care about the hillfolk and found Arkoniel boring (his main property seems to be that he's sad, which is not very interesting), but it's fortunate that Tamir and Ki were enough to carry the book on their own for me.
The things that I really liked about the first two books, the weird baby-life-and-gender switch, were still here. When I read the first book, I don't think I knew anything about transgender people, and now that I do, it was something that was in my mind a lot as I was reading about those aspects in the way that Ki relates to Tamir post transformation -- spoilers! the new awkwardness between them, that he misses his friend Tobin even while Tamir is right there, that he calls her by the wrong name sometimes. Tamir, of course, is not really transgender, not even in magical terms, because her "natural" girl form is one she is not used to but also one that she didn't really want -- she was happy enough being a boy. So there's the weirdness for her of the new body and having to deal with dresses and menstruation -- it's interesting stuff, and I like that it isn't as easy as just the breaking of the enchantment -- both Tamir and those who love her have to get used to the new normal, and that's hard. I thought Mahti playing away the last of the enchantment which was keeping things weird, as well as laying all of Tamir's ghosts to rest was too deus-ex-machin-y, but like I said, I don't really get the hillfolk, so maybe it's just that.
I guess it's not entirely true that I couldn't appreciate anything other than Tamir and Ki. Tamir's anguish at having to go against the cousin she loves still worked even though I couldn't recall what her and Korin's relationship had been like. And Caliel's loyalty to Korin still worked for me too, and the anguish of the Companions having to face each other in battle -- though i'm sure it would've worked even better if I could remember their prior relationship, who had been who's squire and so on. Nalia's could've been an interesting arc, but, is she in any of the previous books? I didn't remember her at all, but that's not saying much, as I mentioned above. As it was, I feel like introducing her at the last moment and being like "and all this was happening meanwhile in the background" wasn't very conducive to that. But I did like that it was she who killed the wizard, even though the actual scene of his death didn't work for me very well.
Also, I didn't have any background on Skala when I read the first two books, and I think everything with the oriskiri and Aurienfaie and prophecied queens just went over my head at that point. Having read the Nightrunner books now, I had context for all of that, but didn't feel like it added very much to the book. I mean, it was cute to see Seregil's relatives interacting with Tamir, but other than that I didn't get anything out of it. And the evil bowl is still really ridiculous.
bingo: I think I could count this for book from farthest shelf because I've been shamefully remiss in reading it in a timely manner. Sorry, lunasariel! :P
50. Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith, Hostage (The Change #2) -- as I suspected, this book worked much better for me than the first one. Spoilers!I found the cast of characters much easier to follow, partly because I was already used to the Las Anclas people from the first book, partly because two of the five POVs in this one are outsider POVs, so they provided more clues than citizens of Las Anclas thinking about each other (Ross was an outsider last time, but I think the "crowd" scenes were mostly from citizens' POVs, so that didn't help much). So, it was easier to remind myself who all these people were in Las Anclas through Kerry's POV and to be introduced to Gold Point through Ross's. The multi-POV thing was also much better justified this time around -- Ross is physically separated from the other Las Anclas kids for most of the book, Jennie goes on the scouting mission, Kerry has a truly different perspective from the rest of them. There were many fewer points than in the first book when I was thinking "why does this have to be from X's POV?"
The pacing is still a little odd, although in a different way (and a good way) -- now the action gets going right away, but there's a long trailing off after the climax, for a second book in a tetralogy. I liked all of the "closure" chapters a lot -- Yuki leaving the town was something I hadn't expected (I thought he and Paco would patch things up and he would continue to train with Ross) and his departure scene was poignant enough to almost make me tear up. I was surprised by Sean appearing -- I'd been expecting him to show up at some point, of course, but thought he'd first turn up as a POV in book 3 or something. Kerry's stated reasons for staying in Las Anclas after all didn't strike me as particularly plausible, but I also feel like they're not meant to be -- even if she won't admit it to herself, she likes the community and that's why she's staying, not because she's afraid she'll draw Voske to Sean otherwise. And I was very cuted out that the primary thing she felt was missing in her life at that point was a giant rat of her own :)
And Ross's closure with the trees growing out of Gold Point soldiers was well done, too, something positive to come out of his captivity and another step in mutual understanding. So, yeah, I liked all of those "trailing" chapters -- but seeing how much book was still left after the happy resolution of the crisis, I kept wondering if there would be an attack by Voske and a final battle -- which, if intentional, is actually a pretty neat trick, since that's what Kerry and some of the others are thinking, too.
There's also more to the plot than the "a stranger comes to town" + battle of the first book, and the themes are broader, beyond the prejudice against the Changed that seemed to be the main arc and the domestication of Ross being set up in book 1. The dilemma around the hostages -- Preston giving to order to kill Ross rather than leave him as a weapon/asset in Voske's hands, the town voting to try for the hostage exchange but abdicating any further responsibility to the council because they want plausible deniability, Kerry knowing that her father will leave her to be executed because he does not negotiate with the enemy -- I liked all those aspects, and I thought there was rather a lot of nuance in them for YA. Similarly, I liked that the trade-off between the necessity and personal cost of difficult decisions is never swept under the rug: Yuki apology to Paco, Ross's regret and guilt over what he did to Voske's soldiers during the battle, Jennie's parents' view of her making the call to take Kerry hostage (e.g. "Actually, I'm not sorry for what I did," Yuki admitted. "But I'm sorry it wrecked things between us." and Ross: "I'm not sorry for what I did. It was the only way to save the town. I guess I'm sorry I had to.").
I missed Felicite's POV, but Kerry's was a good addition. I did feel like she came around to the Las Anclas way of life a little suddenly, but I think that's likely a feature of the book being fairly short and the rotating POVs -- we don't spend that much time in Kerry's head. But the progression that we do get to see is well done, and I liked that her first thought on seeing Las Anclas is "Kerry's first sight of the walls of Las Anclas revealed at least three breaches of discipline that should have earned the slackers twenty lashes. [...] She'd been captured by a town of incompetents. How humiliating." I like that, finding herself a hostage, she first realizes the limitations of what Voske taught her, then the value of what her mother had been trying to teach her, and then finally gets in touch with her own more genuine desires -- critters and friends and being true to her word. The point at which I started actually liking Kerry was when Preston asked her if the spy she claimed to be in Las Anclas was Changed and Kerry hesitated confirming his bias because she didn't want to get a "random Changed person in town killed." Also, the way one of the very few items she brings with her when running away from home forever is her pillow endeared her to me further. Girl has her priorities straight. XD
Of the other POVs, I actually enjoyed Jennie's less this time around, but that's because Jennie is in a dark place after the battle, feeling responsible for Sera's death and reliving Ross and Indra almost dying "on her watch", too. I still like her as a character, though, that she's someone trustworthy and responsible who came close to breaking under the burden of too-early command, and I'm curious to see what she does next, now that she's banned from the Rangers. I also continued to like her relationship with Indra post-breakup. (Speaking of Indra, I was amused that Kerry couldn't find anything overtly wrong with him when searching for insulting mental nicknames for her captors.)
Mia's quest to be taken seriously in matters other than mechanics isn't really resonating for me; she comes across as fairly childish to me as a reader, too, but I'm curious to see where that leads. Also, I could really sympathize with Mia's frustration at the impreciseness of cooking instructions. I also thought it was an interesting detail that Mia keeps confusing right and left because she's ambidextrous. Oh, and Mia counting the reactions she and Kerry get around town: "It was an improvement over the first few days, which had averaged sixty percent dirty looks."
Yuki is still not doing much for me outside of his relationship with Paco and Kogatana (and I loved learning more about how he came by her and why they're such a great team), but his departure did affect me, as I said above, so maybe that will change once he's on his own out there. And Ross's POV I mainly enjoyed for the look at Gold Point, which was very different from Las Anclas and interesting in its own way. The three-way relationship between him, Mia, and Jennie still does not do a whole lot for me (besides the very refreshing approach to a love triangle being, for once, the poly solution, with no jealousy or misunderstandings or similar crap). But I did find it nice that Ross thought of Mia and not being able to share the epic explosion with her, except by describing it, when he was about to blow up the dam, and that he had read Deirdre's books during his captivity so that he could share the stories with Jennie -- it's lovely to see a relationship between teenagers have as a focus something other than simply finding each other hot/being unable to keep hands off each other.
The thing I liked about the worldbuilding around Gold Point is that it didn't do the thing a lot of YA dystopias do, making the evil system ridiculous and implausible. Voske is a charismatic leader, smart and careful and ruthless, and I can see how people would follow him out of loyalty as well as out of fear (actually it's kind of impressive that he managed to seize and hold onto power with only such a minor Change -- assuming it's just the silver hair and there isn't also something he's hiding). It makes sense that the current situation, with nobody being allowed to leave, is a fairly recent development, and also that the edges of the empire start to crumble at the first disruption, including people deserting Gold Point with their families. But at the same time, Gold Point *is* really prosperous, with impressive infrastructure, and the acceptance and celebration of the Changed, as opposed to the tension and prejudice in Las Anclas, are points in its favor. The scenes of Voske courting Ross with waffles and bacon and talking up Opportunity Day were nice and chilling, and Santiago's family's desperate-to-please hospitality and all his stories about his family doubly so. In general the looking-over-your-shoulder, do-what-the-royal-family-says-without-questioning, rushing-to-show-loyalty oppressive atmosphere of Gold Point was really well drawn -- and one thing I liked about how it was done is that I never felt like the people buying into the system were seen as cowardly or unworthy because of that; I didn't feel any of that taint -- it was all just people trying to survive as best they could, and Ross's POV respected that, which earned a lot of my respect, too). Voske's younger children and the dynamic with their mothers and with each other were really cute -- but with an undercurrent of the sick system that Gold Point is, a really nice balance, I thought. Also, I kept trying to figure out what Gold Point was supposed to be (i.e. the ruined city next to it). It's inland and there's enough water for a dam, and Joshua Trees... (ETA: According to Sherwood's website, it's Hemet, CA.)
Oh, and totally random note that started niggling at me as I was reading this one: so, there are animals in this post-ap world that have developed mutations that seem akin to some of the human Changes -- rabbits and gophers with the power of illusion, telekinetic squirrels. But that seems to be a species thing; presumably all members of the species have the abilities, and also they are the same abilities for the entire species? But some humans are Changed and some are Norms, and all of the Change powers are different, or at least there's an infinite variety of them. I could maybe see the difference in some vs all the population being changed as just being explained by shorter lives for the animals and thus more generations between whatever triggered the mutation and the present day -- presumably Change is an evolutionary advantage so the Changed critters come to dominate the population because of the faster breeding cycles. But what about the difference in Changes from individual to individual in the human population? Or is there a different mechanism at work there, some interaction with the higher brain functions?
Quotes:
Ross's POV: "Yuki was so cool and collected, easily accomplishing everything Ross struggled with, that being around him made Ross intensely conscious of all this own weaknesses. The last thing Ross wanted was to have yuki's critical gaze on him when he went to confront those crystal trees. || No, the last thing he wanted was for Mia to get hurt or killed because of his pride. || Ross laid his palm against Yuki's. "Deal. You're right, you should come."
Ross, thinking about the way Changed people are treated in Gold Point: "He shifted uncomfortably in the saddle, disliking the idea that anything could be good about Gold Point."
"Voske gave Ross another of those cool, deliberate smiles. Ross's skin crept at his next words. 'But next time, take some bread for the gophers. You should always keep your promises.'"
Kerry's POV: "Love could turn otherwise intelligent people into babbling nitwits, but Brisa had obviously been one to begin with."
Jennie's POV, around Day of the Dead: "Not a day goes by that I don't remember Sera [...] I wish there was a special day to forget."
"The deputy spoke up, startling all three. 'Nobody is throwing the prisoner a party.'"
Kerry's POV: "It was disconcerting to have her helpless prisoner taking over her plan, and proposing a much bigger and more dangerous one. But she was also reluctant to damage Gold Point."
"Kerry hated lemonade. She was about to shake her head when the mayor went on, 'Felicite? Remember, Clara is off duty.' Kerry thought of Mia crammed in that cell for two weeks, and said with her most polite smile, 'I would love a glass. Thank you so much.'"
"'Who told you Paco broke up with [Yuki]? Jennie demanded. Then she remembered Kerry's trick of mentioning something that might be relevant and letting other people's reactions tell her what she wanted to know. 'Right. I guess I just did. Don't pry into Yuki's life, okay? He hates that.'"
Kerry and Sean's conversation: "'The only people he beheaded were the hell cell guards.' Kerry spoke a beat ahead of Sean, quoting Father: 'If too many people bear responsibility to execute them all, select the ones who are the most expendable.' She'd told Ross no one would die, but she'd known that Father was bound to make an example of someone. Still, it could have been much worse. Those guards thought torture was a sport. Then Kerry remembered how she'd laughed along with them. Had she been the only one who had feigned cruelty to protect herself?"
Looking forward to the rest of the series now!
bingo: second book in a series, self-published book, book with more than 2 protagonists (still five), book with POC protagonists (still all of them, as Kerry is half Korean), book with queer protagonist (Yuki still)
51. Cassandra Claire, Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices #3) -- birthday present from aome, so I could finally finish TID. It was still hugely melodramatic, but I found that with Will's "curse" no longer in the picture, so one of the protagonists was not always doing pointlessly self-destructive things and the other two were no longer entrained in the angst of those self-destructive things, I enjoyed this book more. I also liked the addition of Cecily and Gabriel to the cast. I found the pacing belabored -- the book felt overly long in general (though some of that, I think, is that ~15% of the Kindle length was bonus material, afterwords and acknowledgements and sneak peeks and so on), and after the climax there follow about five different endings (like the joke they kept making at the Oscars when ROTK won). The difference between the multitude of RotK endings and what we have here, though, is that the endings here are just trailing bits, not stories in their own right like the Scouring of the Shire -- just people talking and reminiscing. But while I felt the pacing was way off, some of my favorite bits of the book actually came from these final sections MAJOR SPOILERS from here! -- Tessa looking back on her life with Will was actually one of the most interesting bits, and Will's passing, with Tessa and Jem keeping him company till the last and Jem playing the violin for him, was the most poignant bit of the book for me.
The ending... I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. On the one hand, it is a cop-out, of course, because all the angst about Jem having to give up his mortal ties forever turns out to (yet again) be superfluous angst. Even if it was foreshadowed rather anivliciously from the start. (Also, Tessa and Jem meeting on the bridge one day a year felt rather like a rip-off of Lyra and Will in HDM. I know Pullman did not invent that trope, but it did highlight how "have your cake and eat it too" the TID ending was compared to what had been set up as an unresolvable triangle.) On the other hand, it does feel a fitting conclusion to the love triangle that after a life of love with Will as her husband Tessa would get something similar with Jem, and it does feel like a bittersweet ending anyway because she knows that she will lose him, just like she lost Will. (BTW, the original trilogy was a long time ago for me and I have not read books 4+, so remind me -- what is the event that allows Jem to be freed from being a Silent Brother?)
The worldbuilding of the magic still strikes me as totally arbitrary. The whole thing with Tessa's ability to have children, her demon/unmarked Shadowhunter parentage, being able to shift into an angel, all that seemed pretty hand-wavey to me (but I don't read these books for the worldbuilding, admittedly). Also, I felt like a lot of minor things were not internally consistent -- people knew things they should not have known (how did the Consul know Charlotte's source in Wales was Will, when her letter only said it was someone she trusted?) or thought things I did not think would occur to them (Tessa thinking about the stones where Jessamine died when she had been stolen away by that point, Cecily thinking "the life of Jessamine Lovelace has taught me that" (having a choice in being a Shadowhunter is crucial) when she didn't actually know Jessamine at all, as Jessie died before Cecily had a chance to talk to her even once) -- just slopy POV stuff. Nothing major, but niggling things like that which threw me out of the story.
The rest is just random observations:
What is it with the conceit that Will is a better man than Sydney Carton? Like, what are we basing that on? while I'm talking about literary references that don't work for me, Tessa mentally comparing Will to Heathcliff (roaming the moors) at an ostensibly romantic moment? I cannot think of a bigger turnoff than Heathcliff, seriously. Actually, the literary allusions in general fell flat for me. They just felt so pretentious... I understand most of them are roughly period allusions, so along the lines of Peter Grant referencing Harry Potter and LotR, and I love that, but here it just feels unnatural, trying too hard.
The way everybody insists in blaming themselves for everybody else's problems is really over the top, but also something I've gotten used to with this series, so, whatever.
I do like the way Tessa and Will's relationship is driven and defined by words, and Tessa and Jem's relationship by music. (And the Chinese saying about understanding one's music being an idiom for a true bond was lovely.)
I liked the collaboration between Magnus and Henry on the Portal, and the way Magnus feels respect and admiration for Henry while most Shadowhunters dismiss him as a kook. Speaking of Henry, so he's like some kind of Shadowhunter Professor X now I guess?
Charlotte's awesomeness is too much Informed Ability for my taste. She's fine, as the chief adult authority figure for the kiddies, and she is kind and unimpressed by politics, but I'm not getting the kind of wisdom and loyalty that she supposedly possesses/inspires.
Also, leaving Will in charge of the London Institute? Why??? (other than because he needs to be in London for the sequel, apparently) I would've thought Gideon Lightwood would be a much better fit for the role, given his temperament and experience. And the Lightwoods are in disgrace, sure, but the Clave doesn't exactly trust Will, either, and it would be a way to give Gideon a chance to redeem the family name.
Jessamine was the first character in this trilogy I actually cared about, so I was NOT happy that she died pretty much before she'd had a chance to reappear. That was a bummer, even if her ghost is still hanging around the Institute and feeling happier about her duty to the Shadowhunters now. Also, the way Cecily keeps looking disconcertingly like Will to Gabriel at first was hilarious to me. I can now ship Will/Gabriel, too, on account of that XD
Will's toast at Cecily and Gabriel's wedding ("Dear God, I thought she was marrying Gideon. I take it all back.") was genuinely pretty funny, in a way a lot of his antics aren't to me. Gabriel and Cecily make a cute couple and I like their interaction, like the way she says "Five" after their first kiss, referencing exactly what he'd said to her after watching her training. And this later bit: "No one had seemed to have much appetite, save Gabriel and Cecily, who'd eaten as if they had spent the day training. Perhaps they had."
Speaking of the Lightwoods and their romances, I thought the stuff with Gideon and the scones was fairly cute, and especially Sophie being justifiably angry about all the make-work Gideon had put her to.
I definitely do not excuse Mortmain's plan to kill all Shadowhunters in revenge for his parents' death and general treatment of Downworlders, but Tessa's thoughts: "She could not say she did not understand his rage. And yet -- the thought of Jem, his parents dying in front of him, his own life destroyed, and yet he had never sought revenge." -- are really not applicable. Jem did not seek personal revenge, but, like, how is that a fair comparison at all? The demon that tortured his parents to death was hunted down and killed by other Shadowhunters, and it is in fact the JOB of Shadowhunters to hunt down all demons everywhere (in the real world), so Jem's revenge and duty/occupation actually coincide.
I found it fairly neat that when Mortmain summons his father via Tessa Changing into him, it's to ask for technical help, not for a touching reunion.
That's awfully convenient that the automatons are tied to Mortmain's life, so that they all cease to be a problem as soon as he is killed. I mean, it's cliche for a reason, because it's a quick and handy way of defeating vast armies with a single heroic action, but really felt like a copout here, after how big a deal had been made of the "infernal devices".
I boggled that it never occurred to Tessa that, rather than taking off the clockwork angel and trying to kill herself, what she should do is find a good moment to charge at Mortmain and try to kill him, with the angel's protection on her. I mean, knowing everything she knows about her usefulness to Mortmain and given her willingness to sacrifice herself, this seems like a really really obvious thing to do. Changing into the angel is obviously way more dramatic, but it seems like there were easier ways to at least consider/try before then.
It really bugged me that nobody attempted to test Henry's portal before using it. Just, like, you could teleport to a room on the other side of the house and at least see if it works, risking one person's life before committing everybody. That wouldn't take much time!
Some quotes:
Tessa: "You don't think I can fight. Because I'm a girl."
"I don't think you can fight because you're wearing a wedding dress," said Jem. "For what it's worth, I don't think Will could fight in that dress either."
"Perhaps not," said Will, who had ears like a bat's. "But I would make a radiant bride."
Magnus (to Henry): "Surely the Shadowhunter community must honor you and hold you in high esteem as a gentleman who has truly advanced their race."
"No," Henry said sadly. "mostly they wish that I would stop suggesting new inventions and cease setting fire to things."
Woolsey Scott: "Do you think I'm the sort of person who would ever be found in a place like this, consuming pig swill and drinking vinegar, knee deep in mud, watching some tedious Shadowhunter brat destroy even more of my already diminished pack, if it weren't for the fact that I serve a greater purpose than my own desires and sorrows?"
Sophie to Gideon: "But you haven't proposed. [...] You did announce to the whole breakfast table that you intended to marry me, but that is not a proposal. That is only a declaration. A proposal is when you ask me."
Tessa thinking about Will, after years of marriage: "As if her love had given him his own shape-shifting ability, no matter how much time had passed, when she looked at him, she saw always the wild, black-haired boy she had fallen in love with." (this is genuinely lovely.
The scene with the Carstairs uncle and Cortana the fabled sword looks to be there quite explicitly to provide a link to the forbidden parabatai het book. *sigh* (My book had an excerpt from same at the end, and I cannot say I'm particularly hooked or impressed....)
However, my book also includes a sneak peek at the "kids of TID characters" series (The Last Hours, apparently) with "The Midnight Heir", which I guess is one of the Magnus Bane stories, coauthored by CC and SRB? I actually really liked that one, though a lot of that is probably due to the Magnus POV (and some of it is almost certainly due to SRB's writing), so I'm not sure whether this is a good predictor for the series itself, probably not... (Also, OMG, seriously, Tessa and Will named their daughter Lucie? Drop the Tale of Two Cities obsession already, guys.)
A couple of quotes from that:
Magnus: "As educational and occasionally damp as this evening has been, I do not wish to intrude on a family reunion."
"Charmed," he [Magnus] said. "Or whatever effect would please you best, I'm sure."
Next up: The Raven Boys, apparently. ikel89 and I decided to give it a shot together after some hilarious and/or scathing reviews. It seems along the lines of
I did find that, other than Tamir, Ki, and Arkoniel, and, very vaguely, Korin and Lhel, I could not remember who any of these people were; this is clearly not a book that can be read without the preceding two for context. I still don't care about the hillfolk and found Arkoniel boring (his main property seems to be that he's sad, which is not very interesting), but it's fortunate that Tamir and Ki were enough to carry the book on their own for me.
The things that I really liked about the first two books, the weird baby-life-and-gender switch, were still here. When I read the first book, I don't think I knew anything about transgender people, and now that I do, it was something that was in my mind a lot as I was reading about those aspects in the way that Ki relates to Tamir post transformation -- spoilers! the new awkwardness between them, that he misses his friend Tobin even while Tamir is right there, that he calls her by the wrong name sometimes. Tamir, of course, is not really transgender, not even in magical terms, because her "natural" girl form is one she is not used to but also one that she didn't really want -- she was happy enough being a boy. So there's the weirdness for her of the new body and having to deal with dresses and menstruation -- it's interesting stuff, and I like that it isn't as easy as just the breaking of the enchantment -- both Tamir and those who love her have to get used to the new normal, and that's hard. I thought Mahti playing away the last of the enchantment which was keeping things weird, as well as laying all of Tamir's ghosts to rest was too deus-ex-machin-y, but like I said, I don't really get the hillfolk, so maybe it's just that.
I guess it's not entirely true that I couldn't appreciate anything other than Tamir and Ki. Tamir's anguish at having to go against the cousin she loves still worked even though I couldn't recall what her and Korin's relationship had been like. And Caliel's loyalty to Korin still worked for me too, and the anguish of the Companions having to face each other in battle -- though i'm sure it would've worked even better if I could remember their prior relationship, who had been who's squire and so on. Nalia's could've been an interesting arc, but, is she in any of the previous books? I didn't remember her at all, but that's not saying much, as I mentioned above. As it was, I feel like introducing her at the last moment and being like "and all this was happening meanwhile in the background" wasn't very conducive to that. But I did like that it was she who killed the wizard, even though the actual scene of his death didn't work for me very well.
Also, I didn't have any background on Skala when I read the first two books, and I think everything with the oriskiri and Aurienfaie and prophecied queens just went over my head at that point. Having read the Nightrunner books now, I had context for all of that, but didn't feel like it added very much to the book. I mean, it was cute to see Seregil's relatives interacting with Tamir, but other than that I didn't get anything out of it. And the evil bowl is still really ridiculous.
bingo: I think I could count this for book from farthest shelf because I've been shamefully remiss in reading it in a timely manner. Sorry, lunasariel! :P
50. Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith, Hostage (The Change #2) -- as I suspected, this book worked much better for me than the first one. Spoilers!I found the cast of characters much easier to follow, partly because I was already used to the Las Anclas people from the first book, partly because two of the five POVs in this one are outsider POVs, so they provided more clues than citizens of Las Anclas thinking about each other (Ross was an outsider last time, but I think the "crowd" scenes were mostly from citizens' POVs, so that didn't help much). So, it was easier to remind myself who all these people were in Las Anclas through Kerry's POV and to be introduced to Gold Point through Ross's. The multi-POV thing was also much better justified this time around -- Ross is physically separated from the other Las Anclas kids for most of the book, Jennie goes on the scouting mission, Kerry has a truly different perspective from the rest of them. There were many fewer points than in the first book when I was thinking "why does this have to be from X's POV?"
The pacing is still a little odd, although in a different way (and a good way) -- now the action gets going right away, but there's a long trailing off after the climax, for a second book in a tetralogy. I liked all of the "closure" chapters a lot -- Yuki leaving the town was something I hadn't expected (I thought he and Paco would patch things up and he would continue to train with Ross) and his departure scene was poignant enough to almost make me tear up. I was surprised by Sean appearing -- I'd been expecting him to show up at some point, of course, but thought he'd first turn up as a POV in book 3 or something. Kerry's stated reasons for staying in Las Anclas after all didn't strike me as particularly plausible, but I also feel like they're not meant to be -- even if she won't admit it to herself, she likes the community and that's why she's staying, not because she's afraid she'll draw Voske to Sean otherwise. And I was very cuted out that the primary thing she felt was missing in her life at that point was a giant rat of her own :)
And Ross's closure with the trees growing out of Gold Point soldiers was well done, too, something positive to come out of his captivity and another step in mutual understanding. So, yeah, I liked all of those "trailing" chapters -- but seeing how much book was still left after the happy resolution of the crisis, I kept wondering if there would be an attack by Voske and a final battle -- which, if intentional, is actually a pretty neat trick, since that's what Kerry and some of the others are thinking, too.
There's also more to the plot than the "a stranger comes to town" + battle of the first book, and the themes are broader, beyond the prejudice against the Changed that seemed to be the main arc and the domestication of Ross being set up in book 1. The dilemma around the hostages -- Preston giving to order to kill Ross rather than leave him as a weapon/asset in Voske's hands, the town voting to try for the hostage exchange but abdicating any further responsibility to the council because they want plausible deniability, Kerry knowing that her father will leave her to be executed because he does not negotiate with the enemy -- I liked all those aspects, and I thought there was rather a lot of nuance in them for YA. Similarly, I liked that the trade-off between the necessity and personal cost of difficult decisions is never swept under the rug: Yuki apology to Paco, Ross's regret and guilt over what he did to Voske's soldiers during the battle, Jennie's parents' view of her making the call to take Kerry hostage (e.g. "Actually, I'm not sorry for what I did," Yuki admitted. "But I'm sorry it wrecked things between us." and Ross: "I'm not sorry for what I did. It was the only way to save the town. I guess I'm sorry I had to.").
I missed Felicite's POV, but Kerry's was a good addition. I did feel like she came around to the Las Anclas way of life a little suddenly, but I think that's likely a feature of the book being fairly short and the rotating POVs -- we don't spend that much time in Kerry's head. But the progression that we do get to see is well done, and I liked that her first thought on seeing Las Anclas is "Kerry's first sight of the walls of Las Anclas revealed at least three breaches of discipline that should have earned the slackers twenty lashes. [...] She'd been captured by a town of incompetents. How humiliating." I like that, finding herself a hostage, she first realizes the limitations of what Voske taught her, then the value of what her mother had been trying to teach her, and then finally gets in touch with her own more genuine desires -- critters and friends and being true to her word. The point at which I started actually liking Kerry was when Preston asked her if the spy she claimed to be in Las Anclas was Changed and Kerry hesitated confirming his bias because she didn't want to get a "random Changed person in town killed." Also, the way one of the very few items she brings with her when running away from home forever is her pillow endeared her to me further. Girl has her priorities straight. XD
Of the other POVs, I actually enjoyed Jennie's less this time around, but that's because Jennie is in a dark place after the battle, feeling responsible for Sera's death and reliving Ross and Indra almost dying "on her watch", too. I still like her as a character, though, that she's someone trustworthy and responsible who came close to breaking under the burden of too-early command, and I'm curious to see what she does next, now that she's banned from the Rangers. I also continued to like her relationship with Indra post-breakup. (Speaking of Indra, I was amused that Kerry couldn't find anything overtly wrong with him when searching for insulting mental nicknames for her captors.)
Mia's quest to be taken seriously in matters other than mechanics isn't really resonating for me; she comes across as fairly childish to me as a reader, too, but I'm curious to see where that leads. Also, I could really sympathize with Mia's frustration at the impreciseness of cooking instructions. I also thought it was an interesting detail that Mia keeps confusing right and left because she's ambidextrous. Oh, and Mia counting the reactions she and Kerry get around town: "It was an improvement over the first few days, which had averaged sixty percent dirty looks."
Yuki is still not doing much for me outside of his relationship with Paco and Kogatana (and I loved learning more about how he came by her and why they're such a great team), but his departure did affect me, as I said above, so maybe that will change once he's on his own out there. And Ross's POV I mainly enjoyed for the look at Gold Point, which was very different from Las Anclas and interesting in its own way. The three-way relationship between him, Mia, and Jennie still does not do a whole lot for me (besides the very refreshing approach to a love triangle being, for once, the poly solution, with no jealousy or misunderstandings or similar crap). But I did find it nice that Ross thought of Mia and not being able to share the epic explosion with her, except by describing it, when he was about to blow up the dam, and that he had read Deirdre's books during his captivity so that he could share the stories with Jennie -- it's lovely to see a relationship between teenagers have as a focus something other than simply finding each other hot/being unable to keep hands off each other.
The thing I liked about the worldbuilding around Gold Point is that it didn't do the thing a lot of YA dystopias do, making the evil system ridiculous and implausible. Voske is a charismatic leader, smart and careful and ruthless, and I can see how people would follow him out of loyalty as well as out of fear (actually it's kind of impressive that he managed to seize and hold onto power with only such a minor Change -- assuming it's just the silver hair and there isn't also something he's hiding). It makes sense that the current situation, with nobody being allowed to leave, is a fairly recent development, and also that the edges of the empire start to crumble at the first disruption, including people deserting Gold Point with their families. But at the same time, Gold Point *is* really prosperous, with impressive infrastructure, and the acceptance and celebration of the Changed, as opposed to the tension and prejudice in Las Anclas, are points in its favor. The scenes of Voske courting Ross with waffles and bacon and talking up Opportunity Day were nice and chilling, and Santiago's family's desperate-to-please hospitality and all his stories about his family doubly so. In general the looking-over-your-shoulder, do-what-the-royal-family-says-without-questioning, rushing-to-show-loyalty oppressive atmosphere of Gold Point was really well drawn -- and one thing I liked about how it was done is that I never felt like the people buying into the system were seen as cowardly or unworthy because of that; I didn't feel any of that taint -- it was all just people trying to survive as best they could, and Ross's POV respected that, which earned a lot of my respect, too). Voske's younger children and the dynamic with their mothers and with each other were really cute -- but with an undercurrent of the sick system that Gold Point is, a really nice balance, I thought. Also, I kept trying to figure out what Gold Point was supposed to be (i.e. the ruined city next to it). It's inland and there's enough water for a dam, and Joshua Trees... (ETA: According to Sherwood's website, it's Hemet, CA.)
Oh, and totally random note that started niggling at me as I was reading this one: so, there are animals in this post-ap world that have developed mutations that seem akin to some of the human Changes -- rabbits and gophers with the power of illusion, telekinetic squirrels. But that seems to be a species thing; presumably all members of the species have the abilities, and also they are the same abilities for the entire species? But some humans are Changed and some are Norms, and all of the Change powers are different, or at least there's an infinite variety of them. I could maybe see the difference in some vs all the population being changed as just being explained by shorter lives for the animals and thus more generations between whatever triggered the mutation and the present day -- presumably Change is an evolutionary advantage so the Changed critters come to dominate the population because of the faster breeding cycles. But what about the difference in Changes from individual to individual in the human population? Or is there a different mechanism at work there, some interaction with the higher brain functions?
Quotes:
Ross's POV: "Yuki was so cool and collected, easily accomplishing everything Ross struggled with, that being around him made Ross intensely conscious of all this own weaknesses. The last thing Ross wanted was to have yuki's critical gaze on him when he went to confront those crystal trees. || No, the last thing he wanted was for Mia to get hurt or killed because of his pride. || Ross laid his palm against Yuki's. "Deal. You're right, you should come."
Ross, thinking about the way Changed people are treated in Gold Point: "He shifted uncomfortably in the saddle, disliking the idea that anything could be good about Gold Point."
"Voske gave Ross another of those cool, deliberate smiles. Ross's skin crept at his next words. 'But next time, take some bread for the gophers. You should always keep your promises.'"
Kerry's POV: "Love could turn otherwise intelligent people into babbling nitwits, but Brisa had obviously been one to begin with."
Jennie's POV, around Day of the Dead: "Not a day goes by that I don't remember Sera [...] I wish there was a special day to forget."
"The deputy spoke up, startling all three. 'Nobody is throwing the prisoner a party.'"
Kerry's POV: "It was disconcerting to have her helpless prisoner taking over her plan, and proposing a much bigger and more dangerous one. But she was also reluctant to damage Gold Point."
"Kerry hated lemonade. She was about to shake her head when the mayor went on, 'Felicite? Remember, Clara is off duty.' Kerry thought of Mia crammed in that cell for two weeks, and said with her most polite smile, 'I would love a glass. Thank you so much.'"
"'Who told you Paco broke up with [Yuki]? Jennie demanded. Then she remembered Kerry's trick of mentioning something that might be relevant and letting other people's reactions tell her what she wanted to know. 'Right. I guess I just did. Don't pry into Yuki's life, okay? He hates that.'"
Kerry and Sean's conversation: "'The only people he beheaded were the hell cell guards.' Kerry spoke a beat ahead of Sean, quoting Father: 'If too many people bear responsibility to execute them all, select the ones who are the most expendable.' She'd told Ross no one would die, but she'd known that Father was bound to make an example of someone. Still, it could have been much worse. Those guards thought torture was a sport. Then Kerry remembered how she'd laughed along with them. Had she been the only one who had feigned cruelty to protect herself?"
Looking forward to the rest of the series now!
bingo: second book in a series, self-published book, book with more than 2 protagonists (still five), book with POC protagonists (still all of them, as Kerry is half Korean), book with queer protagonist (Yuki still)
51. Cassandra Claire, Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices #3) -- birthday present from aome, so I could finally finish TID. It was still hugely melodramatic, but I found that with Will's "curse" no longer in the picture, so one of the protagonists was not always doing pointlessly self-destructive things and the other two were no longer entrained in the angst of those self-destructive things, I enjoyed this book more. I also liked the addition of Cecily and Gabriel to the cast. I found the pacing belabored -- the book felt overly long in general (though some of that, I think, is that ~15% of the Kindle length was bonus material, afterwords and acknowledgements and sneak peeks and so on), and after the climax there follow about five different endings (like the joke they kept making at the Oscars when ROTK won). The difference between the multitude of RotK endings and what we have here, though, is that the endings here are just trailing bits, not stories in their own right like the Scouring of the Shire -- just people talking and reminiscing. But while I felt the pacing was way off, some of my favorite bits of the book actually came from these final sections MAJOR SPOILERS from here! -- Tessa looking back on her life with Will was actually one of the most interesting bits, and Will's passing, with Tessa and Jem keeping him company till the last and Jem playing the violin for him, was the most poignant bit of the book for me.
The ending... I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. On the one hand, it is a cop-out, of course, because all the angst about Jem having to give up his mortal ties forever turns out to (yet again) be superfluous angst. Even if it was foreshadowed rather anivliciously from the start. (Also, Tessa and Jem meeting on the bridge one day a year felt rather like a rip-off of Lyra and Will in HDM. I know Pullman did not invent that trope, but it did highlight how "have your cake and eat it too" the TID ending was compared to what had been set up as an unresolvable triangle.) On the other hand, it does feel a fitting conclusion to the love triangle that after a life of love with Will as her husband Tessa would get something similar with Jem, and it does feel like a bittersweet ending anyway because she knows that she will lose him, just like she lost Will. (BTW, the original trilogy was a long time ago for me and I have not read books 4+, so remind me -- what is the event that allows Jem to be freed from being a Silent Brother?)
The worldbuilding of the magic still strikes me as totally arbitrary. The whole thing with Tessa's ability to have children, her demon/unmarked Shadowhunter parentage, being able to shift into an angel, all that seemed pretty hand-wavey to me (but I don't read these books for the worldbuilding, admittedly). Also, I felt like a lot of minor things were not internally consistent -- people knew things they should not have known (how did the Consul know Charlotte's source in Wales was Will, when her letter only said it was someone she trusted?) or thought things I did not think would occur to them (Tessa thinking about the stones where Jessamine died when she had been stolen away by that point, Cecily thinking "the life of Jessamine Lovelace has taught me that" (having a choice in being a Shadowhunter is crucial) when she didn't actually know Jessamine at all, as Jessie died before Cecily had a chance to talk to her even once) -- just slopy POV stuff. Nothing major, but niggling things like that which threw me out of the story.
The rest is just random observations:
What is it with the conceit that Will is a better man than Sydney Carton? Like, what are we basing that on? while I'm talking about literary references that don't work for me, Tessa mentally comparing Will to Heathcliff (roaming the moors) at an ostensibly romantic moment? I cannot think of a bigger turnoff than Heathcliff, seriously. Actually, the literary allusions in general fell flat for me. They just felt so pretentious... I understand most of them are roughly period allusions, so along the lines of Peter Grant referencing Harry Potter and LotR, and I love that, but here it just feels unnatural, trying too hard.
The way everybody insists in blaming themselves for everybody else's problems is really over the top, but also something I've gotten used to with this series, so, whatever.
I do like the way Tessa and Will's relationship is driven and defined by words, and Tessa and Jem's relationship by music. (And the Chinese saying about understanding one's music being an idiom for a true bond was lovely.)
I liked the collaboration between Magnus and Henry on the Portal, and the way Magnus feels respect and admiration for Henry while most Shadowhunters dismiss him as a kook. Speaking of Henry, so he's like some kind of Shadowhunter Professor X now I guess?
Charlotte's awesomeness is too much Informed Ability for my taste. She's fine, as the chief adult authority figure for the kiddies, and she is kind and unimpressed by politics, but I'm not getting the kind of wisdom and loyalty that she supposedly possesses/inspires.
Also, leaving Will in charge of the London Institute? Why??? (other than because he needs to be in London for the sequel, apparently) I would've thought Gideon Lightwood would be a much better fit for the role, given his temperament and experience. And the Lightwoods are in disgrace, sure, but the Clave doesn't exactly trust Will, either, and it would be a way to give Gideon a chance to redeem the family name.
Jessamine was the first character in this trilogy I actually cared about, so I was NOT happy that she died pretty much before she'd had a chance to reappear. That was a bummer, even if her ghost is still hanging around the Institute and feeling happier about her duty to the Shadowhunters now. Also, the way Cecily keeps looking disconcertingly like Will to Gabriel at first was hilarious to me. I can now ship Will/Gabriel, too, on account of that XD
Will's toast at Cecily and Gabriel's wedding ("Dear God, I thought she was marrying Gideon. I take it all back.") was genuinely pretty funny, in a way a lot of his antics aren't to me. Gabriel and Cecily make a cute couple and I like their interaction, like the way she says "Five" after their first kiss, referencing exactly what he'd said to her after watching her training. And this later bit: "No one had seemed to have much appetite, save Gabriel and Cecily, who'd eaten as if they had spent the day training. Perhaps they had."
Speaking of the Lightwoods and their romances, I thought the stuff with Gideon and the scones was fairly cute, and especially Sophie being justifiably angry about all the make-work Gideon had put her to.
I definitely do not excuse Mortmain's plan to kill all Shadowhunters in revenge for his parents' death and general treatment of Downworlders, but Tessa's thoughts: "She could not say she did not understand his rage. And yet -- the thought of Jem, his parents dying in front of him, his own life destroyed, and yet he had never sought revenge." -- are really not applicable. Jem did not seek personal revenge, but, like, how is that a fair comparison at all? The demon that tortured his parents to death was hunted down and killed by other Shadowhunters, and it is in fact the JOB of Shadowhunters to hunt down all demons everywhere (in the real world), so Jem's revenge and duty/occupation actually coincide.
I found it fairly neat that when Mortmain summons his father via Tessa Changing into him, it's to ask for technical help, not for a touching reunion.
That's awfully convenient that the automatons are tied to Mortmain's life, so that they all cease to be a problem as soon as he is killed. I mean, it's cliche for a reason, because it's a quick and handy way of defeating vast armies with a single heroic action, but really felt like a copout here, after how big a deal had been made of the "infernal devices".
I boggled that it never occurred to Tessa that, rather than taking off the clockwork angel and trying to kill herself, what she should do is find a good moment to charge at Mortmain and try to kill him, with the angel's protection on her. I mean, knowing everything she knows about her usefulness to Mortmain and given her willingness to sacrifice herself, this seems like a really really obvious thing to do. Changing into the angel is obviously way more dramatic, but it seems like there were easier ways to at least consider/try before then.
It really bugged me that nobody attempted to test Henry's portal before using it. Just, like, you could teleport to a room on the other side of the house and at least see if it works, risking one person's life before committing everybody. That wouldn't take much time!
Some quotes:
Tessa: "You don't think I can fight. Because I'm a girl."
"I don't think you can fight because you're wearing a wedding dress," said Jem. "For what it's worth, I don't think Will could fight in that dress either."
"Perhaps not," said Will, who had ears like a bat's. "But I would make a radiant bride."
Magnus (to Henry): "Surely the Shadowhunter community must honor you and hold you in high esteem as a gentleman who has truly advanced their race."
"No," Henry said sadly. "mostly they wish that I would stop suggesting new inventions and cease setting fire to things."
Woolsey Scott: "Do you think I'm the sort of person who would ever be found in a place like this, consuming pig swill and drinking vinegar, knee deep in mud, watching some tedious Shadowhunter brat destroy even more of my already diminished pack, if it weren't for the fact that I serve a greater purpose than my own desires and sorrows?"
Sophie to Gideon: "But you haven't proposed. [...] You did announce to the whole breakfast table that you intended to marry me, but that is not a proposal. That is only a declaration. A proposal is when you ask me."
Tessa thinking about Will, after years of marriage: "As if her love had given him his own shape-shifting ability, no matter how much time had passed, when she looked at him, she saw always the wild, black-haired boy she had fallen in love with." (this is genuinely lovely.
The scene with the Carstairs uncle and Cortana the fabled sword looks to be there quite explicitly to provide a link to the forbidden parabatai het book. *sigh* (My book had an excerpt from same at the end, and I cannot say I'm particularly hooked or impressed....)
However, my book also includes a sneak peek at the "kids of TID characters" series (The Last Hours, apparently) with "The Midnight Heir", which I guess is one of the Magnus Bane stories, coauthored by CC and SRB? I actually really liked that one, though a lot of that is probably due to the Magnus POV (and some of it is almost certainly due to SRB's writing), so I'm not sure whether this is a good predictor for the series itself, probably not... (Also, OMG, seriously, Tessa and Will named their daughter Lucie? Drop the Tale of Two Cities obsession already, guys.)
A couple of quotes from that:
Magnus: "As educational and occasionally damp as this evening has been, I do not wish to intrude on a family reunion."
"Charmed," he [Magnus] said. "Or whatever effect would please you best, I'm sure."
Next up: The Raven Boys, apparently. ikel89 and I decided to give it a shot together after some hilarious and/or scathing reviews. It seems along the lines of