Blood & Iron Review
I finally worked my way through Elizabeth Bear's Blood & Iron. Initially, I was a little reluctant because the typesetting, particularly the italics, gave me the impression Bear was aiming at more of a YA audience. However, once I got a few chapters in, she leveled out and provided a reasonably smooth flight.
My critique comes in two areas. First, like almost every other fantasy that focuses on fairies, she gets it wrong. The fairies aren't at war with humans. The fairies are waiting to see how close to completely destroying the ecosphere we're going to get before we stop and ask them for help. Most of them will be perfectly happy if we manage to completely destroy ourselves so that something better suited to maintaining balance on the planet can come along. Some of them are even working behind things like the Republican Party to try and speed up the catastrophe. But, for the most part, they don't really care about us as long as we're being self-absorbed twits because they know that we'll either figure it out or go down in flames.
Other than that, I enjoyed the book until the final chapters when it became apparent Bear was setting up the sequel(s) when a nice epilogue would have wrapped things up quite tidily. Overall, I don't regret having read the book, but I won't be seeking out anything else in the series.
My critique comes in two areas. First, like almost every other fantasy that focuses on fairies, she gets it wrong. The fairies aren't at war with humans. The fairies are waiting to see how close to completely destroying the ecosphere we're going to get before we stop and ask them for help. Most of them will be perfectly happy if we manage to completely destroy ourselves so that something better suited to maintaining balance on the planet can come along. Some of them are even working behind things like the Republican Party to try and speed up the catastrophe. But, for the most part, they don't really care about us as long as we're being self-absorbed twits because they know that we'll either figure it out or go down in flames.
Other than that, I enjoyed the book until the final chapters when it became apparent Bear was setting up the sequel(s) when a nice epilogue would have wrapped things up quite tidily. Overall, I don't regret having read the book, but I won't be seeking out anything else in the series.