Book bites: The Singing, Bone Crossed
How long do you all wait until you finally take a book off your TBR pile (“To-Be-Read” for those non-bibliophiles)? I have been pounding through my pile lately because I realized some books have been lying around since February. I can’t have that-or else how can I justify ordering more books!
I am sounding like an addict, but moving on.
The Singing by Alison Croggon
I started reading Croggon’s “Books of Pellinore” series roughly five years ago, so unfortunately any attempt at a recap will be shoddy, at best. But essentially, the series follows Maerad, a tremendously gifted young Bard who is fated to stop the Nameless One from laying waste and ruin to the peaceful kingdoms of Edil-Amarandth. The prophesy decrees that Maerad will be the one who will free the Treesong, the source of the Nameless One’s power, but the problem is…she has no clue how to do it. Fortunately, she’s not alone: with the help of her long-lost brother Hem, and Cadvan, her friend and teacher (and maybe something more), Maerad will have to quickly figure out the riddle to the Treesong before it’s too late.
If the summary above screams “LOTR!”…you’re right. Croggon’s YA fantasy aims to bring back epic fantasy, Tolkien-style, and in many ways it’s a better-than-average homage, but in other ways, it also goes over much-too-familiar territory. First, its strengths: Croggon’s world of Bards is truly intricate and complex, rich with its own history, culture, lore, and of course, diverse ways of using magic. (Think different versions of Gandalf, but some are strongest in music, others in gardening, etc, etc.). Since Croggon’s a poet first, her writing is lush and visual, harkening back to an older style that is of a caliber rarely seen nowadays. Last but not least, her characterizations are wonderfully complex: over the arc of the whole series, main characters like Cadvan, Maerad, and Hem change and grow so much but never to the point that it’s alienating for the reader.
But what prevented me from truly enjoying the book is its plotting. The epic moment that’s supposed to end the series with a bang is anticlimactic at best, because Croggon makes it mostly an internal battle of wills. Where are the “swords clashin’, dragons swooping down from the sky” moments? If you’re going to bring back epic fantasy, well, that part’s indispensable, in my book. And unfortunately, Croggon sometimes falls into the trap of “my heroine can do anything” syndrome, which strips away the joyful surprise element while reading such fantasy stories. In the end, though well-written and thoroughly developed, the books' overwhelming resemblance to LOTR (and even Harry Potter, with its theme of death and loss) won’t make them much of a standout.
Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs
Another series I cannot possibly hope to do a detailed and accurate summary for, because I paid only haphazard attention to the first three books. (I enjoyed reading them, yes, but I don’t remember most of the plot points…because so many things occur!) In this latest installment of the “Mercy Thompson” series, Mercy is still recuperating from her violent attack/rape, but fortunately she has Adam at her side, the Alpha wolf of the Columbia Basin Pack. For the last three books she has been torn between choosing her independence, or going back to an ex lover (and also werewolf) Samuel, or picking Adam as her mate, thus sealing her role as a Pack member. The girl finally comes to her senses and choose the third (very sexy) option, but just as she is trying to figure out how to be feisty and independent and someone’s mate, the vampire queen Marsilia puts her on the vampire hit list for murdering one of her own (way back in book two).
I am normally not that big of a fan of paranormal fantasy novels, but I continue with Briggs’ very popular series simply because of one reason: I love Mercy. She kicks serious butt, because she’s made up of such dynamic contrasts. She sees in Adam a partner she can stand on equal terms with, but having been on her own since she was 16, she’s afraid of belonging to a pack. (Since she can only shapeshift into a coyote form, she knows she’ll never been 100 percent accepted by a pack of wolves.) She insists on doing things her own way, but with all the scrapes she inadvertently gets into, of course she needs help. Mercy’s combination of vulnerability and strength/intelligence makes me more than willing to follow her on all her adventures, and even within the span of this slim book, trust me, there are a lot.
Speaking of lots of things going on, Briggs also has this organic way of developing her plots that make her books exciting to read. You never know what subplot will turn up on the next corner, or which character you dismissed as unimportant is actually, uh, very important. And how can I almost neglect to mention that her male characters are toe-curling hot?
On a complete side note, I love the cover-even if it’s not accurate, because Mercy is not described as a Harley Davidson, tattooed-all-over biker. But does it catch my attention and make me buy books because of their covers? Yes indeed.