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Sep. 30th, 2011 08:57 amKate Elliot's Cold Magic is one of those amazing everything-and-the-kitchen-sink books that I always love, because why have a single cool plot element when five million will do just as well? Here is an incomplete list of the stuff going on in Cold Magic:
- an AU history in which Carthage survived and became a major player and then Carthaginians immigrated North and created a combo culture with Celts!
- a magic system based on ICE POWER!
- but also a STEAMPUNK SCIENCE system largely engineered by INTELLIGENT DINOSAURS!
- (the intelligent dinosaurs we meet in the book, by the way, are LAWYER DINOSAURS, which is probably my favorite part of the whole thing)
- also there is an AU NAPOLEON
- and a BUDDING INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
- but meanwhile our heroine Cat is at fantasy university hangin' out with her awesome bff cousin Bee and flirting with boys!
- except when her awesome cousin is busy having PROPHETIC DREAMS, of course
- until Cat gets whisked off to a TERRIBLE UNWANTED ARRANGED MARRIAGE with a MYSTERIOUS PO-FACED DUDE who has an ANGSTY BACKSTORY
- also she may or may not be part spirit, so hello Kat, have a magic sword and an occasional ticket to the spirit realm!
- also some helpful tagalong WERECATS
- which should help with unraveling the MYSTERY of her BACKSTORY and a possible TRAGIC BETRAYAL!
- and hey dudes, did we mention the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION? Because some actual revolutionaries are going to be relevant to the plot any day now, we promise!
My general feelings about all this is BRING IT ON! There are also some really nice subtleties going on in the worldbuilding underneath the constant rush of HERE, HAVE SOME COOL STUFF - I love pretty much everything to do with Cat's family history and the Hassi Barahal culture, which is focused on being clever and sneaky and manipulative and spytastic, and how she is legitimately proud of it but also how much of a two-edged sword it is. I also really appreciate the relatively complex view of history, in which a ruler may well be terrible in some respects and represent an improvement on the status quo in many others, and very little is a black-and-white good or bad. (Except murdering Cat. We're generally encouraged to see that as a bad.)
Also, from the other reviews I've read I was pretty much expecting to hate Andevai, the arranged marriage dude - so any of you well may - but actually I did not mind him at all! I just found him kind of hilariously stuck up and socially incompetent, and I got the feeling that the author was totally okay with me failing to take him at all seriously, which did not hurt. I am perfectly happy to settle in for his inevitably undignified character development, although of course I am even happier to settle in for another installment of Cat And Bee Are Awesome.
- an AU history in which Carthage survived and became a major player and then Carthaginians immigrated North and created a combo culture with Celts!
- a magic system based on ICE POWER!
- but also a STEAMPUNK SCIENCE system largely engineered by INTELLIGENT DINOSAURS!
- (the intelligent dinosaurs we meet in the book, by the way, are LAWYER DINOSAURS, which is probably my favorite part of the whole thing)
- also there is an AU NAPOLEON
- and a BUDDING INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
- but meanwhile our heroine Cat is at fantasy university hangin' out with her awesome bff cousin Bee and flirting with boys!
- except when her awesome cousin is busy having PROPHETIC DREAMS, of course
- until Cat gets whisked off to a TERRIBLE UNWANTED ARRANGED MARRIAGE with a MYSTERIOUS PO-FACED DUDE who has an ANGSTY BACKSTORY
- also she may or may not be part spirit, so hello Kat, have a magic sword and an occasional ticket to the spirit realm!
- also some helpful tagalong WERECATS
- which should help with unraveling the MYSTERY of her BACKSTORY and a possible TRAGIC BETRAYAL!
- and hey dudes, did we mention the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION? Because some actual revolutionaries are going to be relevant to the plot any day now, we promise!
My general feelings about all this is BRING IT ON! There are also some really nice subtleties going on in the worldbuilding underneath the constant rush of HERE, HAVE SOME COOL STUFF - I love pretty much everything to do with Cat's family history and the Hassi Barahal culture, which is focused on being clever and sneaky and manipulative and spytastic, and how she is legitimately proud of it but also how much of a two-edged sword it is. I also really appreciate the relatively complex view of history, in which a ruler may well be terrible in some respects and represent an improvement on the status quo in many others, and very little is a black-and-white good or bad. (Except murdering Cat. We're generally encouraged to see that as a bad.)
Also, from the other reviews I've read I was pretty much expecting to hate Andevai, the arranged marriage dude - so any of you well may - but actually I did not mind him at all! I just found him kind of hilariously stuck up and socially incompetent, and I got the feeling that the author was totally okay with me failing to take him at all seriously, which did not hurt. I am perfectly happy to settle in for his inevitably undignified character development, although of course I am even happier to settle in for another installment of Cat And Bee Are Awesome.
