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Jul. 23rd, 2016 08:51 amNow I have finished Earth Logic, the sequel to Fire Logic, and I am still chewing over my thoughts about it, but one thing I can say is THAT WAS A VERY ODDLY STRUCTURED BOOK.
Earth Logic begins five years after Fire Logic, when all the surviving major cast members of the last book have formed an affectionate extended family unit featuring two gay couples and one token straight couple and their collective kid. And they are all sort of hanging around having curtainfic until the time seems appropriate to ... do something ....... about the ongoing war of resistance and attrition against the invading forces from the last book, who have now been constantly invading for thirty years, and the process of waiting is DRIVING ZANJA UP THE WALL.
About a third of the way in, Zanja has a prophetic vision that one of her other slightly prophetic friends needs to murder her in order for anything to happen. What will happen if they murder her? NOBODY KNOWS, but SOMETHING IMPORTANT.
So they all have a collective freakout and Zanja is like "NO SERIOUSLY YOU JUST NEED TO MURDER ME, I don't know why but it's VERY IMPORTANT," and then they angst for several more chapters and then dutifully get ready to murder Zanja, and the one person who has truth powers instead of prophecy powers is like "awww, isn't it cute how they can't tell the difference between symbolism and reality," and quietly arranges things so all the confused and angsty but dutiful prophets, including Zanja, will THINK Zanja has been murdered but in fact she will only have been SYMBOLICALLY murdered so that while she's busy being symbolically dead her body can generate a whole new personality that will wander off to shuffle some plot cards.
All this progression have been very stressful if I thought there was a snowflake's chance in a Boston July that Zanja was ever going to be dead for real, but never for a single second did I consider that as a possibility so I was free to laugh at three people constantly agonizing about their visions while the fourth is like 'UM IT'S JUST SYMBOLISM, GUYS, IT'S GONNA BE FINE.'
Eventually The Gang pick up a new member, a cook who is UNDERSTANDABLY BEMUSED by all of this personal drama (and thus is my new favorite) but helps keep everyone sane during the waiting period by making amazing biscuits. And they all sit around stressing about Zanja and building a printing press and discussing nonviolent ways of ending conflict until somewhere near the end of the book.
Meanwhile, in the B-plot, the long-suffering second-in-command of the enemy forces has a very long slow arc of reconsidering her life and the cycle of constant violence and the way one is supposed to think about children and the future, with occasional assists from the Wandering Plot Coupon that is Zanja's Symbolically Dead Personality, and it's an amazing arc, I love it.
( Ending spoilers, some conflicted feelings )
Earth Logic begins five years after Fire Logic, when all the surviving major cast members of the last book have formed an affectionate extended family unit featuring two gay couples and one token straight couple and their collective kid. And they are all sort of hanging around having curtainfic until the time seems appropriate to ... do something ....... about the ongoing war of resistance and attrition against the invading forces from the last book, who have now been constantly invading for thirty years, and the process of waiting is DRIVING ZANJA UP THE WALL.
About a third of the way in, Zanja has a prophetic vision that one of her other slightly prophetic friends needs to murder her in order for anything to happen. What will happen if they murder her? NOBODY KNOWS, but SOMETHING IMPORTANT.
So they all have a collective freakout and Zanja is like "NO SERIOUSLY YOU JUST NEED TO MURDER ME, I don't know why but it's VERY IMPORTANT," and then they angst for several more chapters and then dutifully get ready to murder Zanja, and the one person who has truth powers instead of prophecy powers is like "awww, isn't it cute how they can't tell the difference between symbolism and reality," and quietly arranges things so all the confused and angsty but dutiful prophets, including Zanja, will THINK Zanja has been murdered but in fact she will only have been SYMBOLICALLY murdered so that while she's busy being symbolically dead her body can generate a whole new personality that will wander off to shuffle some plot cards.
All this progression have been very stressful if I thought there was a snowflake's chance in a Boston July that Zanja was ever going to be dead for real, but never for a single second did I consider that as a possibility so I was free to laugh at three people constantly agonizing about their visions while the fourth is like 'UM IT'S JUST SYMBOLISM, GUYS, IT'S GONNA BE FINE.'
Eventually The Gang pick up a new member, a cook who is UNDERSTANDABLY BEMUSED by all of this personal drama (and thus is my new favorite) but helps keep everyone sane during the waiting period by making amazing biscuits. And they all sit around stressing about Zanja and building a printing press and discussing nonviolent ways of ending conflict until somewhere near the end of the book.
Meanwhile, in the B-plot, the long-suffering second-in-command of the enemy forces has a very long slow arc of reconsidering her life and the cycle of constant violence and the way one is supposed to think about children and the future, with occasional assists from the Wandering Plot Coupon that is Zanja's Symbolically Dead Personality, and it's an amazing arc, I love it.
( Ending spoilers, some conflicted feelings )
