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Apr. 4th, 2008 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsOne last vacation book to log - this is the one from when I got stuck overnight in Utah. I landed at ten just when all the airport shops were closing, had no idea whether the inn they were putting me up in had internets or tvs or any suchlike thing, had no charge left on my laptop, and had read up until the last forty pages of my airplane book. I might have been in exceedingly desperate straights, horrors and oh noes! So after disembarking, I ran into the last open newsstand and grabbed the first cheap paperback I saw that was not Danielle Steele, which turned out to be Sarah A. Hoyt's Heart of Light. The book is an AU Magical Victorian Era fantasy, which follows a group of characters working for various organizations with various conflicting goals as they all search for a Mysteriously Powerful Ruby in the Heart of Africa.
Good things: possibly the first AU Victorian fantasy I've read that had actual non-white POV characters! (Though Larklight has Jack Havock, who is very clearly a main character/protagonist even if he is not POV. But still.) I loved Nassira, a Masai woman who has spent a few years in England as part of her own particular Secret Mission; she is badass, confident, heroic, in pursuit of her own goals, and by far the most sensible person in the book.
Less good things: The AU history worldbuilding did not seem very well-thought-out - the whole premise is that, in this world, everyone has a little bit of magic, except in Europe the nobility have tons of magic and nobody else has any because of something that the Mysteriously Powerful Ruby did back in the middle ages. Everyone keeps talking about how if the magic were evenly divided, no one would have enough magic to do anything, except that Kitwana, another African main character, seems to have super special amounts of magic anyways. Also there are lots of were-things running around, and why that is is never quite explained. (Though the fact that Richard the Lionhearted was actually Richard the were-lion: HAH.) In general, the rules seemed fuzzy, and Useful Things often thrown in kind of ex machina. On a more personal note of frustration, the middle of the book is almost entirely taken up by a huge Love Quintangle of Big Misunderstandings, which earned from me a giant WHATEVER for them all. (I exempt Nassira from this, who, even though she is caught up in the love quintangle by accident, acts fairly sensibly throughout.)
And then it turns out that the African anti-colonization organization is a.) evil and b.) run by an evil white man who was manipulating it for his own ends, and I start eyerolling in earnest. And then, of course, at the end, of the five main characters, it's the two white British dudes who get sent out by the Magical Ruby Personified to help fix the world in the sequels - Nassira does get the option to come with, but decides to go back home and settle down with a nice boy instead. I am kind of curious about the sequels, in part just because I want to know if the world ever makes more sense, but without Nassira I am not sure that I am that interested. Though the Were-Dragon of Aaaaaaaaaangst has potential for amusement.
And now I am going to go finish my laundry and then figure out what to do with myself for the rest of the day. There's plenty of things I ought to be doing, but will I actually do any of them? Who knows!
Good things: possibly the first AU Victorian fantasy I've read that had actual non-white POV characters! (Though Larklight has Jack Havock, who is very clearly a main character/protagonist even if he is not POV. But still.) I loved Nassira, a Masai woman who has spent a few years in England as part of her own particular Secret Mission; she is badass, confident, heroic, in pursuit of her own goals, and by far the most sensible person in the book.
Less good things: The AU history worldbuilding did not seem very well-thought-out - the whole premise is that, in this world, everyone has a little bit of magic, except in Europe the nobility have tons of magic and nobody else has any because of something that the Mysteriously Powerful Ruby did back in the middle ages. Everyone keeps talking about how if the magic were evenly divided, no one would have enough magic to do anything, except that Kitwana, another African main character, seems to have super special amounts of magic anyways. Also there are lots of were-things running around, and why that is is never quite explained. (Though the fact that Richard the Lionhearted was actually Richard the were-lion: HAH.) In general, the rules seemed fuzzy, and Useful Things often thrown in kind of ex machina. On a more personal note of frustration, the middle of the book is almost entirely taken up by a huge Love Quintangle of Big Misunderstandings, which earned from me a giant WHATEVER for them all. (I exempt Nassira from this, who, even though she is caught up in the love quintangle by accident, acts fairly sensibly throughout.)
And then it turns out that the African anti-colonization organization is a.) evil and b.) run by an evil white man who was manipulating it for his own ends, and I start eyerolling in earnest. And then, of course, at the end, of the five main characters, it's the two white British dudes who get sent out by the Magical Ruby Personified to help fix the world in the sequels - Nassira does get the option to come with, but decides to go back home and settle down with a nice boy instead. I am kind of curious about the sequels, in part just because I want to know if the world ever makes more sense, but without Nassira I am not sure that I am that interested. Though the Were-Dragon of Aaaaaaaaaangst has potential for amusement.
And now I am going to go finish my laundry and then figure out what to do with myself for the rest of the day. There's plenty of things I ought to be doing, but will I actually do any of them? Who knows!
