Marks, Laurie J. - Water Logic
Mon, Aug. 13th, 2007 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterSpoilers for the first two books
It was good to return to the world of Shaftal; I had missed it and the characters in it.
This time around, Karis is trying to build up peace by dealing with the distrust on both sides; Clement is also having a difficult time dealing with suspicion both from the Shaftali and from her own troops. It doesn't help when it looks like a Sainnite mutiny is at hand.
There were some bits of this that I disliked, particularly the plot device regarding Zanja. I get that she is a hinge of history, but if she is separated from everyone again next book, it will feel a bit too similar.
That said, I LOVED that Marks addressed Zanja as a POC; the very beginning, when she asks about the border people and is met by blank stares? That was perfect. That and Emil telling Zanja that she was Shaftali. I love Emil, but at that moment, I wanted to punch him. And the doubt and fear and the feeling out of place, all of it felt so true.
I'm still a little nidgy about the fact that the story is about the Shaftali and the Sainnites and not about the border people; I wish they had more of a voice and agency and that we got a viewpoint character from them. And I'm also still nidgy that Zanja is the last of her people.
Mostly, though, I was happy to spend time with Karis and Zanja and Emil and Medric and Clement again, and I loved the new POV characters.
Spoilers for this book
I am still not sure what I think about the Big Revelation. Thematically, structurally, plot-wise, and symbol-wise, it is really cool. But on a very kneejerk emotional level, I recoiled. I did not want the Shaftali to have originally been Sainnites; I wanted them to have been them, or for the Sainnites to have been Shaftali, or something other than a colonized group of people originally being the colonizers.
I've been talking with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
coffeeandink about this, and I still can't quite pinpoint my reaction. Part of the nidginess is that it is presented as a Big Revelation that I think will greatly inform Air Logic. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
rilina sums up some of my potential issues with that: "But wait, should that make a difference? Should it really be easier to welcome people because they come from the same stock way back? If it does make peace easier, that peace is going to feel a bit like a copout to me."
It's also a little early for the nidginess, as only reading Air Logic will settle some of my doubts.
I suppose a comparison that doesn't make me nidgy is saying that it's like how the Taiwanese in Taiwan used to be Chinese from China. It's true. And yet. If that were a Big Revelation in terms of the current politics on Taiwan and China and Taiwanese and Chinese in Taiwan, I would feel like slapping people. And of course, like in Shaftal, it is almost completely ignoring the displacement and near extinction of the aboriginal people of Taiwan.
So I don't know.
Links:
-rilina's review (spoilers under a cut)
-rachelmanija's review (spoilers)
It was good to return to the world of Shaftal; I had missed it and the characters in it.
This time around, Karis is trying to build up peace by dealing with the distrust on both sides; Clement is also having a difficult time dealing with suspicion both from the Shaftali and from her own troops. It doesn't help when it looks like a Sainnite mutiny is at hand.
There were some bits of this that I disliked, particularly the plot device regarding Zanja. I get that she is a hinge of history, but if she is separated from everyone again next book, it will feel a bit too similar.
That said, I LOVED that Marks addressed Zanja as a POC; the very beginning, when she asks about the border people and is met by blank stares? That was perfect. That and Emil telling Zanja that she was Shaftali. I love Emil, but at that moment, I wanted to punch him. And the doubt and fear and the feeling out of place, all of it felt so true.
I'm still a little nidgy about the fact that the story is about the Shaftali and the Sainnites and not about the border people; I wish they had more of a voice and agency and that we got a viewpoint character from them. And I'm also still nidgy that Zanja is the last of her people.
Mostly, though, I was happy to spend time with Karis and Zanja and Emil and Medric and Clement again, and I loved the new POV characters.
Spoilers for this book
I am still not sure what I think about the Big Revelation. Thematically, structurally, plot-wise, and symbol-wise, it is really cool. But on a very kneejerk emotional level, I recoiled. I did not want the Shaftali to have originally been Sainnites; I wanted them to have been them, or for the Sainnites to have been Shaftali, or something other than a colonized group of people originally being the colonizers.
I've been talking with
coffeeandink about this, and I still can't quite pinpoint my reaction. Part of the nidginess is that it is presented as a Big Revelation that I think will greatly inform Air Logic. rilina sums up some of my potential issues with that: "But wait, should that make a difference? Should it really be easier to welcome people because they come from the same stock way back? If it does make peace easier, that peace is going to feel a bit like a copout to me."It's also a little early for the nidginess, as only reading Air Logic will settle some of my doubts.
I suppose a comparison that doesn't make me nidgy is saying that it's like how the Taiwanese in Taiwan used to be Chinese from China. It's true. And yet. If that were a Big Revelation in terms of the current politics on Taiwan and China and Taiwanese and Chinese in Taiwan, I would feel like slapping people. And of course, like in Shaftal, it is almost completely ignoring the displacement and near extinction of the aboriginal people of Taiwan.
So I don't know.
Links:
-
rilina's review (spoilers under a cut)-
rachelmanija's review (spoilers)