Wells, Martha - The Element of Fire

[oyceter]

The country of Ile-Rien is largely run by Dowager Queen Ravenna, as her son Roland hasn't been particularly good at the whole exercise of power thing. Thomas, captain of the Queen's guard, soon finds himself (more) entangled in court politics after the rescue of an imprisoned wizard, and when Roland's half-Fayre half sister Kade shows up, things get even more complicated.

I wanted to like this more than I did, particularly since it has court intrigue, which I love, and a dowager queen, which I also love. Ravenna is awesome, but I found myself somewhat bored by Kade, who feels like a fairly standard heroine. She's introduced as this great threat to the throne and as a trickster, but what we see of her tends to be some verbal trickery and very little surprise. She feels a lot like a McKinley heroine, albeit with less insecurity about her looks.

I'm also sick of the Fayre/Fay/Faerie/Fairy/Sidhe/Seelie/etc. I didn't feel like there was much new about them in the book, and that plus the faux Europe environment really didn't do it for me. I don't think it's the book's fault, but after reading books specifically not set in Europe, a return to faux Europe felt like a step backwards. Also, the intrigue stops near the middle of the book, and a lot of explosions start happening, which I find much less interesting.

Comments

[oyceter]

I tried City of Bones a really long time ago, and bounced off pretty hard, as in, I couldn't even figure out the plot or any character motivations. I am somewhat sad, as people keep reccing Wells as fantasy of manners, but there wasn't enough for me.

It all comes together in the end

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

Actually, before the end it starts coming together, the way an avalanche does, but it all gets explained and wrapped up pretty well by the end. You have to treat it more like a John Le Carre novel, a picaresque story of a picturesque Big Ancient City which turns out to be seething with byzantine politics on multiple levels - the aristocrats and their power fights, the quasi-religious-warrior-order and their internal and external battles for control, the organized and disorganized crime groups and their struggles for power verging on struggles for survival, ordinary workers' struggles for survival, anti-mutant and anti-foreigner prejudice also resulting in very literal struggles for survival, and over it all the Ancient Historical Puzzle which turns out not to just be about cool chic-y retro fascination with the Storied Past (or even serious scholarly geeky fascination with the Storied Past) but the key to world survival or destruction - and the clues are all there from the beginning, once you get to the end, ouroboran...

Needless to say, this is pretty much crackfic for me - SF/Fantasy/Swashbuckling/Archeologist/Political Thriller - but I don't see that it would necessarily be your, or everyone's, cup of tea.
{I am trying to avoid spoilers, but if you want a VERY spoilery explanation of what was going on in City of Bones I can do that, too! I would so like to see a graphic novel of it, personally - would like to do one, but I don't think I can manage it.)

I liked "Necromancer" and "Element of Fire" because I like Baroque-set and Victorian-era Parisian novels like Les Miserables and The Three Musketeers, but most attempts at doing those settings in Fantasy versions tend to be very blah and disappointing, and the characters lacking, and Rien feels real and the people the sort of characters I can care about, and the ongoing tension between public perceptions and underlying realities always gets me hooked in a story.