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Title: Whiskey and Water
Author: Elizabeth Bear
Genre: High/modern fantasy (second in pair)
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: After the Promethean mages failed their battle against Faerie, Matthew Magus finds himself trying to solve a murder mystery while dealing with the devil(s) himself.
Thoughts: Most of my previous comments on Bear's writing continue to hold here--it's gorgeous and inventive, and extremely understated in a way that's sometimes rewarding and sometimes really frustrating. This book nicely ties up a lot of the strings left dangling in Blood and Iron (and would make little sense if you had not read the first book).
I very much loved the portrayal of the Morningstar, and the masquerade ball in hell is a brilliant sequence. Matthew had never quite worked for me as a character in the previous book, and here he makes a lot more sense (although I still do not fully understand his relationship with New York). The archmage Jane, on the other hand, continues to feel more like a plot device. I wish Bear had been a little more evenhanded with the Prometheans--I feel like she believes her argument for them has been made, yet she continually undercuts it in ways that I feel don't fully make sense. I never really understood how their magic worked, or why it would be such a terrible thing for humanity if they had won their war. Really, to some extent, it feels like the bad guys won--the Prometheans' ends did not perhaps justify their means, but the fae's ends and means are both unjustifiable.
The revelations about Nuala's true identity are the kind that make you reevaluate the entire series in a startling way. I'm not sure it all actually works, though, in retrospect.
But the characters are really engaging, from broken Jewels (although I still think she could have been combined with Lily) to Whiskey the Kelpie (who I would have liked to see even more of). The labyrinthine plot comes to a surprisingly satisfying conclusion--I'd been restless at the end of the first book, but this closed things off in a way that I rather liked.
Author: Elizabeth Bear
Genre: High/modern fantasy (second in pair)
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: After the Promethean mages failed their battle against Faerie, Matthew Magus finds himself trying to solve a murder mystery while dealing with the devil(s) himself.
Thoughts: Most of my previous comments on Bear's writing continue to hold here--it's gorgeous and inventive, and extremely understated in a way that's sometimes rewarding and sometimes really frustrating. This book nicely ties up a lot of the strings left dangling in Blood and Iron (and would make little sense if you had not read the first book).
I very much loved the portrayal of the Morningstar, and the masquerade ball in hell is a brilliant sequence. Matthew had never quite worked for me as a character in the previous book, and here he makes a lot more sense (although I still do not fully understand his relationship with New York). The archmage Jane, on the other hand, continues to feel more like a plot device. I wish Bear had been a little more evenhanded with the Prometheans--I feel like she believes her argument for them has been made, yet she continually undercuts it in ways that I feel don't fully make sense. I never really understood how their magic worked, or why it would be such a terrible thing for humanity if they had won their war. Really, to some extent, it feels like the bad guys won--the Prometheans' ends did not perhaps justify their means, but the fae's ends and means are both unjustifiable.
The revelations about Nuala's true identity are the kind that make you reevaluate the entire series in a startling way. I'm not sure it all actually works, though, in retrospect.
But the characters are really engaging, from broken Jewels (although I still think she could have been combined with Lily) to Whiskey the Kelpie (who I would have liked to see even more of). The labyrinthine plot comes to a surprisingly satisfying conclusion--I'd been restless at the end of the first book, but this closed things off in a way that I rather liked.
