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Title: Cold Magic
Author: Kate Elliot
Genre: Slightly steampunkish fantasy
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: Cat just wants to study the new sciences from the Americas, and maybe see the new airship. Unfortunately, she suddenly finds herself married off to a mage she's never met, pursued by forces she doesn't understand, and uncertain as to whether she is even the person she thinks she is.
Thoughts: It took me a little while to warm up to this one. Cat is 20--it's a very important plot point--but for the first couple chapters, she acts rather more like a 15 year old. Fortunately, she grows up fairly quickly. (Although I'm not entirely sure it's deliberate character growth on the part of the author so much as changing her mind about the character's personality a little way in.) And the exposition and world building in the first couple chapters also felt a bit clunky. Fortunately, that clears up fast, too.
Once things get rolling, they roll along nicely. This was never quite the story I thought it was going to be--Elliot pulls the rug out from under our protagonist, and us, on a regular basis. But it was an interesting story, a mishmash of genres that hit a lot of my buttons. Is it a romance? A fish-out-of-water story? Coming of age? Discovering the world is other than what you thought? A quest? Something of all of them.
Meanwhile, we get a densely populated and interesting world, in which ghouls have taken over Africa, the Mali and the Celts interbred to form mage houses, trolls from the Americas are rocking steampunk tech and trying to start the ACLU, a Napoleon-analogue looms from his prison, and the Industrial Revolution may be about to call the Wild Hunt down on everyone's heads.
Cat grew on me, as did her supercilious husband. And now I find myself intensely curious as to where Elliot's going with all of this. She dumps some real surprises on us at the end, both abruptly clearing some things up and also opening up a number of new questions. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing how she answers them.
Author: Kate Elliot
Genre: Slightly steampunkish fantasy
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: Cat just wants to study the new sciences from the Americas, and maybe see the new airship. Unfortunately, she suddenly finds herself married off to a mage she's never met, pursued by forces she doesn't understand, and uncertain as to whether she is even the person she thinks she is.
Thoughts: It took me a little while to warm up to this one. Cat is 20--it's a very important plot point--but for the first couple chapters, she acts rather more like a 15 year old. Fortunately, she grows up fairly quickly. (Although I'm not entirely sure it's deliberate character growth on the part of the author so much as changing her mind about the character's personality a little way in.) And the exposition and world building in the first couple chapters also felt a bit clunky. Fortunately, that clears up fast, too.
Once things get rolling, they roll along nicely. This was never quite the story I thought it was going to be--Elliot pulls the rug out from under our protagonist, and us, on a regular basis. But it was an interesting story, a mishmash of genres that hit a lot of my buttons. Is it a romance? A fish-out-of-water story? Coming of age? Discovering the world is other than what you thought? A quest? Something of all of them.
Meanwhile, we get a densely populated and interesting world, in which ghouls have taken over Africa, the Mali and the Celts interbred to form mage houses, trolls from the Americas are rocking steampunk tech and trying to start the ACLU, a Napoleon-analogue looms from his prison, and the Industrial Revolution may be about to call the Wild Hunt down on everyone's heads.
Cat grew on me, as did her supercilious husband. And now I find myself intensely curious as to where Elliot's going with all of this. She dumps some real surprises on us at the end, both abruptly clearing some things up and also opening up a number of new questions. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing how she answers them.
