Reviews in the Fire

Hi,

So while waiting for the snow to hit, I burned through the last 250 pages of Irons in the Fire by Juliet E. McKenna. It's the start of a trilogy and so loses a letter grade because of that, but it remains a darn fine piece of writing.

The "Kingdom" of Lescari is made up of six duchies who have been at one another's throats for hundreds of years. Every year the Dukes plot and scheme to defeat their rivals and be declared High King, but no one can get ahead and the lot of the commoner's life is unspeakably awful. Fleeing for less war-torn countries is the dream of many Lescari and in the far-off city-state of Vanam, a number of expats Lescari are planning to incite a revolution that will bring down all the Dukes and end the warring once and for all.

Much of this book is in the plotting and planning and only near the end does the revolution kick off. But hey, it's a trilogy, it can get away with some build up. There is some tantalizing glimpses of intelligence networks in a medieval/fantasy setting and it would've been nice to see some more. Magic suffers from the "it's not common but all the people we need to can do it" syndrome and I'm hoping that the next book will bring the hammer down on that. The chapters are short and brisk and move the story along really well.

I think what this book does really well is break down the whole "noble revolution" deal that a lot of fantasy books have. The people rise up against their brutal overlords with the help of some hero is great, but doesn't quite ring true. In Irons, the revolutionaries are pretty clearly acting for the greater good, but there's an awful lot of innocent blood being spilled and there are conflicting ideas about what comes after the Revolution. The book doesn't flinch from the messy details and I really liked that.

The second book in the series is already out, but I've got a fair amount of other stuff on my plate. Still, I think I'll be trying to keep up with this one.

later
Tom

Reviews in the Fire

Hi,

So while waiting for the snow to hit, I burned through the last 250 pages of Irons in the Fire by Juliet E. McKenna. It's the start of a trilogy and so loses a letter grade because of that, but it remains a darn fine piece of writing.

The "Kingdom" of Lescari is made up of six duchies who have been at one another's throats for hundreds of years. Every year the Dukes plot and scheme to defeat their rivals and be declared High King, but no one can get ahead and the lot of the commoner's life is unspeakably awful. Fleeing for less war-torn countries is the dream of many Lescari and in the far-off city-state of Vanam, a number of expats Lescari are planning to incite a revolution that will bring down all the Dukes and end the warring once and for all.

Much of this book is in the plotting and planning and only near the end does the revolution kick off. But hey, it's a trilogy, it can get away with some build up. There is some tantalizing glimpses of intelligence networks in a medieval/fantasy setting and it would've been nice to see some more. Magic suffers from the "it's not common but all the people we need to can do it" syndrome and I'm hoping that the next book will bring the hammer down on that. The chapters are short and brisk and move the story along really well.

I think what this book does really well is break down the whole "noble revolution" deal that a lot of fantasy books have. The people rise up against their brutal overlords with the help of some hero is great, but doesn't quite ring true. In Irons, the revolutionaries are pretty clearly acting for the greater good, but there's an awful lot of innocent blood being spilled and there are conflicting ideas about what comes after the Revolution. The book doesn't flinch from the messy details and I really liked that.

The second book in the series is already out, but I've got a fair amount of other stuff on my plate. Still, I think I'll be trying to keep up with this one.

later
Tom