Book #12: Storm Glass, Maria V. Snyder
Mar. 8th, 2010 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityEpic fantasy, girl-power, assassins, intrigue, politics, craft magic, weather magic, really obvious true love.
You know how sometimes sequels don't live up to the original material? And how you spend the whole time wishing your old friends would show up because the new people just aren't the same? Yeah, this totally was not one of those times.
I really, really enjoyed this book! Opal was as engaging as Yelena ever was, and for totally different reasons, which I can really appreciated. The main difference is Yelena can pretty much do everything and needed to learn how to channel her power, so she dealt mostly with problems of hubris and killing people, while Opal struggled to find purpose and agency, and dealt mostly with problems of self-confidence and getting other people killed. Yelena is a bit more fun, obviously, but Opal is a lot more real.
Also, the love triangle nearly broke me, because for a while there I was sort of cheering for both Kade and Ulrick, except you knew it had to be Kade, which meant something TERRIBLE was going to happen to Ulrick, so you spend whole chapters watching his shadow, only to discover that the magician's way ahead of you and then it's even worse than you'd anticipated. And I am not sure how Opal still functions, but I assume it'll all come boiling out of her at some point in book 2 when they find Ulrick again.
If this fandom has ship wars, I'll bet they're epic.
I did a tiny dance of glee when I realized from the toque that Yannis was actually Janco (meaning that Ari had to be close by). BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESOME. Life partners for the win!
I am not sure how I feel about Kade. I mean, obviously I knew it would be him, but we had to spend a lot of time getting invested in Ulrick for the plot to work, and so Kade's stuff all came at the end, and Opal went from "I will make myself be happy with option B" to "Woo hoo! Option A!" kind of...quickly. Which, yes these books are always a roller coaster at the end, but still! Thank goodness for sequels.
Sex is never easy in these books. Let me tell you. Thank goodness Leif and Mara are relatively stable.
I also really liked how Yelena, Irys and Leif showed up in this story. It was enough to make me happy, not too much to overwhelm all the new people, and still fit into the grand scheme of the story.
I love craft magic. In case there was ever any doubt.
AND THERE WAS A FREAKING MAP!
So a 9 out of 10 (keeping in mind that I bumped "Poison Study" up to a 9.5 on account of there being a map now).
I would like to point out that I read this book in a number of hours that is LESS THAN HALF of the number of DAYS it took me to plough through "The Ropemaker". That's what happens when your pacing is good.
You know how sometimes sequels don't live up to the original material? And how you spend the whole time wishing your old friends would show up because the new people just aren't the same? Yeah, this totally was not one of those times.
I really, really enjoyed this book! Opal was as engaging as Yelena ever was, and for totally different reasons, which I can really appreciated. The main difference is Yelena can pretty much do everything and needed to learn how to channel her power, so she dealt mostly with problems of hubris and killing people, while Opal struggled to find purpose and agency, and dealt mostly with problems of self-confidence and getting other people killed. Yelena is a bit more fun, obviously, but Opal is a lot more real.
Also, the love triangle nearly broke me, because for a while there I was sort of cheering for both Kade and Ulrick, except you knew it had to be Kade, which meant something TERRIBLE was going to happen to Ulrick, so you spend whole chapters watching his shadow, only to discover that the magician's way ahead of you and then it's even worse than you'd anticipated. And I am not sure how Opal still functions, but I assume it'll all come boiling out of her at some point in book 2 when they find Ulrick again.
If this fandom has ship wars, I'll bet they're epic.
I did a tiny dance of glee when I realized from the toque that Yannis was actually Janco (meaning that Ari had to be close by). BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESOME. Life partners for the win!
I am not sure how I feel about Kade. I mean, obviously I knew it would be him, but we had to spend a lot of time getting invested in Ulrick for the plot to work, and so Kade's stuff all came at the end, and Opal went from "I will make myself be happy with option B" to "Woo hoo! Option A!" kind of...quickly. Which, yes these books are always a roller coaster at the end, but still! Thank goodness for sequels.
Sex is never easy in these books. Let me tell you. Thank goodness Leif and Mara are relatively stable.
I also really liked how Yelena, Irys and Leif showed up in this story. It was enough to make me happy, not too much to overwhelm all the new people, and still fit into the grand scheme of the story.
I love craft magic. In case there was ever any doubt.
AND THERE WAS A FREAKING MAP!
So a 9 out of 10 (keeping in mind that I bumped "Poison Study" up to a 9.5 on account of there being a map now).
I would like to point out that I read this book in a number of hours that is LESS THAN HALF of the number of DAYS it took me to plough through "The Ropemaker". That's what happens when your pacing is good.
