Kate Elliott - Reviews

King's Dragon

The Crown of Stars series, Volume 1
Kate Elliott
DAW
Fiction, Fantasy
Themes: Epics, Girl Power, Magic Workers, Religious Themes
****

Description

The kingdom of Wendar, a land with magical history and unusual neighbors, is on the verge of civil war. Though King Henry holds the crown, his sister Sabella challenges his claim. The king has a son, Sanglant, by a woman who was possibly not human. This is but one point of controversy; will an inhuman bastard child ever be able to take the crown?
For now, Sanglant serves with the elite armed unit called the King’s Dragons, while the matter of his fitness to assume his father's crown is contested. As a Dragon, he has more pressing matters to distract him. The reptilian Eika of the north are invading with unusual ferocity, just one of a number of ill-omened events which hint that the civil war is only part of far greater struggles to come. As usual, the King's Dragons are on the front lines - with Sanglant leading the charge.
Alain, a boy of unknown parentage who was promised to the church at birth, has his life changed when the sacred Lady of Battles appears to him in a vision. Still devout, Alain has no choice but to follow the Lady’s calling on a path that may lead to his hidden ancestry.
Liath's priest-astronomer father is on the run from enemies he dares not tell even her about. When these enemies catch up to him, she is left without a past or a future. Circumstances lead her to the dungeon for her late father’s debts, the bed of a corrupt priest who buys her out of jail, and at last into the saddle as one of the King’s Eagles, a special team of messengers and agents working for the crown of Wendar. Her latent displays of a rare and potent kind of magic are both a help and a hindrance as she struggles to find a place in the world, while guarding the last secrets left by her father from the unknown enemies that still pursue her.

Review

I was initially skeptical of this book, but I finally got into the universe. Some fantasy books are set in worlds that I just don’t "click" with, but I found that I actually was getting the feel of Wendar. I had thought the kingdom's strong religious influences might get sickening, as I am most certainly not a religious person, but the kingdom's worship was different enough from Christianity to be interesting. With saints appearing, real-life miracles and such, it had more fantasy elements than I expected. Unlike many religion-dominated worlds, ladies were given pretty much equal rights as the kingdom's landowners. The term "separate but equal" applies to the world's power distribution, with both sexes being discomfited when the other tries to cross gender lines. Slightly different characters and good descriptions carried me through when place names and histories pile up too thick. There were also some nice twists in the tale that I didn't see coming. A worthy addition to the library of epic fantasies, being much more than just a retread of Tolkien.
I have the second volume, Prince of Dogs, sitting in my reading backlog; I really need to work my way down to it someday...

Cold Magic

The Spiritwalker Trilogy, Book 1
Kate Elliott
Orbit
Fiction, YA Fantasy
Themes: Alternate Earths, Epics, Ghosts and Spirits, Girl Power, Magical Sciences, Magic Workers, Steampunk Etc.
**+

Description

Catherine, a girl on the brink of womanhood, lives in a rapidly changing world. Machinery and science are slowly dominating the old ways of gods and magic. The voiceless masses grow restless under the yoke of numerous princes and the powerful mage Houses, made less relevant by progress. Cat and her cousin Beatrice even attend an academy like boys do, learning of new contraptions such as floating ships that will revolutionize the world as they know it. Even children of the much-maligned Kena'ani (erroneously branded Phoenicians by the lying tongues of Roman scholars), widely considered unscrupulous spies and double-dealers, might find their fortunes raised.
But worlds do not change easily, nor do the old ways yield easily to the new... especially when there is much more than ignorance and superstition behind their power.
Cat is wakened to this truth most unexpectedly when a cold mage - a much-resented breed of magic worker, in whose presence flames extinguish and machinery snarls - turns up on the doorstep. By claim of magic contracts of which she knows nothing, the arrogant man rips her from everything she has known, everything she had thought she might become. Even as she despairs, she learns that far greater forces are at work. In a world where magic and science cannot coexist, where war seems inevitable, Cat must learn fast if she is to land on her feet... and choose a side.

Review

Alternate worlds like this one - a re-imagined Industrial Revolution-era Earth, where Celtic princes rise in the wake of a shrinking Roman empire, where feathered-reptile "trolls" from across the ocean (clearly evolved from dinosaurs) introduce dangerous, radical ideas to the populace, where northern mages use their powers as much to enforce their own tyranny as to protect the public - can be a treat to visit. I enjoy a well-thought-out new world to explore. That doesn't mean, unfortunately, that I will accept page after page after page of endless worldbuilding, tracing histories and lineages and ethnic migrations and so forth, set against a smothering backdrop of geography lessons, in lieu of a story. Elliot even repeats several stories and history lessons, I suppose on the assumption that I was too stupid to remember them the first time. In between lectures, I had to endure a heroine I didn't enjoy and a slew of largely heartless (or seemingly heartless) and manipulative supporting characters on a journey that moved in agonizing fits and starts, careening from plot-stopping "story time" to breathless escapes from enemy clutches. Strong whiffs of politics grew into a choking stench by the end of the book, which - being the first book in a stated trilogy - didn't resolve much. Instead of eagerly awaiting the second installment, I merely felt a sense of relief that I'd finally finished the thing.
I give Kate Elliott marks for depth of research in planning her alternate Earth. Unfortunately, the tidal waves of research drowned the story, and her characters' unlikable and annoying traits overwhelmed their commendable ones. I have no interest in following this series any further.