Lately I’ve been reading a lot of books; it’s what I do when I have down time, but no place to work on art and stuff comfortably. For those who don’t know, I am a voracious reader and can knock out lots of books fast. And so, in no particular order, I’m going to review what I’ve read. It could help someone find something to read, or just help me remember authors I liked, things I liked about books, and things I hated.
First on the agenda is Catherine Asaro’s The Misted Cliffs. What drew my eye to this title is that the cover art is done by a faerie watercolor artist that I adore, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. I always meant to pick it up in the store, but found the price too steep for my liking, so when I noticed it at my library, I snatched it and its sequel up. The genre is fantasy/romance.
The book is about an 18-year-old princess named Melody, known as Mel. Her parents came into their royalty through circumstance rather than lineage; an invader tried to take the crown, and when he failed, the crown was handed to Mel’s father. Or something. I don’t know, my brain always glazes over when books talk politics, especially if the word “royal” crops up. Frankly it didn’t interest me enough to remember exactly what happened. Anyway, Mel is a mage, she’s beautiful, she’s good with a sword, and, of course, she’s smart and spunky.
The magic system in this book is…different. Mages cycle through colors, with each color corresponding to greater strength. Then, within each color, spell strength is determined by utilizing geometric shapes, with simple spells using two-dimensional shapes of few sides, and a sphere representing the most powerful spell. Interestingly, magic can only do fairly subtle things like determine and influence emotions.
So. Remember that guy who tried to take the crown? Well, the victors imprisoned him instead of killing him, allowing his son to come back and rescue him years later. Now, the father and son want to seize the crown that they were originally after: Mel’s future crown. In an attempt to claim the throne without destroying the land they want to conquer, the son proposes that he marry Mel as a sign of a treaty between his people and hers. Then his child will have the crown that his family wants.
Now, this son’s name is Cobalt, and his life was, of course, traumatic. His father was gone, and his mother’s father beat him regularly, and so forth and so on. No one wants to see him marry Mel, but she does it to preserve her people, even though she’s terrified of him.
Cue the romance? Even though Mel is terrified of him, she of course ends up naked and such with him immediately, despite having never had a proper conversation with him or anything. The romance is initially very unnatural and frankly just a touch disturbing. Why would Mel cry as she left her home and throw herself at the person responsible hours later? Awkward.
So then you see the development of Cobalt, the stereotypical disturbed, dark man with a kind heart. Who likes to conquer people. Yes, despite securing a throne for his family, I guess he still wants a kingdom for his father and himself, so he goes out conquering people not involved in the treaty.
There’s also his grandfather, who is so pointlessly cruel and abusive that… He really isn’t a character. He’s sort of a big sign that says “I am nasty.”
Oh, let’s just wrap it up. The characters are uninspired and painfully predictable. The writing is somehow reminiscent of a preteen book, despite the politics and the sex scenes. And if I see another strong, angelic, beautiful, magical warrior princess in a fantasy book, I think I’ll puke. They’re everywhere, man. I’m all for girl power and such, but I’ve been inundated with it. I want to read something where the girl is the most messed up character, and I want to read it now.
The book is readable, certainly, but it was too light for me. Sort of like the watching a simple sitcom on TV, if you know what I mean. Nothing deep, nothing new, nothing daring. I understand that a lot of people enjoy this type of reading; hence the popularity of this title. However, when I read, I want to be challenged, I want to think, or at the very least, I want to be pulled in and touched. That just didn’t happen here. I picked up the sequel, but I don’t think I’m going to read it unless I get through the other books I got from the library and want more to read.
~Jen
