TWIB-III: 28 (4/20-4/26)
Continuing my journey back in time, here is the book I read during the week of 4/20-4/26:
1) Ironside - Holly Black
Ironside is the third book in Black's Modern Faerie Tale trilogy, and it holds up fairly well in comparison to the first two. Black's descriptions of Faerie and its denizens are as good as, if not better than, those in the first two novels, and she does a remarkable job of weaving their disparate plots together in ways readers aren't likely to anticipate. Also, the interactions between some of the main couples hit my favorite kinks, and that never hurts.
That said, there are some glaring logistical holes in Black's resolution of the supposedly unsolvable faerie riddle around which a large portion of the plot hinges, and I'm a bit dissatisfied with the way Block reinterpreted (I would argue mishandled) an aspect of the story that I'd previously thought she handled quite well. To whit: in book one the main character is introduced as an East Asian with naturally blonde hair--a textbook Mary Sue. This improbably trait is resolved when readers discover she's not human at all, but a fairy changeling. Except in Ironside it's revealed that the human baby that the main character replaced also has Japanese features with naturally blonde hair. E.g. FAIL. Nevertheless, Black is more talented than many, many fantasy authors out there today, and this trilogy will definitely be worth the read for fans of the genre.
That will be all.
1) Ironside - Holly Black
Ironside is the third book in Black's Modern Faerie Tale trilogy, and it holds up fairly well in comparison to the first two. Black's descriptions of Faerie and its denizens are as good as, if not better than, those in the first two novels, and she does a remarkable job of weaving their disparate plots together in ways readers aren't likely to anticipate. Also, the interactions between some of the main couples hit my favorite kinks, and that never hurts.
That said, there are some glaring logistical holes in Black's resolution of the supposedly unsolvable faerie riddle around which a large portion of the plot hinges, and I'm a bit dissatisfied with the way Block reinterpreted (I would argue mishandled) an aspect of the story that I'd previously thought she handled quite well. To whit: in book one the main character is introduced as an East Asian with naturally blonde hair--a textbook Mary Sue. This improbably trait is resolved when readers discover she's not human at all, but a fairy changeling. Except in Ironside it's revealed that the human baby that the main character replaced also has Japanese features with naturally blonde hair. E.g. FAIL. Nevertheless, Black is more talented than many, many fantasy authors out there today, and this trilogy will definitely be worth the read for fans of the genre.
That will be all.