In the Serpent's Wake

[psocoptera]

In the Serpent's Wake, Rachel Hartman, sequel to Tess of the Road. Everything else behind a cut. I liked Tess less than Seraphina/Shadow Scale and this one even a bit less. It is a bit similar to Belondweg Blossoming in that a lot of what's going on is other people's stories that Tess has happened to intersect; Belondweg has the heartbreaking emotional core, though, while the core here is more... instructional? Explorational? Like it is very much a book about How Can White People Be Better Allies, which I agree is an important topic, but I'm not going to spend the next 20+ years caring about these people, or tearing up over a one-line cameo. I like what Hartman is doing with her worldbuilding, expanding and complicating the world with colonialism/imperialism - there's some good nuance here with "island people" who are in fact a whole bunch of different peoples, with complicated histories between various groups, and further complexity in the different ways that different indigenous people are trying to resist/assimilate/survive. So that's cool, and Tess's journey from ignorance to less-ignorance via good intentions and various missteps was well-done. Given that fantasy is rife with saviorism, writing against that seems worthwhile. But, I don't know, if Belondweg was an id book this is very much a superego book. The farewell with Pathka was the only point where I felt very much. Oh, no, one other time: full credit to Hartman for bringing back a character exactly long enough for us to remember why he sucks, confirm that he still sucks, and then immediately removing him from the narrative by having him eaten by giant newts before we have to spend much more time with him, that was an excellent exercise of authorial power.