![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraStormsong, C.L. Polk, sequel to Witchmark. I did not remember very much about Witchmark and struggled a bit with references to "the horrible secret character x had uncovered" and such, like, great, could you just... specify what that was... Anyways, I'll put the rest of this behind a cut.
I liked that this book is about an adult woman who is frank about wanting power. For good reasons, for service, but still. (Also she's apparently supposed to be 28 but I thought she sounded older, in her 30s at least, which I also liked.) Polk is doing some interesting things with the mix of fantasy elements and political story - like, there is very much a tension between the "fantasy denialists" who think they can win through politics and the protags who accept that maybe they'd better factor getting judged by the queen of the elves into their political calculus.
That said, the book stopped in a weird place - I guess the crisis/climax that I thought was being built up to is being saved for the last book of the trilogy? And I think it suffered a bit from having been reading astolat's latest Game of Thrones fic (which is about marriage and duty and ambition) at the same time, like the actual climax is the protag rejecting marriage to the new king in favor of staying Chancellor and having a relationship with her love interest, and obviously that's very romantic, but her thought process is literally like "I could accomplish all the radical reform this country needs, sacrificing love for duty... but wait, none of my friends could ever love or trust me again", and, like... *does* that follow? I mean, the protagonist, up to that point at least, doesn't seem to be *anti* monarchy, doesn't necessarily seem to believe that the *king* is doomed to have no friends or loved ones... or maybe she does and is fine with condemning him to that but not herself... anyways, I don't know, it was a weird scene. "Every person I loved, admired, and respected would be on the other side of the line. The right side of the line, no matter how much good I did, how pure my intentions would be." If the line is "nobody should have royal power", can the protag even *serve* the king and be on the right side of it? I don't know, but I feel like that was the scene where the whole character arc of the book needed to land, and it kind of... didn't. Enh.
I liked that this book is about an adult woman who is frank about wanting power. For good reasons, for service, but still. (Also she's apparently supposed to be 28 but I thought she sounded older, in her 30s at least, which I also liked.) Polk is doing some interesting things with the mix of fantasy elements and political story - like, there is very much a tension between the "fantasy denialists" who think they can win through politics and the protags who accept that maybe they'd better factor getting judged by the queen of the elves into their political calculus.
That said, the book stopped in a weird place - I guess the crisis/climax that I thought was being built up to is being saved for the last book of the trilogy? And I think it suffered a bit from having been reading astolat's latest Game of Thrones fic (which is about marriage and duty and ambition) at the same time, like the actual climax is the protag rejecting marriage to the new king in favor of staying Chancellor and having a relationship with her love interest, and obviously that's very romantic, but her thought process is literally like "I could accomplish all the radical reform this country needs, sacrificing love for duty... but wait, none of my friends could ever love or trust me again", and, like... *does* that follow? I mean, the protagonist, up to that point at least, doesn't seem to be *anti* monarchy, doesn't necessarily seem to believe that the *king* is doomed to have no friends or loved ones... or maybe she does and is fine with condemning him to that but not herself... anyways, I don't know, it was a weird scene. "Every person I loved, admired, and respected would be on the other side of the line. The right side of the line, no matter how much good I did, how pure my intentions would be." If the line is "nobody should have royal power", can the protag even *serve* the king and be on the right side of it? I don't know, but I feel like that was the scene where the whole character arc of the book needed to land, and it kind of... didn't. Enh.
