The Golden Enclaves
Oct. 21st, 2022 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraThe Golden Enclaves, Naomi Novik, 2022 novel. Conclusion of the Scholomance trilogy (part one, part two). Everything behind a cut.
I was satisfied! I felt like this book did everything it needed to do in terms of reveals and resolutions. I didn't love it as much as I loved the end of the previous one - the climactic scenes didn't have as much power for me as the getting-everybody-out sequence - but then, I *really* loved that, and wasn't really expecting Novik to top it. There were lots of good and memorable moments and scenes - El's trauma at the beginning, the encounter with Orion's mom, Liu in a can (better let her out!). I thought El's mom's explanation for her warning was a little weak, but a friend pointed out that it was probably supposed to hint at Orion-as-mawmouth, which made sense. I thought Liu figuring out how to group-cast the enclave spells was awfully convenient, but I think El having to go be a mawmouth killer instead of the enclave-builder she dreamed of being was an interesting character beat, so I'll excuse it (and if I ever write Scholomance fic, that's what I want to write about). I really liked Liesel and her determination to keep the handy third-level entity from going off the rails long enough to save the world. (So nice to see something other than default-exclusivity/monogamy in YA in particular! That is one way to organize relationships, but not the only way, and I really liked the El/Liesel sex-and-friendship-but-not-romance!) I had seen the enclave-mawmouth link suggested in fic (that one Linsky fic) but I thought the whole worldbuilding around it, with the bricks, and with El's mawmouth kills explaining the lost enclaves, was really well done. I liked that there was some ambiguity around Orion's mom, like, how much was she trying to do something good, in changing the enclave system balance of power? I like that she's still out there at the end and this is presumably just the beginning of a long, long struggle. I had fun seeing the threads of the themes of a bunch of Novik's recent fanfiction. A friend pointed out it'll be Hugo-Series eligible and I am excited because I rarely have anything to nominate for Series and now I do! Yay!
I was satisfied! I felt like this book did everything it needed to do in terms of reveals and resolutions. I didn't love it as much as I loved the end of the previous one - the climactic scenes didn't have as much power for me as the getting-everybody-out sequence - but then, I *really* loved that, and wasn't really expecting Novik to top it. There were lots of good and memorable moments and scenes - El's trauma at the beginning, the encounter with Orion's mom, Liu in a can (better let her out!). I thought El's mom's explanation for her warning was a little weak, but a friend pointed out that it was probably supposed to hint at Orion-as-mawmouth, which made sense. I thought Liu figuring out how to group-cast the enclave spells was awfully convenient, but I think El having to go be a mawmouth killer instead of the enclave-builder she dreamed of being was an interesting character beat, so I'll excuse it (and if I ever write Scholomance fic, that's what I want to write about). I really liked Liesel and her determination to keep the handy third-level entity from going off the rails long enough to save the world. (So nice to see something other than default-exclusivity/monogamy in YA in particular! That is one way to organize relationships, but not the only way, and I really liked the El/Liesel sex-and-friendship-but-not-romance!) I had seen the enclave-mawmouth link suggested in fic (that one Linsky fic) but I thought the whole worldbuilding around it, with the bricks, and with El's mawmouth kills explaining the lost enclaves, was really well done. I liked that there was some ambiguity around Orion's mom, like, how much was she trying to do something good, in changing the enclave system balance of power? I like that she's still out there at the end and this is presumably just the beginning of a long, long struggle. I had fun seeing the threads of the themes of a bunch of Novik's recent fanfiction. A friend pointed out it'll be Hugo-Series eligible and I am excited because I rarely have anything to nominate for Series and now I do! Yay!
I enjoyed it a lot!
Date: 2022-10-22 01:58 pm (UTC)Interestingly (to me), the themes of the book (tho' not the writing) were very Frances Hardinge, to me. Here's what I said a few years ago about the themes of Frances Hardinge books.
*Do not trust any member of the hereditary aristocracy, however personally well-meaning
*Wealth is always obtained at the expense of the impoverished, and the more invisible the impoverished are the worse their conditions will be
*Monsters are everywhere but can be vanquished, even (sometimes) accidentally
*Powerless people are powerful together.
This was more ambivalent about the hereditary aristocracy, and kinda hedged the 'powerful together' bit by having already powerful people be even more powerful together. But the point about concentrations of wealth coming at the expense of the impoverished, and the consequences of not seeing the impoverished... she just did such a good job with that, possibly better even than Hardinge does.
Thanks,
-V.