***SPOILERS***
This was, overall, a very strong and enjoyable first novel. I would definitely recommend it to people. It contained many moments that shocked me entirely and places which genuinely surprised me with its ingenuity in a positive way. The biggest threat to its strength, however, was how the main antagonist was taken care of: it felt rather silly and it wasn’t exciting.
Zacherius, the Sorcerer Royal, and Prunela, a small girl, about magic, effectively training her up to be the next Sorcerer Royal; during all this, there is a serious attack on misogyny because, without this, Prunela wouldn’t be able to use ‘higher magic’.
Speech was certainly a struggle. All characters spoke in a pretentious, long-winded manner which certainly doesn’t reflect the way real people speak. It would have been perfect language if the characters had written it rather than spoken it. Whilst some people do speak in this manner, it wouldn’t have been every single character in the book, especially as everyone had different backgrounds. Further, the language used, if spoken, would have been only for formal occasions in reality rather than all the time.
Cho wrote with several perspectives. This is fine. This is expected in fantasy works. But they jumped from one perspective in one paragraph to a second in the next and the first perspective in the following paragrach. Following who says and thinks what in such quick succession as this can be disorientating for the reader. However, this is a feature common in the first novels of many authors.
It’s concept of magic/fairies was very intriguing. It gave this already-unique story even more uniqueness that certainly deserves praise.
Magic drifts in from FairyLand and familiars (which only sorcerers may have) are fairies who agree to accompany a magic user. To begin with, I did think the ghost Sir Stephen was Zach’s familiar, up until the concept of the familiar was properly and fully explained. Also, on as an aspect of the plot, I disliked the deal Zach made with Leofric. It was baffling until it was revealed it was done to save Stephen’s soul. It really made no sense until this point, to the point of distracting the reader from the actual story.
There are two familiars in the book which were done injustice in their description. One was initially called a kirin, described as a kirin, then called a unicorn from that point onwards. I have no issue with ‘unicorn’ being used in relation to ‘kirin’, but ‘kirin’ should have been used as the main descriptor because (1) it was called a kirin in the book and (2) it IS a kirin. The second was initially called a garuda, yet it was called a simurgh from that point onwards and even described as a simrgh. So the presence of ‘garuda’ was entirely falsified and unnecessary. The only reason I can think of why ‘garuda’ was used was to keep within the framework, and cement the concept, of eastern familiars for the one character; however, as a reason, I find this particularly weak.
Characterisation wasn’t the strongest point in the novel.
Prunella, one of the main characters, appeared to have two personalities, drifting between the two in the novel. They were significantly different and neither kept in character with the other. It was only at the end where these two aspects merged. Now, we know Prunella doesn’t have multiple personalities because she remembered the thoughts and actions of *both* aspects AND the other characters didn’t react surprised, worried or in any way differently to either side of Prunella. If Prunella did have multiple personalities, they wouldn’t have converged at the end, she wouldn’t remember both aspects, and the other characters definitely would have picked up on the fact that Prunella was a completely different person.
My favourite character was Gilbert, the intelligent and sassy characters towards the end of the book. He was simply fabulous.
I disliked Edgeworth. I think we were meant to dislike Edgeworth. But I mainly disliked Edgeworth because he wasn’t a believable character.
No comments:
Post a Comment