***SPOILERS***
Witchlight
(story IX)
I can’t
express how happy I was to finally have a shapeshifter as the main character!
Raksha
Keller (who is revealed outside this story as Rashel’s fraternal twin) is a
shapeshifter (people who can change into a pre-determined animal) leading the
team of the three elite agents of Circle Daybreak to capture Iliana (before
Azhdeha and two vampires take her). Iliana is thought to be a lost witch (a
Harman from her light hair and purple eyes) and the final Wild Power, destined
to marry a member of the Drache family (the royals of the shapeshifters),
something Circle Daybreak is very keen to make happen.
The description of Keller
transforming from human to panther (presumably a leopard with melanism) was
really well done. Often, description of shapeshifting is poor and basically
only a passing glance at the process rather than an actual description: the
fact that L. J. Smith have an actual description was fantastic. Also, the
author justified how a shapeshifter’s clothes remain after transformation, in
that shapeshifters wear clothes from the skin of dead shapeshifters. A clever
solution (if a little unnerving).
After getting Iliana, the team is
accompanied by Galen Drache to the safe house in which they have a conversation
with Grandma Harman (who I missed. I love Grandma Harman). The safe house is
attacked and Keller says they have to leave Grandma Harman because they have to
protect Galen and Iliana. Yet Grandma Harman is not only the Crone (leader of
all witches) and a Harman (witch royalty) but is also co-leader of Circle
Daybreak. She shouldn’t have been relegated in importance.
To
protect Iliana, the team stay at her house. Her little brother Alex is the
cutest little child! When they leave the house to take Iliana to school, Keller
notes that it’s the first time she’d seen the house from the outside. But
surely she must have seen the house’s outside as she went to go inside? Perhaps
she was unconscious? I’m not too sure.
Later
on, Grandma Harman is murdered by shapeshifters (I’m obviously biased but BOO).
They question Galen to see if his parents ordered the attack but they realise
Azhdeha ordered the attack. Azhdeha is a dragon (a creature that can shapeshift
into many different forms) and can compel any shapeshifter to do his bidding.
At this point, we learn the world was once ruled by dragons and regular human
worshipped by humans as gods/totems etc. but when the witches (led by Hecate
Witchqueen) put the dragons to sleep, shapeshifters were relegated to
second-class citizens. We also learn that the Drache family are descended from
the dragons which is why they can choose which animal they can transform into
(Galen has yet to choose his animal though he likes the idea of flying). I was
especially captured by all this.
Whilst
all this is going on, Keller and Galen discover they are soul mates which, of
course, puts pressure on the whole Iliana Witchchild marrying Galen Drache.
This irritates Keller but so does the fact that Galen is a peace-loving and
doesn’t fight because Keller believes everyone should be a fighter. Keller does
rescind this opinion, yet at the end, Galen becomes a leopard to help Keller
and co. fight the dragon. Keller is touched that Galen gave up being a bird for
her, even though they can never marry.
So
after Iliana channels Hecate Witchqueen to kill Azhdeha and uses her blue fire
to heal everyone, they go to the pre-planned marriage ceremony. The waiting
witches, shapeshifters and Daybreakers have given up hope just as Iliana and
Galen come in. Iliana states that she can’t marry Galen because he’s in love
with Keller. Again, everyone thinks everything is lost, but on Ariadne’s advice,
Iliana does a blood cross with Keller, making them family like a marriage (and
thus by marriage Keller a witch and Iliana a shapeshifter), so Keller being
with Galen is just as valid a shapeshifter-witch union as Iliana being with
Galen.
Smith
writes ‘ ‘Bye ’, using the apostrophe of omission to omit the ‘good’. But ‘bye’
is a word in its own right. Just like the two separate words ‘to’ and ‘day’
became hyphenated as ‘to-day’ before becoming the single word ‘today’, so did
‘good’ and ‘bye’ become ‘good-bye’ then ‘goodbye’. In both instances, the
words’ progenitors retain their original, independent meaning.
At
one point, Smith writes “[speech]. [prose]. “[speech].” This misses the closing
speech mark after the first set of speech. Only a simple error but it does make
one read the prose as speech until realising the error.
Waiting
for Strange Fate (story X)
Now we’re
patiently waiting for the Strange Fate (story X) to be published. People keep
on asking L. J. Smith when it will come out but Smith keeps on telling people
to 1: be patient and 2: stop asking because it takes up time with which she
could be using to write Strange Fate. Whilst I can see Smith’s logic and
understand the constant asking would overwhelm her, but at least it shows her
that people want it and are excited for it. That must be a lovely feeling.
Sarah
Strange is soul mates with Kierlan Drache (the fourth Wild Power) and Mal (a
witch-vampire hybrid that exhibits characteristics of both species). Mostly,
when witches and vampires breed, their children end up being a vampire or a
witch, though presumably they could choose, just like Jez chose between both
her vampire and her human heritages. They seek to help avert the Apocalypse
(i.e. the vampires and dragons having their way over the humans, a fate that
Circle Daybreak is trying to avoid).
In
story XI, the team asked Azhdeha who woke him from sleep and he responds ‘a
witch that isn’t a witch.’ Speculation galore! There are two favourite
candidates: Sylvia Weald (from story VIII) and Mal. Sylvia states in story VIII
that she’s a spellcaster but no longer a witch (a witch who’s not a witch), she
had two shapeshifter minions (making her partial to them and then possibly
dragons), and she worked closely with Hunter Redfern (who wants to rule the
humans after the Apocalypse). Most seem to favour Mal who’s a witch-vampire
hybrid.
However,
Mal is a protagonist and thus unlikely to awaken a dragon that would obviously
want to become the ruler of the world again. Perhaps Mal, Kierlan and Sarah do
a blood cross and Kierlan, being descended from dragons and kinda a witch due
to the blood cross, awakened the dragon so the shapeshifters would be on top
again. Though, again, I doubt this because Kierlan is a protagonist. By this
reasoning of the blood cross, any of the extant Redferns could be the witch who
isn’t a witch nd Hunter had the biggest desire to rule humans.
I look forward to (and have been for
seven years, now) seeing what develops.
Reviews: Night
World (L. J. Smith)
Volume One
Volume Two
Volume
Three 1/2
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