***SPOILERS***
Neve
Fae brings Rufus and Joshua to the
Neve where her family rule. The faeries aren’t happy to have humans in their
midst, let alone a magi. (I have to note my amusement that ‘Neve’ is written
like how Niamh is pronounced.)
The Neve
soon tolerates Joshua because, as a Delphi, he shares with the faeries their
(still living) ancestor Niamh. Why neither Joshua nor Fae thought to tell the
faeries that Rufus was likewise Delphi confused me because it would have
ensured his protection from the faeries that wanted him dead. He wouldn’t have
had to work so hard to please everyone, either.
When Rufus
was in the bath, he protested when he had company. Now, Rufus is by no means a
prude and everyone who was there had seen him naked before. So this fuss was
unnecessary, especially for half a page. This was my initial thought. But Rufus
was so desperate to be left alone that he probably would use every lie he could
think of to make people leave him be.
Seeing
Rufus and Fae’s friendship grow strong is beautiful (an especially so
considering their initial antagonism in ‘The Sons of Thestian’). They have
moments of intimacy, like interlocking fingers and putting their faces on each
other’s hair. That’s what a true friendship looks like. The best thing, though,
is that Fae’s thaws out Rufus’ old personality the longer they’re together.
My
favourite new character at the Neve is its changeling physician Boyd. He’s
given a few funny lines (‘”I don’t want to be impaled… I won’t enjoy it.”’)
When Rufus learns that Boyd is a changeling, Rufus is disappointed in Fae.
Considering changeling business is to do with Niamh, not Fae, I’m confused why
Rufus would feel like this. He’s not one to blame one person for another’s
actions. It didn’t fit his character.
Boyd is
another character on the LGBT+ spectrum. Rufus is bisexual, Princess Aurora is
lesbian, Daniel is trans and Boyd is asexual. No, none of these terms is used
in the books, but orientation is about thoughts, feelings and actions; in this
book, we get definitive confirmation on the characters’ thoughts, feelings and
actions. Rufus enjoys sex with men and women, Daniel is male but is biosex
female and Boyd has no sexual inclination or interest. Sure, he’s happy to
experiment, but his view is still a nope because nothing does it for him. It’s
great to not only see asexual representation in a novel but also to show that
asexual doesn’t mean ‘no sexual activity’.
Characters
of Importance
Other characters warranted a mention
but placing them elsewhere in this review detracts from their individual
merits.
Joshua,
the younger brother to Rufus and Jionat, is an interesting character. He has
moments of wisdom and of childish innocence, almost like two separate
characters. This is fine: he didn’t have stable upbringing for twelve years, he
was without friends his own age and he never knew what danger was coming next.
A typical characterisation wouldn’t be appropriate. Joshua is a kind soul
either way. When one character tells Josh that ‘“kind men don’t win battles”’,
Josh replied, ‘”That’s because kind men don’t start them.”’
Luca,
Rufus’ cousin through his stepmother, is warned of a coming fight in a brief
segment. I don’t endorse a character getting only one segment from their
perspective (especially when that character isn’t in the rest of the novel at
all). It seems a waste: if they’re important then surely they’d be used more?
Yet maybe Luca plays an important part in Book Three so a quick visit from her
might be used to keep her relevant to the reader’s mind.
The
assassin tries to kill Rufus and even tells the magi off for making his job
difficult. That line makes me chuckle every time. No, don’t try to save your
life because I have a job to do. Aeron comes out with a few crackers, all of
which resolve around his unique speech pattern (which I ordinarily hate). He
tells Rufus that they’ve ‘”stabbed off on the wrong knife”’ and he says
‘sugar-powdered prick’ which is officially the best insult I’ve ever heard.
Punctuation
Now for the nitty-gritty!
Near
the end, Marcel and his sister Beatrice have a full page of dialogue in
Reneian. But there is no translation. REALLY?! That’s not useful in the
slightest. One of the other present characters should have just noted that the
siblings had a long discussion in their mother tongue. Reneian looks like it
could be based on French but I’m the reader so the author should have done the translation
work at some point.
The
glossary included people’s titles, followed by their names and a short
description. One on the list is ‘King’s Mother Reine.’ No. Her title would
either be ‘Queen Dowager’ or ‘Queen Mother’. Having ‘king’s mother’ in the
description would have been fine, however.
As
in Book One, common nouns are written as proper nouns (‘the Generals and
Lieutenants’) and unnecessary commas are used to decorate the page (‘”the most
painful part of my return, was that I grew up”’). A less offensive misuse of a
comma comes in ‘so astonishingly like Jionat, that were it not for his bright
blue eyes, to a faded memory, they might have been the same person’ whereby the
first comma should be after ‘that’, not ‘Jionat’.
A
one-off mistake occurred when a paragraph for Rufus’ speech had the actions of
another character tacked onto it. This character was in the very next
paragraph, speaking. Their actions should have been in their own paragraph or,
if need be, given its own paragraph, not tucked into Rufus’ paragraph.
Parallels
and Foreshadows from Book One
Book Two answered many questions left
over from Book One. A few were only minor details, sure, but I want my
curiosity satisfied. The second book references things from the first book,
showing the Hermatia Cycle to be well constructed and thought out.
During
‘The Sons of Thestian’, Jionat remembers a book in which a subject gave his
life for the king and Jionat said he’d do the same for Sverrin. Jionat did just
that in allowing Sverrin’s resurrection. Jionat knew why he had to do it and
all the consequences but we never saw much content from these vision. It’s
undoubted that he knew Sverrin would be bad as a king yet this (and the
upcoming war) is somehow worth it. I’m looking forward to seeing that reslved.
Jionat
had been doubtful about his decision, asking Rufus if he’d made a mistake
coming back to the palace. Rufus at this point didn’t know Jionat’s true plan
so Rufus told Jionat with confidence to trust himself. I know that if I were in
Rufus’ position, I would have felt guilty knowing I could’ve stopped Jionat’s
sacrifice if only I told him something else. Maybe this guilt is why Rufus has
a dampened personality?
In
Book One, Rufus says, ‘”It’s sickening how little faith you have in me.”’ In Book
Two, Rufus says, ‘”It’s sickening how much faith you have in me.”’ This creates
a wonderful parallel but more than anything else it captures the struggles and
doubts Rufus has gone through.
Conclusion
I’m looking forward to the third
book in the Hermatia Cycle. The characters are compelling and funny, the plot
isn’t a rehash and the structural integrity of each book and the series as a
whole is impressive. Whilst I only realise foreshadowing in hindsight (which
would make it beforeshadowing?), it’s fun to do the detective work.
My final mention relates to
something close to my heart. One character casual mentions two different sets
of gods which makes another wonder how anyone can accept the truth of two
pantheons. The first character says it’s as easy as recognising the truth of
two different kings. The implication is that one will be relevant to one person
but that doesn’t mean the other can’t be equally relevant to another. This is a
really useful analogy that would work wonders for interfaith dialogue. Any tool
that can aid with tolerance and acceptance is good by my books.
Reviews:
The Hermatia Cycle (M. E. Vaughan)
The Sons of
Thestian (Book One) 1/2
The Sons of
Thestian (Book One) 2/2
The Blood
of the Delphi (Book Two) 1/2
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