Critique: Law of the Broken Earth (The Griffin Mage Trilogy) (Rachel Neumeier)

This book is focused on Mienthe and Tan, a noblewoman and a spy respectively. Bertaud and Kairaithin (from the first two stories) also make an appearance.

The plot follows their interactions with a magical book that can rewrite the laws of nature. It takes place in the Delta, a place in Feierbriand that’s been taken over by Linularinum a few times.

Lord Beroad of the Delta, Mienthe’s father, dies early on. Her uncle Talenes gets control over Mienthe and hence control over Lord Beroad’s inheritance. Talenes brags about his plans for the inheritance once Mienthe marries his son.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Plot

Magic was discussed in previous books but in this one it’s the very foundation of the plot.

The wall separating griffins from humans is breaking so Kairaithin warns Bertaud. It’s due to magic becoming disturbed, explaining why human mages have struggled with their magic recently.

            When Mienthe walks in spirals, she can tangle and trap the magic of others. When Tan is kidnapped, she knows exactly where to find him. When Gereint looks at Mienthe, sometimes she looks like a mage and other times she does not. Mienthe’s a magical mystery.

            They recover from the Linularinum spymaster a legist book (books that contain written law which is impossible to break). Capturing a Linularinum agent, they discover that it’s a book of natural law: it bound into place earth magic’s dominance over fire.

The Linularinum spymaster wants to ensure that earth is kept superior to fire.  Mienthe puts Tan in the centre of a spiral with the book then she and Kes walk the spiral. This balances earth and fire (Mienthe goes down into the earth and Kes up into the sky, matching the location of their elements). Then Tan writes, ‘Amity’ as the new law.

With all this information, we can surmise: magic was going skew-wiff; Linularinum wanted to fix magic by making it what they wanted (AGAIN); and Mienthe and co ensured magic became fairer. Also, as it’s ‘amity’, the abhorrence earth and fire mages have for each other would most likely vanish. So whilst griffins barely had a presence in this book, the plot leads to a monumental rebalancing of nature, having major ramifications in how humans and griffins interact in the future.

 

 

Negatives

There were far fewer problems in this book compared to the other two. (A good position to be in when they had few problems.) Yet most of the problems here are major problems.

Uncle Talenes kept on telling everyone what he’d do with Mienthe’s dad’s estate once she married his son. As Mienthe was the only child of the previous lord and being a daughter, this would follow the custom of a female heir’s husband taking control of the estate (because a wife’s property is legally her husband’s). Yet Bertaud is the new Lord of the Delta (in some systems, women can’t inherit so it goes to the closes male relative). If he’s the lord, the estate would be his, not Mienthe’s, so Talenes wouldn’t be able to control it.

How can what a legist writes be impossible to break? That’s a lot of power. Any legist could write anything and that would be chaos. Would it be a first-come-first-served so someone can’t change a law once it’s been written down? Or could a stronger legist essentially repeal previous legist laws?

 

The smaller problems are largely inconsequential because they might not even be problems. Yet they were still questionable enough for me to raise an eyebrow.

Mienthe calls herself ‘Lady Mienthe’ despite claiming she doesn’t care for titles. This could be her keeping to the rules of high society rather than a character flaw but it does read more as a character flaw.

Earth magic was made dominant to fire magic. Someone writing it down seems a bit flimsy, but writing down a mechanism to explain why would have a stronger foundation. Maybe earth and wild magic was allied so that they were stronger together and that’s what makes fire subordinate?

Mienthe’s abilities are never identified. A little mystery is fine but what was so special about Mienthe that allowed her to do the spirals? Her abilities are central to the plot so they should have been explained. Or at the very least hinted at. Although, scholars are still working to understand normal magic, so maybe not understanding Mienthe’s magic is sensible?

 

 

Positives

This book was brimming with positives.

Walking past the kitchens, she notices Erichstaben and ‘of course he had been in the kitchens.’ That made me laugh.

Tan doesn’t know his father and Mienthe notes, ‘His father must have been careless.’ It’s refreshing to see a man get blamed for an accidental pregnancy instead of the woman. Yes, I could say, ‘It takes two to tango’ but no-one says this when the woman’s being blamed!

The healer Iriene says putting Tan on a horse could have broken his other leg, saying, ‘or neck, which would save me the bother.’ So brutal, I love it!

‘”I can’t believe it, but I believe you.”’ Nice. Sometimes events happen that make no sense but you know the person to be reliable. So you know the event to be true despite it being unbelievable. It’s a state of contradictory ambiguity.

When Kairaithin teleports to Bertaud, it’s described as ‘whispering out of the air’. Beautiful.

 

Mienthe was a fascinating character. Her intelligence was always belittled by her family yet she proves herself to be sharp.

She recognises the subtle skills that make Tan a good spy. She recognises that Kairaithin is afraid of Bertaud when no-one else does.

She even singlehandedly persuades the Casmantium army to march through Feierbriand in order to help kick Linularinum out of the Delta. This is significant because this goes against the Casmantium- Feierbiand treaty, one where compliance ensured by the Casmantium’s first-born being a hostage. To convince someone to do something that could result in your son dying is pretty impressive.

What’s most fascinating is that her intelligence is presented in a completely different way to Tehre, another mighty thinker in the series. Mienthe has a single focus on an issue whereas Tehre has several lines of inquiry in her head open at a time. This leads Tehre to distraction (like admiring cloth in the middle of the king’s council). Mienthe thinks about ‘what is’ whereas Tehre thinks about ‘what if’.

 

 

Conclusion

I love griffins (no surprise there, given the name of my blog!)

So, to see them as an essential part of a trilogy was really exciting for me. Even better, it was done well so I wasn’t disappointed. The author also handles intelligent concepts well, explaining them in simple terms without simplifying the material into inaccuracy.

The story is written from the perspective of humans and how the griffins are affecting their lives. So, whilst griffins sort of get side-lined as the series progresses, the impact and influence of the griffins does not. Special bonus: they spelt ‘griffin’ the way I like best!

To say I want another series to explore the new world order would be an understatement.