***SPOILERS***
Set twenty years on from the last book, Thirrin and Oskan have five children: Cressida (the Crown Princess), the twins, Medea (a powerful weather witch) and Sharley (disabled due to childhood illness). Bellorum comes to invade the Icemark once more. And once more, I had a very good read. There were, however, issues with consistency in both the series together as well as within this book itself.
Before I
critique the finer details, I want to praise the idea of principle character Sharley.
He was a brat, wanted to be a warrior, had a disability and was, in my opinion,
clearly not heterosexual. The fact of the latter two in the principle character
was truly fantastic. Diversity always is.
I
shared similarities with Sharley in that we both became disabled due to
childhood illnesses and our family and friends thought that meant we couldn’t
achieve what we wanted to. Sharley’s a moody chode about it, though, blaming
everyone and complaining about the injustice of it all rather than just accepting
what happened and working towards his goals in spite of his difficulties. By
the end of the book, he had proved everyone wrong and ironed out all his
issues, so Sharley’s character development was well-executed.
It also really excited me that Sharley
and Mekhmet were clearly in the makings of a romantic relationship. Whilst this
is only hinted at, and that they had a fast friendship to begin with, I don’t
doubt the romance. I think Sharley is bi/pan (his reaction to the beauty of the
Blessed Ones is one of desire rather than appreciation), but as there were no
real non-family female interactions with these two characters, there is no way
to be sure. Admittedly their sexual identity is not essential to the plot, but
it made me happy to imagine the wedding that the liberal(ish) country of the
Icemark would bring.
Character
inconsistency was a major problem for me in this book. Thirrin was the only
character carried through from the previous novel who changed in a realistic
manner. Instantly this seems okay: if the main character is consistent then the
others shouldn’t be so consequential, right? Wrong, because Thirrin is no
longer the main character.
Oskan,
my favourite human character in the previous novel, no longer made any funny
comments, the very things that made him my favourite. A whole part of his
personality had just disappeared. Yes, people change as they grow, but
something so central to one’s personality doesn’t just stand up and leave. For
this to happen, Oskan would have had to suffer something quite serious:
something this significant would have needed some explanation or even just a
suggestion, but there was not a whiff of it in this book or the next. So this
was a consistency error.
Another surprising change in
character was that of Maggie. He was really nasty to Sharley. That’s an aspect
of his personality that had never been seen or hinted towards before or after.
In the situation that they were in, i.e. educating an Oakenshield who just
wants to do military exercises, he despairs at his luck. Despair could have
escalated to an angry outburst but there was no such build up. Further, Maggie
didn’t react angrily to anything else in the rest of the series. So this
behaviour just didn’t suite Maggie.
Yet
the change the Bellorum underwent was mostly convincing: he’d become obsessive
with the idea of killing Thirrin and enslaving the Icemark. This makes sense:
Bellorum’s first ever defeat was at the hands and paws of the Icemark alliance.
That would have affected his deeply. But the insanity that came along with it
was… odd. An all-encompassing obsession is neurotic, yes (#TeamOCD), but not
insane.
As before, I
disliked the battle march and battle cry of the Icemark. They got repetitive
and boring to the point where I would just skip over it. If you have to skip
some pages, that’s a problem. Plus the rallying effect it had simply wasn’t a
proportional reaction.
Due to
Sharley’s disabilities, he was a liability during a war so his parents wanted
him to leave the country. Conveniently, the Queen and Consort also needed
someone they trusted to lead those not able to fight elsewhere, so Sharley was given
the task of leading them.
This group of people was referred
in-story as ‘exiles’, a word that is traditionally used for someone who has
been forced to leave the country forever. Seeing as the intention (and the
resultant reality) was for them to return, them being referred to as ‘exiles’
by their own monarch just wasn’t apt. A refugee, however, is someone who leaves
until conditions get better (i.e. the war is won), which is why I believe
‘refugee’ would have been a better choice of terminology.
Another issue with this situation
was why no one questioned why Medea wasn’t sent away with Sharley. Medea was as
much a liability as her brother, considering that she was unwilling to help
with the war at all. If Medea died whilst in the warzone, it would be for
nothing. She could be far away, doing her nothing in safety! So why would Thirrin and Oskan keep
her in the Icemark? Her parents had a reason, surely?
No?
Oh. In fact, no one, not even Medea, ever mentions her staying until the end,
when it’s revealed Medea used magic to stop people questioning this. So it
makes sense why no one else engaged. But it never quite made sense that Medea
wouldn’t: Medea is a
main character and the reader witnesses her intricate, well-rationaled thoughts
about many issues over and over again. So why didn’t we see Medea think about
performing this magic, or doing it, or revelling over the effects like she does
over other magic she performs?
Clearly
it was intended as a mystery for suspense until the reveal… but this can’t be
achieved if the mystery is allowed to die. There needs to be clues and
allusions, not forgetting to mention it until the end. Even Medea feeling
successful when Sharley leaves and not her would have sufficed at keeping the
mystery alive. A story thread that isn’t threaded into its story is a pointless
thread that should be pulled out. And considering as this was so essential to
the plot, it should have been weaved in tightly.
Whilst
this was disappointing enough, the fact that this happened over an event so
essential to the plot shows lazy writing. Medea
staying was essential for the plot: without Medea’s storm to destroy the ships,
Sharley wouldn’t have made contacts leading him to Mekhmet and thus become the
warrior hero of the story (and Medea couldn’t attempt to kill Sharley with a
storm if she herself was on one of the ships). Medea staying in the Icemark was
an essential driving force for the plot but it wasn’t justified in story
sufficiently. Thus this plot point was messily dealt with.
So the
author seemed to struggle with balancing the change of a character whilst
keeping the change consistent with who the characters actually were. There was
also the issue of terminological inaccuracies. The main issue was, of course,
the reader being aware of everything Medea did/thought, and yet not how she
managed to escape going abroad. It was still enjoyable and fun, though, so
these negatives were things that could have been tidied up easily in the
editorial stages. If nothing else, the gayness of Sharley and Mekhmet (shipname:
Sharmet?) was refreshing to see, as was having a disabled character as the
lead.
Reviews: The
Icemark (Stuart Hill)
The Cry of
the Icemark (Book One)
Last Battle
of the Icemark (Book Three)
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