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tessisreading2's review against another edition
3.0
I have not read the preceding trilogy, but this was more or less readable independently. Two of our heroines, Jennifer and Robyn, are from California in the 1980s, and along with Robyn's grown son Chris, were transported to this alt-world fantasy realm three years before, where they got embroiled in political issues and various romances. Now Robyn and Jennifer are both married, Robyn has several children, Jennifer is trying to craft political change, and Robyn's sister-in-law Lialla has decided to bring about some political change of her own.
This was interesting but not gripping for me. The narrative emphasis settles in weird places for me; Emerson seems to think we deeply care about the real-world analogues to fantasy-world places (so for example "the town is about where Lima [Peru] would be" or the names of various oceans). I do not, and moreover in a preindustrial society - with no access to real-world maps or rapid transportation - I don't know why the characters would be so concerned with this, either. Similarly several paragraphs are devoted to Jennifer's attempts to reinvent the blue jean, and later her sorrow over her deteriorating sneakers (if she jogs that much her sneakers would already be dead, sorry).
In the meantime, the worldbuilding is inconsistent; Jennifer and Robyn (or rather, their respective husbands) rule fairly large realms, but Jennifer's husband knows literally everyone in his capital city by sight? It's a medieval-style political setup but no one has food tasters? Villains apparently escaped at the end of the last trilogy and pop up in the new one to wreak havoc. Lialla's efforts to help some benighted ladies in a foreign duchy achieve some form of independence are weird and poorly thought-out; I still don't fully understand what she was attempting to do or how she thought it would work.
The other books are available electronically so I may seek them out at some point, but over all I don't feel compelled to do so any time soon. I might have loved this had I read it as a kid in the 90s but as an adult thirty years later, it's just kind of a shrug.
This was interesting but not gripping for me. The narrative emphasis settles in weird places for me; Emerson seems to think we deeply care about the real-world analogues to fantasy-world places (so for example "the town is about where Lima [Peru] would be" or the names of various oceans). I do not, and moreover in a preindustrial society - with no access to real-world maps or rapid transportation - I don't know why the characters would be so concerned with this, either. Similarly several paragraphs are devoted to Jennifer's attempts to reinvent the blue jean, and later her sorrow over her deteriorating sneakers (if she jogs that much her sneakers would already be dead, sorry).
In the meantime, the worldbuilding is inconsistent; Jennifer and Robyn (or rather, their respective husbands) rule fairly large realms, but Jennifer's husband knows literally everyone in his capital city by sight? It's a medieval-style political setup but no one has food tasters? Villains apparently escaped at the end of the last trilogy and pop up in the new one to wreak havoc. Lialla's efforts to help some benighted ladies in a foreign duchy achieve some form of independence are weird and poorly thought-out; I still don't fully understand what she was attempting to do or how she thought it would work.
The other books are available electronically so I may seek them out at some point, but over all I don't feel compelled to do so any time soon. I might have loved this had I read it as a kid in the 90s but as an adult thirty years later, it's just kind of a shrug.
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