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littlepanda's review
5.0
Such a great book, even better than the first one! full review here:
https://littlepandareads.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/the-stars-askew-review/?preview_id=504&preview_nonce=54981b43c0
https://littlepandareads.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/the-stars-askew-review/?preview_id=504&preview_nonce=54981b43c0
archytas's review
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I was mildly trepidatious about this book - I very much enjoyed the first in the Caeli Amur series, but it was hard to see how the momentum could be maintained. I shouldn't have worried, I frankly devoured the book, in that magical everything-else-falling-away land, which great genre fiction excels at. The second entry in the series is a more self assured, polished work than the first, building on the strengths of Davidson's approach, and smoothing over some of the rougher patches.
And the strengths of Davidson's work are very, very strong indeed. First among them is immersive world building - the landscape, the history, the mythology, the human culture, the technology of Caeli Amur and its surrounds are fully realised. While they certainly riff off of Western legend and mythology, they never (with the exception discussed below) feel like a riff of another culture, but rather stand fully realised. As the book spreads its wings beyond the series' titular city, this becomes even more enjoyable, as the tale splits into several interwoven strands, each able to explore both separate and common themes. Armand's journeys to Varenis, for example, give us a taste of different jostling metropolis, one based on raw power, and intense urbanity. While Max and Aya's journeys flesh out the potent mix of history, legend and mythology that provides both world exposition, and tension-building foreshadowing. Meanwhile, in the city, Kata is living out an alterna French Revolution - the most clearly "riffing" part of the narrative, which does at times become a little too meta, but is grounded by the other strands (A mention on page 2 of washerwomen, sets the tone here, well before we hit the Guillotine homage Bolt).
Each of these strands is almost in its own genre - at various times we have a POW-era escape thriller; a mythological epic romance; and a tense spy game, for example - but all are underpinned by the emotional journeys of the POV characters, tied to a central theme of power and leadership, and how the process of assuming these changes the wielder, and hence their intentions and actions. Another of Davidson's strengths here is his capacity to present differing viewpoints - we repeatedly see the same series of events through different eyes. The shift of action beyond the cities borders (oh, and the addition of an old god character :) )adds another layer here, of outsider views on events our protagonists are so deeply involved in.
The book is unashamedly political, and as I suspect I wrote in the last one of these but am too lazy to check, I guess some readers don't know what to do with this. We live in an era where cynicism about political change is widespread enough to become orthodoxy: a boom in dystopian narratives, and a culture which embraces morality tales of antiheroes more comfortably than it roots for heroes. We have become so much better at schadenfreude than hope. In this context, the idealism of Davidson's characters, and the seriousness with which he takes ideas - about society, about people - may seem out of place in a work of vivid imagination. But to me, at least, the interweaving is seamless. This is no simply Utopian tale, it is a serious examination of the process of social change. With Minotaurs and man eating plants.
The book has weaknesses still - while the prose is gorgeous, the occasional overly obscure word lands with a clunk, and the chapters from Kata's POV felt less smooth than the rest of the work, with Kata's emotional arc feeling confusingly jumpy at times. Some of this may be because of the sheer needs of the narrative, which required some fast turns in attitude. I'd also like the series to tackle the issues of gender a bit more - the obvious French Revolution parallels, for example, raised the spectre of the role, and defeat, of feminist revolutionaries and their demands for gender equality. There are hints in the narrative of a highly gendered society (and in both books, women whose power is related their sexual role) but this seems abstract from our female POV character, in a way it wasn't to women leaders in France, or Ireland. Nevertheless, Kata comes through this as a compelling character in her own right, and I really can't wait to see where it all goes next.
And the strengths of Davidson's work are very, very strong indeed. First among them is immersive world building - the landscape, the history, the mythology, the human culture, the technology of Caeli Amur and its surrounds are fully realised. While they certainly riff off of Western legend and mythology, they never (with the exception discussed below) feel like a riff of another culture, but rather stand fully realised. As the book spreads its wings beyond the series' titular city, this becomes even more enjoyable, as the tale splits into several interwoven strands, each able to explore both separate and common themes. Armand's journeys to Varenis, for example, give us a taste of different jostling metropolis, one based on raw power, and intense urbanity. While Max and Aya's journeys flesh out the potent mix of history, legend and mythology that provides both world exposition, and tension-building foreshadowing. Meanwhile, in the city, Kata is living out an alterna French Revolution - the most clearly "riffing" part of the narrative, which does at times become a little too meta, but is grounded by the other strands (A mention on page 2 of washerwomen, sets the tone here, well before we hit the Guillotine homage Bolt).
Each of these strands is almost in its own genre - at various times we have a POW-era escape thriller; a mythological epic romance; and a tense spy game, for example - but all are underpinned by the emotional journeys of the POV characters, tied to a central theme of power and leadership, and how the process of assuming these changes the wielder, and hence their intentions and actions. Another of Davidson's strengths here is his capacity to present differing viewpoints - we repeatedly see the same series of events through different eyes. The shift of action beyond the cities borders (oh, and the addition of an old god character :) )adds another layer here, of outsider views on events our protagonists are so deeply involved in.
The book is unashamedly political, and as I suspect I wrote in the last one of these but am too lazy to check, I guess some readers don't know what to do with this. We live in an era where cynicism about political change is widespread enough to become orthodoxy: a boom in dystopian narratives, and a culture which embraces morality tales of antiheroes more comfortably than it roots for heroes. We have become so much better at schadenfreude than hope. In this context, the idealism of Davidson's characters, and the seriousness with which he takes ideas - about society, about people - may seem out of place in a work of vivid imagination. But to me, at least, the interweaving is seamless. This is no simply Utopian tale, it is a serious examination of the process of social change. With Minotaurs and man eating plants.
The book has weaknesses still - while the prose is gorgeous, the occasional overly obscure word lands with a clunk, and the chapters from Kata's POV felt less smooth than the rest of the work, with Kata's emotional arc feeling confusingly jumpy at times. Some of this may be because of the sheer needs of the narrative, which required some fast turns in attitude. I'd also like the series to tackle the issues of gender a bit more - the obvious French Revolution parallels, for example, raised the spectre of the role, and defeat, of feminist revolutionaries and their demands for gender equality. There are hints in the narrative of a highly gendered society (and in both books, women whose power is related their sexual role) but this seems abstract from our female POV character, in a way it wasn't to women leaders in France, or Ireland. Nevertheless, Kata comes through this as a compelling character in her own right, and I really can't wait to see where it all goes next.
bentgaidin's review
4.0
I had almost no memories of the previous book, other than that it was interesting, but also weird. (I suspect that my at-the-time ongoing divorce was as responsible for that as the originality and strangeness of the setting.) Happily, this was self-contained enough for me to enjoy, reminding me of what I'd forgotten as I needed it -- it's the story of a city in the grip of revolution, and the stories that go along with that. It's hard to say how much I could recommend it, but for what it's worth, I enjoyed this.
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