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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
I still read the shit out of it but you can tell it’s an earlier book
The Author's Note at the beginning hits the nail right on the head - the story has indeed been done before, it is very much a First Book and the final result is a wee bit juvenile and cliché. I can absolutely see almost every 1980s and 1990s fantasy authors that she got her inspiration from, too, because they are the same exact authors I grew up with and loved and still reread to this day. ❤️
As a First Book with mediocre reviews, I honestly didn't expect much. So I was quite tickled when I ended up enjoying the heck out of this book! I haven't read the original so I cannot speak for any awkwardness that existed before Briggs gave it a throrough edit and refresh 15 or so years after the first publication, but the result is a book that took me right back my youth in the 1990s when Tamora Pierce and Mercedes Lackey were my favorite authors ever and I went adventuring with Allana and Diane and Kero and Elspeth as often as I could!
(I am also quite sure those two fabulous authors are were Patricia Briggs got her inspiration to create Aralorn and Wolf's world. Sometimes the stories were so closely related, in fact, that I wouldn't be at all surprised if Masques may have been, in its very earliest manuscript days, safely hidden away and forgotten with Clippy on a Windows 95 Desktop - been a Valdamer fanfiction. ;) )
As a First Book with mediocre reviews, I honestly didn't expect much. So I was quite tickled when I ended up enjoying the heck out of this book! I haven't read the original so I cannot speak for any awkwardness that existed before Briggs gave it a throrough edit and refresh 15 or so years after the first publication, but the result is a book that took me right back my youth in the 1990s when Tamora Pierce and Mercedes Lackey were my favorite authors ever and I went adventuring with Allana and Diane and Kero and Elspeth as often as I could!
(I am also quite sure those two fabulous authors are were Patricia Briggs got her inspiration to create Aralorn and Wolf's world. Sometimes the stories were so closely related, in fact, that I wouldn't be at all surprised if Masques may have been, in its very earliest manuscript days, safely hidden away and forgotten with Clippy on a Windows 95 Desktop - been a Valdamer fanfiction. ;) )
i imprinted HARD on this bullshit as a teen and it is a forever Problematic Fave because it is SO transparently a horny 23yo fantasy horse girl goth who had a sexual awakening during the final lair scene in phantom of the opera writing and publishing her idfic and it has aged horribly and i LOVE it
the main character is ARALORN, a Horse Girl Shapeshifter with Green Magic who is the Best Spy Ever. She’s NOT Like Other Girls, she is a Noble Bastard who hated sewing so she Studied The Blade (and also languages) and is in love with WOLF, a Powerful Mage with a Dark & Tragic Past who has a Hideously Disfigured Face that he hides with a Mask who spends most of his time as a Wolf (whence his name). he spends most of his time creepily following aralorn around to Protect her. there’s also the raoul character aka MYR, a Young But Charismatic Leader and All Around Nice Boy, the kind of person aralorn would be with if she was like other girls (has she mentioned tho that she isn’t?? like other girls, i mean.)
then there is the Big Bad, the Strongest Mage In The World (Or Is He??) who Wolf Escaped From as a Youth, and who loves 2 indulge in rape, torture & human sacrifice to Spread His Evil Power Abroad. pls note that everyone else in this bullshit has basic generic lotr knockoff names... and then this dude, the absolute scummiest villain who ever villained, is named GEOFFREY. what man named geoffrey hurt patricia briggs???? inquiring minds...
((SPOILERS: Wolf’s Actual Name is CAIN, son of GEOFFREY, jelfkdjflsjkfkshflwjfleo i die!!!!!))
anyway the book is so so so earnest and Of Its Time and i love it while also wanting to scream constantly!! aralorn starts the book as a slave girl but dw its a Spy Mission and she’s Tough so she makes it out without even being raped a little!!! there’s at least one weird racist subplot where this darker skinned guy from the country where they have black people (and are also, coincidentally, universally evil) murders people!!! aralorn repeatedly refers to other women as “females”!! there are magical fantasy zombies and an immortal mage who has a ghost wife!!!! the main characters literally go back and forth to geoffrey’s murder castle FOUR TIMES before the end of the book!!! WOLF UNMASKS HIMSELF AND SHOWS HIS HIDEOUSLY DISFIGURED FACE AND THEN ARALORN KISSES HIM!!!!!! there is a dragon for approximately 3 seconds!???? stephenie meyer fucking WISHES
anyway we should all aspire to write our deepest darkest most bullshit idfic and publish it, so we can be cancelled 28 years later by tumblr teens who just don’t Understand
the main character is ARALORN, a Horse Girl Shapeshifter with Green Magic who is the Best Spy Ever. She’s NOT Like Other Girls, she is a Noble Bastard who hated sewing so she Studied The Blade (and also languages) and is in love with WOLF, a Powerful Mage with a Dark & Tragic Past who has a Hideously Disfigured Face that he hides with a Mask who spends most of his time as a Wolf (whence his name). he spends most of his time creepily following aralorn around to Protect her. there’s also the raoul character aka MYR, a Young But Charismatic Leader and All Around Nice Boy, the kind of person aralorn would be with if she was like other girls (has she mentioned tho that she isn’t?? like other girls, i mean.)
then there is the Big Bad, the Strongest Mage In The World (Or Is He??) who Wolf Escaped From as a Youth, and who loves 2 indulge in rape, torture & human sacrifice to Spread His Evil Power Abroad. pls note that everyone else in this bullshit has basic generic lotr knockoff names... and then this dude, the absolute scummiest villain who ever villained, is named GEOFFREY. what man named geoffrey hurt patricia briggs???? inquiring minds...
((SPOILERS: Wolf’s Actual Name is CAIN, son of GEOFFREY, jelfkdjflsjkfkshflwjfleo i die!!!!!))
anyway the book is so so so earnest and Of Its Time and i love it while also wanting to scream constantly!! aralorn starts the book as a slave girl but dw its a Spy Mission and she’s Tough so she makes it out without even being raped a little!!! there’s at least one weird racist subplot where this darker skinned guy from the country where they have black people (and are also, coincidentally, universally evil) murders people!!! aralorn repeatedly refers to other women as “females”!! there are magical fantasy zombies and an immortal mage who has a ghost wife!!!! the main characters literally go back and forth to geoffrey’s murder castle FOUR TIMES before the end of the book!!! WOLF UNMASKS HIMSELF AND SHOWS HIS HIDEOUSLY DISFIGURED FACE AND THEN ARALORN KISSES HIM!!!!!! there is a dragon for approximately 3 seconds!???? stephenie meyer fucking WISHES
anyway we should all aspire to write our deepest darkest most bullshit idfic and publish it, so we can be cancelled 28 years later by tumblr teens who just don’t Understand
In the note at the beginning of this book, Patricia Briggs talks about how hard it was for her to not revise the heck out of this, her first book. And I kind of wish that she had not resisted so strenuously. Because there are parts of a great book here. A few more passes would have probably done it. It was still very enjoyable, but the quality of the writing, especially in the first half, are not great. I am looking forward to the sequel, which was written much later and is therefore probably much better.
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
This is sort of a deceptive three stars, because I really liked the story and the characters, but the pacing is so weird, and the book isn't fleshed out enough.
Also, I did read the updated and expanded version, but I'm attaching this review to the cheesier, older, more colorful original cover because I like it better. It's going to annoy me going forward in the series (which I will be doing!) that the other books won't match, because even though this book was published in 1993 (her first book), the direct sequel, Wolfsbane, wasn't published until 2010. I guess there were indirect sequels published in the same world following this one, but I'm not super interested in those, just the ones that follow Aralorn and her wolf-shifter companion.
I'm actually a little vague on the plot since I finished this in a couple of days back in July, so I will let the blurb speak for me on that front:
Aralorn is pulled into the conflict in her realm when the evil sorcerer pushes his powers further, and she ends up captured in his castle. There's a lot more going on there, but again, memory bad, book long ago.
I really liked the worldbuilding here, and the characters, particularly our two protagonists, Aralorn and Wolf (who of course isn't who he seems). But it really was a jarring reading experience. It kind of boggles my mind that this is the rewritten/expanded version because it still read like an abridged book; scenes felt constantly as if they were missing and transitions were often non-existent. The worldbuilding was also a tad on the thin side. I had enough not to feel lost, but this is a very small book set in a very rich world, and we barely get a taste of it.
I was interested by the author's foreword to this edition, in which she states that she doesn't want to update the book so much that it's unrecognizable, so it was really a very light expansion and rewrite, rather than an overhaul. I would like to see the overhauled version, but I understood where she was coming from.
I don't think I'm interested in this author's Mercy Thompson books, but I will check out all her other wolfie books, I don't remember their names but the wolfies are the important part.
[3.5 stars]
Chipping Away at Mt. TBR, July 2022—Book 18/31
Also, I did read the updated and expanded version, but I'm attaching this review to the cheesier, older, more colorful original cover because I like it better. It's going to annoy me going forward in the series (which I will be doing!) that the other books won't match, because even though this book was published in 1993 (her first book), the direct sequel, Wolfsbane, wasn't published until 2010. I guess there were indirect sequels published in the same world following this one, but I'm not super interested in those, just the ones that follow Aralorn and her wolf-shifter companion.
I'm actually a little vague on the plot since I finished this in a couple of days back in July, so I will let the blurb speak for me on that front:
"After an upbringing of proper behavior and oppressive expectations, Aralorn fled her noble birthright for a life of adventure as a mercenary spy.
Her latest mission involves spying on the increasingly powerful sorcerer Geoffrey ae'Magi.
But in a war against an enemy armed with the powers of illusion, how do you know who the true enemy is-or where he will strike next?"
Aralorn is pulled into the conflict in her realm when the evil sorcerer pushes his powers further, and she ends up captured in his castle. There's a lot more going on there, but again, memory bad, book long ago.
I really liked the worldbuilding here, and the characters, particularly our two protagonists, Aralorn and Wolf (who of course isn't who he seems). But it really was a jarring reading experience. It kind of boggles my mind that this is the rewritten/expanded version because it still read like an abridged book; scenes felt constantly as if they were missing and transitions were often non-existent. The worldbuilding was also a tad on the thin side. I had enough not to feel lost, but this is a very small book set in a very rich world, and we barely get a taste of it.
I was interested by the author's foreword to this edition, in which she states that she doesn't want to update the book so much that it's unrecognizable, so it was really a very light expansion and rewrite, rather than an overhaul. I would like to see the overhauled version, but I understood where she was coming from.
I don't think I'm interested in this author's Mercy Thompson books, but I will check out all her other wolfie books, I don't remember their names but the wolfies are the important part.
[3.5 stars]
Chipping Away at Mt. TBR, July 2022—Book 18/31
This was a good fantasy with no spice and it had magic and shifters and was so fun once I finally got into it which took me 50% of the book