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A review by xterminal
The Virtu by Sarah Monette
4.0
Sarah Monette, The Virtu (Ace, 2006)
Monette returns to the rich, detailed world she created in her first novel, Mélusine, for a sequel. And while it's a bit slow out of the gate, a fine sequel it is indeed. Monette expands on some of the stuff that seemed, in the first book, as if it had been for worldbuilding and color more than anything, giving this a more cohesive feel with its predecessor than many sequels. I like that in a book. Quite a lot, actually.
We open not long after the conclusion of Mélusine, with Felix and Mildmay still overseas and still not liking each other too much. Felix's research has led him to the possibility that he may, in fact, be able to undo the shattering of the Virtu, the central event of the first book, and one in which he was an unwitting participant; Mildmay is just plain homesick. In any case, the two of them decide to head back to the City of Wonders, as perilous a journey as that may be. But Felix's recently-shed madness is always sitting in the back of his head, waiting to be roused, and his fear of deep water means that crossing the ocean this time is going to be even worse than it was before. And then, of course, there's the fact that pretty much every wizard in Mélusine would be more than happy never to see Felix again...
That tells you almost nothing, but I can't get into a lot of it without hitting spoilerville. (I implore you not to read the jacket synopsis before reading the actual book, as it reveals what I'd consider a major spoiler.) Monette's world holds up for another novel, and is just as detailed and fantastical, in the classical sense of the term, as it was the first time. She also employs techniques that usually drive me up the wall (such as character A not saying something that, were it said to character B, would avoid a lot of mess) in subtle enough ways that they actually work here. As for the characters themselves, my only real problem is that a bit more of a refresher on some of the characters from the earlier novel would have been welcome (though I know all too well how easy it is to go overboard with that sort of thing, viz. Terry Goodkind's last seven Sword of Truth novels). Can't fault Monette for her character-writing abilities, however. For two guys who probably moonlight in romance novels, Felix and Mildmay are engaging characters, and Monette gets the balance of similar and different between the half-brothers dead on. The minor characters are for the most part three-dimensional as well, though a few of them do seem to exist just to advance plot points (Shannon, in particular, has struck me this way in both novels). As for the plot, well, Monette keeps her foot on the gas the same way she did with the last book, and “exciting” is the least enthusiastic word I can come up with for what all goes on on this book. It is a touch episodic, though all road novels have that feel to them by definition, but that's a minor thing at best. This is fun, fun stuff, and if you haven't picked up Mélusine yet, I urge you to do so pronto, and then continue on to this one. *** ½
Monette returns to the rich, detailed world she created in her first novel, Mélusine, for a sequel. And while it's a bit slow out of the gate, a fine sequel it is indeed. Monette expands on some of the stuff that seemed, in the first book, as if it had been for worldbuilding and color more than anything, giving this a more cohesive feel with its predecessor than many sequels. I like that in a book. Quite a lot, actually.
We open not long after the conclusion of Mélusine, with Felix and Mildmay still overseas and still not liking each other too much. Felix's research has led him to the possibility that he may, in fact, be able to undo the shattering of the Virtu, the central event of the first book, and one in which he was an unwitting participant; Mildmay is just plain homesick. In any case, the two of them decide to head back to the City of Wonders, as perilous a journey as that may be. But Felix's recently-shed madness is always sitting in the back of his head, waiting to be roused, and his fear of deep water means that crossing the ocean this time is going to be even worse than it was before. And then, of course, there's the fact that pretty much every wizard in Mélusine would be more than happy never to see Felix again...
That tells you almost nothing, but I can't get into a lot of it without hitting spoilerville. (I implore you not to read the jacket synopsis before reading the actual book, as it reveals what I'd consider a major spoiler.) Monette's world holds up for another novel, and is just as detailed and fantastical, in the classical sense of the term, as it was the first time. She also employs techniques that usually drive me up the wall (such as character A not saying something that, were it said to character B, would avoid a lot of mess) in subtle enough ways that they actually work here. As for the characters themselves, my only real problem is that a bit more of a refresher on some of the characters from the earlier novel would have been welcome (though I know all too well how easy it is to go overboard with that sort of thing, viz. Terry Goodkind's last seven Sword of Truth novels). Can't fault Monette for her character-writing abilities, however. For two guys who probably moonlight in romance novels, Felix and Mildmay are engaging characters, and Monette gets the balance of similar and different between the half-brothers dead on. The minor characters are for the most part three-dimensional as well, though a few of them do seem to exist just to advance plot points (Shannon, in particular, has struck me this way in both novels). As for the plot, well, Monette keeps her foot on the gas the same way she did with the last book, and “exciting” is the least enthusiastic word I can come up with for what all goes on on this book. It is a touch episodic, though all road novels have that feel to them by definition, but that's a minor thing at best. This is fun, fun stuff, and if you haven't picked up Mélusine yet, I urge you to do so pronto, and then continue on to this one. *** ½