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A review by seeceeread
The Erstwhile by Brian Catling
3.5
💭 "She who had made love with such total abandon would not now be defeated by the kiln-like temperature of her maternal lodestone: sloth."
When I grabbed this from a neighborhood #LittleFreeLibrary, I had no idea it was the second book of a trilogy. The plot reflects that in-between status of carrying a concept forward but not resolving, so readers build adequate interest in the next. There's petty theft, gruesome deaths, strange disappearances, inexplicably fast growth and healing ... mostly set in Essenwald, a German colonial city at the edge of a mythic forest, the Vorrh, and London.
A fantasy setting satisfyingly saturates. The authors builds quirky characters well. While the plot plodded, Catling's prose held my interest. Surprising diction fills recognizable structures. Whole passages, littered with euphonious strings, call for oral treatment.
While I appreciate Catling's style, I won't go looking for the other books in this trilogy. Rather, I'm eagerly awaiting the third in James' glamorous, queer pan-African 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗟𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗥𝗲𝗱 𝗪𝗼𝗹𝗳 / 𝗠𝗼𝗼𝗻 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝗦𝗽𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗞𝗶𝗻𝗴 fantasy collection.
When I grabbed this from a neighborhood #LittleFreeLibrary, I had no idea it was the second book of a trilogy. The plot reflects that in-between status of carrying a concept forward but not resolving, so readers build adequate interest in the next. There's petty theft, gruesome deaths, strange disappearances, inexplicably fast growth and healing ... mostly set in Essenwald, a German colonial city at the edge of a mythic forest, the Vorrh, and London.
A fantasy setting satisfyingly saturates. The authors builds quirky characters well. While the plot plodded, Catling's prose held my interest. Surprising diction fills recognizable structures. Whole passages, littered with euphonious strings, call for oral treatment.
While I appreciate Catling's style, I won't go looking for the other books in this trilogy. Rather, I'm eagerly awaiting the third in James' glamorous, queer pan-African 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗟𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗥𝗲𝗱 𝗪𝗼𝗹𝗳 / 𝗠𝗼𝗼𝗻 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝗦𝗽𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗞𝗶𝗻𝗴 fantasy collection.