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A review by nghia
The Jewel and Her Lapidary by Fran Wilde
2.0
This underwhelming novella doesn't really do enough to distance itself from the tropes it employs. A fantasy kingdom, where gems are the source of magic, reels from a sudden combination of palace coup & foreign invasion. The sole survivors of the palace coup are the inconsequential and mostly useless youngest daughter of the king -- only good for marrying off -- and her confidante/advisor/childhood friend and are almost immediately captured by the invaders. Will they find some source of leverage in this desperate situation? They are cast-offs that nobody believed in...but they believe in themselves and find unexpected strengths blah blah blah.
It could be a pretty good setup: How will those two find some kind of leverage with all that stacked against them? The good: Wilde keeps things as mostly a psychological struggle of wills between the captured and the captors. This isn't some swashbuckling, action-adventure of daring escapes and fights. It's a battle of will and wits.
But everything feels curious flat, making it hard to care. (It doesn't help that there are all these twee interstitial sections that read like a faux tour guide from 200 years in the future that are weirdly dissonant from the dire straights being faced.) A prime example: there's the briefest hint that maybe Princess and her Bestie have some sapphic attraction...which kinda comes from nowhere (they've known one another their whole lives, after all, and it hasn't come up before) and disappears almost as quickly.
It could be a pretty good setup: How will those two find some kind of leverage with all that stacked against them? The good: Wilde keeps things as mostly a psychological struggle of wills between the captured and the captors. This isn't some swashbuckling, action-adventure of daring escapes and fights. It's a battle of will and wits.
But everything feels curious flat, making it hard to care. (It doesn't help that there are all these twee interstitial sections that read like a faux tour guide from 200 years in the future that are weirdly dissonant from the dire straights being faced.) A prime example: there's the briefest hint that maybe Princess and her Bestie have some sapphic attraction...which kinda comes from nowhere (they've known one another their whole lives, after all, and it hasn't come up before) and disappears almost as quickly.