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A review by lisawreading
Across the Great Barrier by Patricia C. Wrede
3.0
Book #2 in the Frontier Magic series continues -- for good and for not-so-good -- along the same path as the first book, Thirteenth Child.
On the plus side, we continue to explore this alternate history of the United States, in which magic is commonplace and an actual necessity. The challenges and adventure of living life on the frontier is still here, and main character Eff is still pursuing her own non-standard magical skills.
On the negative side, the same problems that detract from the overall success of the first book are still present. The magical systems are overly complicated, so that it's never quite clear what's happening, and the solutions and big confrontations are so full of this jargon-heavy magical hoo-ha that it's hard to tell who did what or why. Eff should be a powerful character, but she never really comes into her own. That is, she clearly has talents that are rare, but she doesn't get to do a whole lot with them. She's always just a part of, not the lead actor -- she assists a professor, she participates in expeditions, she's on the team when danger strikes -- but she never is out in front, making decisions and standing out. Finally, the plot suffers from odd pacing. Many of the chapters (as in the first book) have time jumps that basically say, well, for the rest of that year, not much happened, or for the next few months, I kept doing my job. There's a lot of summarizing, with action sequences popping up occasionally, but overall there's a static feeling, as if the whole plot was being described in synopsis rather than actually taking place.
There's one more book in the series, and I'm interested to see where it ends up going. I hope Eff will get a chance to shine and make a difference, and I hope as well that the western explorations will shed some new light on the hows and whys of this magical world.
The Frontier Magic series thus far strikes me as a very interesting idea without the execution to fully back it up. That said, my eleven-year-old son likes the books and wants to read the third, and that's really saying something!
On the plus side, we continue to explore this alternate history of the United States, in which magic is commonplace and an actual necessity. The challenges and adventure of living life on the frontier is still here, and main character Eff is still pursuing her own non-standard magical skills.
On the negative side, the same problems that detract from the overall success of the first book are still present. The magical systems are overly complicated, so that it's never quite clear what's happening, and the solutions and big confrontations are so full of this jargon-heavy magical hoo-ha that it's hard to tell who did what or why. Eff should be a powerful character, but she never really comes into her own. That is, she clearly has talents that are rare, but she doesn't get to do a whole lot with them. She's always just a part of, not the lead actor -- she assists a professor, she participates in expeditions, she's on the team when danger strikes -- but she never is out in front, making decisions and standing out. Finally, the plot suffers from odd pacing. Many of the chapters (as in the first book) have time jumps that basically say, well, for the rest of that year, not much happened, or for the next few months, I kept doing my job. There's a lot of summarizing, with action sequences popping up occasionally, but overall there's a static feeling, as if the whole plot was being described in synopsis rather than actually taking place.
There's one more book in the series, and I'm interested to see where it ends up going. I hope Eff will get a chance to shine and make a difference, and I hope as well that the western explorations will shed some new light on the hows and whys of this magical world.
The Frontier Magic series thus far strikes me as a very interesting idea without the execution to fully back it up. That said, my eleven-year-old son likes the books and wants to read the third, and that's really saying something!