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A review by kaa
Silence in Solitude by Melissa Scott
4.0
I enjoyed this book even more than the first book in the trilogy. It manages to overcome the typical middle-book tedium by focusing on a brand new adventure that, while instrumental in the larger story arc, also stands well by itself. I thought that this worked well as a vehicle to advance the world-building and characterization without slowing the plot.
I continue to really like Silence as a main character, and think that this book did a great job of giving her further depth as an interesting, flawed, and relatable character. I also love that this book was so heavily focused on women and their lives within this oppressive society. My absolute favorite part was when another women asks Silence, at the time going by a pseudonym, "You don’t like women very much, do you, ‘Jamilla’?" The moment was a beautiful interrogation of both the character's attitudes and the attitudes that are so common across SFF, even in books featuring a "strong female character" as the lead.
A couple minor complaints: I do wish Silence's husbands were more deeply characterized - at the moment, Denis seems rather thinly sketched and it's hard for me to get a feel for Julie's personality at all. However, I do enjoy the view of their relationship from Silence's perspective, and the clear affection between all of them.
Probably my biggest issue with the book was that there was way too much exposition reviewing the events of the last book at the beginning of this one, which was especially tedious as I read this immediately after the first. Second,
Finally, I want to reflect a bit on what I sometimes felt was overuse of the phrase "the pilot" to describe Silence. This sometimes felt unclear to me, but I think at least part of this is because I would default to thinking that this referred to a male character if there was even potentially another pilot in the scene, which I think is very revealing of our social gender bias around certain occupations. In any case, I don't know whether pointing that out was the author's intention in choosing that phrasing, but it was certainly effective for me, as well as being very effective in conveying the character's view of herself.
I continue to really like Silence as a main character, and think that this book did a great job of giving her further depth as an interesting, flawed, and relatable character. I also love that this book was so heavily focused on women and their lives within this oppressive society. My absolute favorite part was when another women asks Silence, at the time going by a pseudonym, "You don’t like women very much, do you, ‘Jamilla’?" The moment was a beautiful interrogation of both the character's attitudes and the attitudes that are so common across SFF, even in books featuring a "strong female character" as the lead.
A couple minor complaints: I do wish Silence's husbands were more deeply characterized - at the moment, Denis seems rather thinly sketched and it's hard for me to get a feel for Julie's personality at all. However, I do enjoy the view of their relationship from Silence's perspective, and the clear affection between all of them.
Probably my biggest issue with the book was that there was way too much exposition reviewing the events of the last book at the beginning of this one, which was especially tedious as I read this immediately after the first. Second,
Spoiler
I felt as though Radiah's suspicion and hostility toward Silence was left unresolved. To be honest, I was sort of expecting her to be behind the conspirator they were feeling wary of earlier on, because that also felt like a loose end. It is possible that these things will appear again in the next book, but I would rather have seen them dealt with in this installment, because it felt anti-climatic that they didn't end up leading up to anything.Finally, I want to reflect a bit on what I sometimes felt was overuse of the phrase "the pilot" to describe Silence. This sometimes felt unclear to me, but I think at least part of this is because I would default to thinking that this referred to a male character if there was even potentially another pilot in the scene, which I think is very revealing of our social gender bias around certain occupations. In any case, I don't know whether pointing that out was the author's intention in choosing that phrasing, but it was certainly effective for me, as well as being very effective in conveying the character's view of herself.