Phoenix and Ashes
Apr. 19th, 2011 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseSurprised myself the other day: I read a Mercedes Lackey book I pretty much liked without reservations -- that being Phoenix and Ashes. This generally doesn't happen anymore. If I like one (The Serpent's Shadow, the Winds Trilogy) it's usually with some strong caveats.
Lackey has two really big and obvious flaws that tend to get away from her: one is a tendency to lecture or preach, sometimes through a character, sometimes within the narrative.
Her second is to insert "progressive notions" into every book of hers, where progressive notions actually means 20th/21st century North American liberal morality.
This happens in an unconsidered way, too, so that the default good people generally agree with notions of equality, while the villains, almost to a man/woman, believe hidebound regressive things (In some cases typical of the actual time period, but in others a parody even of that, more recognizable as 20th/21st century regressive notions); it is not possible to try and do something moral in her books and hold some prejudice. (Also, she occasionally slips up, so that an egregious piece of unconsidered sexism makes it into the Black Swan on the supposed side of light, even as the main story is about a sexist villain, and an abused female taking back her own life. Or places her depiction of those 'equal' minorities is a bit surfacy, because 'we're all the same deep down'.)
Whether the fact that the majority of her protagonists are misfit teenagers, often abused, who discover they're Special then grow up (in that order) is a plus or a minus depends on whether you're a high-strung fourteen-year-old or a rather calmer 34. (There are exceptions, too; she's fond of her adolescents but not limited to them.)
Thing is, Phoenix and Ashes is set in World War I Britain (1917, specifically), mostly in one small town and a nearby manor. This, it turns out, is a very good place for her to set her story, because there are reasons for modern progressive notions to overlay the setting. This is a town with very few men in it; those that are here are either too old to fight, too young, or wounded badly enough to be taken out of action. This is the time period when the women began to do men's work because no men were around to do it, when suffrage was gaining strong ground, when the Russian Revolution was taking place and socialism and class warfare were on the ground. So women talking about equality, and people challenging the classist notion that the lord of the manor is better than they are make some sense. It's still a bit heavy-handed at moments, but it doesn't clash with the background the way it does with castles and magical horses.
Eleanor is a woman from a rich merchant's family who wants to go to Oxford. This plan is derailed, badly, when her father first marries a despicable woman, then dies in the trenches. When it comes out that her father still willed his whole estate and merchant empire to his daughter, and his new wife, Alison, would get nothing, Alison, an elemental master of earth binds Eleanor with a spell that effectively turns her into a slave in her own house, unable to leave, forced to mindlessly serve.
Reggie is the son of a Duke, and a flying ace. (Also a master of the elemental magic of air.) His life is derailed when he's shot down over the trenches, and ends up buried in rubble, and, as if the sorts of explosions and disasters that filled WWI trench life weren't enough, magically assaulted by the sorts of Earth Elementals who thrive on the conditions of slaughter and horror in those trenches. He's injured and shell-shocked (Depicted better than I was afraid of), and sent home to recuperate. Where Alison the evil stepmother hatches a plan to manipulate him into marrying one of her daughters.
Eventually, Eleanor starts to work herself free of the magic binding her, a bit at a time, partly led by discovering she has magical talents with fire. And re-meets Reggie, an old crush. You can guess how things go from here.
All the Elemental Masters books are retellings of fairy tales, so no, the blatant Cinderella rip-off isn't accidental. There's even a ball, though Eleanor's reason for sneaking into the manor has nothing to do with love.
Overall, though, it's well done. The first time Reggie casually says, "And why not go to Oxford, women can do what they want" I was prepared to roll my eyes a lot, but he's given reasons to think so (Not least of which is Maya, the heroine of a prior book, and a doctor), and his coming around to other progressive notions is built logically from the war, is imperfect (Eleanor calls him on at least one unconsidered moment), and seems realistic compared to some places it's shown up in Lackey books.
Some of the lectures are derailed before they can happen, others are put in the mouths of reasonable people. It's good at catching *some* of the feel of the era, the mood of a town where the war is talked around, not about, because it's too big and terrible, at the changes, some small, some huge, the war has made on daily life. The villainess is too evil, and so a bit flat, but it's at least the recognizable evil of an ambition which will let nothing get in its way, and it feels grounded. Lackey's prose will never be poetic, but she keeps the action and interest going nicely, and I felt these were real figures, not tokens. Even the two godmothers (one each) helping the heroes along didn't seem TOO over the top. Basically, as I said, I liked it without feeling I was doing so in spite of her flaws.
(While talking book, I wanted to talk about the contrasting endings of two other books I recently finished, but I should have left the house half an hour ago, so bye for now.)
Lackey has two really big and obvious flaws that tend to get away from her: one is a tendency to lecture or preach, sometimes through a character, sometimes within the narrative.
Her second is to insert "progressive notions" into every book of hers, where progressive notions actually means 20th/21st century North American liberal morality.
This happens in an unconsidered way, too, so that the default good people generally agree with notions of equality, while the villains, almost to a man/woman, believe hidebound regressive things (In some cases typical of the actual time period, but in others a parody even of that, more recognizable as 20th/21st century regressive notions); it is not possible to try and do something moral in her books and hold some prejudice. (Also, she occasionally slips up, so that an egregious piece of unconsidered sexism makes it into the Black Swan on the supposed side of light, even as the main story is about a sexist villain, and an abused female taking back her own life. Or places her depiction of those 'equal' minorities is a bit surfacy, because 'we're all the same deep down'.)
Whether the fact that the majority of her protagonists are misfit teenagers, often abused, who discover they're Special then grow up (in that order) is a plus or a minus depends on whether you're a high-strung fourteen-year-old or a rather calmer 34. (There are exceptions, too; she's fond of her adolescents but not limited to them.)
Thing is, Phoenix and Ashes is set in World War I Britain (1917, specifically), mostly in one small town and a nearby manor. This, it turns out, is a very good place for her to set her story, because there are reasons for modern progressive notions to overlay the setting. This is a town with very few men in it; those that are here are either too old to fight, too young, or wounded badly enough to be taken out of action. This is the time period when the women began to do men's work because no men were around to do it, when suffrage was gaining strong ground, when the Russian Revolution was taking place and socialism and class warfare were on the ground. So women talking about equality, and people challenging the classist notion that the lord of the manor is better than they are make some sense. It's still a bit heavy-handed at moments, but it doesn't clash with the background the way it does with castles and magical horses.
Eleanor is a woman from a rich merchant's family who wants to go to Oxford. This plan is derailed, badly, when her father first marries a despicable woman, then dies in the trenches. When it comes out that her father still willed his whole estate and merchant empire to his daughter, and his new wife, Alison, would get nothing, Alison, an elemental master of earth binds Eleanor with a spell that effectively turns her into a slave in her own house, unable to leave, forced to mindlessly serve.
Reggie is the son of a Duke, and a flying ace. (Also a master of the elemental magic of air.) His life is derailed when he's shot down over the trenches, and ends up buried in rubble, and, as if the sorts of explosions and disasters that filled WWI trench life weren't enough, magically assaulted by the sorts of Earth Elementals who thrive on the conditions of slaughter and horror in those trenches. He's injured and shell-shocked (Depicted better than I was afraid of), and sent home to recuperate. Where Alison the evil stepmother hatches a plan to manipulate him into marrying one of her daughters.
Eventually, Eleanor starts to work herself free of the magic binding her, a bit at a time, partly led by discovering she has magical talents with fire. And re-meets Reggie, an old crush. You can guess how things go from here.
All the Elemental Masters books are retellings of fairy tales, so no, the blatant Cinderella rip-off isn't accidental. There's even a ball, though Eleanor's reason for sneaking into the manor has nothing to do with love.
Overall, though, it's well done. The first time Reggie casually says, "And why not go to Oxford, women can do what they want" I was prepared to roll my eyes a lot, but he's given reasons to think so (Not least of which is Maya, the heroine of a prior book, and a doctor), and his coming around to other progressive notions is built logically from the war, is imperfect (Eleanor calls him on at least one unconsidered moment), and seems realistic compared to some places it's shown up in Lackey books.
Some of the lectures are derailed before they can happen, others are put in the mouths of reasonable people. It's good at catching *some* of the feel of the era, the mood of a town where the war is talked around, not about, because it's too big and terrible, at the changes, some small, some huge, the war has made on daily life. The villainess is too evil, and so a bit flat, but it's at least the recognizable evil of an ambition which will let nothing get in its way, and it feels grounded. Lackey's prose will never be poetic, but she keeps the action and interest going nicely, and I felt these were real figures, not tokens. Even the two godmothers (one each) helping the heroes along didn't seem TOO over the top. Basically, as I said, I liked it without feeling I was doing so in spite of her flaws.
(While talking book, I wanted to talk about the contrasting endings of two other books I recently finished, but I should have left the house half an hour ago, so bye for now.)
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Date: 2011-04-20 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-24 09:52 pm (UTC)