A review by lassarina
Firethorn by Sarah Micklem
3.0
I've been waffling back and forth most of the day about how I wanted to review this book. I liked it; certainly I was interested enough to know how everything was going to turn out that I went and added the sequel to my wish list so I'd remember to pick it up. It was when I went to do that that I realized why. Amazon describes this trilogy as "literary fantasy," and that--or rather, what it implies--is what has been rubbing me the wrong way.
The good: The characters are well-characterized, the writing is solid, the worldbuilding is excellent (particularly the presentation of religion and how it interacts with daily life), and the plot follows logically along without sidebars into "and where did that deus ex machina come from?" Firethorn and Sire Galan are engaging...but.
I will admit I'm not a fan of literary fiction. I get an awful lot of grit and tedium and sadness in day-to-day life; I don't want it in my pretendy funtimes. I read for escapism. I didn't really get that here; while the characters are interesting, they're also very frustrating. There's a strong thread of realism here, from the frequent pettiness of the characters to the amount of detail about bodily functions and the filth of a pre-Renaissance society (and the place of those without wealth or title in it), but because of that, I felt rather worn-down by the book.
I also found it long; it wasn't tedious to read, but at the point where the book ended (after 500-some pages), I felt like I was at the point in the plot where I'd expect to be after 200 pages. I realize this is the first book of a trilogy, but even then, I felt like there was a long grinding time of daily-life minutiae rather than plot going on, and it was somewhat tiring.
In a lot of ways, this book reminds me of a grittier, darker mirror of the Kushiel's Legacy books; low where that is high, the main character is a camp follower rather than a cherished courtesan, a world where the gods work but they do so with the lightest of touches rather than direct intervention, and where sex is often a business transaction rather than a sacred act of worship. I almost feel like I've been handed a genre contract that was fulfilled in the letter but badly twisted in the spirit, both in terms of a fantasy novel and in terms of a romance.
As I said above, I'm interested enough in the world and the (glacially moving) plot to pursue the next book, but I think I will go into it with more reasonable expectations.
The good: The characters are well-characterized, the writing is solid, the worldbuilding is excellent (particularly the presentation of religion and how it interacts with daily life), and the plot follows logically along without sidebars into "and where did that deus ex machina come from?" Firethorn and Sire Galan are engaging...but.
I will admit I'm not a fan of literary fiction. I get an awful lot of grit and tedium and sadness in day-to-day life; I don't want it in my pretendy funtimes. I read for escapism. I didn't really get that here; while the characters are interesting, they're also very frustrating. There's a strong thread of realism here, from the frequent pettiness of the characters to the amount of detail about bodily functions and the filth of a pre-Renaissance society (and the place of those without wealth or title in it), but because of that, I felt rather worn-down by the book.
I also found it long; it wasn't tedious to read, but at the point where the book ended (after 500-some pages), I felt like I was at the point in the plot where I'd expect to be after 200 pages. I realize this is the first book of a trilogy, but even then, I felt like there was a long grinding time of daily-life minutiae rather than plot going on, and it was somewhat tiring.
In a lot of ways, this book reminds me of a grittier, darker mirror of the Kushiel's Legacy books; low where that is high, the main character is a camp follower rather than a cherished courtesan, a world where the gods work but they do so with the lightest of touches rather than direct intervention, and where sex is often a business transaction rather than a sacred act of worship. I almost feel like I've been handed a genre contract that was fulfilled in the letter but badly twisted in the spirit, both in terms of a fantasy novel and in terms of a romance.
As I said above, I'm interested enough in the world and the (glacially moving) plot to pursue the next book, but I think I will go into it with more reasonable expectations.