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testpattern's review
4.0
I'm glad it's over. There's nothing worse than being embroiled in a multi-volume alternate universe saga while it's still coming out. I loved these books, but the jury's out on whether they merit a rereading. They push some of the same magic realist buttons that Mark Helprin does, only Park is out of the closet about being a fantasy novelist. Crap covers, though.
wmhenrymorris's review
This is the final book in the Princess of Roumania trilogy. And just like with the previous two books, he delivers. A great conclusion. I don't have too much to say (see my reviews of the previous two books for more on Park's strengths as a writer) other than lesser writers would have been tempted at various stages along the way to push things further, to makes things more dramatic (I guess that's the best word). Park doesn't. He keeps things steady and subtle, and although that may sound boring and frustrating, it's not at all.
This is a trilogy worth reading.
As a side note: In the blurbs and in online descriptions, Philip Pullman's name often gets invoked. The comparison it's not entirely fair since Park is shooting at an older audience here (very much teen/adult as opposed to Pullman's early-teen/adult). But since the comparison is out there, let me react to it: Park's trilogy is superior in every single way to Pullman's.
This is a trilogy worth reading.
As a side note: In the blurbs and in online descriptions, Philip Pullman's name often gets invoked. The comparison it's not entirely fair since Park is shooting at an older audience here (very much teen/adult as opposed to Pullman's early-teen/adult). But since the comparison is out there, let me react to it: Park's trilogy is superior in every single way to Pullman's.
woodge's review
3.0
This is the fourth and final book in Park's Roumanian series, easily the oddest series I've read to date. (Could be the oddest story as well but then I recalled Santa Steps Out by Robert Devereaux and for sheer oddness, that one's tough to beat.) There are three main characters in the Roumanian series: Miranda, Andromeda, and Peter. And their trajectory through these books is hard to summarize. Let's just say that the tale involves: an alternate world; conjurers; magical items (including a gun housing six demons, some of which get loose); possesion; a character that changes from female to dog to male to various combinations of the aforementioned; the titular spirit world; and a war between Roumania and Turkey. That said, I enjoyed the journey although at times I found it confusing. I'd recommend it to anyone bored with the same old thing. Also, lots of writerly types give this series high praise including Ursula K. LeGuin and Gene Wolfe.
nigellicus's review
5.0
Right, then, the final volume in Park's quartet about Greater Roumania. Park has been compared to a lot of other writers over the course of these four books, but one other springs to mind: Michael Swanwick, specifically his anti-pastoral fairy tale, The Iron Dragon's Daughter. These stories share a common approach to fantasy in which they refuse to deliver or indulge in the traditional consolations of the fantasy genre. So when Miranda turns out to be a Princess in a magical world where she wields a terrifying magical power and has friends and allies and dangerous enemies, none of these things count as a blessing. Her home is destroyed, revealed as a magical illusion then ripped away, taking her adoptive parents with her. Her royal blood marks her out not as a figure of real power and influence but at best a ragged guerilla figurehead, or a political chess-piece in a morally and politically complex world in the throes of burgeoning modernity where royalty is rapidly becoming an empty symbol of the past.
Her powers work best in the Hidden World where she is the White Tyger, but even this is mostly the power to kill and destroy dispassionately, and as she realises herself, killing a few bad people here and there solves very few of the larger problems her country is confronted with. Her friends are altered and changed in profound and subtle ways. Her allies are powerless, superstitious gypsies or secretive, untrustworthy, jealous old women with ambiguous agendas. Her enemies include everyone powerful enough to damage or destroy her country. There is no clear path or plan for her to follow, no easy way to make things better and save her home or her friends. She makes many mistakes at terrible costs. This is not the rousing tale of a plucky modern princess rallying the peasants of a Ruritanian backwoods against an evil pretender to the throne.
In The Hidden World her mistake is to have the tourmaline stolen by the ghost of the mad baroness, stranding Miranda in the hidden world and allowing the baroness to possess bodies, including hers, in the real world. Dreadful, increasingly mechanised trench warfare rages on the border against the Turks and the Russians and a madman and murderer rules in Budapest. Is there anything she can do to save herself, her friends and her country? Answers do not come easy, and the ending is sad, lonely and uncertain, but concludes the quartet in a deeply satisfying manner. The four books mark a brave, thoughtful, beautiful addition to the fantasy canon and I recommend them unreservedly.
Her powers work best in the Hidden World where she is the White Tyger, but even this is mostly the power to kill and destroy dispassionately, and as she realises herself, killing a few bad people here and there solves very few of the larger problems her country is confronted with. Her friends are altered and changed in profound and subtle ways. Her allies are powerless, superstitious gypsies or secretive, untrustworthy, jealous old women with ambiguous agendas. Her enemies include everyone powerful enough to damage or destroy her country. There is no clear path or plan for her to follow, no easy way to make things better and save her home or her friends. She makes many mistakes at terrible costs. This is not the rousing tale of a plucky modern princess rallying the peasants of a Ruritanian backwoods against an evil pretender to the throne.
In The Hidden World her mistake is to have the tourmaline stolen by the ghost of the mad baroness, stranding Miranda in the hidden world and allowing the baroness to possess bodies, including hers, in the real world. Dreadful, increasingly mechanised trench warfare rages on the border against the Turks and the Russians and a madman and murderer rules in Budapest. Is there anything she can do to save herself, her friends and her country? Answers do not come easy, and the ending is sad, lonely and uncertain, but concludes the quartet in a deeply satisfying manner. The four books mark a brave, thoughtful, beautiful addition to the fantasy canon and I recommend them unreservedly.
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