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antonism's review
3.0
2.5 / 5
This is not like my usual reviews where I analyze most aspects of a book. Instead, I just want to give my strictly personal view and opinion. So...
Tastes are subjective, likes and dislikes are different among people. Some like coffee, some not. Some like their coffee sweet, some bitter and so on. There are a lot of people who find something special in Bear's writing and books, that fall in love with them, her stories and her characters. I am not one of them, in fact this was the second chance I gave one of her works and it ended up being a second yellow card which (for soccer fans) leads to a red card - an automatic ejection.
Why is that you might say? Well, for starters, you might want to read my previous review of Range of Ghosts , a much hyper and "loved" book of hers that unfortunately didn't sit so well with me. But I wanted to give her another chance, something just a bit different. So I read Book of Iron, a novella in a fantasy world unrelated to her previous works (I think). And sadly, most of my gripes and problems I had with Range of Ghosts remain:
- Plot-wise, it starts very promising with hints of great world-building but there's not much substance to be found.
- Bear is an author who somehow manages to make even tense scenes and confrontations come out dull and feel unimportant. I simply can't explain this, but it's what it feels like. There's build-up and tension and then it just fizzles to nothing. You're left wondering, "oh that was that then?"
- Her characters are as one-dimensional as they come. Maybe the narrator or main character will get some extra exposition but the rest are all named place-holders. I could not care for any one of them.
- Some parts were simply mind-numbing and needless. Such an example are the last 10 pages or final chapter which gave absolutely nothing to the story. Maybe there's some meaning as part of a longer story but I didn't make any sense of it.
Still, the story and writing are not bad on their own - it's just that I can't ever seem to find any meaning or point in reading Bear's works. I can recommend this only if one wants to take a taste of Bear's works but I can't guarantee that you will enjoy it. As for me, I think that's probably the last Elizabeth Bear I read.
2.5 / 5
This is not like my usual reviews where I analyze most aspects of a book. Instead, I just want to give my strictly personal view and opinion. So...
Tastes are subjective, likes and dislikes are different among people. Some like coffee, some not. Some like their coffee sweet, some bitter and so on. There are a lot of people who find something special in Bear's writing and books, that fall in love with them, her stories and her characters. I am not one of them, in fact this was the second chance I gave one of her works and it ended up being a second yellow card which (for soccer fans) leads to a red card - an automatic ejection.
Why is that you might say? Well, for starters, you might want to read my previous review of Range of Ghosts , a much hyper and "loved" book of hers that unfortunately didn't sit so well with me. But I wanted to give her another chance, something just a bit different. So I read Book of Iron, a novella in a fantasy world unrelated to her previous works (I think). And sadly, most of my gripes and problems I had with Range of Ghosts remain:
- Plot-wise, it starts very promising with hints of great world-building but there's not much substance to be found.
- Bear is an author who somehow manages to make even tense scenes and confrontations come out dull and feel unimportant. I simply can't explain this, but it's what it feels like. There's build-up and tension and then it just fizzles to nothing. You're left wondering, "oh that was that then?"
- Her characters are as one-dimensional as they come. Maybe the narrator or main character will get some extra exposition but the rest are all named place-holders. I could not care for any one of them.
- Some parts were simply mind-numbing and needless. Such an example are the last 10 pages or final chapter which gave absolutely nothing to the story. Maybe there's some meaning as part of a longer story but I didn't make any sense of it.
Still, the story and writing are not bad on their own - it's just that I can't ever seem to find any meaning or point in reading Bear's works. I can recommend this only if one wants to take a taste of Bear's works but I can't guarantee that you will enjoy it. As for me, I think that's probably the last Elizabeth Bear I read.
2.5 / 5
carol26388's review
4.0
"Bijou opened her mouth for the obvious comment. Everyone is alone. We come into this world alone, and so do we leave it. Then she realized it was a lie--a facile, comforting lie disguised as bitter cynicism. Did the bitterness make it seem like medicine and truth, when in fact it was a lie? Because no one was alone. Every action, every choice--it vibrated like a fly's wings in a spiderbweb. It shook the lives of everyone else in the vicinity, and the resulting vibrations shook other lives, and so on until the whole world was a-tremble with the shock waves of that one single choice. The world, Bijou suddenly saw, was nothing but a web of these interactions. Everything qualified everything else."
A prequel to another novella, [b:Bone and Jewel Creatures|6903857|Bone and Jewel Creatures|Elizabeth Bear|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1253765031s/6903857.jpg|7127770], Book of Iron stands alone, but gives a satisfying history to a significant time period in Bijou's life when she and her lover Kaulas the Necromancer provided friendship and sorcerous support to Prince Salih. One morning, the Prince receives three mysterious foreigners headed to the city of Ancient Erem. The last time the Prince and his friends were in Erem they were lucky to escape, naturally the three heroes want to accompany the adventurers though " Ancient Erem is cursed. Abandoned by the gods."
I happen to love Bear's writing in these novellas; reminiscent of Valente and Jemisin, it might perhaps feel a tad effusive, but more so in "Bones. Personally, I think it the perfect tone for high fantasy. There's a lot of emotion packed into the adventure tale, and the language works for that as well:
"I'm sorry about your mother's death,' she said, hearing the words as alien. They each had meaning, surely--I and am and sorry, about and your and mother. And death. Each one had a definition, a usage... It was the sentiment. Mothers. So much need. So much love. So much opportunity for misery."
A quick adventure read with complex emotional overtones. Eminently re-readable, so I'm glad I added it to my library.
rachela1eaf's review
4.0
As lovely as the first book. I didn't expect the prequel to have so much depth of world/character above and beyond the previous one--that was such a pleasant surprise. I deeply enjoyed the characters, and I loved the new unique ideas that were introduced in this book. Like the previous one, I do feel I would have enjoyed it even more as a novel--there was enough there that it could have been expanded and I think would have done quite a bit to improve the pacing and character development. Not that those things suffered greatly, but it was a touch less developed than I would have preferred, and I would've absolutely read a novel. But I understand that sometimes that's not what the author wants to do. Lovely read nonetheless.
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