2019/05: The Masked City -- Genevieve Cogman
Friday, February 8th, 2019 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranth2019/05: The Masked City -- Genevieve Cogman
At the end of The Invisible Library, Irene was working for the interdimensional Library in a steampunk-flavoured alternate London. She has become close to detective Peregrine Vale, and still admires the physical beauty of her apprentice Kai, who is a dragon (in human form: dragons, in this universe, are agents of order and stability).
Then Kai is abducted by the Fae (agents of chaos and change) and, pursued by Irene, is taken to a Fae-ruled version of seventeenth-century Venice. Can Irene save her apprentice before the forces of chaos overwhelm him? Can she trust the Fae she meets on the Train? (Train is capitalised because it's a powerful Fae entity in its own right, usually known as the Horse and directed by the Rider.) Can she even stop to breathe? Evidence suggests not: this is a hectic and headlong chase of a book, with obstacles at every turn and allies indistinguishable from enemies.
I would have liked more about the Horse and its Rider; I did enjoy the exploration of Fae culture and etiquette, and some of the new Fae that Irene encounters -- in particular Zayanna, who is holding out for a hero of any gender, and thinks Irene very heroic -- are interesting trope-embodiments as well as entertaining characters.
Was Kai's uncle's name actually a pun? If so, *groan*.
I do like Irene's mixture of level-headed competence and steely resolve. In this alternate Venice, she finds herself at the mercy of Narrative -- the way the stories go, or are supposed to go -- in a way that reminded me of Seanan McGuire's Indexing. She's also operating as a diplomat way above her pay grade; and her Library bosses won't be happy with some of the deals and alliances she makes.
After reading this episode, which ends on something of a cliffhanger, I went straight on to the next one ...
Could the story have turned against her? Was this the part of the narrative where the heroine in disguise is confronted by her arch-enemies – or possibly where the protagonists find and dispose of the villainous spy, all depending on the reader's viewpoint? [p. 172]
At the end of The Invisible Library, Irene was working for the interdimensional Library in a steampunk-flavoured alternate London. She has become close to detective Peregrine Vale, and still admires the physical beauty of her apprentice Kai, who is a dragon (in human form: dragons, in this universe, are agents of order and stability).
Then Kai is abducted by the Fae (agents of chaos and change) and, pursued by Irene, is taken to a Fae-ruled version of seventeenth-century Venice. Can Irene save her apprentice before the forces of chaos overwhelm him? Can she trust the Fae she meets on the Train? (Train is capitalised because it's a powerful Fae entity in its own right, usually known as the Horse and directed by the Rider.) Can she even stop to breathe? Evidence suggests not: this is a hectic and headlong chase of a book, with obstacles at every turn and allies indistinguishable from enemies.
I would have liked more about the Horse and its Rider; I did enjoy the exploration of Fae culture and etiquette, and some of the new Fae that Irene encounters -- in particular Zayanna, who is holding out for a hero of any gender, and thinks Irene very heroic -- are interesting trope-embodiments as well as entertaining characters.
Was Kai's uncle's name actually a pun? If so, *groan*.
I do like Irene's mixture of level-headed competence and steely resolve. In this alternate Venice, she finds herself at the mercy of Narrative -- the way the stories go, or are supposed to go -- in a way that reminded me of Seanan McGuire's Indexing. She's also operating as a diplomat way above her pay grade; and her Library bosses won't be happy with some of the deals and alliances she makes.
After reading this episode, which ends on something of a cliffhanger, I went straight on to the next one ...
