[KXL]⋙ [PDF] Free Cold Magic Spiritwalker Kate Elliott 9781841498812 Books

Cold Magic Spiritwalker Kate Elliott 9781841498812 Books

Download As PDF : Cold Magic Spiritwalker Kate Elliott 9781841498812 Books

Cold Magic Spiritwalker Kate Elliott 9781841498812 Books

I'll start with good and descend into bad.

The strongest point is intricate world building. My experience with alternate history novels is rather limited (this is a first) so I cannot really compare with the rest of genre but it gives off as work of an accomplished, experienced writer. Another strong point is rich diversity, rarely seen in fantasy novels. I like it best that lines of division are never racial but rather pertaining to social status and magical prowess. Strong female lead is interesting, resourceful and deals with crap to the best of her abilities.
That said, I pushed through the book fueled by sheer stubborn spite. World building is intricate, yes, but painfully overstuffed. Readers are subjected to endless enumeration of names of places completely irrelevant to the story. Same purpose would be served if readers were informed in two or three short sentences that our protagonists went from point A to point B instead of paragraphs after exhausting paragraphs of names we never needed. Characters have unfortunate habit to dive into lengthy descriptions mid-sentence. Not only it's confusing and irritating but completely throws reader out of the story. Worst part - it goes on throughout first 30% of the book. Hundred or so pages in I was ready to drop the whole thing because that overstuffed mess didn't seem to lead anywhere. Instead of dropping it, I went through few reviews just to be sure it's the book and not me having a bad day. Since I couldn't trust author, I decided to trust readers' word that it gets better eventually. It really does get better later on. Also, scenes where we infer important information on plot and characters are often unnecessarily protracted. I'd say had editor done better job, it would have been solid four stars book, two hundred or so pages shorter. Last, but not least, Andevai. He's a dick but strong, independent, smart woman falls for him nevertheless because he's exceptionally good-looking? Seriously? Had he shown some basic kindness or single redeemable quality which, in consequence, sparked some positive emotional response from our heroine, I'd believe it. Bit of a stretch but I'd pass it as plausible. This way, not so much. Maybe there is alternate universe in which I believe good looks can excuse complete and utter dickness. Not this universe. Concept got old in B-production 80's Hollywood movies.
However, by the end of the book text got cleaner, pace picked up and plot emerged enough to get me interested in book 2.


Tags : Cold Magic (Spiritwalker) [Kate Elliott] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. From one of the genre's finest writers comes a bold new epic fantasy in which science and magic are locked in a deadly struggle. It is the dawn of a new age... The Industrial Revolution has begun,Kate Elliott,Cold Magic (Spiritwalker),Orbit,1841498815

Cold Magic Spiritwalker Kate Elliott 9781841498812 Books Reviews

The Good
-Detailed world building. The author put a lot of thought in to her alternate history, and I really like the interwoven cultures and mythologies
-Lots of diversity, much more than the typical fantasy book. Not only that, but most non-white characters are portrayed positively and in positions of power. Racial discrimination is minimal, and not based on skin color.
-Beginning of a compelling plot. This is basically what bumped it up to three stars for me. It takes a while to get there, but I think the story is worth reading the next book.

The Bad
-Andevai, Cat's cold mage husband. There is absolutely nothing likeable about this guy. He is terrible to Cat from day one, and anytime he isn't it's completely self serving. Of course Cat just can't help being attracted to him anyway. It's cheap, it's gross, and I'm tired of reading this kind of "romance" in fantasy.
-Cat lacks agency. She is introduced as this sassy smart girl, but soon devolves in to passive pawn. I can't think of one decision she truly made for herself. Everything she does is for other people, even actions to save her own life are mostly so she can protect her cousin Bee.
-Bizarre info dumps. In the middle of casual conversations characters will randomly launch in to a history lesson. It's jarring and makes the beginning of the book difficult to read. It does get less choppy as you go though.
I enjoyed this trilogy a great deal, and I’m glad I made time for it, even though I had to break in the middle to revise a manuscript of my own. If you’re thinking of trying Cold Magic, I strongly suggest that you get it in paper because the map in the front is completely unreadable on a , and it is truly a most interesting map.

The map is so interesting because the alternate history is so baroque. Let me lay that out a little.

First, we are in the Gaslamp era, but also still in a heavily glaciated epoch. I believe ice stretches across a lot of what is for us the United States, though the map doesn’t show that. Deep history must be quite different in this world, because dinosaurs didn’t die out; in the Americas, troödons gave rise to the “feathered people,” just as in Africa apes gave rise to the hominids.

I have never seen such a fabulous nonhuman species in a fantasy series. Never. I just love how the feathered people are designed. They are so nonhuman. Their underlying instincts are so clearly different from human instincts. The reader is not bashed over the head with this, the feathered people are a crucial but relatively small element in the book, but it is obvious. They are simply wonderful. So that’s one element – these sentient troödon descendants.

Second, waaaay back when (not sure how long ago, but a while), an important West African empire dug too far down in the salt mines and let loose the “salt plague” – at first the reader has no idea that this is a zombie element, and if zombies are a turn off for you, have no fear! You are not bashed over the head with the zombies, either. They are an important background element, occasionally brought into the foreground, but this is not by any stretch of the imagination a “zombie book”. In the Cold Magic trilogy, the historical importance of the salt plague is that it drove a mass migration from West Africa to Europe; the mages of both the African empire and the Celts found common ground and basically established a powerful empire drawing on both traditions. This gives us the main background culture for the story.

Oh, and third, the Roman Empire is still more or less a going concern.

And fourth, we wind up in the Antilles for quite a lot of the trilogy, where we find a quite distinctive civilization; the European colony city of Expedition exists at the edge of the Taino culture and features, by the way, a great creole type of language that must have given the copy editors absolute fits.

So the background is, as I say, baroque – and that’s before getting to the magic, though ordinary mortal magic is in fact quite straightforward in comparison, with cold mages and fire mages. One of the cleverest details is how the cold mages can’t walk by a fire without putting it out, and thus mage houses are heated via a Roman hypocaust system.

In addition to normal magic, though, there is the spirit world and the Wild Hunt and shapeshifting sabertoothed cats, not to mention the dragons . . . once again, baroque complications flower off in all directions.

Also I’ve left out the extreme tension between the mage houses and noble lineages who hold all the power, and the common people who are just at the edge of demanding legal rights. It’s like the peasants’ revolt in Britain in 1381 AD, only on a larger scale and with complications like the Napoleon-esque Camjiata, determined to conquer all of Europe and establish a new legal system, though he sure is determined to rule as Emperor himself no matter what he promises – he could be the scariest guy in the trilogy, though in such a civilized way.

So. That’s the background.

Now, the protagonist. What counts as epic fantasy for you? This is a big, complicated work, but we have exactly one pov protagonist, which means I’m not sure whether to call the trilogy “epic fantasy” or not. Also, the narration is first person, which also serves to give a more intimate feel to the story than I would generally think of for epic fantasy. On the other hand . . . the trilogy does “feel” like epic fantasy to me, more than anything else.

Though I don’t necessarily object to a clutter of pov protagonists, I did like Catherine Barr Barahel – Cat. Since the story is Cat’s, you have to like her voice or you won’t care for the trilogy. I did like her. She is one of the relatively few impulsive heroines who really works for me, probably because she is smart, brave, stubborn, and loyal. I also like how much of a sensualist she is – that’s relatively rare, I think, and it is a trait that helps the reader feel immersed in the world. For a while I did feel Cat was being pretty stupid about various things, but not (usually) so much so as to be really annoying, and anyway she can eventually accept the obvious when it bashes her over the head hard enough.

Cat’s story starts off like a YA story, and rather slowly. We see her world and family, and her cousin and best friend Bee (Beatrice) – the relationship between Cat and Bee is the most important relationship in the story. The story really starts when Cat is unexpectedly forced to marry a very powerful young cold mage, Andevai Diarisso Haranwy, who incidentally is enormously appealing, with his mix of vanity and confidence and insecurity. I’m sure you can see this coming, but of course Cat eventually falls for him even though at first she detests him.

And then we go from there, with the good guys getting together and being wrenched apart, and facing down villains, and basically trying to save each other and the world.

In some ways the villains are the best part — Camjiata with his suave, sympathetic conviction that he should be emperor; the master of the Wild Hunt with his inhuman detachment and casual cruelty; the mansa of Four Moons House with his certainty that people of good birth, like him, should naturally be able to dispose of lesser beings like villagers — he actually grew on me at the end; and of course the fire mage James Drake, who when we first meet him seems like a perfectly okay guy and then every. single. time. he reappears, he reveals himself as worse than we thought.

So. Here we have a story that opens slowly and then adds one complication after another, with important female friendships, important male friendships, complicated family relationships, angsty romances, good guys that you can root for even though they’re flawed, bad guys that you can love to hate, intelligent troödons, and complicated culture clashes. And dragons. If you’re in the mood for a fairly intimate-scale story told against a cluttered, ornate background, this might be exactly what you want.
I'll start with good and descend into bad.

The strongest point is intricate world building. My experience with alternate history novels is rather limited (this is a first) so I cannot really compare with the rest of genre but it gives off as work of an accomplished, experienced writer. Another strong point is rich diversity, rarely seen in fantasy novels. I like it best that lines of division are never racial but rather pertaining to social status and magical prowess. Strong female lead is interesting, resourceful and deals with crap to the best of her abilities.
That said, I pushed through the book fueled by sheer stubborn spite. World building is intricate, yes, but painfully overstuffed. Readers are subjected to endless enumeration of names of places completely irrelevant to the story. Same purpose would be served if readers were informed in two or three short sentences that our protagonists went from point A to point B instead of paragraphs after exhausting paragraphs of names we never needed. Characters have unfortunate habit to dive into lengthy descriptions mid-sentence. Not only it's confusing and irritating but completely throws reader out of the story. Worst part - it goes on throughout first 30% of the book. Hundred or so pages in I was ready to drop the whole thing because that overstuffed mess didn't seem to lead anywhere. Instead of dropping it, I went through few reviews just to be sure it's the book and not me having a bad day. Since I couldn't trust author, I decided to trust readers' word that it gets better eventually. It really does get better later on. Also, scenes where we infer important information on plot and characters are often unnecessarily protracted. I'd say had editor done better job, it would have been solid four stars book, two hundred or so pages shorter. Last, but not least, Andevai. He's a dick but strong, independent, smart woman falls for him nevertheless because he's exceptionally good-looking? Seriously? Had he shown some basic kindness or single redeemable quality which, in consequence, sparked some positive emotional response from our heroine, I'd believe it. Bit of a stretch but I'd pass it as plausible. This way, not so much. Maybe there is alternate universe in which I believe good looks can excuse complete and utter dickness. Not this universe. Concept got old in B-production 80's Hollywood movies.
However, by the end of the book text got cleaner, pace picked up and plot emerged enough to get me interested in book 2.