The Wizard’s Promise, Cassandra Rose Clarke

I like Cassandra Rose Clarke a lot, and although her YA books aren’t as good (to my mind, anyway) as The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, they’re enjoyable. She creates interesting worlds that aren’t your typical run of the mill fantasy worlds, with female characters at the centre who aren’t limited in any way by silly sexism carried over from our world. We get several female characters, of varying importance, who do the same sorts of things as the men of their world, which is refreshing.

Some of the comments about the slowness of this plot are kinda justified, I think. It’s just awkward when your plot depends on a major character basically kidnapping another and sweeping them off into lands unknown and a fair amount of danger, without telling them anything about it. It’s hard for me to sympathise with Kolur, on those grounds, and Hanna’s entirely right to be pissed about the way he swept her off and his motives for doing so, to my mind. It’s not even entirely clear why he kept Hanna on board instead of just finding a way to send her home.

Isolfr is an interesting character in terms of what he is, but we don’t really see enough of him yet. I’ll be interested to see how he develops in the next book. I was actually a bigger fan of the husband and wife couple, Finnur and Asbera: they were good friends, understanding and accepting, and they had a strength and sweetness together that seemed entirely natural.

Overall, I enjoyed this, and will definitely read the second one when it’s available. And I, uh, need to catch up and read The Pirate’s Wish, ASAP.