Ink and Bone, Rachel Caine

Ink and Bone is an alternate history which starts with a simple change: the Library of Alexandria survived, and protecting it became the main focus of society. More than the church, the Library is the thing which holds society together, which has access and immunity, which controls technology. I thought there would be more about love of individual books, rather than books as a concept, since people talked about this as a book about books, but it isn’t, really. While the characters do read and study, and books are protected and valuable (and illegal to own an original copy of), it feels like the point is more the politics and the alternate history.

Which is fine: it turns out to be quite interesting. I found the supporting characters, like Wolf and Thomas, more interesting than Jess himself – and definitely wanted to see more of Jess’ twin, whose role and potential importance is kept very much in the background. The different way the world develops, with some types of technology (like the printing press) suppressed every time someone comes up with it, is pretty fascinating. The magic/technology is also pretty cool; I definitely want to know more about that, how it works and how much of it is magic, how much technology. The political background, with Wales’ war on England, is also pretty interesting, and I’d love to see Caine’s timeline of how exactly that would come about in the changed conditions of this Europe.

The end of the book leaves things very open; I’m quite impatient to read the next book and see where it all goes. I didn’t so much get involved with the characters as with the overall plot, so I won’t mind if the next book jumps POV. I just want it already!

Rating: 3/5

All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders

Oh, dear, I still don’t know what to say about this one, having put off reviewing it to let me think it over. I know that other people found it weird, and even decided not to finish it; I was never tempted to put it down and not finish it, but at the same time, I’m not sure how to talk about it or identify what I liked.

At heart, it’s a dialogue between fantasy and sci-fi; the power of nature and the power of technology; playing out the story where natural powers have to save the world from technology, but also vice versa, and a-slant. In the end, the story comes together as a symbiosis of both, equally flawed and equally powerful. If you’re exclusively a reader of one or the other genre, you’ll probably find this profoundly unsatisfying, because as far as I can tell, it never picks a side, never decides to be one or the other. It’s both.

That aspect was probably more interesting to me than the characters, through whom it was played out. I didn’t dislike them, but I wasn’t a huge fan either, and though there was a sort of inevitability to how they came together and apart and together again, it’s not something I had any strong feelings about.

It was interesting, and definitely an absorbing read, but not one I had strong feelings about in general.

Rating: 3/5

Bryony and Roses, T. Kingfisher

It didn’t surprise me when I finished reading this and read T. Kingfisher’s note that it was inspired originally by Robin McKinley’s Rose Daughter. It’s definitely not the same story, but something of the same atmosphere came across, and of course there’s the gardening aspect which is important in both. This explores the force that punishes the Beast rather more, I think: rather than a long-standing curse which fades into a known factor in the background, the Beast’s curse is very much an active thing which can be affected by things that Bryony and the Beast do.

There’s a rather darker background to this story, too, with the ivy spirit wound throughout the story, the dead girl and the bloodstained room, the cruelties of the ivy spirit. There’s also more sense in why the curse came to be, explaining both the cruelty of it and the helping magic of the house.

I thought it was a very good interpretation, and it’s amazing how authors can make the Beast loveable, every time. He’s kind and a bit snarky and he’s a craftsman, and he’s also willing to muck in and work with Bryony in her garden.

And Bryony’s family is pretty satisfying too, the support of her sister and the fact that she’s basically the support for her family, with her father long out of the picture. It’s got all the elements of the traditional fairytale, but gives them more depth and takes it in surprising directions.

Rating: 4/5