tilly_wizard's reviews
209 reviews

An unremarkable ending for an unremarkable trilogy. 

This book has the same plotting problems as the previous one - far too many pages of the mid-section of the book are taken up by the characters sailing away from the city under magical siege on a quest for the macguffin to defeat the villain. The macguffin in question could quite easily have been located in the palace (since the king has wanted one for some years), or manufactured (since one of the characters knows how to do so, but refuses on moral grounds), but presumably Schwab was determined to confine them on a ship as a convenient way to force character drama, and also to get most of the cast out of the palace so the villains can more easily enact their schemes there. The only really useful plot development to come out of this sidequest which couldn’t have been written in some other, more succint and/or poignant way is that Lila is made to grant an unspecified favor to the proprietor of the magical black market, a set up for a sequel trilogy that would not be written until several years later. 

The one thing I did really like about this book was that the mysteries of

Kell’s parents and Lila’s missing eye

were left unresolved . As an adopted person, adopted characters having no knowledge of, and no particular need or desire for knowledge of, their biological parents is something I really identify with and I wish that was more common in fiction to balance out the plethora of stories with the usual tropes about secret royalty and heroic (or villainous) family legacies and so on. 

The romance between Rhy and Alucard had some surprisingly touching moments and was much more compelling and genuine than the half-baked romance between Kell and Lila, but Alucard’s backstory about

his abusive brother trafficking him into slavery on a ship to cure him from being gay

feels like a cheap grab for sympathy and an easy, palatably unproblematic resolution to their past break-up drama; it comes out of nowhere because at no previous point in the story has homophobia been an issue. On this aspect, I still have the same complaint from my review of the first book about the socio-political situation in Red London being under-detailed to a degree that is inexplicable in a story that revolves around a royal family. Clearly royal blood is seen to matter, since Kell is adopted by the royals but not in line for the throne, so are there laws about the legitimacy of heirs? Shouldn’t we be concerned that Rhy is infertile anyway, since the book keeps reminding us that he’s technically a dead corpse animated by Kell’s life force? After the release of the first book of the sequel trilogy, it’s nice to know that at least some of the questions about the mechanics of a non-traditional royal family are answered, but it was certainly weak writing at the time. 

As much as I absolutely fucking loathe character-death-as-redemption,

Holland’s death to restore magic to White London landed okay, because it was foreshadowed plenty. Holland is only significantly developed in this book, and all of that development is focused on the number of people he’s killed and the circumstances of each killing; because he explicitly sets for himself the goal of dying as atonement, and is never given anything to live for, there is no surprise and little sadness in his death. My strongest feeling about him really is that he was wasted as a character. I also liked Kell’s guard Hasta, but he was death-flagged so hard for the entire book that it was almost comical, so when his death scene finally arrived I hardly felt that one, either.

Osaron, embodiment of dark magic and the force of entropy, is a disappointingly boring villain (largely because he’s not an actual human character with anything approaching real emotions or personal history or sympathetic qualities whatsoever), and the way he’s defeated is incredibly anticlimactic and doesn’t even feel particularly connected with the previously established concepts in the story. Since Osaron spreads his corruption through a magical plague that causes people to relive their worst memories, psychologically weakening them until they give into his possession, and those who are able to resist his torture and survive the illness have their blood turned glowing silver (regardless of whether they have magic), and there’s a few scenes about the importance of the common people of the city and such, I expected that the climax of the story was going to involve some kind of mass awakening of light magic in the populace (Grisha trilogy spoilers:

similar to the redistribution of Alina’s sun summoning powers at the end of R&R

). But instead, the world is saved by three wizards with two macguffins in a magical showdown. 

After years of this series being hyped as one of the best current examples of historical/urban fantasy, I finally got around to picking it up due to the sequel series coming out, and to investigate the recent accusations of plagiarism against Cassandra Clare (again, lmao) following the release of Sword Catcher, and…I am so disappointed at how thoroughly mediocre it is. 

 Overall I found it to be an entertaining adventure story, which has unremarkable prose and moves along at a decent clip; it contains nothing morally or artistically outrageous, but also nothing inspiring; in the it felt quite shallow and unfulfilling, as it has no discernible theme or message to impart, and I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ve outgrown that sort of fiction. 

The central concept of four cities of London in four alternative universes with different levels of magic had so much potential, but that potential went unfulfilled because the cities were barely explored at all. The only landmarks seem to be the Thames, the palace, and the markets, none of which are described in any great detail; the one location given any sort of character or significance is the traditional SFF trope of an inn that serves as the gateway between dimensions. The political situation in Red London (where Kell lives) is just as vague as the geographical - Kell was adopted by the royal family, which logically would have been difficult to keep a secret, but there’s no indication that the citizens know he’s adopted, and he doesn’t seem to be regarded as the heir to the throne despite being the oldest of the two boys…there would be nothing wrong with this if an explanation of the customs was given. 

Perhaps in order to write this type of novel which is so heavily reliant on setting-as-character, where a real city (or fantasy version of a real city) is that setting, no amount of ‘research’ can substitute for many years of experience living in that city. Schwab is American and apparently fairly well-traveled around Europe; she attributes her experiences of London to holidays with her father, but without the decades of lived experience of Gaiman or Moorcock, her entire milieu is superficial and feebly pale as her White London, compared with the alternate Londons of Neverwhere or Gloriana or Mother London. 

What is most frustrating is that (so far) the four Londons don’t seem to represent anything. The one instance of intertextual awareness is when Kell is mentioned to own a book of William Blake’s poetry, as an artefact from the unmagical Grey London (the nearest equivalent to real London). Since Blake has been the primary ruling obsession of my life for years, I was begging for this to be made relevant to the plot, themes, or imagery, (e.g. the four Londons might have corresponded to the qualities of Blake’s four zoas, or aspects of God and man) but it never amounted to anything. Even the elemental magic system consists of five elements (the four classical elements plus bone), with blood magic as a sixth and superior form, so the four cities of Black, White, Red and Grey might be just a way for Schwab to use her favourite edgy aesthetic colour palette.

I always complain about YA authors who publish ‘adult’ novels largely identical to their YA fare only with more sex and swearing; this has something of the opposite problem, where the three main characters are all suggested to be some stripe of queer, but there’s practically no exploration of romance or attraction at all. The characters are still young enough to be in the upper-YA range (late teens-early twenties) and the story is weighed down by seemingly unnecessary and uninteresting bildungsroman elements

(Kell’s magic amnesia, meaning he has an origin to be discovered, and how Lila’s false eye, suggesting she was born with an affinity for blood magic

- these are the only two mysteries set up for the next books, and I will be very surprised if the answer to either of them turns out to be something imaginative). The magical services and improvements we are told that Kell has performed for the city or the royal family (within the span of about six years) would be more believable if he was older. 

The cast of characters is not very well-developed, so I don’t feel particularly attached to any of them yet, at the end of the first book. Kell is by far the strongest character, and his introduction is one of the most effective and best-written parts of the novel - introducing him through his magical coat of many colours suggests either a certain element of roguish dandyism which I always find immediately endearing in wizards (viz. Wizard Howl), or (as turns out to be the case) a degree of clever pragmatism. This trait is at odds with his sentimental, reactive behaviour for nearly the entire story, except for the one really interesting bit of characterisation he gets -

there was a past incident where the prince was kidnapped by rebels, and was rescued by Kell. The prince later pardoned all the rebels, saving them from execution, but Kell secretly hunted and killed them all anyway.

The hope that I am going to see a lot more of his ruthless and duplicitous tendencies is the only thing motivating me to read the second book. 

Prince Rhy only appears in a couple of scenes, so the only reason the reader has to care about him is because Kell cares about him.

I didn’t hate Lila as much as most people seem to, but her sole character motivation (to have adventures) is not something I find particularly interesting or relatable; she really only gets a pass from me for the totally superficial reason that androgynous crossdressing women are sexy. 

I have to assume that Holland is going to return from the ‘dead’ in the next book, because there’s hardly anything to his personality, motivations or backstory in this one, but Schwab has said she thinks he’s one of the most interesting characters to write. The true villains (evil twins occupying the throne of White London) are also totally flat characters who only appear in a handful of scenes. 

What is really lacking and would elevate the writing a good deal is thematic connections between the characters - it seems that all the characters should be foils of one another (Kell and Holland as the two last true wizards, in service to enemy crowns; the evil twins of White London and the ‘brother’ princes of Red London; probably Kell and Lila as magical orphans of mysterious origins) but not much is made of any of it; possibly this book is supposed to be all set up, but no hints are given that there is intended to be a pay off.

I had no idea this book existed before seeing it on a store shelf (in Australia, where Clipstone gets special treatment for being a local), so I guess the Publishing Powers That Be have decided that the Lakesedge books didn't do well enough for her to deserve further marketing. Them's the breaks.

In the pursuit of a 'signature style' and aesthetic, Clipstone has doubled-down on her worst excesses as a writer - this is even more 'just vibes, no plot' than her previous books, and she can't go for a single page without some vague but atmospheric metaphor about the moon or blood or honey or sacred wine. All the women in the cast are lesbian or bisexual, and the imagery is so overwhelmingly traditionally feminine (sometimes to the point of unbelievability - the clan of monster-fighting women all have long hair and wear long, pale linen dresses, which never get in the way but are very convenient for making bandages) that poor young Ravel feels a bit unnecessary as a love interest.

Certain concepts from Lakesedge are repeated in this, particularly the love interest being a very nice sweet boy who is 'cursed' or 'infected' by the dark power of an evil god, but so much emphasis is given to his victimhood and the tragedy of his lost innocence that he never feels remotely 'dangerous' to the heroine. I don't really mind this, I think sweet harmless monster boys are cute and fun, but the categorisation of this book as 'horror' and 'dark fantasy' is ridiculous.

The setting is claustrophobically tiny (with no indication whatsoever of how this remote outpost functions in terms of its government, economy, food supply, religion etc, let alone the rest of the world) and unfortunately it feels a bit derivative, particularly of Origins-era Dragon Age (which itself owed a great deal to the first ASoIaF novel), but there's a bit of Shadow and Bone in there as well. There is nothing new under the sun, and most (all?) of my favourite stories take a lot of inspiration from earlier works, but in this case Clipstone hasn't added anything particularly unique or interesting, twisted, or expanded on any elements of the source texts, so it's all just unmemorable and (ironically) rather bloodless. 

 At least this book is halfway self-aware of how stupid it is.

Considering how maligned Reylos have been since the very beginning, I don't expect that the novelty of Reylo fanfic being commercially published - and successful - will ever wear off for me; I will buy all of the Reylo fics, forever, out of principle, but that doesn't mean I can't regard all of them as peak cringe, in a grudgingly affectionate sort of way.
 

This novel has all the typical hallmarks which have come to define published Reylo fic in only 2 short years:

- the super idealised gay best friends;
- the heroine's distant relationship with her parents (this time they are 'disappointed' rather than outright abusive);
- the love interest's fractious relationship with his mother (who is a shallow, underdeveloped villain);
- the author's obsession with Adam Driver's physical size, which would be fine if it was actually used for some symbolic or thematic purpose in the story beyond 'being sexy' (but it never is);
- one mandatory but unnecessary sex scene which is forgettable at best and disturbing at worst, far more focused on the physical lust than the emotional love;
- unfunny jokes, many of which reference contemporary terminally-online culture and will date the book terribly (the climax hinges on the recurring joke that no one over 30 understands TikTok);
- the love interest's one friend and ally, who is the single side character who is developed just enough to be slightly interesting, so there can be a sequel about another pairing.

Cassie's One Personality Trait is that she is an artist - not like the other artists - who incorporates garbage into her multimedia art to criticise wasteful capitalist consumer culture - an interest which is never depicted as relevant to any other aspect of her life and behaviour. Presumably the genesis of this character trait was Rey's occupation as a 'scavenger' who collects and repairs broken, discarded relics of the galaxy's past and the Skywalker family (Anakin's lightsaber, the Millenium Falcon, the sacred Jedi texts, and metaphorically the fractured bonds of the Skywalker family and ultimately Ben himself). Bizarrely, in her own interpretation of the characters Levine fails to join the dots in any meaningful way, never relating Cassie's artstyle and conservationist philosophy to her task of 'recycling' an old vampire into a new man by rehabilitating FJF into the modern world.

The biggest disappointment for me was that the distinguishing gimmick of this one is supposed to be that he's a vampire, but...there is no vampire worldbuilding whatsoever. The backstory about how he became a vampire is delivered in a single line! We are told that all vampires get one special power (seemingly at random, it's not reflective of their natural gifts like it was in Twilight), which apparently can include the power to create things out of nothing, the dizzying implications of which are never explored. 

Volcel romances are the best, and I am mad about the 'virgin' being removed from the commercially published version of this story - and for what? FJF tells us that prior to his 100 years of hibernation, he led a violent, hedonistic lifestyle - reminiscent of 'the Ripper' Stefan Salvatore in the TV version of TVD (though TVD is the only pop-culture vampire phenomenon of the past 30 years that is never eye-rollingly name-checked in the novel) - but his sordid past (which should entirely redefine him as a character) seems to have been added quite literally as an afterthought from the author, because it never affects anything in the story. He never struggles with guilt over the people he seduced and killed; he isn't dogged by bloodlust. For whatever reason, published Reylofic so far has been allergic to the idea of virgin love interests (and heroines), so erasing what was (in the original short story) the love interest's defining character trait makes him, and this book, less unique and interesting. 

Well, that was an insufferably boring 600 pages of nothing happening.

Considering the title (subtext!) and the obvious (superficial) similarities to Riverside, I was hyped for this to be the gayest book. Unfortunately Clare has stuck with her usual modus operandi of establishing the two main male characters as having a very close bond, and then immediately sticking a woman in the middle. Writing stories about male friendships is a cool and good thing to do! But CC has been writing about men in life-long partnerships for twenty years, but she has never once just let it be gay, and this time I was hoping for a different flavour, or at least a deep exploration of the concept, which the book doesn't deliver on.

I see all the comparisons to The Shades of Magic, which are certainly worth talking about, but I wouldn't go so far as to call this 'plagiarism' just because CC has undeniably borrowed a character name and basic concept as a starting point, and it's not as if Schwab was the first author to have the idea of a 'layered' city, either.
As the first book in a trilogy, in comparison to A Darker Shade of Magic, by my reckoning Sword Catcher comes out quite far ahead, because the prince actually exists as a character in this one (he's not a terribly interesting or likeable character, but he is at least present in the story, which is more than can be said for Rhy), and as weak as the worldbuilding is here, CC has at least made more of an attempt at giving her world a history than Schwab, who had one good idea for a setting but failed to develop it at all beyond the most basic aesthetic.
CC takes about as much inspiration from Shades of Magic as she does from ASoIaF, Riverside, Six of Crows, and probably other things I'm not familiar with. What is worth complaining about is that her obnoxious habit of lifting 'funny' quotes from TV and movies and putting them in the mouths of her characters is still alive and well. The first time I got close to throwing the book was within the first couple of chapters, when one of the characters makes the 'tracts of land' joke from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

As is usual for YA authors attempting to transition into adult (Roshani Chokshi, Hannah Whitten, Leigh Bardugo etc al), this reads almost exactly the same as a typical YA novel in terms of its prose, plot beats, and character dynamics, but the pacing is (painfully) slower, the characters are slightly older and there are more mentions of sex and swears (although surprisingly little sex is actually accomplished, with the 'steamiest' scene being a flashback/dream vision about historical figures).

Speaking of which, what the fuck was the love...polygon in this book? The marketing is selling us 'forbidden love', but it's unclear which pairing it's referring to - every pairing is 'forbidden' in some way (Kel's secret identity as the prince's body-double precludes any romance for him; Prince Conor can't pursue Lin because she's Jewish Ashkar; a lot of boring politics gets in the way of either man romancing Antonetta), but all of these half-formed attractions are happening at once, as the characters are being switched around between different combinations, with the result that no two characters have enough scenes together to build a romance with enough emotional depth to be worth caring about. In a novel that purports to be 'adult', it's bizarre how none of these adult characters ever consciously recognise or consider that they could be 'in love with' or even 'attracted to' someone - such things are always couched in vague language about 'feelings they can't identify'.

Kel fancies his childhood friend Antonetta, who doesn't get a POV but seems to have some kind of feelings for both Kel and Prince Conor (and Kel when he's impersonating Conor), but Kel also has fond memories of the prostitute Silla (a character who serves no purpose other than to be a prop for virtue-signalling about sex work being real work, in a strange subplot about

a rape victim who girlbosses her way into becoming the madam of a brothel),

who also sleeps with Conor, who catches an instalove/hate attraction to Lin (because they are

the reincarnations of fantasy King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba???).

This plot where the 'reincarnation' of the deified historical figures are revealed to be one of the main characters is shockingly similar to Hannah Whitten's Foxglove King, though I assume this must be coincidence as both books were probably written concurrently. In any case, the historical story being told through the chapter epigraphs is far and away more interesting than the main plot happening in the present.

The worldbuilding is paper-thin and the setting (an ersatz Renaissance-era Venice which seems to be an homage to Ellen Kushner's vastly superior Riverside) extends exactly as far as the immediate needs of the plot require, and no farther. Certain proper nouns are barely altered from the real-world equivalents (Ashkenazi --> Ashkar), which is probably intended to lend the story some historical gravitas, but really just comes off as shallow and lazy.

The prose is serviceable but nothing special, but Clare treats the reader like a fool - she constantly indulges in an absolutely infuriating and immersion-destroying habit of using a literary device, and then immediately afterwards having the POV character's internal monologue tell the audience about the use of the device, just to make absolutely certain we didn't miss what a clever author she is (e.g. in an early chapter, the prince injures his hand; later, Kel injures his hand, and he is sure to tell us how spooky it is that they've suffered the same injury. Gosh you guys, it's almost like the blurred line  between their identities has become physically manifest through a parallel scene!).

The story is firmly in bildungsroman territory (Kel spends a lot of words angsting about the lost halcyon days of playing pirates with his childhood friends; Lin has her first attractions and kisses), but this is a rare (pseudo-)YA novel which is at least attempting to have a theme beyond the generic hero's journey tropes about 'finding your inner power' and rebelling against evil invaders/governments/religions/whatever. The theme is the nature of personal identity, and the narrative seems to be interested in exploring the tension between self-perception and the perception of others, and the ways that identity can be suppressed, subsumed, compromised, replaced, transformed (Kel is an orphan of completely unknown provenance, who is raised in the palace as the prince's cousin and secret body-double; the ruler of the criminal underworld is the mysterious Ragpicker King, which turns out to be a title that is passed down between men who forsake their former identities; at the end of the novel

Lin publicly declares herself to be the reincarnation of the Goddess, to give hope to a terminally ill friend - although presented as a conscious deception, her agency in this declaration is undermined by the fact that she has gained magical powers from an artifact of the goddess, and has been experiencing flashbacks of the goddess' past life, so all signs indicate that she <i>is</i> the reincarnation, but not bright enough to figure it out).

Unfortunately this book only serves to introduce the characters, plot and setting, with no 'pay-offs' to speak of, so nothing interesting is said about this theme; for now, it merely exists.

By far the best character in the whole thing was the big-sisterly bodyguard of the French fantasy-French princess,

but she was far too cool to live.

 Welp, this is Reylo fanfic, so inevitably it meets that most basic benchmark level of ‘acceptable’, but I must say I have never been so bored by a 500 year old wizard in my life.

Ali Hazelwood has two cover quotes (bravo for Berkley knowing their audience) and both of them are bullshit:

As is usually the case in contemporary romances, they aren’t “enemies”. There was at least one occasion when Reggie directly informs the reader that she and Ben are “supposed to be enemies” and it jolted me out of the story because I never felt it was so. As usual, all of their “enmity” was caused by misunderstandings and miscommunications, the effect of which are diluted even further by the fact that Ben has his own POV chapters, to ensure that readers with weak constitutions know that he would never harm Reggie and she is never in even the slightest bit of actual danger with him. 

Their “love” is as superficial and unearned as their “enmity” - notably, the book’s indulgence in typical obnoxious sex-positive millennial feminism devolves into a total farce at the post-makeover “ballroom” scene (you know the trope) when, without a shred of self-awareness, Reggie exposits her disgust at all the (physically) old men being escorted by beautiful submissive young women - but of course, her 500 year old boyfriend is the perfect man. Since she knows nothing about the personalities of these men other than vague rumours about The Patriarchy (and keeping in mind that she was previously told that Ben himself was a Bad Man who had done Bad Things, but he turned out to be just misunderstood after all) the only reasonable conclusion one can draw is that Ben is a better boyfriend than all these other old wizards because, despite being centuries her senior, he’s still hot. 

The sex scenes were boring and mechanical and totally unnecessary for the plot and character development, and one of them was the most laughably random and unexpected sex scene in any of these romcoms I’ve read so far

where Reggie and Ben give each other hand jobs while they are trapped in a well,

in a sort of bizarre parody of Rey’s (mostly scrapped) sexual awakening in the yonic mirror-cave in TLJ. 

The worldbuilding (such as it is) in this book is awful, even by typical fantasy-romance standards. Witches and warlocks perform spells by praying to the ancient Roman gods, and inscribing curses on tablets. Great! What about the gods of every other culture that ever existed on Earth? Who knows? No other cultures are ever even mentioned. 

Generally it has that very superficial and totally unresearched style I have come to expect from this genre, which is evident from the minor details which should make the reader feel immersed in the world and familiar with the characters. Ben wears a “favourite designer suit”, as if that tells us anything at all about him. Which designer? Cut? Colour? Reggie also describes the suit as looking uncomfortable, which betrays a total lack of understanding about the history of menswear on the part of the author. 

Reggie has not one, but two Special Protagonist Traits that makes her unlike the other girls - the first is that she has OCD (which is treated as an adorable quirk and given no serious concern whatsoever), and the second is that she plays legally-distinct Magic: The Gathering. This is pretty cool and relatable (as opposed to the Special Protagonist Trait in the last book I read - Forget Me Not by Julie Soto - where the main character effortlessly maintains a rockin’ bod despite being troublingly addicted to donuts). I’m willing to believe that Clare has some level of real-life experience with the game, and it had a lot of potential to be used as a vehicle for literary techniques to enhance the story - for example, by depicting Reggie and Ben as metaphorical enemy duelists in the context of the game, due to their competitive natures. Unfortunately Spellcraft: the Magicking is another element of the book which is terminally underdeveloped. Reggie’s ace card is the Brilliant Sun-Phoenix (sun symbolism, divine light, rebirth, you know the drill) but we don’t even see her win a game with it! 

The utter lack of curiosity in both this main character and this author is astounding. It baffles me that Clare has enough of an academic bent to research ancient Roman curse magic for fun, and yet somehow this is the most interesting way she could come up with to incorporate that into a novel. If I actually became friends/lovers with a 500 year old person, I would need to hear all of the stories. I would never stop asking questions about the history of magic and the history of the world, but Reggie never asks or wonders about anything, and the age difference is only ever really "explored“ (in the most superficial sense of the term) in relation to the question of whether Ben thinks Reggie is too young for him, which itself is mostly treated as a question of pure numbers rather than lived emotional experience. Possibly this is because Ben seems to have had vanishingly few memorable or emotional experiences during all that time. He has exactly two significant sources of trauma - one being his neglectful parents (of course),

whom he murdered himself,

a fact which is dropped on the reader in the most ridiculous manner and moment, and the other being a far less detailed and compelling version of Lipwig’s realisation in Going Postal (that ”victimless“ scams against greedy capitalist exploiters still lead to consequences that destroy the lives of good people trapped in the capitalist system).

As mediocre as this first book was, it can probably only go up from here, and the sequel is GingeRose fic - the most criminally underrated ship in all of Star Wars - so maybe this will turn out to have been worth it after all.