Review: An Apprentice to Elves

Book three of the Iskryne trilogy
By Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
Available now from Tor (Macmillan)
Review copy

AN APPRENTICE TO ELVES is being billed as the conclusion of the Iskryne trilogy.  I'd hoped for more books in this series, but this is a good note to go out on.  The Iskryne books are inspired by Viking history, with elves, trolls, and companion wolves thrown in.  The first book detailed the world and the battle with the trolls, and the second book bought in a new human threat - the Rheans, who are basically Romans.

Once more, the book is told by new narrators.  AN APPRENTICE TO ELVES alternates between Alfgyfa (the daughter of the first narrator, Isolfr), Otter  (a former slave rescued in the second book), Fargrimr (a sworn son who is the jarl of the heall closest to the Rhean invasion), and Tin (an elf smith who brokered the alliance between humans and elves with Isolfr).  This helps expand the world and showcase more lifestyles of the people within it.  It is the first book with female narrators, so many of the points of view were much needed.  I did feel like the Rheans delaying their invasion for more than a decade was mostly so that Alfgyfa could become old enough to narrate.

But overall, I enjoy the way the Iskryne trilogy has grown and changed since the first book.  The first book, A COMPANION TO WOLVES, felt like a commentary on Pern and how the dragon relationships worked.  Over THE TEMPERING OF MEN and AN APPRENTICE TO ELVES, it has become its own series, with complex relations between and within species.  I loved that this book was not all war, but also an examination of how the two groups of elves broke apart and a fierce drive to bind men and elves closer together before their alliance crumbles without an external threat.

AN APPRENTICE TO ELVES is not a fast-paced novel.  It ends with several big battles, a thrilling finish that had me racing to the conclusion.  But that is not the pace of most of the novel.  This is a series interested in ferreting out details of the characters and their place.  As I said, I'm sad that this will only be a trilogy because I feel like there is so much of the Iskryne to explore.  If this is where it ends, though, I'll be satisfied.

I think you can read AN APPRENTICE TO ELVES on its own, but you'll miss many worldbuilding details and some of the characters' histories if you do.  

Review: The Goblin Emperor

By Katherine Addison
Available now from Tor (Macmillan)
Review copy

THE GOBLIN EMPEROR grabbed me tight and didn't let me go until it finished.  Not an easy feat for a book with approximately one half of an action scene in over four hundred pages.  That doesn't mean the scope of the book is small - the health of an entire empire is on the line, as civil war and external war both loom on the horizon.

Maia was the youngest and least favored son of the emperor.  He's half goblin and not exactly attractive by court standards, to top it off.  When his father and brothers die in an accident shortly before his eighteenth birthday, he his unexpectedly crowned emperor.  Given his youth and isolated childhood, he's ill prepared to take the throne.  That doesn't mean, however, that Maia is prepared to roll over and be a puppet.  He's critical of his father's rule and determined to do better, but he'll need to find allies he can trust if he's going to figure out how to make "better" happen.

Katherine Addison is a new penname of Sarah Monette.  I've read her novels as Monette, but I didn't know she had something like THE GOBLIN EMPEROR in her.  It has the elegant descriptions I expected, but it works in a way The Doctrine of Labyrinths didn't work for me.  Part of that is Maia himself.  He's a terrific central character, thoughtful, clever, but perhaps a bit too trusting and with a potential for cruelty.  And cruelty is a bad trait to be seeded in an emperor.

I quite liked the other characters too.  Maia has bodyguards that must constantly be with him, as well as a secretary who is far below him in class and rank but far above him in interpreting the people of the court.  He also has a fiancee, because he must guarantee the succession.  I wished for more of their awkward courtship, although I understood the book already had so much going on.  But it was quite fascinating to see two people who don't want to get married attempt to make overtures to each other.

And, okay, while there's only half an outright action scene, there is tons of intrigue.  I love me some intrigue.  There is backstabbing, opportunism, trade disagreements, fear of progress, and more.  It's delicious.  I could eat it up with a spoon, and I did.

I felt that the ending of THE GOBLIN EMPEROR came too soon.  There is a resolution, a true indication of the type of ruler Maia will be, but honestly I could've spent five hundred pages more with these characters in this world.  I would give my left arm for a sequel.  (I will, however, need my right arm to turn the pages.)