Random Thursday Book Review: Cold Magic by Kate Elliott

[hrj]

I long since gave up on the notion that one should read books simply because they were written by people you know. I know entirely too many authors to keep up, and too many of them write things I’m simply not interested in. But it remains that one of the myriad of factors that can bump up a book’s chances on my to-be-read list is if I know and like the author. I’ve been following Kate Elliott on Twitter lately and very much enjoy the things she posts there, so I thought I’d give her fiction a try and decided Cold Magic seemed the best entry point. (In point of fact, various friends have been suggesting her books for years, but my friends have very hit-and-miss success in recommending books to me, so I don’t put a lot of priority on recommendations.)

This is a rich and delightful fantasy with an extremely alternate historical setting and several different layers of magical presence. The geography is recognizable as a Europe distorted by lower sea levels (due to plot-relevant extensive ice caps); the setting of the story has the look-and-feel of an analog to the early 19th century; and the defining feature of the historical background (other than the presence of magic and some sentient non-human species) is silently shaped by the absence of post-Roman Germanic migrations. (This is not something the story ever points out explicitly, but it was interesting to note that the gaping holes in the parallels to our history tended to revolve around this point--although the presence of a few Germanic personal names either point to some trace presence or authorial slip-up.) The major cultural threads are the remnants of the Roman Empire, extensive Celtic cultures, and various cultures from the northern Africa--all interwoven while remaining distinct--though hints and mentions of many others are scattered about. The world-building is deep and detailed and is best appreciated by a reader who has at least a passing familiarity with European history and geography.

The story revolves around two young women--cousins--who each has a rather unexpected magical talent that makes them unwitting players in a larger political game. One of the most delightful aspects of the book is that their friendship and loyalty is the primary personal bond that drives the story. There are men; there are hints of potential romantic entanglements (to be explored further later in the series). But these never push the primacy of that friendship aside. We follow Cat (Catherine) as she finds herself a pawn in a bargain made when she was a child and abruptly becomes married to a Cold Mage, a member of one of the powerful magical clans, and is dragged off amid a confusion of sabotage and rioting to an unknown fate. Cat is not exactly a passive victim and the story becomes a cat-and-mouse game through this world and the otherworld as Cat--in proper questing hero mode--picks up friends and allies and tries to solve the riddle of both her unexpected abilities and why her new husband is trying to kill her. We get enough bits and snippets of the immediate political history of the world that when Cat and her cousin end up in the midst of the intrigues (in a not-quite-cliffhanger of an ending) it seems the only natural thing to have happened.

Overall I found this a very enjoyable book. I loved the woman-centered story and the detailed world-building. The writing is flawless and the characters engaging (even the villains). If I were still in the period of my life when I was reading a couple books a week, I’d probably vacuum up every book Elliott has written (of which there are quite a few).

Comments

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed this series (as well as the previous one). I didn't pick up on as much of the implicit background as you did - no real surprise there - so this retroactively improves it for me.

Kate's series are hit-or-miss for me. One of her earlier ones was interesting for the first couple, then hit "why on earth did this book have to happen, and have that reveal completely repudiate everything that happened earlier?" At which point I of course stopped.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure the aspects I noted in the implicit background were meant to be "meaningful" beyond "let's build an alternate history by tweaking a few key events". But once I started projecting backwards from the historic structure as revealed in the story, the absence of the Germanic migrations jumped right out and whacked me on the head. The idea of the Roman-Carthaginian rivalry continuing to play out across nearly 2 millennia felt a little ... I dunno ... stagnant? But then, it's clear that some of the magical institutions in the world exert a strongly conservatizing force. So maybe that's a feature rather than a bug.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I think vacuuming up everything she's written would be a good use of your time.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Let me put it this way: If I were given reason to hope that queer characters I could solidly identify with would appear regularly in the books, then I'd bump other stuff off the list to read them. *Nobody* is writing the right combination to push all my buttons at once in a way that would suck me in like that. It's a wonderful story, but any reading time outside of the gym is competing with writing time. And given that, my reading has to have some element of strategy as well as pleasure.