In keeping with my desire to limit my exposure to politics — and, thus, safeguard my sanity because, let’s face it, politics are insane these days — I have decided to read more. Which is new. I used to read endlessly but twenty-five years ago, or thereabouts, I realized I was reading the same story over and over again, thanks to the publishing house’s formula that they seemed to impose on everyone. So I gave it up and instead started looking into politics. And here we are.
Okay, so what are the kids reading these days anyway? So I hopped over to Amazon and took a look at their top sellers. This time around, I decided to look into Fantasy fiction. Which is how I found out about Sarah J. Maas who is by all accounts quite popular.
Cool.
Maas is also quite prolific, with many books in the Amazon best sellers list. But a quick buzz through her Wikipedia page lead me to her Crescent City series which is billed as “her first adult fantasy series.” Whelp. Okay. I’m an adult. Let’s give it a go.
House of Earth and Blood is the first book in this series. It follows the tired old formula (half elf, half human badass girl). But at least it doesn’t start out with boyfriend angst. It just ends up with it. The writing style is ridiculously easy to follow. I consumed the first 25% of roughly 800 pages in my first sitting, and was a little surprised to find I’d gotten that far.
Without discussing the plot — after all, a book this popular probably already has a million book reviews in which all the spoilers can be found — I will say that I found the book engaging enough. The plot centers around the aftermath of a tragedy (Maas actually shows us the tragedy, good on her), several mysteries that must be solved, and rising tension that threatens The End Of The World As We Know It(™). Pretty much I just turned off my critical thinking skills and went along for the ride. As a result, I didn’t know what was what until the very end of the book. Hurray! Bad ass girl saved the day. Hurray! All the boys looked like chumps. And so the formula carries on.
As for the fictional world, it’s modern day us with cars and cellphones and apartments and people doing way too many drugs. But then mix in elves and angels and all sorts of other fantasy tropes such as magic, plus an eternal tyranny. In terms of magic plus modern day us, it’s just a riff on what Butcher did with The Dresden Files. But Maas takes this to another level by making the main characters be not human, and the governing bodies to be tyrants.
Given what this book is, my only real complaint is that everyone in this book is an asshole. Well, okay, there’s a couple of background characters who aren’t assholes. Maybe. We really don’t see enough of them to know for sure. But the mainline characters are all shit heads. And by that, I mean, how did these people survive more than a few years after they left home? There were a few times when I almost stopped reading because of it. Seriously, if being abusively rude and obtusively self-destructive is what this fictional civilization is all about, it’s a wonder that the demons didn’t take over thousands of years ago.
There’s also a couple of sex scenes. If that kind of thing bothers you, avoid this book. If that kind of thing attracts you, know that there’s really only two in 800 pages. As for me, I just rolled my eyes and skimmed through to find where the plot picks up again. The problem here is that the sex exists because of the formula (it’s ADULT fiction). But the sex doesn’t actually move the plot forward. Wasted pages. Maas could just as easily have moved the camera to wind-fluttered curtains, in the fashion of 1950’s movies, and the story would not have been impacted by it one way or the other.
On the other hand, there were plenty of plot twists along the way. I knew from the get-go that the bad-ass half-elven overly-emotional asshole girl was going to be the chosen one to save the world. What I didn’t see coming was that she was also the instrument of its near destruction. Of course, she was the instrument of the world’s near destruction only because she was the unwitting victim of an asshole male. So, yep, formula. Kind of tired, but with plot twists.
Am I going to read book 2 (House of Sky and Breath)? I don’t know. $10 on Kindle. Nnnnggghhh…. When my wife gets back into town, I think I’ll look into library cards + Kindle. If I can get the book from the library … maybe I’ll give it a whirl. In the mean time, there’s lots of other genres to see what’s best selling these days.
Anything to avoid politics. At least, until the formula bores me and I get driven back into that snake pit.
C’ya!