Book thoughts (minor spoilers)

[3rdragon]

I rather liked Silver Phoenix, aside from the weird reincarnation-love-story bit that didn't really make any sense. The sequel, Fury of the Phoenix, did tie up the things about the first one that confused me, but gained a whole new dimension of weird.

Perhaps I'm just not a fan of plotlines that rely on somewhat likeable characters transitioning into people who use creepy death magic without compunction.

Also, at one point they journey from pseudo-ancient-China to pseudo-medieval-Europe, but the pseudo-medieval-Europe people all have modern viewpoints, especially regarding sexual mores (also, they have fast food? What actual medieval community has enough paper to package food sold by street vendors in paper?), which entirely broke the story-world for me.

Overall analysis: The first one was fun but a little wtf at times. The second one was underwhelming.


Edited to add: I'm also getting a bad feeling from the way the author deliberately picked a non-European setting for her fantasy world, but when the characters visit a European-type setting, it seems more modern/progressive/normal. I can't imagine that it was intentional, but I don't like it.

Comments

[ursula]

Medieval Istanbul was all about fast food (due to cost of fuel and fire danger from kitchens), but yeah, not so much with the paper!

[3rdragon]

Oh, that's really interesting. I wouldn't have thought about it, but I guess it is much more efficient to cook lots of food at one time, especially if you're mostly not trying to use your cooking fire for heat.

[phantomcranefly.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that in ancient Rome, it was illegal to have fires in the insulae, so all the poor people bought their food precooked. (I don't remember where I read that, though, so take it with a bucketload of salt.)