A Cat Can Look At A Book--Review 1: Storm Siren by Mary Weber

I saw Storm Siren pop up on the Big Idea series that John Scalzi does on Whatever. New book, by a woman author I'd never read before--I had just decided to read two of these a month, so I surfed over to Amazon and bought it for my Kindle (note to self--can't keep doing this; have spent too much money on books this month.)

It's a story set on another world, with a medieval or renaissance tech level, where the protagonist is a slave, from a hated magical race. Sold (for the fourteenth time in two years)--this time to a noblewoman with grand plans, she will be trained to use her powers in war to save a country that mistreats her. But killing is the last thing she wants to do, something she will put everything at risk to avoid.

It makes me sad to say that this one didn't do it for me.

Part of my problem lay with the language, which was sometimes novel enough to be clunky. The whole story is written in first person present tense, which is unusual but can be made to work. But periodic phrases would just ring false in my ear. Like "Those, my dear, are the golden-egged questions, aren't they?..." And "When he strides over, his snarled expression does nothing to hide his intrigue." I just... I found myself falling out of the story trying to picture the sort of face that could become snarled. Cthulhu pops to mind.

There were some interesting ideas about magic, but some weird ones also. Magic runs in family lines, appearing sporadically, and manifesting as control over different elements--in the earth water air fire sense. These "elementals" are physically different from ordinary people, the most obvious trait being white hair.

However, there is one character whose talent is to block magic. Oddly, as far as I'm concerned, he seems to nullify what I would have thought of as the non-magical physical results of using magic, (Imagine someone with fire talent sets the house on fire. It sets fire to the neighbor's house. This character would probably be able to part the flames at the neighbor's house. That kind of thing.) I'm one of those rotten people who likes magic to *make sense* and I had a hard time accepting this.

Some characters have good reason to be emotionally volatile, but their volatility seems just a bit too convenient. The supposedly suave and sophisticated courtiers seem to have little control over their emotions and let damaging information slip so easily one wonders how they have avoided discovery to this point. The main character is admittedly young, but the attempts to manipulate her are so transparent to the reader that one would expect her to realize she's being played also, at least some of the time.

In the end I just couldn't get into this one. I finished it, and won't spoil the ending for you, but I have not written a song for it, and don't think that's going to happen.

Next up--I usually intend to do books for this series, but I found a great short story I can't resist. If you would like to read along it's posted for free at Tor.com; it's called Seven Commentaries On An Imperfect Land by Ruthanna Emrys.

Coming Soon: Lock-in, The Winter Long.

And, as before, if you have found great books or long or short stories published this year that you think I should look at, let me know.