Wait, are you kidding me? I never marked the Bartimaeus books as read? I have definitely read (or listened to; the audiobook is really good) the triloWait, are you kidding me? I never marked the Bartimaeus books as read? I have definitely read (or listened to; the audiobook is really good) the trilogy multiple times. Not sure how I overlooked this, and I will be fixing it, as I'm on a mission to finally complete series which I own in full, but have never actually finished. (In this case, The Ring of Solomon is the missing piece.)
This book is still an absolute delight. I'd forgotten a lot - especially that Nathaniel is TWELVE in this first installment; and that it's a contemporary alternate timeline setting, not a period piece - but I remembered the wry humor and moral ambiguity of it fondly, and that still holds up. Bartimaeus is such a superb unreliable narrator, and he and Nathaniel make excellent foils - both untrusting of the other, both a lot more good at heart than they're supposed to be, or than is healthy for them. We get a hint in the first 20 pages that Bartimaeus doesn't hate all humans as much as he claims, and even though he goes on and on and postures about wanting to kill magicians and not caring about humans, his human body count in the book is... I think just a flat zero, actually. Paired with a magician who is at the same time wildly egotistical and ambitious and also a young boy who craves love, and you have a recipe for an interesting story about power and trust, as well as plenty of magical shenanigans.
I do think the worldbuilding feels a little off, but part of that may be because of how much the world has changed in the 22 years since this book was first published; a London plausible in 2003 looks much different than the London of today, and in particular the lack of technology in the story (even though a laptop is mentioned fairly early on) is odd. Bartimaeus' footnotes help a lot with understanding the broader alternate history context, as do throwaway lines from various characters, and I'm not overall averse to the setting being only loosely sketched, especially as both POV characters have reasons not to know or care much about historical details. The one thing that really sticks with me (other than a train leaving from, I'm pretty sure, the wrong side of the Thames) is the question of what happened to the British monarchy. Maybe that's mentioned in the later entries in the trilogy?
It's been a lot of fun to revisit this book, and I'm looking forward to rereading the rest of the series....more
In many ways this book is a smooth continuation of Pawn of Prophecy, and so many of my feelings on that book also apply here, especially regarding theIn many ways this book is a smooth continuation of Pawn of Prophecy, and so many of my feelings on that book also apply here, especially regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the worldbuilding.
Ce'nedra was a pleasant surprise by the end of this installment! At first I thought she was going to be another exaggerated nagging woman, but while she's a bit shrill and dramatic in contrast to more weathered characters, she is also frequently a voice of reason, especially when Garion is being a dumb teenager (which is often). His idealism is clearly what will make him a good king at the end of this quest, but in order to get there he needs to be tempered by practical reality, and Ce'nedra has enough of a background in politics to understand that and remind him.
I do, however, feel weird about how insistent Eddings is on talking about her being small, tiny, and childlike... even as Garion is starting to feel attracted to her. That's often uncomfortable....more
Hmmmm. I enjoyed this more than either of its predecessors - perhaps since I read it right after Cloudbound and therefore found it easier to remember Hmmmm. I enjoyed this more than either of its predecessors - perhaps since I read it right after Cloudbound and therefore found it easier to remember details of the worldbuilding and larger cast, or perhaps because it expanded beyond the difficult-to-picture city and gave me a more grounded (pun intended) perspective on the world.
However, the series as a whole just... didn't resonate with me as much as I had hoped. I found most of the characters and their motivations/reactions felt distant, especially for secondary characters who often seemed to make decisions on the fly (again, pun intended) to move the plot forward more than anything else. The pacing of this installment was also odd; Macal and Nat's missions were urgent, but they spent long chapters in the midcloud waiting for... what? Again, I came back to the question of scale that I've had for this whole series - how long does it take for them to get back to the upper tiers, that they can afford to delay for days?
The glimpse into the biology of the wider world was nice, but the characters seemed remarkably incurious about most parts of it. Everyone was so focused on finding a new city to live as they had been; I wish that just one character had been more interested in the differences offered by the ground, especially as I think this would have played nicely into the themes of the final resolution.
(view spoiler)[I did eventually like and appreciate what Wilde did with Dix's characterization, but having two books in a row go 'surprise! the villain of the last book wasn't actually dead even though they very much looked dead at the end!' is a little... ehhhh.
Also, maybe don't make your home on a young city-creature until you've figured out whether they do external fertilization or not. Just. Just saying. Turtles climb on top of one another. JUST SAYING. (hide spoiler)]
Overall, while I won't be rereading this series in particular, I am still interested in reading more from Wilde, as her ideas are unique and intriguing....more
Read as part of my ongoing shelf audit. Verdict: I may change my mind when I finish the third, but right now I'm leaning towards not keeping this seriRead as part of my ongoing shelf audit. Verdict: I may change my mind when I finish the third, but right now I'm leaning towards not keeping this series.
My feelings on Cloudbound are much the same as my feelings on Updraft - I'm here for the worldbuilding and struggle to connect to the characters, and these books are way less about the worldbuilding than I would like. Also, I feel like this setting would really benefit from illustrations and/or maps - I have had significant trouble, especially in this book, getting a sense of blocking and scale in complicated scenes. The setting is so unique that I have very little frame of reference for it, and Wilde is very good at keeping her characters grounded in their context, so they often don't think of or explain concepts in a way that an outside observer understands. This is good writing! It's just... maybe a little too different for a purely textual medium, IMO.
(view spoiler)[I was honestly shocked at the ending, not because of the reveal that the city was a living organism but because the characters seemed... surprised? Your cities are made of living, growing bone, folks; of course that's connected to a living being! Unless they thought of it as more of a plant than an animal but again, 'bone' is the word used here, which to me implies they had an awareness of its nature.
Also, again, ILLUSTRATIONS PLEASE. I can't parse the scale of this animal. I still don't really understand how far apart the towers are from one another, and the idea of all that growing from the back of one animal is hard to get my head around. (hide spoiler)]
Wilde is clearly an incredibly creative person, and has put a lot of rich detail into her fabulously unusual idea. I'm just still not all that connected to the story that's wrapped around it....more
DNF at page 52/end of Chapter 9. Specifically, at this exchange of dialogue:
"I'm sorry I was being a butt." "You were a total space butt." "I was an int
DNF at page 52/end of Chapter 9. Specifically, at this exchange of dialogue:
"I'm sorry I was being a butt." "You were a total space butt." "I was an interestellar cosmic super-butt."
This reads like it should have been middle grade. These characters are in high school - one of them can drive, and they've been to junior prom, so I assume they are at least 16/17 - and they do not talk, think, or act like it. If I had read this as a teen, I'd have felt incredibly patronized, and probably wouldn't have even made it 50 pages in.
I'm still open to reading CJA's adult books, but this... oof. Nothing about this was at all appealing....more
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