Blood and Iron - Elizabeth Bear

[handslive]

A novel of, hmm, let's see...Faerie, the mortal realm, Hell (which only appears in cameo roles), and "dragon princes" (née Arthur).  In spite of this, it's a very readable book, but I don't see how a satisfactory ending could have been expected.  Needless to say I didn't get one.  I don't blame the reference to Arthur, although that would be tempting, since he appears rather less than Hell does and without Hell's ties to the plot.  Still, I enjoyed about 90% of it.

Comments

[puppytown.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid most of the references flew right over my head despite reading umpty-hundred Arthurian stories. Dunno much about nothin'.

[handslive.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't feel badly about that. In spite of the trappings this wasn't an Arthurian tale. Lancelot goes about by a different name here, so the only speaking parts are filled in by Arthur himself and Morgan. Everything else is arguably closer to A Midsummer Night's Dream in terms of place, characters, and action. There's a little bit of Merlin, but again the references are relatively classical (excepting T. H. White) and none of them are speaking parts. I didn't get all the faerie references either, but I think I'd have to know more about Welsh folk tales (based on the spellings she used).

[purplejavatroll.livejournal.com]

There were things I liked about this novel, but about 2/3 of the way through it, I began to feel a bit like Johnny Carson in his fortuneteller routine where he'd hold the envelope to his forehead. And the answer always seemed to be "blood and/or self-sacrifice". Which got a little old for me after a while.

pjt