Sunday, September 24, 2017

Tying up loose ends by unravelling others

So, Since I guess there's been some local chatter about the drop in posts since the last one, I've had bronchitis, which put me on antibiotics and cough syrup. Neither of which makes me all that excited to focus on anything other than my eyelids. Also, bronchitis fills me with the urge to read Steven King's The Stand, although the only copy I have at the house in the original, not the later complete edition. And believe me there is a difference, although one could only wish that the original had cut some of the journey back to boulder. No, it's just as long and overdone in both version.

None of which has to do with the novel and novella I'm actually reviewing here.

Seanan McGuire wrote another October Daye Novel, The Brightest Fell, which also contains "Of Things Unknown", which concerns April O'Leary of Tamed Lightning.

The big section concerns Toby being sent on a quest not particularly willingly by her mother Amandine. Who wants Toby to find her sister August, who wondered off on the Babylon road about 100 years prior seeking to open the gates to Deeper Fairie and Oberon. In order to guarantee her cooperation, Amy forces Tybalt into Cat form and Jazz into Raven form and locks them in cages.

This requires waking one of her nemesis from elf shot to gain his assistance. That would be Simon, who turned her into a fish for several years at the beginning of the series. Simon is also August's father, and thus the best choice to assist in finding her.

Simon's twin brother, Sylvester does bind him prior to waking, ensuring his cooperation.

From here it gets ugly. The quest takes them from Amy's tower, through pixie land (where we find out Simon had helped relocate the pixies) , to Blind Michael's realm and to Anwyn, last seen being locked off to trap a psycho duchess. In the course of this journey, we catch up with characters still dwelling in these realms. Including a police officer who's been trapped in Anwyn since the realm was sealed again.

And back into San Franciso, where August is eventually found, another deal with the Luidaig is sealed, and some very ugly conclusions are reached.

And then we move into "Of Things Unknown", where in CyberDryad April figures out a way to release the souls trapped on servers to their bodies. What she succeeds at doing will likely have repercussions down the line.

Again, it's a well written a book in a well written series. I'm kind of curious which of the new threads she intends to start weaving with next.

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