Soul Song by Marjorie M. Liu
Jun. 29th, 2009 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreWarning! This book features a heroine who cons a would-be assassin into thinking she’ll bribe him to let her live, and then strangles him with the strap of her fiddle case. You have been warned!
Moving on!
I forgot how insane Liu’s Dirk & Steele plots tend to be! M’Cal is a merman (!!!) enslaved to a witch who forces him to steal souls for her to eat. While she usually sends him out for any old soul, this time she sends him to bring her a specific soul: Kitala Bell, a musician with the ability to see how people will die, if they’ll die violently. Naturally, M’Cal falls in love with her instead.
I have mixed feelings on this book (which I originally thought would be more of an insane genderswapped version of “The Little Mermaid” than it was). On the one hand, I really like Liu’s leads (though M’Cal is a bit too “Woes! My angst!” for me at times, and not as nice as Liu’s other heroes tend to be, though I did like his trust issues, and how they bounced off Kit’s isolation) and her crazy worldbuilding and mythology. I also really liked the music bits (though I suspect they’d drive me crazy if I actually knew anything about music beyond whether or not I like the way it sounds) and the non-evil, non-overwhelmingly-shiny-and-mystic-and-glorified handling of voodoo (though I don’t know how accurate it is, either…) especially Kit’s conversations with her grandmother’s ghost/past self (not sure which it was).
On the other hand, however, is the whole slavery thing. Liu tends to have a theme of slavery in her works. It normally works for me in the context of her plots and worldbuilding, but it bugged me more here than it has before. That may, however, be because there was one aspect of M’Cal’s enslavement that I thought she was dealing with too lightly, and didn’t directly address until late in the book.
But then the end of the book had a lot of focus on family and sacrifices for family, and I tend to love that stuff! I was also very amused by the other shapeshifters from the series, especially Rik and Koni. Rik because he’s mellowed in a way that makes me think everyone else in the series made him sit down and listen to their tales of angst and woe to give him some perspective. This has resulted in his going from something of an emo punk in Shadow Touch to more of a sweet kid here, and now I want him and Eddie to be adorable together as Liu grooms them to eventually get their own inevitable books. Koni I loved because he was so incredibly cranky, which was very entertaining. I’m sure he’s getting his own book, too.
Moving on!
I forgot how insane Liu’s Dirk & Steele plots tend to be! M’Cal is a merman (!!!) enslaved to a witch who forces him to steal souls for her to eat. While she usually sends him out for any old soul, this time she sends him to bring her a specific soul: Kitala Bell, a musician with the ability to see how people will die, if they’ll die violently. Naturally, M’Cal falls in love with her instead.
I have mixed feelings on this book (which I originally thought would be more of an insane genderswapped version of “The Little Mermaid” than it was). On the one hand, I really like Liu’s leads (though M’Cal is a bit too “Woes! My angst!” for me at times, and not as nice as Liu’s other heroes tend to be, though I did like his trust issues, and how they bounced off Kit’s isolation) and her crazy worldbuilding and mythology. I also really liked the music bits (though I suspect they’d drive me crazy if I actually knew anything about music beyond whether or not I like the way it sounds) and the non-evil, non-overwhelmingly-shiny-and-mystic-and-glorified handling of voodoo (though I don’t know how accurate it is, either…) especially Kit’s conversations with her grandmother’s ghost/past self (not sure which it was).
On the other hand, however, is the whole slavery thing. Liu tends to have a theme of slavery in her works. It normally works for me in the context of her plots and worldbuilding, but it bugged me more here than it has before. That may, however, be because there was one aspect of M’Cal’s enslavement that I thought she was dealing with too lightly, and didn’t directly address until late in the book.
But then the end of the book had a lot of focus on family and sacrifices for family, and I tend to love that stuff! I was also very amused by the other shapeshifters from the series, especially Rik and Koni. Rik because he’s mellowed in a way that makes me think everyone else in the series made him sit down and listen to their tales of angst and woe to give him some perspective. This has resulted in his going from something of an emo punk in Shadow Touch to more of a sweet kid here, and now I want him and Eddie to be adorable together as Liu grooms them to eventually get their own inevitable books. Koni I loved because he was so incredibly cranky, which was very entertaining. I’m sure he’s getting his own book, too.