The Wizard Hunters by Martha Wells

[meganbmoore]

Set around 30 years after The Death of the Necromancer, The Wizard Hunters begins with our heroine, Tremaine Valiarde, trying to think of a way to kill herself. But she can’t just die any way, it has to look like an accident. Being raised by an emotionally distant (I believe Tremaine refers to him as “emotionally dead” at one point) master criminal and an opium addicted mage apparently has an interesting affect on people.

The plot of this is almost a straight pulp adventure retold as fantasy. In an Ile-Rien that resembles 1920s-30s Europe, Tremaine, the daughter of the anti-heroes of DotN is a playwright who seems ill-suited to be the heir to such adventurous (and amoral) people, and is something of a flighty (and rich) playwright. Even though she has no magic herself, she does have a sphere that seems to have magical powers, and which eventually causes Tremaine and her friends to be transported to another world, which they soon learn is the home of the Gardier, a force that is invading Ile-Rien. There, Tremaine begins to suspect that her father, Nicholas, and uncle, Arisilde, may not actually be dead.

The plot can be repetitive-people are regularly being captured and rescued, and then off to rescue someone else-but that’s fairly fitting for the pulp adventures it seems to be loosely based on, and Tremaine herself is great fun. In theory, I really like characters who come from adventurous, sometimes notorious, families, but who aren’t cut from the same cloth and don’t really want that life for themselves, but often the character comes off as whiny, and you don’t get why they don’t appreciate their family more. Thankfully, that isn’t the case with Tremaine, who fluctuates between the nice, flighty artist and the ruthless adventurer with a morbid sense of humor. I mean, really, who would want to grow up to be Nicholas? For that matter, who can blame someone who was raised by Nicholas for growing up to be a bit batty? The man probably arranged for bad things to happen to boys who pulled her hair when she was five. Tremaine’s friends are also quite fun. I’m especially fond of Ilias. Granted, he’s not much more than Tremaine’s muscle so far, but he’s her very effective muscle who lets her know when she’s starting to get a little too caught up in the whole adventuring thing.

I find that I like the memory of Nicholas as the vengeful husband and over-protective father more than I like Nicholas himself. If it makes sense, I probably would have liked him more if I’d read DotN after the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy, but I probably would have been lost here without it. 

Comments

[chomiji]

Ooops, that wasn't meant to be a title. It was an order, so to speak - "Just hang in there, and eventually I'll fill you in on this book, which is a great example of what I mean." The book in question is The Lies of Locke Lamora, but I was trying to be cagey - clearly a big mistake.

I didn't think that Ilias' backstory was any kind of record-breaker for angst, but I liked it, and it gives him (and Giliead) more character.

In puzzling over the book's relative lack of popularity, I find myself wondering whether people just don't find Tremaine sympathetic enough because she's so down-to-earth about her problems - "Hey, I can't stand my life, so I'm going to do something about it, but I gotta make sure it doesn't backfire on anyone else" - rather than angsting on about them.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I really liked Locke Lamora, but I think that, like Melusine, the narrative structure there is either going to suck you in, or make you think it's a ploy at being "interesting." I admit, though, that it didn't really click for me until a certain point. But there's plenty of truly, genuinely bad stuff out there that's massively popular, or stuff that's generic that's hugely popular. And let's face it, nothing tops Eragon in "how could anyone think this is good?"

Wells's book tend to be kind of an odd mishmash of things. The Ile-Rien books tend to be clear send ups to certain storytypes-Element of Fire is a swashbuckler, Death of the Necromancer a gothic revenge, and Wizard Hunters 1930s pulpy adventure-but then take them out of their normal elements and add magic and technology that's out of place to the story normally. For me, it's why I like them, so far, and helps with the sometimes convoluted and rambly plots, but I think the odd combinations are offputting for some.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

You know, I first discovered The Wizard Hunters by linking hoping to a post on the author's lj where she was talking about how her publishes didn't know what to do with Tremaine since she was neither a strong, stoic warrior women with a soft heart nor a typically emotional female. She made choices and then other people had to deal, and someone else pointed out that the only female character like that on tv (was) Veronica Mars.

So, I think you have a damn good point about people not realizing how awesome she is.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

i've been meaning to ask who that icon is, and what it's from...

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

That is Keira Knightly from a Vanity Fair photo shoot, and the tag was my summation of Tremaine when I did my huge, ideal casting of the movie on my lj.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Ah.

I may have to steal the icon, if I may.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

You may. It's by posionjest, and if you could also put 'made for redbrunja' in the comments, you'd fulfil my possessive nature. ^_^