Of Swords and Parasols

Set shortly after Cast in Shadow, the humans of Elantra trust the telepathic Tha’alani even less than they did before. Concerned by increased violence to the Tha’alani, the emperor orders the royal playwright to write a play designed to make the humans more comfortable with them. Having more experience than anyone else with the Tha’alani, Kaylin and Severn are assigned to be his consultants. Meanwhile, their Leontine commander, Marcus, is accused of murder (committed in public, no less) and has been jailed. Marcus and his wives are also essentially Kaylin’s foster parents, and Marcus’s replacement is too by-the-books for anyone’s comfort.

The book starts out heavily focused on the Tha’alani plot, then shifts focus almost entirely to the Leontine plot. Part of me thinks it’s because there are more women for Kaylin to interact with there (and kudos to Sagara for depicting a polygamist society that doesn’t make me want to hate all men, as tends to happen with me and polygamy in fiction), but also because the Leontine plot is introduced and wrapped up here, whereas I suspect the Tha’alani plot will continue for some time. Unlike previous books in the series, I doubt Cast in Fury would be accessible at all for new readers, as much of it is heavily based on previous books.

Other people have complained in the past about Kaylin’s thickheadedness in needing to have things explained to her at times, but that’s never bothered me much, as it’s primarily been Sagara’s way of cluing the reader in to what’s up with the various societies and histories. It’s a narrative necessity, and explanations to the lead are way better than five pages of infodumping. This book is an exception, as it’s Leontine society being explained to Kaylin, and that’s something she should be familiar with. On the other hand, she gets to explain the Tha’alani to someone in a similar way, which was a nice bit of payback.

The already-backburnered romantic plotline is almost completely nonexistent here, which is fine with me, but may be less so for others. We also learn more about the “magic tattoos” on Kaylin’s body, and get hints about her eventual destiny.

One day, I really should read more of the Luna line, as all I’ve read so far are these and Mercedes Lackey’s first two fairy tale books for the line.

This is the second book in Michelle Sagara’s (aka Michelle West) Chronicles of Elantra series. While the Sun Sword series she writes as Michelle West is epic fantasy focusing on women and with cultures based on a broad variety of cultures, Elantra is more urban fantasy in a high fantasy setting.

Our heroine, Kaylin, is a Hawk-the equivalent of a police officer-who was once a street child. Currently, she’s chafing against expectations that she learn magic after coming under the wing of one of the city’s lords. She gets pulled into the affairs of the Barrani-the immortals who rule the city-when Teela, a Barrani who works with the Hawks, and so is something of a black sheep, asks her to help with a private matter that turns out to be saving the life of the High Lord’s heir.

Cast in Shadow focused on Kaylin’s backstory and developing the world of Elantra’s lower classes. Cast in Courtlight focuses more on the upper classes and the Barrani (a society that chafes at Kaylin’s delicate street sensibilities) and the history of the city, kicking off what seems to be the main plotline of the series.

I like the Elantra books, and how they catch the better aspects of urban fantasy and use them in a high fantasy setting, but I miss the scope of the Sun Sword books, and the larger world and how it bends genre expectations for the roles of women. And am I the only person to read both series and think that Kaylin is a lot like Jewel? Especially when confronted with arrogance?

Seven years ago, Kaylin Neya fled the streets of Nightshade to escape a killer who was after children who had strange markings appear on their skin, markings that had appeared on Kaylin's own arms.  Now she's a young officer of the Hawk caste, and when children started disappearing again, she, along with Tiamaris, a member of the Dragon caste, and Severn, a member of the Wolf caste who was once a part of Kaylin's family of street children, and who she does not trust, is sent to get to the bottom of things.

When I read Sagara's Hunter duology(written as Michelle West) earlier this year, I noticed that she was prone to being rather prosy, sometimes with a bit too much romanticism, though not enough to affect my enjoyment.  Though not nearly as obvious, that tendency towards being prosy is still evident here, but it feels slightly out of place.  While the setting is high fantasy, the plot, setting, and characters have a  noirish feel, almost making the book feel more like urban fantasy than high fantasy.  All the characters seem to live in more of a moral grey area than a strictly right or wrong, good or bad one, and about the only thing that's consistently portrayed as being "bad" for most of the book is killing children.  Even the revelation of the truth behind the event that led to Kaylin fleeing Nightshade and distrusting Severn isn't simple, and is neither a misunderstanding now what it seems.

All in all, a good book, and very different from the other books I've read.  I am, though, somewhat confused about the castes.  Some seem to be humans who wear the uniform, others humans who have picked up some attributes of the creatures they name themselves after, and others to actually be those creatures in human form.  While there seems to be a clear distinction between them in that world (Kaylin is currently a human bearing the Hawk name, but it's mentioned that she could eventually gain wings) I'm not sure that I understand exactly how those lines are drawn myself.