Summary:
This is the fourth books in Mercedes Lackey’s series entitled the Tales of the Five Hundred kingdoms. The premise of the Tales of the five hundred kingdoms is that there is this magical force called “the tradition” which causes peoples’ lives to take certain paths that their lives most closely follow. For example Stepmothers are always supposed to be evil, 7th sons are always fools, and damsels in distress are always meant to fall for their rescuers. This causes Cinderella, snow white, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel stories to repeat because the more popular a story becomes the more it becomes “tradition.” With that said this story is a standalone novel and can defiantly be read and enjoyed without reading the first three books. This is somewhat of a retelling of the classic Fairy tale of the Snow Queen. However in this story The Snow Queen is actually a Godmother named Aleksia and in her kingdoms her main role in the tradition is teaching the “be careful what you wish for” lesson. The story starts with Aleksia keeping a boy named Kay in her castle because he has wished that he didn’t have people to bother him so that he could use his genius to work on his projects in peace. However Aleksia is trying to teach him that love is more important and that without being loved and loving someone in return life isn’t worth much. She is also trying to keep an eye on Gerda, the Girl who loves Kay, and make sure she grows a back bone for herself so that she doesn’t let Kay trample all over her just because she loves him. Aleksia needs to make sure that Gerda knows that the hardest thing to do is stand up to the one you love. We see the whole classic story play out from the point of view of the godmother/ Snow Queen. But things start to go wrong when Aleskia hears from another Godmother that someone has taken the identity of the Snow Queen and is kidnapping young men from their homes. So to look into this claim she spies on two warrior mages and their apprentice. When the men, Lemminkal, Ilmari, and Veikko go missing Aleksia must take an active role in the tale to save the men and find out who is impersonating her and why. She meets up with Veikko’s mother Annukka, who is a wise woman, and his fiancé Kaari to form a Questing group to find the men and save Veikko from the Snow Witch. In the end all is well and many characters couple up.
Review:
Let me start by saying that I love this series and I think Mercedes Lackey has amazing talent. This has been proven too me in the past three books of the five hundred kingdoms. That said this book left me unsatisfied. The problem with this book for me was that there were so many characters you never truly got attached to any of them. It was kind of like watching a story play out behind a glass. Aleksia was so cut off from contact that for the first half of the book I couldn’t bond with her because she didn’t seem like a person much less a fairy godmother. She wasn’t just playing a cold and aloof character in front of people but in her own thoughts as well. Annukka was a little easier to feel for but there were times when I didn’t feel like she was real either. It may have just been what the “wise woman” does in the story but she seemed cold at times too. The second half where they are all off questing was the best part in my opinion because you actually had character interaction but it didn’t last long before they were facing the Snow Witch and then the story was over and couples were pairing up. I would have been much happier with a longer book with more character development and interaction or a shorter book with less stuff going on. Like what was going on with all the build up about Kaari and her crystal tears? And when the end came I could see the answer way off there was no surprise or entertainment just an end. Lastly there was little to no romance in this book. I didn’t really expect nor need an explicit scene but there wasn’t even any kissing or butterflies in the stomach. Over all I was not impressed with this story even though I loved the idea of the Snow Queen being the fairy godmother. However I have not given up hope and plan to read many of her future books in this series.
No comments:
Post a Comment