Today is The Golden Enclaves Day!!
Sep. 27th, 2022 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickAKA: New kindle book releases upload at midnight-ish.
As you may or may not know, Naomi Novik has written three books of what Harry Potter COULD HAVE BEEN if it was... better. More adult. More explicit about The Wizarding World and how much assholery & classist stuff was wrapped around the concept of purebloods and muggles. My Word On It, if you have any interest whatsoever in magical boarding school stories that involve heavy duty ethics and shit, you should read these books. Soonest.
Book the first: A Deadly Education
Book the second: The Last Graduate
Book the third, which I have been waiting for FOR A FUCKING WHOLE ENTIRE YEAR: The Golden Enclaves.
FUUUU.
Generally, in a trilogy situation, book 2 is the shitty book. Book 1 is the setup book and book 3 is the resolution book and book 2 frequently does not have enough to carry it along. However, TLG was a pretty solid second book so I was kind of worried about what would be left for book 3.
I should not have worried.
While it does toy a bit (okay, a lot) with the primary question that anyone who's gotten through TLG is kind of on tenterhooks about... AUTHOR DID A GREAT JOB OF NOT TIPPING HAND on several fronts and most interestingly I DID NOT SEE THE (AQUATIC SPOILER*) COMING AT ME LIKE A FREIGHT TRAIN UNTIL VERY CLOSE TO THE ACTUAL REVEAL. *oof* FUUUUUUU. DID NOT SEE IT COMING UNTIL IT WAS RIGHT UP ON ME. Good on yer, author!
Frequently, for narrative solidity, authors have to lay the groundwork early on. They have to give you the pieces up front. So, if you're very clever, if you're very smart, if you are extra-special observant, you can build the answers yourself and sometimes you can do it before the author *expects* you to do it. I like to be very clever, very smart, and extra-special observant (Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane) because that's the sort of literary nerd I am. And this pulling back the curtain trick is a special nerdy sort of literary fun that I have frequently enough that I kind of ... forget how fucking amazing it is to have the run over by a fully-formed, correctly-backstoried, full-tilt narrative freight train that you didn't see coming until all at once you look up in blind horror with like half a second to live and you're FUUUUUUU feeling.
I also did not see some pretty hefty worldbuilding on the enclave front that also horrified-and-floored me. DAMN.
And wow, yeah. Just a lot of feels there. SO MANY FEELS.
This was overall a rollicking good book that I read from 4 AM when I woke up expectedly (thanks, menopause) until 6:40 AM when I (a) finished the book and (b) had to "get up" for work. Yes, I can indeed plow through four hundred pages with decent appreciation and comprehension in mere hours. (It's why I read so much utter dross from Kindle Unlimited... I'd be broke if I had to pay real money for the amount of reading I do.)
Imma read it again tonight. And a couple more times until I've worn the shiny off.
*AQUATIC SPOILER: Basically, what is the deal with Orion Lake?
As you may or may not know, Naomi Novik has written three books of what Harry Potter COULD HAVE BEEN if it was... better. More adult. More explicit about The Wizarding World and how much assholery & classist stuff was wrapped around the concept of purebloods and muggles. My Word On It, if you have any interest whatsoever in magical boarding school stories that involve heavy duty ethics and shit, you should read these books. Soonest.
Book the first: A Deadly Education
Book the second: The Last Graduate
Book the third, which I have been waiting for FOR A FUCKING WHOLE ENTIRE YEAR: The Golden Enclaves.
FUUUU.
Generally, in a trilogy situation, book 2 is the shitty book. Book 1 is the setup book and book 3 is the resolution book and book 2 frequently does not have enough to carry it along. However, TLG was a pretty solid second book so I was kind of worried about what would be left for book 3.
I should not have worried.
While it does toy a bit (okay, a lot) with the primary question that anyone who's gotten through TLG is kind of on tenterhooks about... AUTHOR DID A GREAT JOB OF NOT TIPPING HAND on several fronts and most interestingly I DID NOT SEE THE (AQUATIC SPOILER*) COMING AT ME LIKE A FREIGHT TRAIN UNTIL VERY CLOSE TO THE ACTUAL REVEAL. *oof* FUUUUUUU. DID NOT SEE IT COMING UNTIL IT WAS RIGHT UP ON ME. Good on yer, author!
Frequently, for narrative solidity, authors have to lay the groundwork early on. They have to give you the pieces up front. So, if you're very clever, if you're very smart, if you are extra-special observant, you can build the answers yourself and sometimes you can do it before the author *expects* you to do it. I like to be very clever, very smart, and extra-special observant (Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane) because that's the sort of literary nerd I am. And this pulling back the curtain trick is a special nerdy sort of literary fun that I have frequently enough that I kind of ... forget how fucking amazing it is to have the run over by a fully-formed, correctly-backstoried, full-tilt narrative freight train that you didn't see coming until all at once you look up in blind horror with like half a second to live and you're FUUUUUUU feeling.
I also did not see some pretty hefty worldbuilding on the enclave front that also horrified-and-floored me. DAMN.
And wow, yeah. Just a lot of feels there. SO MANY FEELS.
This was overall a rollicking good book that I read from 4 AM when I woke up expectedly (thanks, menopause) until 6:40 AM when I (a) finished the book and (b) had to "get up" for work. Yes, I can indeed plow through four hundred pages with decent appreciation and comprehension in mere hours. (It's why I read so much utter dross from Kindle Unlimited... I'd be broke if I had to pay real money for the amount of reading I do.)
Imma read it again tonight. And a couple more times until I've worn the shiny off.
*AQUATIC SPOILER: Basically, what is the deal with Orion Lake?
