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got_quietMore reading! I'm doing so much reading! It's great!
Deosil
I've finally finished the Whyborne and Griffin series! I lucked out and Deosil came out of hold just as I was going to take a trip, so managed to read the whole damn thing during a massive layover. While I'm sorry to see the series end, I'm also relieved that it stuck the landing, there's a happily ever after, the final confrontation was sweet, and now I can imagine Whyborne and Griffin happily snuggled in each other's arms for the rest of time.
After finishing the last book I looped around and read the first one again, not really closely, just sort of as review. Whyborne really has come so far lol. There's barely a stutter to be found in him anymore. I remember being glad that as I read each book that there was persistent forward movement in everyone's characterization, and their relationships with each other, and that mostly persisted up until maybe the last two books where everyone had reached their full power. Even so, I think my favorite books in the series remain the first three, possibly because a lot of it is about Whyborne learning about Griffin and Griffin learning to be vulnerable around Whyborne.
Some random notes and observations:
Lord of the White Hell
Oh god it's another magical school book. But, like, very much not like any other of the magical school books I've read recently, which was a remarkable relief. I'd read something else by Ginn Hale before, and was interested in this one because it seemed like a good, dark palate cleanser after all the romances and YAs that I've been breezing through. The only reason I assumed this was because the other series I read of hers got seriously dark and then kind of stayed there the whole way through. She also clearly enjoys putting her characters through as much violence as she can and doesn't make things too overwrought in the process.
It was actually only after getting about half way through the book, when suddenly everything was about an inter school tournament, that I was like, fuck, this is a magical school book. But it's a magical school in a magical world, so that mitigates a lot of the boredom I've developed towards the genre. The characters are generally more mature, even though they have big youthful blindspots, and the worldbuilding is more engaging. The biggest element of it is a conflict between a fantasy Christianity vs a fantasy Arab-ish culture, but while maybe the distant silhouette makes things look like that the details are much different. Similar to The Rifter trilogy, the worldbuilding here seems to be deliberately constructed to cut the protagonists up as much as possible. Penance, blood letting, opening cuts to pour poison in the wound, jousts and lashings, just, blood blood, all the blood. I'm into it so this was great but also I think Hale has a type.
Because of the worldbuilding premise there's also a whole lot of fantasy racism. The main character, Kiram, is the only Haldiim to have ever attended this school full of white peo- uh Cadeleoneans, and it appears that there has been an attempted genocide by an old Cadeleonian king, so there are predictable moments of every sort of racism out there. Kiram is, however, prepared for this. Thinking back to what little I read of Babel, there's a big difference from the protagonist in that book, who seemed to oscillate wildly between being surprised and confused to unaware of racism when it was happening. Kiram is someone who actually feels like he's grown up in this setting, and knows what's up, even in situations where he isn't entirely sure how best to deal with it. A lot of his internal monologue is actively comparing the norms of his culture to what he's being exposed to at the institute, and a lot of times his reaction is dismissal of superstition, or annoyance with the emphasis on physical aggression. There's a lot of "and these dumbasses think we're the barbarians, huh?" energy in him. I liked particularly that he was a confident and self assured person, who knew what he wanted. Conflict and growth didn't come from him "learning to believe in himself" or something basic like that. He has some serious conflicting desires and pressures that sometimes make his choices actually hard and when he made a choice you could feel his reasoning.
His love interest, Javier, is also an interesting guy, though maybe the reader sees him through Kiram's eyes he felt a little less dynamic of a character. He's inherited the "White Hell" which makes every Cadeleonean terrified of him, and so he's pleased that Kiram is immediately dismissive of all that superstitious bullshit and will engage with him like a normal person. There's clear mutual attraction almost from the beginning of the book, but Cadeleoneans have to be shitty as possible and think homosexuality is a grave sin, so Javier has cloaked himself in ironic gayness instead. As a character I found he was well executed as a somewhat young noble, used to getting everything but also literally cursed and exposed to tortures and stigma that his position didn't completely shield him from.
The plot was also good, though the tournament stuff did start to drag for me a bit, and it takes up maybe a third of the book. There are scenes there that are important. In the down time a lot of the putting together of pieces and interesting worldbuilding happens. But the big bad of the book to me felt pretty obvious early in and I started getting impatient with when they might finally be exposed. That said I also thought it was reasonable that no one was jumping to the correct conclusion even when there were a lot of good foreshadowing comments made throughout the book. And, similar to the other book I read from Hale, I think that outside the two mains everyone's life is on the line. Like I think there's actual danger which is something that a good chuck of the books I've been reading recently didn't have. Like Kiram his virtues and flaws feel well grounded in the setting and circumstances.
I think this is part of a trilogy. This first volume ends on a cliffhanger which is extremely annoying. Kiram and Javier have a kind of nasty fight, the end. Unfortunately for me I want to know how this will resolve so that's more books on the to read pile it seems! The Rifter series succeeded over three books in making me feel like things were seriously on the line, and while I'm a little more confident in this one that the two mains will find a HEA and some of the big dangers will be dealt with, I'm also more willing to believe that success will not come without real cost and that some people aren't going to make it.
Deosil
I've finally finished the Whyborne and Griffin series! I lucked out and Deosil came out of hold just as I was going to take a trip, so managed to read the whole damn thing during a massive layover. While I'm sorry to see the series end, I'm also relieved that it stuck the landing, there's a happily ever after, the final confrontation was sweet, and now I can imagine Whyborne and Griffin happily snuggled in each other's arms for the rest of time.
After finishing the last book I looped around and read the first one again, not really closely, just sort of as review. Whyborne really has come so far lol. There's barely a stutter to be found in him anymore. I remember being glad that as I read each book that there was persistent forward movement in everyone's characterization, and their relationships with each other, and that mostly persisted up until maybe the last two books where everyone had reached their full power. Even so, I think my favorite books in the series remain the first three, possibly because a lot of it is about Whyborne learning about Griffin and Griffin learning to be vulnerable around Whyborne.
Some random notes and observations:
- According to my notes, I started the series in Feb of this year, so that makes this definitely the defining canon of the year.
- Iskander was such a good addition to the series. He picked up a lot of the slack once the original trio had sort of settled into their dynamic in the first half of the series.
- I think Widdershins, Stomrhaven and Bloodline are my favorites. Widdershins cause it's the get together book and Whyborne is just too adorable in the whole thing. Stormhaven for the remarkable amount of Griffin whump, and Bloodline for Whyborne almost going full supervillain plus Griffin becoming a certified monster fucker and Whyborn becoming much more confident about how loved he really is.
- It's my headcanon that all the creepy crawly things have some sort of instinctual attraction to Griffin, Whyborne included. He's just irresistible. Likewise he seems to be very popular with the human boys too but I did notice that any poor fool who tries to sidle up to him ends up dead in the next scene. I still want a fic where a creature politely asks Whyborne if maybe he could share.
Lord of the White Hell
Oh god it's another magical school book. But, like, very much not like any other of the magical school books I've read recently, which was a remarkable relief. I'd read something else by Ginn Hale before, and was interested in this one because it seemed like a good, dark palate cleanser after all the romances and YAs that I've been breezing through. The only reason I assumed this was because the other series I read of hers got seriously dark and then kind of stayed there the whole way through. She also clearly enjoys putting her characters through as much violence as she can and doesn't make things too overwrought in the process.
It was actually only after getting about half way through the book, when suddenly everything was about an inter school tournament, that I was like, fuck, this is a magical school book. But it's a magical school in a magical world, so that mitigates a lot of the boredom I've developed towards the genre. The characters are generally more mature, even though they have big youthful blindspots, and the worldbuilding is more engaging. The biggest element of it is a conflict between a fantasy Christianity vs a fantasy Arab-ish culture, but while maybe the distant silhouette makes things look like that the details are much different. Similar to The Rifter trilogy, the worldbuilding here seems to be deliberately constructed to cut the protagonists up as much as possible. Penance, blood letting, opening cuts to pour poison in the wound, jousts and lashings, just, blood blood, all the blood. I'm into it so this was great but also I think Hale has a type.
Because of the worldbuilding premise there's also a whole lot of fantasy racism. The main character, Kiram, is the only Haldiim to have ever attended this school full of white peo- uh Cadeleoneans, and it appears that there has been an attempted genocide by an old Cadeleonian king, so there are predictable moments of every sort of racism out there. Kiram is, however, prepared for this. Thinking back to what little I read of Babel, there's a big difference from the protagonist in that book, who seemed to oscillate wildly between being surprised and confused to unaware of racism when it was happening. Kiram is someone who actually feels like he's grown up in this setting, and knows what's up, even in situations where he isn't entirely sure how best to deal with it. A lot of his internal monologue is actively comparing the norms of his culture to what he's being exposed to at the institute, and a lot of times his reaction is dismissal of superstition, or annoyance with the emphasis on physical aggression. There's a lot of "and these dumbasses think we're the barbarians, huh?" energy in him. I liked particularly that he was a confident and self assured person, who knew what he wanted. Conflict and growth didn't come from him "learning to believe in himself" or something basic like that. He has some serious conflicting desires and pressures that sometimes make his choices actually hard and when he made a choice you could feel his reasoning.
His love interest, Javier, is also an interesting guy, though maybe the reader sees him through Kiram's eyes he felt a little less dynamic of a character. He's inherited the "White Hell" which makes every Cadeleonean terrified of him, and so he's pleased that Kiram is immediately dismissive of all that superstitious bullshit and will engage with him like a normal person. There's clear mutual attraction almost from the beginning of the book, but Cadeleoneans have to be shitty as possible and think homosexuality is a grave sin, so Javier has cloaked himself in ironic gayness instead. As a character I found he was well executed as a somewhat young noble, used to getting everything but also literally cursed and exposed to tortures and stigma that his position didn't completely shield him from.
The plot was also good, though the tournament stuff did start to drag for me a bit, and it takes up maybe a third of the book. There are scenes there that are important. In the down time a lot of the putting together of pieces and interesting worldbuilding happens. But the big bad of the book to me felt pretty obvious early in and I started getting impatient with when they might finally be exposed. That said I also thought it was reasonable that no one was jumping to the correct conclusion even when there were a lot of good foreshadowing comments made throughout the book. And, similar to the other book I read from Hale, I think that outside the two mains everyone's life is on the line. Like I think there's actual danger which is something that a good chuck of the books I've been reading recently didn't have. Like Kiram his virtues and flaws feel well grounded in the setting and circumstances.
I think this is part of a trilogy. This first volume ends on a cliffhanger which is extremely annoying. Kiram and Javier have a kind of nasty fight, the end. Unfortunately for me I want to know how this will resolve so that's more books on the to read pile it seems! The Rifter series succeeded over three books in making me feel like things were seriously on the line, and while I'm a little more confident in this one that the two mains will find a HEA and some of the big dangers will be dealt with, I'm also more willing to believe that success will not come without real cost and that some people aren't going to make it.
