Thursday, April 26, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Seraphina by Rachel Hartman


So I actually found my way to Rachel Hartman's Seraphina a bit backwards.  Earlier this month I read and LOVED her latest novel "Tess of the Road" (Review Here), which I gave one of my rare perfect scores.  Tess of the Road was my first experience with Hartman's work, but actually takes place in the same world as "Seraphina," although it's a stand-alone work which doesn't require prior knowledge to work at all.  Still the references in TotR, as well as simply how much I loved that book, made me instantly want to read Seraphina and its sequel, so I immediately took them out of the library.

Seraphina is seemingly targeted at a little younger age group than TotR, not dealing at all with the same adult subject matter, but it's still excellent and sweet at times, while dealing with some more serious subjects such as racism and xenophobia, to some extent.  It's not a perfect book - but it contains excellent characters, a solid oft unpredictable plot, and a pretty interesting world, so it contains much to recommend.  Again, if you're looking for a more mature fantasy work, this may not be your thing, but if you're interested in an interesting world of humans and dragons in a tense coexistence, this is a pretty good book to try.


----------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------
Years ago, humans and dragons in the world used to be at war, with great cost to both sides.  Finally, 40 years ago, the Queen of the Kingdom of Goredd entered into a peace treaty with the Dragons, and Dragons who take human form can live amongst the Kingdom's citizens...albeit with certain bells to mark them as such.   Dragon society is very different from human society, with Dragons being more cold and calculating, and dragons who show emotion are punished with memory-removal by "censors."

But unrest between humans and dragons still remains these forty years later.  These differences, as well as the prior threat of dragon pillaging, as well as supposed religious teachings, fills the human populace of Goredd with dread towards their dragon neighbors, and human attacks on dragons on the street are not unheard of.

Seraphina has connections to both the human and dragon worlds - her father is human and her deceased mother was secretly a dragon.  Half-Dragons are considered forbidden by both human and dragon societies, with her father and her facing probable death sentences if the truth about her heritage is known.  To make matters worse, Seraphina has always been plagued by images in her mind of 18 other strange individuals, who could cause her to faint with strange visions.  But while she hides her scales behind covering clothes, Seraphina is not willing to hide herself entirely and has obtained a job as an assistant orchestra conductor, and as the music teacher to the Crown, tutoring the princess of Goredd herself.

But Seraphina may not be able to hide her ties to the dragon world forever - especially when the son of the Queen is found decapitated - as if his head was eaten by a dragon, right near the anniversary of the peace treaty.  As tensions continue to rise, She cannot help herself but try to correct misconceptions amongst the Princess and other royals about dragons...which causes her to come to the attention of the royal prince Lucian Kiggs, who is investigating his uncle's killing.  And when the individuals in her head start to appear in front of her, it becomes clear that something momentous is about to happens, something that unless Seraphina acts, could cause havoc in both the human and dragon worlds......
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Seraphina is a wonderful, if not perfect book, because of its excellent protagonist and side characters, as well as it's excellent worldbuilding.  The book is told from Seraphina's first person perspective, and she's a wonderful protagonist - unsure of herself, torn between her own desires and her need to keep her true heritage secret, her internal conflicts are easily understandable without being annoying to read.  She's a heroine it's easy to root for, who tries to fight misunderstanding and prejudice despite the great cost of discovery, and who is set against great forces fighting back with the weight of prejudice.

The rest of the cast is also excellent.  Seraphina's uncle Orma makes an excellent mentor character, who is just as much in hiding (for very different reasons) as Seraphina.  Meanwhile, love interest Kiggs is also an excellent secondary character, who feels an outcast himself as a result of his bastardy.  I'm going to stop there, but the book does an excellent job at introducing a variety of characters with real depth who make this an interesting world to read about.

On that note, like in Tess of the Road, Seraphina is excellent at worldbuilding.  Fantasy worlds that include humans and dragons are not exactly rare in the fantasy genre, but Hartman makes this world feel particularly different, with the interactions between humans and dragons tinged with prejudices and fear that feels very much like the xenophobia/racism inherent in real life societies.  This is a book with a much grander scope than its plot, leaving a lot of places to potentially go in the sequel, but it manages to set up the world in such a way that I can't wait to read more in this world and don't feel disappointed that we haven't fully explored it in this single book.

The plot itself is generally excellent - with the exception of the predictable (pretty early) romance subplot, the book takes a number of turns which I didn't see coming, but which made quite a bit of sense in retrospect.  The ending leaves a large cliffhanger, but is mostly a satisfying ending to the plot of this novel, so it works out.

If I had any complaint, and this is minor really, it's that I'm not sure the book does a good enough job explaining how Seraphina gets from where she was to start the prologue to the first chapters where she's already established as working in the palace.  The book tries to shoehorn in an explanation at how she gets her job midway through which works somewhat, but it still feels a bit out of place how easy it was for her to get into this position.  Still, this is such a minor quibble it really isn't a problem.

Recommended, and I've already started the sequel.



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