Thursday, October 18, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Cold Steel by Kate Elliott




  Cold Steel is the final book in Kate Elliott's Spiritwalker trilogy, which began with Cold Magic (Review here) and continued with Cold Fire (Review Here).  I enjoyed Cold Magic and loved Cold Fire, so I was eagerly looking forward to the conclusion to the trilogy - even to the point of rushing to read it quickly despite having several other library books that I really ought to read first (due to oncoming due dates).

  Cold Steel doesn't disappoint as a conclusion to the trilogy, though its plot winds and twists in ways that I could never have expected.  Elliott's Spiritwalker world is immensely creative - a world where the ice age only partially ended despite it being circa 1800; a world where mage houses wield prominent power in Europe; where the Roman Empire is diminished, having not defeated Carthage, but still in existence; where the native people of the Caribbean and Americas, buoyed by magical power, resisted the evils of colonization and remain empowered; etc.  And Cold Steel shares that creativity in its plot as it finishes the story arc of our heroine, Cat Barahal, as she attempts to secure the safety of the people she loves against the many evils - both human and magical - that have come to bear against them.

  Obvious Note:  This is the final book in a trilogy.  I shouldn't have to tell you not to start this book here.  Cmon now.


-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------
Catherine "Cat" Bell Barahal is in a bind.  Her Husband, the Incredibly Vain - though good-hearted -  Andevai, has been taken to the Spirit World as the prisoner of Cat's sire - the monstrous Master of the Wild Hunt.  Her beloved cousin Beatrice ("Bee") is still sought after for her prophetic dreams and is married to the Taino prince....whose mother Cat just helped kill.  The ambitious General Camjiata is planning on embarking on his war to conquer Europe with the help of the evil fire mage James Drake...and wants both Cat and Bee's help in doing so.

And Cat finds herself stuck in the Antilles (the Caribbean), with the local spirits having threatened her against trying to escape once again via the Spirit World, leaving her with no way to get back either to Europe or to Andevai in order to save him.

But these powerful forces will not leave Cat alone, and soon she will find herself once again between many powerful forces - both in the mortal world and the spirit world - who seek to use her for their own ends.  Can Cat really help bring radical change to Europa and the world?  And more importantly, will she be able to save the ones she loves - Andevai, Bee, and Rory foremost - or is she doomed to lose them all?
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Cold Steel is excellent once again, as usual for Elliott's work in general, not limiting myself solely to this series (this is the fourth series/trilogy of hers I have now completed).  The book winds a tricky path as Cat and her allies go from place to place, to the point where it's doubtful any reader will be able to see where the plot is going really.  But, thanks to the fantastic world and characters Elliott has created, it really really works.

I've stated before how much I love this series' heroine, Cat, and it remains the truth here - her wits remain incredible, as does her hilariously impulsive nature at times as she gets in and out of trouble.  And her final few solutions to the life or death dilemmas she faces in this book are truly inspired and fantastic.

But what impressed me the most about Cold Steel was how it drastically improved its already great secondary characters.  Cat's cousin Bee - who spends most of Cold Magic off screen and doesn't have much to do in Cold Fire honestly gets an increased amount of time to shine in this book, and man does she impress, as she becomes a fiery orator of incredible prowess, and shows off her own desires in a way that moves her from peripheral though enjoyable character to strong heroine in her own right (Elliott wrote a side story from Bee's perspective which I expect to purchase and read soon simply because of how much I loved Bee here).  Cat's brother Rory remains amazing as comic relief and as a companion to Cat, and then there are smaller characters who get extra page time here and make easily the most of it.

I still rank Cold Steel below Cold Fire mainly because at one point 2/3 of the way through a major character changes his tone seemingly completely in such a clear reversal that it just felt out of character to a certain extent - it works, but barely, mainly because there's a time gap over which his attitude "shift" occurs that takes place over a small number of pages where such a shift is realistic, but it feels sudden and impromptu as in the text.*

Spoiler Discussion of this in ROT13: V'z ersreevat bs pbhefr gb Inv orvat anzrq Urve bs gur Sbhe Zbbaf Ubhfr naq fhqqrayl frrzvat gb nonaqba uvf Enqvpny vqrnf va snibe bs yblnygl gb gur Ubhfr.  Ur whfgvsvrf vg riraghnyyl nf ernyvmvat gur Ubhfrf zhfg fgvyy rkvfg naq gurer vf n arrq gb punatr gurz sebz jvguva, ohg vgf pyrneyl gb fbzr rkgrag ergebnpgvir whfgvsvpngvba (gb uvzfrys) zrnag gb nffhntr uvf bja thvyg.

Ntnva, vg xvaq bs jbexf, ohg vg'f jrveq gung nsgre gur Znafn rffragvnyyl pncgherq Png naq hfrq uvf snzvyl nf ubfgntrf gung Inv vf fb rnfvyl fjnlrq naq qbrfa'g rira srry gur arrq gb whfgvsl uvzfrys gb Png hagvy Png ehaf njnl va qvfthfg.  Guvf jbexf ernyyl orpnhfr gurer'f n gvzr tnc jurer gurfr vqrnf ner tvira gur gvzr gb svyy Inv'f urnq bssfperra, ohg fvapr jr qba'g frr Inv'f ivrjf fuvsg bire gvzr, vg whfg srryf yvxr n fhqqra Snpr Urry Ghea juvpu vf bsschggvat.

Other than that, I really enjoyed Cold Steel.  The ending is an incredibly satisfying way of wrapping up Cat's story, while still leaving open further adventures in this world as the work of the characters is far from done (indeed, I've read a few short stories set afterwards which follow up on this).  Interestingly, Elliott leaves one of the major conflicts of the story - the battle to eliminate the system of Clientage and revolutionize governance in Europa in favor of democracy - unresolved, and makes it clear that such a struggle is not one that is going to be finished overnight, or in a single book's worth of story.  It's a rather smart decision that works really well, that weaker authors wouldn't have had the courage to do.

All in all, after Cold Steel, the Spiritwalker trilogy probably ranks #3 for me out of the four Elliott series' that I've read in their entirety (#1 being her Books of the Jaran, #2 being her Crossroads Trilogy, #4 being Court of Fives), but that's not a knock on this trilogy at all - Cold Steel and Cold Fire are incredibly good books, and I'm at this point picking through other anthologies to find other short stories Elliott has written in this world just to get more.  Much Recommended.
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