Monday, December 14, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Iron Heart by Nina Varela

 



Iron Heart is the second half of a duology by Nina Varela that began with last year's Crier's War (which I reviewed here).  The duology is a young adult fantasy (arguably scifi in some aspects as well) story with a F-F romance between its two protagonists at its core, as the two girls from different backgrounds/species struggle with an unjust (racist/speciesist/classist) world and what to do about it, in the face of those who would seek to take advantage of those forces to cement their own power.  I liked Crier's War's setup a good amount, and its two main characters worked, but the book's ending was a major disappointment, with it just ending at a seeming random point in the middle of things, which was entirely unsatisfying.  So I was hoping the 2nd half of the duology would bring things around instead to a better conclusion.

And well, Iron Heart is a solid conclusion, even as it feels very much like the 2nd half of a what should have been a single novel instead of a duology.  Our protagonists remain strong as they try and deal with their new desperate situations and their uncertainty over having feelings for one another, and the roles of the varying antagonists come more firmly into play here, leading to a conclusion that is generally pretty satisfying.  At the same time, some antagonists are dealt with more easily than one would have imagined, and one of the major plot mysteries just dies out.  There was probably enough material in this setting/plot for one and a half books or maybe a more full duology, but instead we got what is essentially 1 book split into two, and the result is enjoyable but not quite as good as it could be. 

Spoilers for Crier's War below are inevitable.  

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------
Ayla is on the run, heading with Benjy to Varn to see the aid of Queen Junn in saving humanity from the dark plans of King Hesod and Scyer Kinok.  Ayla has left behind Crier, who Ayla couldn't bring herself to kill; whom she can't bring herself to even think about - for fear that such thoughts will force Ayla to examine strange and unbelievable feelings.  Now, she somehow needs to get to her brother - who unthinkably not only isn't dead but is Junn's right hand man (and maybe something more?) to inform the Queen about Kinok's sinister goals - and the danger of his evil substance, Nightshade.  

Crier was left behind in the palace to marry Kinok...but her discovery of his full plans - to destroy the Iron Heart so that only he controls the power source of all Automae - quickly convinces her to run from her own wedding.  Crier has nowhere to go and nothing to seek other than the mystery material Tourmaline - the precious material that Kinok seeks to replace Heartstone and to usher in a new era of automae.  Crier's only hope of finding it rests in Ayla's pendant and the mysterious memories it contains, but if she can track it down, perhaps she can stop Kinok and her father from their genocidal plans.  If she can just look at the pendant without thinking of Ayla herself....

Crier and Ayla both will need others to take down Kinok and to save those they love, for they surely cannot do it on their own.  And in searching for those allies, fate will once again bring them together, forcing them to figure out what they mean to each other, and how to move forward in this dark, unjust world......
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Iron Heart feels more like the 2nd half of a single book than a duology and its chapter format seems to indicate it was one book once: Crier's War had chapters separated into parts by season and year, Iron Heart seems to do the same...except all but the epilogue is set in "Winter, Year 47 AE", suggesting it was all part of one whole.  And so we basically pick up right after we left off, with Ayla having just run from Crier after not being able to go through with her assassination attempt and Crier about to get married to our antagonist, Kinok.  

Crier's War essentially set us up with three potential antagonists and several potential mysteries.  On the antagonist side, Kinok and Hesod made up clear evil opponents for our main duo, in their hatred of humanity and desire for power - Hesod through keeping the status quo and Kinok through changing it to enable the genocide of humanity, while Queen Junn of Varn seemed better than her reputation...except for a late reveal that she'd had the human sympathizing automa Crier thought of as a mentor assassinated - putting her true goals in doubt.  On the mystery side, the book raised a series of questions about the power source that kept the Automae going - what was the Iron Heart?  What was Kinok's evil looking substance, Night Shade?  And what was the mysterious Tourmaline that Ayla's ancestor developed - and who was the mysterious H who was the true creator of Automae?  

Iron Heart deals with some of these but not all, but what it does deal with is dealt with well.  Kinok's master plan becomes the sinister focus of the book, along with of course the true nature of the Iron Heart, as both Ayla and Crier discover while trying to stop him that possibilities exist of human-automae cooperation, possibilities they never even dreamed of while living under Hesod's rule.  The result creates some excellent final character development in the duo - first as they begin apart and then as they reunite, and is aided by some excellent side characters, new and old.  Learning more about Junn is fascinating, and the quests both Ayla and Crier undertake never bore, leading to a very satisfying conclusion.  And Ayla and Crier's romance when they reunite again works really well.  This is still not a very subtle book at all, with Junn being perhaps the only character of subtle nuance (and even there, only in one action - otherwise she turns out to be fairly unambiguous in the end) - certain characters are clearly good, certain others are evil, and things can only be resolved in one way.  But it makes it all work pretty well.

On the other hand, the book drops an awful lot of the mysteries and conflicts it set up in book 1.  Hesod's role as the co-antagonist is basically dropped, with him being dealt with entirely off page and Kinok taking center stage making all that work setting up as the evil defender of the status quo (to go along with Kinok's evil actor for genocidal change) seem completely pointless - indeed, some of the power struggles between forces here are resolved entirely off page in a fashion that seems to really make no sense in terms of the relative power balance that was established in book 1, as if the author couldn't think of a way to resolve it all without just skipping dealing with those problems.  The mystery also of H and Thomas Wren, the creators of Automae, are also more or less abandoned - they're brought up from time to time, but they have nothing at all to do with the plot despite being a major mystery previously.  And Ayla's family connection to Tourmaline's creation goes absolutely nowhere, with Tourmaline's eventual discovery (not really a spoiler, since it's obviously going to happen) coming from a never mentioned before source.  All of these things could've been used I suspect to form another book, but instead we get this book, which feels like the 2nd half of a book instead.  

Again, I enjoyed the end result, and I don't regret reading this duology, with neither book being very long either.  But there was a lot more potential here that wound up going untapped, and instead we wound up with an enjoyable but little more YA romantic (F-F) fantasy, something that no longer is quite that unusual.  
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