Monday, December 21, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Sword and Pen by Rachel Caine

 



Sword and Pen is the fifth and final book in the late Rachel Caine's "The Great Library" series of alternate history fantasy novels.  I've really enjoyed the series so far, which took the setup provided by its first book and used it to take a leap to another level for books 2-4, with book 4 (Smoke and Iron, reviewed here) switching up the book's format to tremendous effect.  But five book series are in my experience trickier than your classic trilogies, with the extra length making it hard for the series to come to a satisfactory conclusion, so I was a bit worried that Sword and Pen might not live up to its predecessors.  

And honestly, it doesn't - Sword and Pen concludes the story with tremendous drama and tension, with some really strong moments, but doesn't quite hit on all the emotional beats it's going for.  And while the conclusion is one that works in the end as a resolution, I didn't quite love it (and the book seeming to forget about two major antagonists doesn't help), making this perhaps my least favorite book in the series.  Don't get me wrong, this is still a solid novel, and as a resolution to the major plot threads it works - it just tries to do too much and can't quite measure up to what came before.

Spoilers for the first four books are inevitable, be forewarned.

--------------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------
Jess Brightwell and his friends have seemingly done it - they have dethroned the old Archivist and put into place a new leadership for The Great Library, one which can lead it on a better path towards preserving and promoting knowledge - instead of restricting it for the sake of power.  But the cost has been impossibly high, especially for Jess, whose brother paid a fatal price for it all.  And so Jess finds himself stuck in a daze, with his twin gone, not knowing quite what to do with it all, and what purpose there remains in living without him.  

But Jess and his friends do not have time to figure out how to get past their grief, as this new era of The Great Library is far from secured.  After all, the navies and armies of every great power were already on the march towards Alexandria before they pulled off their coup - and now that the coup has left the Library on shaky grounds, those powers see an opportunity to take control of the Library for themselves through their sheer might.  And the old Archivist and his followers are still at large somewhere in the city, with the old man plotting his return to power....or at least his revenge.  And Jess and his friends, to say nothing of The Great Library itself, are the first ones on the old Archivist's list for vengeance, and with nothing left to lose, the old man is more dangerous than ever.....
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Like Smoke and Iron, and unlike the first three books in this series, Sword and Pen splits the narrative into multiple point of view characters, with all of our main crew getting at least one chapter told from their own point of view - and Jess himself finding himself as deprioritized as he's ever been.  The whole team finds themselves now able for the first time since the very beginning able to exist openly in Alexandria, but that openness comes at the cost of them all having new responsibilities - Khalila is the Archivist's assistant, Wolfe one of her most trusted agents, Glain a High Garda captain, etc. - and doesn't take away from the fact that bad guys still want to kill them all.  

This works better with some characters than others.  Wolfe and Santi's feelings for each other and their responsibilities, not to mention for the others, really comes through well from their voices as things get worse for them all.  Khalila's voice as she takes up her role as the Archivist's head assistant and is at the center of power is tremendous, as her strong leadership, wise knowledge, courage to do what it takes and good heartedness is tremendous.  Thomas remains excellent in his old tinkering status, and he gets a chance in the plot to go full "Tomb Raider" which is really fun to read.  And even Dario and Glain's moments here really exemplify who they really are, with Dario's point of view chapter really demonstrating the conflict he feels internally over his scheming and betrayals in a way we hadn't seen before previously.  

Jess and Morgan on the other hand....work less well.  Jess finds himself basically grieving in a way that makes him detached emotionally from everyone (outside of seeking revenge) and then fatally poisoned in the first chapter by a slow acting poison, which limits his physical abilities and slows down his plot even more.  And while Jess and Brendan's relationship is decently established, how he grieves for Brendan in cutting himself off emotionally from Morgan (which then kind of comes back near the end but doesn't really?) just didn't feel right to me.  And while Morgan's plotline in the Iron Tower, as second in command now among the Obscurists, is really interesting, the continuation of her emotional arc from the end of the last book where she doubts whether she loves Jess is just...weirdly abrupt.  I get what Caine was trying to do with the two of them essentially finding their love permanently sundered by what happened in the arena, but it just didn't quite work for me.  And then it made where they each wound up in the ending just feel even weirder.*

*Spoiler in ROT13 for the Ending:  Zbetna fnpevsvprf urefrys va gur raq, naq gur raqvat onfvpnyyl fubjf Wrff trggvat bire uvf tevrs bs Oeraqna naq zbivat ba, rira gubhtu Zbetna'f qrngu fubhyq or n ovttre uvg sbe uvz guna Oeraqna'f, juvpu whfg frrzrq fbbbb jebat.  

The overall plot is similar in that way - the book takes an impossible situation in terms of how the characters are going to get the Library through it all and makes it mostly work really well, with the conflict between most of the foreign nations being shown tremendously, in truly epic fashion.  Certain of our characters have some truly fantastic moments in the mean time and reach spots that readers will have expected for a while but still come about in surprising ways.  But the resolution of the conflict with the Archivist just kind of goes out with a whimper, and while it makes logical sense to some extent, it feels tremendously like a let down really, with a ton of it happening off-page and two of the more important such characters killing each other without us seeing it.  And one major antagonist from prior books, the Artifex Magnus, just uh...never shows up in this book (and rereading Smoke and Iron he never dies there) which just seemed so confusing - to say nothing of one new major antagonist who just is never dealt with here. 

The result is a book where there's a lot to like, where the resolution does resolve all the conflicts and plot arcs, but does so in a way that also feels kind of unsatisfying and disappointing.  I've really enjoyed this series, so I'd still recommend it all to new readers, but Caine couldn't quite bring it all together as well as I'd hoped.    


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