Tuesday, August 10, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Requiem of Silence by L Penelope

 


Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on August 17, 2021 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Requiem of Silence is the fourth and final book* in the Earthsinger Chronicles, a really interesting series by author L Penelope.  The series began with two novels (Song of Blood and Stone (Reviewed Here) and Whispers of Shadow and Flame (Reviewed Here)) which were very much fantasy romances, even though they dealt with serious themes of race, refugees, nationalism, and more to a certain extent.  The third book, Cry of Metal and Bone (Reviewed Here) shifted near entirely to epic fantasy - with there still being a very prominent romantic subplot**, but with the plot dealing with so much else - conflicts of life and death, integration of two peoples, refugees, racism, propaganda, foreign interference and differences of cultures.  Essentially each book in this season has gotten more and more ambitious, with the first book's setting feeling barebones and the third book's feeling overflowing with ideas and potential, and I've only enjoyed each of these books more and more.  

*There are also three novellas in the series, none of which I've had the opportunity to read although I may change that fact.  By their descriptions the novellas develop some important side characters and their events are referred to in these books, but not necessary to understand them.*

**Every Romance in this series is M-F, for what it's worth.  There are no LGBTQ characters of note in the series as far as I can recall.**

So it should be no surprise that Requiem of Silence, the finale, tries to do a lot with a lot of characters, and that it's romance subplot is the least developed of any of the series.  The result is mixed - there are a lot of interesting themes here - again of dealing with conflicts between two peoples forced together, of racism and of refugees, of violent counter-reactionary movements on all sides, on governing and misrule, and some really solid characters to go along with it all.  On the other hand, the overarching fantasy plot sort of overwhelms everything in the end, allowing the book to wrap up everything nicely without truly dealing with all of the impacts of those themes.  It's still a solid book, and a solid ending for this series, but perhaps a bit of a letdown after a book 3 that was a bit more interesting in its exploration of these ideas.  

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
The unrest in Elsira has only grown in the wake of Queen Jasminda's attempted assassination, with extremist groups among both the Elsirans and the Lagrimari refugees getting stronger by the day.  Elsira's relations with its neighbors is still tense, with a trade embargo from Raun putting the city in dire economic straits....a situation not helped by Jasminda's now freed brother being betrothed to the Raunian princess.  And the situation isn't helped by the "Goddess Awoken" keeping dangerous secrets....secrets like the fact that the True Father has escaped and no doubt intends to wreak more war upon the Elsiran and Lagrimari people.  

In all this, King Jack goes on diplomatic mission, leaving Queen Jasminda alone to deal with the unrest and to try and promote unification of the country.  Kyara, the now pardoned but still haunted Poisoned Flame, will be forced by the mysterious Mooriah to truly train her nethersong and power over death - along with a newly discovered young nethersinger.  And Zeli, now the servant to the Goddess Awoken, will have her faith shaken, and will depart with the Queen's other brother Varten to a foreign country in hope of knowledge that could save her people....and might find herself falling for Varten, a boy troubled by doubts about his ability to help people.  

All of them will need to act to save the country from the terror that is coming from within and without.  But in the end will there be a united Elsira left standing?  Or just the remnants of destroyed country, torn in pieces?
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So Requiem of Silence picks up after a few cliffhanger parts to the last book in this series Cry of Metal and Bone - most notably the escape of the True Father.  Still besides that major plot, which I'll get to in a bit, we have a lot of similar plot themes from the prior books also present here.  So very present here is the distrust between the Elsirans and the Lagirmari refugees, which resulted in an underground extremist movement led by wealthy Elsirans in the last book, which has now been coopted by a more lower class antagonist and now in this book results in a Lagrimari counter extremist movement.  That theme results in Jasminda, not used to ruling on her own, to take some very desperate measures which arguably inflame things worse - such as imprisoning that antagonist on a pretense* and installing a curfew.  It also results in Jasminda attempting to create a referendum on unification versus a sort of two state solution (if you're seeing modern parallels here, you won't be alone), which doesn't go the way she expects.  

*It was a big deal cliffhanger at the end of the last book that the person taking control of the pseudonymous extremist faction was this character, but oddly, this book acts as if this is common knowledge and his takeover never really matters* 

And we have a lot more here than all of that as well - you have the Goddess Awoken, Oona, losing trust as people realize that the powerful person they put their hopes in is just as human as the rest of them, you have the issues with a foreign country imposing an embargo that could starve out the country, you have the question of using a child as a weapon to defend the country, and more.  And of course you still do have a romance arc, although it's as small a romance arc as any in the series, as the book has so many characters it rotates between (Jasminda, the True Father, Zeli, Varten, Kyara, and more).  Still Zeli is still a great character as she learns to move past her faith, to go past her own fear, and to be an inspiration to others...and to find the romance she didn't have in book 2 of this series, when she was also a point of view character....and Varten is a solid partner for her, in the boy who fears failing those who give him responsibility.  

Really all of the characters are great, which is good, because this book, like its predecessor, often doesn't seem to have enough time for most of them.  So Varten's arc doesn't seem as well developed as it should be, the arcs of various ancient family members just feel tacked on, and several prior point of view characters from the last book reappear but only as side characters, even though they're at the center of the action.  The series has come a long way from when it was just a romantic fantasy focused upon a pair of characters, but the book isn't so much longer to contain the page length for those extra character arcs.  

This is even more true with the plot, which eventually gets overwhelmed by the overarching fantasy plot - the True Father regaining a hold on power through the power of the Physicks and starting another assault on Elsira, which takes over everything else...from the conflict between the Lagrimari people and the Elsirans, from the conflict between Elsira and its neighboring country....the big threat forces them all to come together to some extent, and it just feels like a cheap easy way to resolve everything.  Like there's a whole new country introduced in the middle with a different culture.....and we barely spend any time there, which all just emblemizes so much of the problem with this book - there's too much in this world, and Penelope wraps it up in a really easy uninteresting way in the end.  

Still again, I enjoy the characters and pairings, from Kyara to Zeli to Jasminda, and I prefer a book that tries a lot of interesting things than one that doesn't try at all, and so Requiem of Silence is still a fairly solid book that, if you enjoyed the first three books of this series, you will enjoy this one too.  A solid capper in a series that improved far beyond its original scope.  

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