Thursday, October 7, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Quicksilver Court by Melissa Caruso

 





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 October 12, 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.


The Quicksilver Court is the second book in Melissa Caruso's "Rooks and Ruin" fantasy trilogy, after last year's The Obsidian Tower (my review here).  The trilogy takes place in the same universe (albeit 150 years later) as her Swords and Fire trilogy, whose second and third books I really really enjoyed, particularly more than that trilogy's first book (The Tethered Mage).  I'd enjoyed The Obsidian Tower a bit, even though it was a bit less ambitious fantasy novel than its predecessor trilogy, and so was hoping this second novel in this trilogy would take a similar leap.  

And well, The Quicksilver Court is a fun and solid fantasy novel, with an enjoyable lead protagonist and a solid plot that never drags, helped by Caruso's very solid prose and dialogue, which I've always tended to rip through very easily.  At the same time, it doesn't really take that leap I'd hoped for, with the book relying upon a mid-book plot twist you'd see coming a mile away (if not a book away) and the secondary characters just don't quite match up to the prior trilogy's, which is a little disappointing.  Still this is certainly an enjoyable read, and I will be back for the conclusion for sure.  

Spoilers for book 1 are inevitable after the jump:

-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
Ryx never thought she'd be away form Gloamingard, her home, for long.  But then again, she never thought she'd open the Door either, or that it would release some of the nine Demons of legend back into the world...or that one such demon would merge with her grandmother, the Witch-Lord of Morgrain.  So now she finds herself, alongside Severin, her fellow Vaskandar Atheling, working with the Rookery, a group of oddball fighters, spies, and scholars working to handle unknown magical threats on behalf of both Vaskandar and the Empire.  And no magical threats are more important than the now-release demons like Discord...or the ominiously missing Hunger and his terrorist human allies, the Zenith Society.  

And when the Rookery receives word that the Zenith Society has stolen a seemingly impossible to use but absolutely destructive weapon and taken it to the subordinate country of Loreice, the team departs for there at once, hoping to find out what the Zenith Society and Hunger are up to and stop them.  But what they find there is a demonic presence far more dangerous than they imagined, one that must be impossible for them all to control...and that's before considering Ryx's friend, the "chimera" Whisper, now revealed to be one of the demons himself.  

What the Rookery finds in Loreice will threaten to tear them all apart - and for Ryx, it will threaten to do far worse.......
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The Quicksilver Court's greatest strength is its strong prose and dialogue and its lead character in Ryx, who is a really enjoyable and likable heroine.  In some ways, Ryx's life has actually changed for the better - she has companions she can call friends, a love interest in Severin who seems to return the affection (although both of them are too busy to really think much about it), and thanks to the Jess on her wrist, she can touch someone without her power going out of control and killing them....at least until she's unleashed and the Jess is knocked out by her own power.  Of course that came about with all that she knew seemingly being torn out from under her - she accidentally unleashed demons onto the world, one of whom merged with her grandmother, another of which possessed a man she thought of as a friend and who turned out to be an enemy, and the friendly chimera she always trusted turned out to be yet another demon.  

But Ryx is still who Ryx is, which is a person who wants to help make things better, even with her power being too dangerous to use - whether that be through diplomacy as it was in the old days or through other methods in alliance with the Rookery's various talents - Ashe's magical swords, Bastian's scholarship, Kessa's work as a spy, etc.  And she has a lot of guilt towards her unleashing of the demons, so she's desperate to make up for it, all of which makes her an easy character to like as she grows throughout this book....and has to deal with further repercussions of her own power and the demons' mentalities.  

The rest of the cast doesn't quite measure up to Ryx unfortunately - whereas two of the secondary characters from the first trilogy were incredibly fun, the side characters here are a bit more generic and less interesting, even as their own pasts and relationships become more important.  They're fine and work well off Ryx, but I didn't really grow to care about them - and the same holds true of Ryx's love interest Severin who again is kind of boring and generic.  

Fortunately, while the plot doesn't deal with any super interesting themes like the last trilogy, it works pretty well and is written highly effectively.  The book relies on a mid-arc twist that any reader will have seen coming since the last book, but it works that twist in well enough, with the book dealing with the implications in a way that does surprise to some extent and doesn't so far shy away from those implications.  And the ending is satisfying, even if it does throw in a last minute cliffhanger that almost feels lazy in how it pulls off another plot turn that everyone will see coming a mile away.  

So yeah, this is a fun and solid fantasy novel, one that I enjoyed, but not one that ever really hits the level of greatness, and definitely seems a mark below the last trilogy by Caruso.  
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