Monday, August 14, 2023

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Labyrinth's Heart by M.A. Carrick

 



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 15, 2023 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.


Labyrinth's Heart is the third and final book in the epic fantasy "Rook and Rose" series by M.A. Carrick (a pen name for the combined work of authors Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms), which began with The Mask of Mirrors (my review here) and continued with The Liar's Knot (my review here).  The series has aspects of a Fantasy of Manners (dealing with nobles, duelists, assignments, secret identities and claims of family) but also deals with major conflicts in a city caused by multiple conflicting magic systems and the remains of empire and colonialism in a city still kinda ruled by its onetime conquerors.  There's a lot going on, and honestly I found it resulted in a first book that was kind of confusing in the end...but also it resulted in a second book that I absolutely loved, as protagonist Ren - a con artist who tried to con her way into a noble family - winds up struggling with lies, finding family and loves where she never expected, and having to deal with powers of gods and those far more dangerous than gods wielded by those seeking Power for their own sake.  The main characters in this series have been really really good, even as many of the minor characters are forgettable and resulted in me never remembering how to distinguish one such character from another.

Labyrinth's Heart is somewhere in the middle of the two books: on one hand, the book features tremendous character work, as long running plot threads get resolved and our characters have to come to terms with what is left when their lies and deceptions are revealed, and whether the relationships they have grown in the meantime can survive. Our main protagonist Ren, as well as secondary protagonist's Grey and Vargo, remains fantastic and the other characters who have been major parts of this series remain really strong as they deal with the new developments....and have to deal with what happens when the city of Nadežra face a series of important developments - the powers of the Medallions belonging to the heretical god (Primordial) of desire being in the hands of nobles who ostensibly are working together to destroy them...but may instead find themselves tempted; the uprising of the Vraszenian people who originally settled Nadežra against the outside Liganti nobles who have remained in control since the Tyrant was overthrown; and the coming of the most holy of days, when the magical wellspring at the center of the Vraszenian religion comes into physical being. The result is truly excellent character work as these characters deal with issues of love, family, and revolution....but on the other hand, the plot winds up resolving with a series of repeated climaxes that don't quite satisfy as well as how book 2 came together. Still, the character work in this trilogy is so good that I find it too hard to care that certain aspects of the plot are a little confusing and might not satisfy...as other parts and characters satisfy immensely.

Note: Spoilers are unavoidable for books 1 and 2 in this series. But if you want to remain unspoiled and are simply trying to decide whether or not to start or continue this series, the rest of this review concludes that my recommendation is to absolutely give this series and this book a try, as this ending to the trilogy works really really well.


Plot Summary:  
Since Ren, Vargo and Grey managed to stop Ghiscolo Acrenix's plot to combine the Medallions and recreate the chain of the Tyrant, which would've granted him power enough to once again control Nadežra under an unstoppable iron fist. But doing so has not ended the threats that the Medallions pose, as now 10 of their 11 bearers know fully well what they hold and the power they contain...and while they may have pledged to not use them until they can be destroyed, the power of the Medallions - the power of the Primordial of Desire - may be too alluring for their new holders to ignore. Even worse the efforts of the three of them, as well as Alsius and Tanaquis, have been unable to find a way to destroy the medallions without sacrificing their wielder's lives...and their efforts in stopping Ghiscolo have broken the power of the Rook. The poison of the medallions, with one now held by Grey, Vargo and Ren each, is only going to further seep into their lives, making the question all their actions and desires, and what destruction they might even inadvertantly unleash.

It's not all that bad, mind you, as Ren now has claimed a true friendship with Vargo and a true romantic love with Grey, the likes of which she never could've imagined in the past. The same is true of Tess and Pavlin, as well as several of their other friends. There is a happiness there such that Ren could never have imagined obtaining when she began her con, to the point where she's almost ready to confess the truth to her new family in House Traementis, particularly her adopted mother Donaia and her adopted sister Giuna.

And then the worst thing possible happens: Letilia, the former Traementis and Donaia's sister whom Ren has falsely claimed to be her real mother, returns to the city, intent on blackmailing Ren with the truth to get what she wants: her place back in a noble house. It's the worst possible time for Ren's identity to be in danger of exposure as the Stadnem Anudske, the Vraszenian revolutionaries, are still in civil war over how to fight back against the Liganti rulers of the city...and the violent and dangerous Branek is now poised to seize its full power with the help of a manipulative and dangerous person from Grey's past, his fraud of a szorsa grandmother.

In the wake of all of this, it will take all of Ren's skill with Pattern, all of Vargo & Alsius' skill with inscription, and all of Grey's abilities as a former masked vigilante to try to prevent the city and everything they've gained - friends, family and love - from going up in flames, and for them all to see the Face rather than the Mask......


Okay that's a MOUTHFUL of a plot summary, which is necessary I swear because Labyrinth's Heart is trying to handle a LOT of plot threads and character developments. As you might expect from things teased in the last book, we deal in large part with what really happened in Grey's past to result in he and his brother fleeing his family, just like the prior book deal with the past of Vargo and Alsius, but there's so much more than that going on here. You have Ren, Grey and Vargo dealing with the medallions - their corruption, their temptations, and how to eliminate them; you have the trio dealing with the threat of exposure of their secrets and whether the relationships they've built through those deceptions can survive when those deceptions become revealed; and you have them trying to deal with a revolution by the Vraszenian people who were conquered by the Liganti and remain unjust oppressed by the Liganti nobles...a revolution that all of them know is at least a little just - with Ren having her feet in both the Liganti world through Traementis and in the Vraszenian world through her mother, her gift of pattern and her role as the Black Rose - but also which could harm so many innocent people and others they care about if launched recklessly.

The result of all of this is that the book often winds up discarding minor plot threads and characters who you would expect otherwise to turn out to be important, such that for example one major possible antagonist suffers a crucial symbolic defeat halfway through and then completely disappears from the book thereafter. The book also deals with a number of climactic moments that never really come together - whereas the prior book had a single climax that sort of resolved all of the running threads, here you have a number of parallel threads that don't quite intertwine, so you wind up with one climax, then a bit of cooldown and then another climax for a different plot thread, followed by another cooldown and aftermath period, followed by one more final climax to finish it all. It's a LOT and it can sometimes feel a bit disorienting, as the authors have very much created a world and plot that is kind of too big to be fully explored in every way, so most readers and fans will probably have some characters and ideas that they wish would've been followed up on but for which the authors just don't have the time (for me it's a new character who gets into a fun relationship with an old one, who shows up early and then mostly stays out of the way).

And yet, somehow, Labyrinth's Heart really works in its most important elements - its main characters and themes. Primarily here, as we have for much of the series, we have the theme of family, as Ren finds herself with ties to so many families that she never could've imagined between Grey's family, the Traementis family, and the Vraszenian people she once believed to be a past she could never returnt to, with her mother been cut out of their threads. We also have these themes with Grey, who has to deal with the family his brother once took him and fled from, and with Vargo, who has to deal with his new connections to Ren and Grey as well as how closely he's become not onl to Alsius, but his most trusted supporters like Varuni and Sedge. The events of this book, without spoiling too much, throw all of those newfound family threads into jeopardy, and the book manages to showcase how the characters can fight to keep those threads alive even in the face of betrayal, hardship and suffering, and how doing so can result in the happiness they all never thought they'd find. And this works just so so well and I loved it so much: a couple of chapters near the end, when a certain character connects with a family they never believed was possible, are chapters I've reread multiple times because the sheer joy is so so delightful.

Which is not to shortchange the other themes and how effective they are here as well. We deal with the seductiveness of power, the disastrous effects of isolation and being taken for granted, the way frauds can cause substantial damage through greedy manipulation, and more. Notably a recurring theme here is the cost of sins in the past, ones which have caused tremendous damage and which require forgiveness in order to be moved past...a forgiveness that is naturally incredibly hard to actually give, because such sins represent horrifying nightmares even for those in the present. And of course there's the sin of colonialism and empire and how to move past it in a way that doesn't simply put the oppressed into the role of the oppressor but rather finds a path by which both sides can move forward while also making amends for the crimes imposed upon the oppressed. This book does do a pretty great job going through these themes, and does so in interesting ways.

Again, the plot structure and everything involved can sometimes here get overwhelming, and there were certain characters who would be referenced who I could not tell apart...and yet to be honest, I couldn't care too much. Reading Labyrinth's Heart was too often a joy in seeing the characters again, seeing how they've changed and how they've gotten through both old adversities and new ones, and how they've forged bonds and happinesses through those efforts, and it ended in such a way that I was immensely satisfied with how it wrapped up the stories of all my favorites. If you've been reading this series already, you'll want to read this book to finish it off. And if you haven't yet started this series and are somehow reading this review now (or read book 1 and stopped rather than continuing to book 2), well, I hope this review encourages you to give it a try, even if the first book is the weakest in the series.

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