Customer Reviews

Blood and Iron: A Novel of the Promethean Age (Book 1)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Elaine Andraste, now known simply as Seeker, is a servant of the Medb, Queen of the Daoine Sidhe; stolen by the Fae in childhood, she has spent her life bound to the Faerie Realm, stealing other human children for the queen. Matthew is a mage, of the mysterious Promethean Club, a group of human magic users in league against Faerie. When the Medb requires Seeker to trap the Merlin, the newest incarnation of the powerful wizard who could save Faerie or doom it, Seeker comes into conflict with Matthew and his allies, as well as with rivals from other Faerie factions.

Bear weaves together strands of folklore and legend from King Arthur to Tam Lin with her own imaginings to create a compelling vision of Faerie, both terrible and beautiful; it's no wonder the Merlin has difficulty deciding whether to aid Faerie or oppose it. The characters are fiercely memorable, particularly Elaine and her wild Fae companion, Whiskey the kelpie (a shapeshifting water horse). The story is immersive and intricate, full of schemes and rivalries, blood ties and friendships, mystery and sorcery, and the prose is equally complex and allusive. It required some concentration to sink into the narrative, but once I was in, I emerged only with reluctance. This is one of the best books I've read this year, and one of the best treatments of Faerie I've ever read; I await the sequel, _Whiskey and Water_, with great eagerness.

In her contemporary but backward-looking novel BLOOD AND IRON author Elizabeth Bear's protagonist is "Seeker," a conflicted half-faery woman who serves a faery queen by abducting children with similar backgrounds from their human homes. This places her in direct conflict with Matthew the Magician, a human mage in the service of the Prometheans. The Prometheans, who happen to be headed by Seeker's human mother Jane, are sworn enemies of the fae, dedicated to their eradication. While Seeker loathes the queen who keeps her and her young son in virtual slavery, she nevertheless loves magical creatures great and small, from the puck who attends her to the werewolf who loves her, the sorceress who taught her, the kelpie who threatens to kill her, and the dragon who manipulates her. She will do anything she can to save the magical world, even if it means giving up her soul.

The novel can be read in a number of ways. On one level, it is a fairy tale deeply influenced by classical European (especially Celtic) folk tales and legends, including those regarding vampires, werewolves, and especially those surrounding King Arthur. On a second level, it is a romance, the story of Seeker's affection for the kelpie named Whiskey, her love for the werewolf named Keith (whose betrayal, incidentally, led to her enslavement), and the pain and torment they each endure due to the competition between her feelings, one one hand, and her duties to the faery queen, her son, and faery as a whole, on the other hand.

On the highest level, it is hard not to see the novel as a plea for greater environmental consciousness. The human industrial development that is driving the werewolves and fae extinct is the same set of forces that are destroying our environment and driving more and more species of wildlife extinct. In Bear's view, the survival of the fae is important not just as a value in itself, but because their magic and wild magic in general is a vital part of the world. Without them, the world is less rich, less challenging, less worth living in. While not the strongest possible argument, it is parallel to an argument for preservation of the natural environment.

Many readers will find the complex and convoluted plot daunting. What really bothered me about the book, however, were the lack of background information and the poorly motivated actions of the characters. Who are these Prometheans? Why do the fae kidnap children? Why is the kelpie seeking a half-fae? Why did Keith betray Seeker? Why are virtually all werewolves Scottish? Why does the queen go through with her deadly plot when she knows cannot achieve what she had hoped? Why do the Promotheans let the dude with the hammer go free to (potentially) wreck their plans? If you can't understand what's going on, it's difficult to become invested in it.

In the end, it's difficult not to be conflicted about BLOOD AND IRON. Some of the fantasy elements are well done, and the dynamic plot keeps the reader turning pages. Yet, frustration waits on nearly every page -- "What does this mean?" "Why did she do that?" etc. I can't recommend BLOOD AND IRON, but that doesn't mean it would be a terrible mistake to pick it up.

For whatever reason, New York city tends to to be a favored backdrop for those writing urban fantasies involving faerie in some form. That's what originally drew me to this tale, since I have a penchant for collecting fantasy that takes place in my home setting. And I have a soft spot for contemporary fantasy with fae characters in general. Elizabeth Bear has gone about creating an epic tale that is out of legend and myth of old, from the tales of Camelot to the ballad of Tam Linn.

The Seeker was once a mortal woman, now bound to serve the Queen of Faerie and charged bringing her the half-blood children from the human world. Seeker chafes against the bonds that hold her, but has no choice when the Queen lays a new geas upon her: to seek out the new Merlin--a being who is magic-- and seduce him into service for the realm of Faerie. But Seeker will have competition in her race to win the prize. Set against Faerie are the human mages of the Prometheus club. If they can convince the Merlin to join their side against the Fae, all of Faerie may be doomed. On the brink of war, this epic story's protagonists and antagonists must make their choices and ultimately watch the story play itself out.

The premise of this story is an interesting one, certainly this is a grand scale sort of epic fantasy, rather than the more intimate urban fantasy I'm used to. I was originally going to rate this only three stars, but to be fair it likely deserves at least three and half to four stars. I've not read Ms. Bear's work prior to this book, so I can't say if this story is indicative of her usual style, but I tend to like books that are more directly about character and less grand epic. I won't hold preference against a book, so I'll rate it four stars on the grounds that I do think there is some good writing and an intriguing story here--it just wasn't quite my cup of tea. This is an especially tragic and grim story with many bittersweet, dramatic and poignant moments. The story takes itself very seriously and explores themes of sacrifice and the prices paid for victory. I found that the lack of humor in this story made it bleaker than I particularly enjoyed, although given the storyline, it may be what the author intended. I prefer more humor--and humanity--in my reading as a rule, and I think it may have helped bring out the characters a bit more.

The main characters of this story felt too much like set pieces in the game--it was hard to like any of them or really identify with any of them. Even Matthew, the human mage, seems to keep a textual distance from the readers. I kept wanting to know more about these protagonists and their lives. Most of the novel is bound up in describing events and the patterns of myth that color those events. But I kept wishing to care more about the Seeker and her struggle to choose her path. And while the POV shift from third to first person for Seeker was clearly done to accentuate the transformation of the character, the abrupt shift was hard to adjust to at first.

Only some of this epic story takes place in New York City, but the story is a fascinating revisit of the tale of Tam Linn, weaving in Arthurian legends to create something that profoundly echoes the old myths in a modern setting. There is a lot of blood and violence in this tale, but the author never uses it gratuitously--one of the points of this book is that Faerie tales are full of blood and violence, the sanitized versions for children to day are a pale imitation of those originals. It's a challenging plot line, as the author is crafting a book where no one side is in the right and all sides are fighting for survival. It's more than a little bleak, and there are enough characters and twists for the story to become confusing.

Nevertheless, this was a decent read--kept me reading straight through to the end without wanting to put it down. If you're a reader who likes contemporary fantasy with an epic feel and a sober storyline this might be just the story for you. If you prefer something light hearted or more character driven, you might find this a bit weighty and dark for your tastes. If you're looking for more urban fae fantasy to read, you might try War for the Oaks by Emma Bull or try Son of Darkness by Josepha Sherman.

Happy Reading! ^_^ Shanshad

After reading Hammered, Scardown, and Worldwired, Bear's previous trilogy, I was really looking forward to this book. The others were taut thrillers that felt as though they had been one large (huge) novel before being chopped up into three books by a publisher. In those books, the characters were interesting, and the plot was familiar enough that it felt comforting, but went off in enough unexpected directions that you never really knew what was going to happen next.

Blood and Iron is the opposite of all that. Instead of being a middle-future military sci-fi, like her first trilogy, her newest book is a modern-day fantasy story. It's the story of a secret war being fought under our noses. On the one side are the forces of the Sidhe, the fairies of British and Celtic mythology. This is not an platoon of Tinkerbells here - these are the fey folk of Tam Lin, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, or Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies. These are creatures of glamour and illusion who steal away mortals to use as sport and entertainment.

Ranged against the Sidhe are the humans of the Prometheus Club - a secret society of magicians who guard our world against incursions by the fey. They use the strength and magic of iron to keep the enemies of humanity at bay.

The "war" has recently escalated with the appearance of a Merlin, a person who acts as a source of magic power. Both sides of the war are seeking to identify and court the Merlin, hoping to bring that strength to their side.

Sounds like a fun adventure, right? It could have been. In fact, some individual scenes (including the novel opener) are written with great energy and are truly exciting. But the book just never grabbed me.

Part of this is because of Bear's writing style. She has two quirks that stand out in particular. First, she hates attributing dialog. A conversation between two characters will go on for a page and a half, with maybe one "she said" at the beginning to start things off, and few (if any) over the next couple of pages. I know that some people hate the word "said," but it's there for a purpose - to help your readers. If a reader has to keep going back to the beginning to trace who-said-what, then you're doing something wrong.

Her second quirk (if you can call it that) is to throw a near-endless series of details at the reader, with little explanation until much later. Her novels truly start in medias res, but she doesn't do enough in this story to make the reader feel a part of the world - it feels like you're in a foreign country and you've turned on a documentary in the middle. You feel like a confused outsider.

(Possible Spoiler In This Paragraph)
Adding to that feeling is the sense that, while this is a fantasy, it's not my fantasy. The story is told from the points of view of two characters on opposite sides of the conflict - a Seeker for the Sidhe who kidnaps humans for her queen, and a mage of the Prometheus Club. The Merlin they seek is (you figure out early on) a bisexual college professor/musician. The Seeker is a middle-aged woman who's been betrayed by her lover, and had her child grow up without her. The human mage is Sensitive Ponytail Guy (no offense to any guys who might have a ponytail, or are sensitive; though if you are sensitive, you're probably going to take offense anyway;). All three are just about the blandest, most uninteresting lead characters I've ever come across in literature. I didn't care about them. I didn't care about the things that had happened to them, and I didn't care about the things they were going to have to do.
(End Spoiler Paragraph)

And that is the biggest problem I have with the book - I just don't care. Bear has tried to structure the war between Faerie and Humans in such a way that the reader sympathises with both sides. The only problem with that is that if you don't care who wins, then you don't care who loses, and there's no drama.

I might be willing to give Elizabeth Bear another try in the future, but I was really disappointed by this book. I stopped reading it about 2/3 of the way through.

"Blood and Iron," the prolifically brilliant Elizabeth Bear's shimmery, impressionist novel is equal part fairy tale, critique of fairy tales, and the history of fairy tales; and it's grim but dryly witty. ("Nothing but glamourie, and gone on the stroke of midnight. Fortunately there were no clocks in Faerie.") It examines, among much else, Celtic mythology, werewolvery, and the Arthurian legends; it's inhabited by female merlins, water horses, a unicorn or two, a talking willow tree, and some spellbound sleeping royalty. Characters here appear because they've been written about in other tales, and thus become part of this book's reality.

Its as close to a heroine as you'll find in it is Elaine Andraste (I love the traditional Arthurian first name and the Romanian surname), called Seeker. She's bound by the faeries to kidnap halfbreed children and deliver them unto the Queen, Mebd. The mortal group known as the Prometheans, led by Elaine's mother Jane, want to stop the faerie folk once and for all. Essentially, it's a battle between the forces of ancient magic (the blood), who are trying to hold on against the forces of modernity (the iron).

It's setting is contemporary, and so is the language. An occasional four-letter word helps mock the traditional high-flown speech you usually find in fantasies. It's by no means an easy read. It's a novel of images, glimmerings, indirections. The points of view constantly shift, and the narrative switches off beween first- and third-person. And not everything's explained. Maybe you'll stop and read a passage a second time, or a third. It lacks a badly needed list of characters. But it's very much worth the effort.

NOTES AND ASIDES: Google Tam Lin before reading . . . the author salutes the late Peter Jennings by giving him a very brief cameo . . . first of (so far) four, but complete in itself.

Overall, I consider myself a fan of the urban fantasy genre. There are a few authors that I purchase sight unseen because I enjoy all their books. While some of them may use elements of classic fantasy, they typically redesign the characters to fit their own world. There's a lot to be said for that type of fantasy. Most of the books are fun and easy reads. I enjoy them a lot. Elizabeth Bear's Blood and Iron doesn't have a lot in common with those books. She goes the opposite direction - she takes classic fantasy (Sidhe, Wild Hunt, Arthur Pendragon, Puck, etc) and treats it with utmost respect. Her writing is lyrical and not quick to read, almost like poetry in prose. As someone else mentions, anything worthwhile comes through sacrifice and the book doesn't end with happy endings all around. There is good & bad in all views and she leaves the reader to make his/her own interpretations. I can easily see myself reading this book 4 - 5 times and taking something different away each time. It was difficult to get into - the book switches locations/viewpoints without warning and until you get a handle on the characters, it's a little confusing. However, by the end of the book I read long into the night to finish it and immediately downloaded the other 3 books in the series. I would highly recommend this book to any adult fantasy lover.

If you like strong dark urban fantasy in the same vein as Neil Gaiman's work, give this book a read. Bear's writing is strongly compelling for the most part, although this book can occasionally be a slog.

Elaine Andraste is the Seeker for the Daone Sidhe Court and it's Queen, Medb. Her mission is to go to the Iron World and procure children for Her Majesty's amusement. Her own son, Ian, is the current plaything and no doubt insurance for his Mother's best behavior.

Her next assignment---a Merlin, and the first female one to occur. But, Dr. Caren Bierce is no plaything. She's got competing offers with the Prometheus Society, a group of mages wanting to stop Faery in its track as well as the other Faery Court.

The characters are well-realized and the story is interesting. I genuinely empathize with Elaine for the most part. The pacing is somewhat slow and the plot is somewhat convoluted, but still all and all I would recommend it if urban fantasy is your thing.

Elizabeth Bear may have given her novel a rather generic title, but within the covers of the book is a story of intrigue, politics, family relations, romance, mystery and magic, as well as one of the best depictions of Faerie I've read in a long time. If you love fantasy, but are sick of boring Tolkien knock-offs, then "Blood and Iron" should fix you up nicely. Reminiscent of several other original fantasists, (Patricia McKillip and Jan Siegel spring to mind) this is an interesting take on the world of Faerie and its relationship to our own world.

The realm of Faerie and the world of men have been engaged in a cold war for centuries. Whilst Faerie agents known as Seekers steal away human-beings with a faerie heritage in order to swell their dwindling ranks, the human-magi known as the Prometheus Club attempt to close all ties between the two realms and secure their own race.

Two members of each side come head to head over a young potential named Hope: Matthew Szczegielniak (whose brother was stolen away by Faerie) and the woman only known as Seeker, who is bound against her will to the Faerie Queen Mebd. Seeker wins this particular confrontation, racing back to Faerie with Hope and a new servant, (a kelpie named Whiskey) but soon both sides become aware of another target that could tip the balance in the ongoing stalemate of the battle. A being known as `the Merlin' has been born again, which inevitably means that a Dragon Prince will emerge too, and the pattern of violence, betrayal, sacrifice, bloodshed and cataclysmic change that inevitably follows these two figures will once again take place. The most famous Dragon Prince is obviously King Arthur Pendragon, but Bear makes some fascinating connections between him and other `Dragon Princes' in legend and history: Emperor Huang Di, Sigurd, Harold Godwinson, and Vlad Dracul, all of whom were doomed to fate.

But this time the Merlin is a vivacious and beautiful woman, whose loyalties are divided between her own people and her affinity with Faerie. Furthermore, Seeker finds that her own family is firmly caught up in the conflict, acting as the playing pieces of the drama as it unfolds. How far will a fey creature go to protect her kin? What does it take to thwart fate? How can a war be won when neither side is either completely innocent or totally condemnable? Is the cost of one soul worth the victory of a war? Don't you love fantasy books that tackle the big questions? Bear juggles a range of story threads, including the intrigues of the faerie court, the power struggles of factions like the Prometheus Club, the Unseelie Court and even Hell itself, the tensions within a werewolf pack, the decay of Faerie and the inner struggles of Seeker's family: her ex-lover, her parents, her servants, her son and her bondage to the Faerie Queen. All of this can be confusing at times, as often Bear's language gets rather dense at times, obscuring what's going on in the actual story. This being the case, it is also fair to say that "Blood and Iron" demands a second reading; it is so full of meaning, foreshadowing, twists and interesting storytelling techniques (my favourite being an unexpected, but entirely workable switch from third-person to first-person narrative) that one read could never do it justice.

What is best about Bear's portrayal of Faerie is her acceptance of its mutability. As we know, the figure of King Arthur Pendragon is a legendary figure, with very little grounding in historical fact. Bear acknowledges this, but nevertheless Arthur appears as a character within the story - because humanity's mythology translates into reality when in Faerie. As one character puts it: "Bard's tales shape history as much as history shapes the tales. Especially here, where will is the shape of the world." As such, characters such as Morgan le Fay and Robin Good fellow (a.k.a. Puck) appear as the changeable reflections of their portrayals on this earth.

"Blood and Iron" is also full of mythological and literary references, everything from old ballads to Victorian children's literature, the Bible to Shakespeare, C. S. Lewis to Tolkien. It's impossible to catch every single quote and allusion to our own literary history, but its still fun to keep one's eyes open for them. It's certainly not a perfect book, nor an easy one to read; but it is memorable and thought-provoking, and has increasingly rare features of the fantasy genre: creativity and imagination. Wow.

If you are expecting a simple urban fantasy story with mages and faeries, then you are in for quite a shock here. Blood an Iron is a novel to be read slowly, to be savored, and to be reread. As such, I have to admit that I didn't understand some of the references. The characters speak in riddles and do not spell everything out for you. It is as if we are looking through a window into their lives, not as if they were telling us a story. All of the characters understand the mythology and what is going on, so it makes perfect sense that they wouldn't be explaining it to each other. Not understanding what a character mentions is a little frustrating, but it just spurred me on. I felt compelled to continue in case some little detail is hinted at or is explained in more depth later. Nothing is ever clearly spelled out for you though, you have to think, make inferences, and pay attention. In addition to the complexity of the plot, there are the characters. The characters here are multidimensional, and stronger than anyone should ever have to be. Their tale is touching and heartfelt, and you will experience the ups and the downs with them. Blood and Iron also has the unique distinction of presenting the story from both sides, the fae and the mages. The faeries kidnap children from their beds, leaving dead replicas in place of real children. They ensnare humans and turn them into a mere shell of what they used to be. A cult of humans, the Prometheus Club, aims to rescue the kidnapped children and the kill fae as punishment. One would think that the reader would be siding with the humans against the fae, but the compelling story of the fae mixed with the vengeful nature of the human mages makes it a tough decision. In fact, my least favorite parts of the novel were spent with the mage Matthew. His story was boring and paled in comparison with the complex story of the fae. We do get to understand his motivation though, and he certainly is more direct and clear than the fae, but the author leaves it up to you to decide who to cheer for. I really feel that Blood and Iron is a masterfully crafted novel that is much more complex than any urban fantasy I have ever read. I really felt like I was there with the characters, and I can't wait to read the next installment.

I agree with Kevin Quinn's review--I loved Elizabeth Bear's New Amsterdam for its detailed, believable, likeable characters and tight plotting. (And I'm a sucker for any story that works Nikola Tesla into the mix!) Blood and Iron, on the other hand, was a bit harder to follow. Part of the appeal of fantasy or SF novels is the excitement of exploring the world the author creates through the context of the story elements. The intricacy of this story's various intersecting worlds, however, was byzantine to an extent that left me dizzy. I kept wanting to look over my shoulder and ask the other readers, "Uh, guys, do any of *you* understand what the heck is going on here?" Maybe the trouble was I'm more an alternate history guy than a fantasy guy. The one protagonist that held appeal for me was the Merlin, but her inner development fell off about halfway through the novel as the Seeker and Mage characters took center stage, and she became a marginal supporting "see her in the background" figure by the story's crescendo. If you have some prior knowledge of the Sidhe courts and faerie lore, this will be a feast you'll probably enjoy. And I'll definitely try other Bear books, probably in the New Amsterdam universe.