Customer Reviews

The Fire Rose (The Elemental Masters)

5 star:		(51)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have read so many retellings of Beauty and the Beast. It takes a lot to impress me anymore. I was not impressed by this one either...I was astounded and overjoyed. It is so fresh and unique, no matter what the cover looks like.

Here is a slice of plot for you. Rose Hawkins' world is turned upside down by the sudden death of her father. Her world spins out of control when she finds out that her father has left her penniless. So, with very few respectable options, Rose journeys from her home in Chicago to mysterious San Fransisco to become a governess in a wealthy household. She arrives to find that she has been deceived, there are no children, only a wealthy invalid who longs for someone to help with his research. Rose stays and is content...for awhile. Rose is far too intelligent not to notice that things are not exactly as they seem. Where are the servants? Why can't she see her employer's face? And what are the strange manuscripts she must read to him? I don't want to spoil it, so I'll stop right there.

This is a great book. The love story is romantic, but never sappy. Best of all, you feel like they really get to know and understand each other. There is some mystery, adventure, and magic thrown in too. And a rather unusual, but just right, happily ever after.

In what is Mercedes Lackey's best novel to date, 'Beauty and the Beast' is updated to 1905, where fabulously wealthy rail baron and Fire Master Jason Cameron has transformed himself into a wolfman and he needs the help of an tame scholar (female so that she is no threat) to help translate the Magickal texts that will give him clues to breaking the spell. Instead of the mouse he expects, he gets a lioness, Rosalind ('Rose') Hawkins, a classicalist and medievalist whom he has brought from Chicago to his San Francisco estate under false pretenses, supposedly to be a governess to his non-existent children. Penniless, she is more than willing change the terms of the initial agreement to do interesting work in luxurious surroundings, even with someone who may be a madman. She eventually learns the truth about Jason and begins to grow as a Magician herself. But Jason has enemies who do not want him to return to human form and full power, or wish to exploit his power for themselves. And then terror strikes, both from Magickal and natural sources....

Lackey has done considerable research into this historical period and does a very good job of bringing early 20th century Chicago and San Francisco to life. She also makes the Cameron mansion, and indeed, all the other locales, into very real places with her rich descriptions - I have noticed that she is particularly good at describing food, clothing and furniture. More importantly for a fantasy novel, she makes the supernatural as real as the commonplace. Her magic systems (Western and Eastern) are extremely well thought out, even 'scientific', and undoubtedly based on 'real' magic systems. There is a nice parallel here to the magic of Valdemar, which is measurable and follows mathematical laws. The story moves at a crisp pace, full of dramatic situations, culminating in the horror of the San Francisco earthquake, and Lackey's style makes the book nearly impossible to put down.

What has always been Lackey's greatest strength is her ability to create characters who one can immediately like and identify with, even in her earliest novels where the technical prowess of her writing was limited. I cared about what happened to Rose from the very beginning. She is a strong, smart, intellectual, adaptable, no-nonsense person, perhaps a bit TOO forward and opinionated, and yes, a little greedy. True, I share her interest in medieval studies, and the fact that she's an opera lover certainly doesn't lower my estimation of her, but I don't think readers who aren't interested in these topics to the extent that I am will also empathize with her. Jason too is a fascinating character - despite his hubris, selfishness, and ruthlessness, he has many moments of sympathy and is Rose's intellectual equal. The repartee between them and their growing affection is believable from the beginning. Yes, I suppose it's 'predictable' that they fall in love - but it doesn't stop one from wanting to see the way it happens. Also many of the 'minor characters', from Professor Cathcart to Earth Master Pao to Snyder to the townhouse maid to the boorish salesman who molests Rose, are vividly drawn, as are the Salamander and Sylph who serve Jason and Rose. And, oh yes, what would a Lackey novel be without a VERY special horse?

I admit, though, that I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the reviewers who complain that Lackey's villains are a little too 'black'. Although Paul Du Mond is a well developed character despite his viciousness, we know that Jason is no saint, so it might have added a bit more depth if Simon Beltaire had a really legitimate reason to dislike him. While unlike other reviewers I didn't have a problem with the climax (an interesting spin on Cocteau), I did feel that Lackey glosses over a MAJOR accomplishment Rose achieves in the epilogue (I'm not referring to romantic matters). I also thought the character names were a bit too 'romance-novelish', but that's picky. To be even more picky, I noticed a few things that apparently escaped the proofreader - at one point Jason calls Rose 'Miss Cameron' instead of 'Miss Hawkins'!

I think Lackey has created a wonderful universe here and I would like to see her write many more novels set in it. Although I enjoyed 'The Serpent's Shadow', I want to see more of Rose and Jason - perhaps Lackey eventually plans for them to team up with Maya and Peter? I am already imagining the adventures they can have. If nothing else, considering how much Rose loves Caruso, I really hope that she and Jason live to see Jussi Bjorling's San Francisco debut in 1949!

Perhaps this book is not 'great literature', as some of the other reviewers seemed to expect, but it doesn't have to be. Even if it doesn't have the philosophical and emotional depth of GREAT SF/Fantasy, it has the sense of wonder and imagination of very GOOD SF/Fantasy. Maybe 'The Fire Rose' is 'mind candy', but it's extraordinarily delicious, and I've sampled it over and over again.

OK...another B&B story...what can one expect? At first I wanted to scream "NO...not another one" but I quickly changed my tune.....
This book is more than I expected. A well developed, and well written story with remarkable characters & a different twist to the original form of the B&B tale...This book gives us an unexpected Beauty & the Beast story that will remain well with you....even after the last page is read and the book put away. I actually have this book in my Phantom of the Opera library collection...it sorta reminded me of Erik.....and this book has actually found its way into my "Phantom library" under the genre of "other" books that remind me of Erik.

If you enjoyed this book, you may want to try these books:

Phantom by Susan Kay
Beauty by Robin McKinley
Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley
Beast by Donna Jo Napoli
East by Edith Pattou
Through the Tempests Dark and Wild by Sharon Darrow
The Heavenly Horse from the Outermost West by Mary Stanton

"The Fire Rose" is an excellent historical fantasy, full of period detail and rich characterizations. This was Mercedes Lackey's first book about Elemental magic, and in my opinion, her best of the three (so far).

Rose is a scholar in a bad bind; her father's just died, her money is gone, the creditors are howling at the door, and she has few options and almost no hope.

Enter Jason Cameron. He's a man with a bad problem of his own; because of extreme hubris, he attempted a spell to turn him into a werewolf. It didn't totally work, but the partial working has left him tired, ill, injured and feeling almost without hope himself.

Cameron needs a scholar who can translate old manuscripts, because only those manuscripts have the potential to help them, and because of his disability, he can no longer read them himself. Rose is a scholar who can read almost anything (she talks of reading Ovid, Sappho's poems, the Decameron, etc.) in just about any language, which is why he wants her help. The two of them link up, and find a most unusual love.

Other than that, I don't want to give away the plot; they obviously face trials and tribulations on the road to a fuller realization of their love, but if I talk about them, I'll definitely spoil this unusual and unique story.

So all I'll say is, "Read this book for yourself!"

Five stars. Recommended.

Barb Caffrey

Oh, and if you've tried "Gates of Sleep" and didn't like it (I didn't, although I enjoyed "Serpent's Shadow" well enough), you might like this. I did.

Okay, so this book DID have a lot of problems. Face it -- Mercedes Lackey is simply not that discriminating in her research -- or her logical plotting. She has two modes of storytelling is seems: 1) beat the reader over the head with childish good vs evil/moral lessons or 2) tell a good story that can be gleaned from the ashes of her inaccuracies. Notice that the two don't intersect.

This is one of the good stories. Based on the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, we have Rose -- a scholarly type who decides it would be a good thing to work for a mysterious man out west. With Lackey's typical rough hand at SHOVING the characters into the places that she wants/needs them to be we have her staying in a deserted mansion with a faceless master and a man that spooks her. Any sane woman would have left, and we are given no explanation as to WHY she stays, but if you suspend your disbelief of the rocky start, Fire Rose soon becomes very interesting.

We have here an alternate earth where Elemental Magick works. We meet the Elementals themselves, and explore the rituals associated with the magick. Rose, it seems, is actually an Elemental Magician like Jason is -- though of air, not fire. The salamanders are great in this story, though we don't get to meet the sylphs very much. (too bad!) Yes, there are more slips in logic with ritual details (the robe, etc) and the huge "how did Jason get away with MURDER, literally?" but the need to see Rose and Jason together sort of lets you gloss over that.

...

Fire Rose was a nice romance. This book, though there are many errors and annoyances, is a fun read if you can ignore all of that. This is probably one of the few later Misty Lackey books that is worth reading for the story. For any other book I would have given it a two -- but a good two. For Misty, this is a really good book.

If you're dying to read a good book try her very first (actually good!) books, the Last Herald Mage trilogy, or the Arrows trilogy. Past that, pick her titles with caution.

I am extremely fond of Beauty and the Beast Tales. There have been several retellings out in the last few years. Some of them are excellent some have been very disappointing.

I was looking forward to this version. I've enjoyed many of Lackey's books over the last few years.

The beginning of the tale was wonderful, I enjoyed the setup, the meeting and the detail devoted to the world. Unfortunately as the tale progressed it began to feel more and more like the book was in a hurry to be finished. By the time we reached the promised dramatic ending, I was ready for some sizzling action. I was instead disappointed with a rather slapdash finish.

I so wanted to love this book, instead I feel a bit letdown and offkilter.

It is worth a read if you are longing to visit every version of the tale or are a die-hard Lackey fan. However you might find some of the other available versions more satisfying.

I picked up this book on a whim... and ended up with two copies of it (one for me, one to hand around to my friends!) Rose is not your average heroine (she has read the unexpurgate Ovid, the love-poems of Sappho, the Decameron in the original... she knows in precise detail what Caligula did to, and with, his sisters, and she can quote it to you in Latin or in her own translation...you get the idea), and she is certainly no shrinking violet when she comes to a new employer, a turn-of-the-century rail baron Firemaster whose spell gone wrong has left him half-human, half-wolf. An intriguing and fun story which has a hint of Beauty and the Beast within a well-written and wonderful story of Magick. Watch for the salamanders and the sylphs... who have a personality all their own! Fabulous!

I have been an all-the-way Mercedes Lackey fan since I first read one of her books. Every single one has been unbeleivably fantastic, but this is great story-telling taken to a new level! Although if you really sat down and thought about it, the plot is rather predictable, but as you read it, you have no idea what's going to happen next. This isn't a classic tale of Beauty and the Beast, where both hero and heroine are impeccable, perfect people. Here, it was Jason's own hubris which brought him down! No, these are all but real characters, who you can really relate to. Mercedes Lackey's new and original (an original concept of magic; almost unbeleivable!) way of "Magick" is so astouding in its perfect detail that you begin to wonder if Lackey herself is a magician! And, it touches a place deep inside every one of us that hopes, dreams we have that potential to become special. A magnificent accomplishment.

Because the elemental masters series is DAW, this BAEN book doesn't quite fit although it was Lackey's first novel about an elemental master. Jason cameron is perhaps one of the best examples of a character full of hubris since the ancients and he pays for it. Set in Chicago and in San Francisco just before "the big shake" it is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast with a different spin. Yes, they live happilly ever after, but the way they get there is just a little off center. There's no need to recount the story, it's familiar to all of us. No there is no magic rose except for Rosalind Hawkins and she is indeed magic as well as being a strong woman. I like what Lackey has done with one of my favorite fairy tales. I own at least 5 retellings of this tale and this is one of the best, if not the best. She is a masterful fantasy (both high fantasy and urban fantasy)writer who does credit to her mentors--Marion Zimmer Bradley and Andre Norton --and this is one of her better tales. Hopefully it will be reissued sometime soon--before my poor paperback copy is worn out from re-reading. If you can't find it in a used bookstore, march yourself to a library and read it.

I LOVED this book! I'm a fan of much of Ms. Lackey's work, but in this she has outdone herself. I have read this book at least ten times by now, and it never ceases to thrill me. The Elemental Masters series is a favorite of mine, as every story is a retelling of a classic fairy tale, but rewritten so that the female protagonists actually *do* something, and Fire Rose is the best of the bunch. Rose is a strong, proactive woman, and yet she's realistically drawn at the same time -- there are things that can shake her. She's human, flawed but likeable, as is Jason Cameron.