Saturday, May 30, 2015

Shadow of the Knife (e-book) by Jane Fletcher

Shadow of the Knife is a f/f science fiction book that reads like fantasy. It's published by Bold Strokes Books. I have no idea what its word count is, although it came out to 250 pages on my Nook Simple Touch.

No read-alikes list for this one. I just can't. Check out my posts for Jane Fletcher's other books if you really want some.

Review:

Warning: this book contains some torture. Although I didn't consider the physical aspects to be very graphic, the emotional aspects are awful, and the book ends without giving readers a chance to see how well the character manages to recover.

Although most of Fletcher's Celaeno series could be read in any order, I would advise newbies not to start with Shadow of the Knife, even though it's chronologically the first book (it takes place 14 years before Rangers at Roadsend). While the overall story would probably make sense, I think this is the only book in the series that doesn't explain why there are no men on Celaeno, and how reproduction works there.

This was my last unread Celaeno book. I was both looking forward to it and dreading it, because, once I finished it, that would be it – I haven't been able to find any signs that Fletcher is still writing, much less that she plans to write more in this series. Okay, so the world-building has serious problems, the pacing often isn't very good, and the books tend to end too suddenly. I know all of that, and yet something about this series really works well for me. Rangers at Roadsend and The Walls of Westernfort were my favorites, and I was hoping Shadow of the Knife would be as good or better.

Shadow of the Knife stars Ellen Mittal, a rookie in the Roadsend Militia. Farmers in the area have had hundreds of sheep stolen from them, and the Militia hasn't managed to find a single one. Ellen, increasingly frustrated with the uselessness of the Militia's efforts, talks to a Ranger friend of hers and ends up becoming involved in a deeper investigation into the thefts, which may have something to do with a gang in Eastford led by a woman known as the Mad Butcher. Ellen's life is further complicated by Hal, a new farmer in Roadsend who is either genuinely interested in her or somehow involved in the sheep thefts.

I'll start by saying that I think this might be the best-written Celaeno book. There were still some issues with the pacing, but thankfully they were due more to Fletcher's choice of protagonist than to world-building infodumping. Ellen's status as a rookie meant that she missed out on a lot of the action and strategic planning in the first half of the book, which in turn made me feel like I was missing out on the most exciting parts of the story. Things got better later on, after Ellen was promoted and given more freedom to investigate on her own. It made me wish Fletcher had chosen to write her as an older and more experienced member of the Militia.

Of course, if Fletcher had done that she would have also had to rework a few of her other choices. Not that I would have minded. Ellen seemed painfully young compared to Hal, and their romance rubbed me the wrong way right from the start. I couldn't quite get a handle on Hal, who seemed like she should have had her pick of potential lovers and yet for some reason was drawn to easily flustered Ellen. I ignored my misgivings, however, because I figured that this would be a fantasy with romantic aspects, like the other Celaeno books. Ellen would doubt Hal's intentions and suspect her of being involved in the thefts, Hal would prove her trustworthiness, and together they'd foil the villains and find love.

Sometimes when things go the way you expect them to, it's boring. It can be nice when a story shakes things up a bit. It can also be horrible. My review is going to include some spoilers from here on out, because I can't figure out how to write about this without revealing too much.

Basically, Hal is revealed to be one of the villains. I have to hand it to Fletcher, once she chose this route she went all the way. Hal wasn't just a thief who unwittingly got involved with a bunch of murderers – she stole, she lied, she was one of the ones who slit Rangers' throats, and she stood by as her cousin, the Mad Butcher, beat her elderly aunt and gave her brain damage. She did nothing to stop the Butcher from torturing Ellen, and she made it clear that, no matter what the Butcher had done or would do in the future, she was going to stand by her, because family sticks together.

Ellen's emotional reaction was awful and gut-wrenching. She felt used and betrayed, but part of her still loved Hal and wanted to believe that not everything between them had been a lie. After she was tortured, Hal came to her and healed her up a bit, and then they had sex (on page, with Ellen's remaining cuts and bruises described as “areas of heightened sensitivity”). I was horrified and, afterward, so was Ellen. At some point, her disgust and self-loathing morphed into a realization that she still loved Hal and didn't want to see her die. Although Ellen forgave Hal, I couldn't.

I suppose you could call the ending tragic. Hal was more than likely killed, although Ellen chose not to find out for certain, so that she could pretend Hal was still out there somewhere. This was one of those times when I would dearly have loved an “X years later” epilogue. I needed some kind of reassurance that Ellen eventually recovered from her emotional wounds and found happiness. Unfortunately, the book ended soon after Ellen's escape and Hal's probable death and, as far as I can tell, neither Ellen nor Hal were ever mentioned again in the series.

Of all the Celaeno books, this one is hands down the darkest and most depressing. After four books worth of SFF with romantic aspects, I don't think it was out of line to expect that this one would give me something similar. I'm incredibly sad and upset that my last unread Celaeno book turned out to be such an enormous betrayal of expectations.

2 comments:

  1. Just came across your review while searching for any kind of news regarding the outcome of Ellen and Hal. I'm still just as baffled as you were, hoping to find any subsequent short story that'd be able to provide some closure. This was not a good ending for such hearth-lifting series as Celaeno proved to be until this fifth novel. Despite my somber mood, I do agree with you when you claim this was the best written of all, though I never felt it to be an wayward love between Ellen and Hal. I would have to like to see a bit more of Mad Butcher and Ade and their relationship, as that seems to have been the undoing of the gang.

    I'll come here for more reviews as we've agreed so well on this one.
    Keep up the good work,

    Grey

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! This book was such a shock after the sweet romances in the other ones, and it still bothers me that there wasn't something - an epilogue or a short story - there to give Ellen a happy ending. If Fletcher ever writes more in this series (there's certainly plenty of room for her to do so), I hope she goes back to the sweet romances of the earlier books.

      Delete