Vicky DeVine has just
manages to escape a viciously abusive marriage and in the settlement she was
granted ownership of the Jumble. A house and a collection of dilapidated cabins
on the banks of Lake Silence. A beautiful location for a holiday - but she only
owns the cabins. The terra indigene own the land and have set strict rules on
how it can be used.
Vicky DeVine,
building her new life is learning and adapting quickly to what that means.
But other people have
seen her land and all the potential it has - and all the money they can make if
they can just get Vicky out of the way… but you ignore the Others at your own
peril
This book has a lot
of parallels with original The
Others series. And I’m torn. Because I do wonder if perhaps there are too many
close parallels…?
The protagonist is
Vicky Divine. She is a very vulnerable woman who is also inclined to
breakdowns. She is threatened by a human force that want to use, abuse and
threaten her but she makes connections with the Terra Indigene, the Others, who
are willing to protect her. She is acting, in some ways, as a liaison between
the Terra Indigene and humanity, her position as landlord of the Jumble, a
Terra Indigene settlement/human holiday resort, brings her into close contact
with the Others. She’s also being used by the Terra Indigene who want to learn
about humanity and what it means to be human. Alongside we have some police
desperately trying to stop some foolish humans from provoking the Others into
violent retaliation
Which sounds a lot
like The Meg… a vulnerable woman who is inclined to breakdowns who was
threatened by humans that want to use, abuse and threaten her. She makes
connections with the Terra indigene, living in a Terra Indigene settlement,as
their liaison with humanity, helping humans coexist with the Others and
allowing the Others to learn more about humanity. Along side there were police
desperately trying to stop some foolish humans from provoking anti-human
genocide (and… kind of failing)
The parallels are…
really strong
But is that a
problem? I mean, while there are issues, I love The Others series. I
really love it. It’s one of my favourite series and Renee and I both looked
forward eagerly for the next book of The Meg. This book having many very
similar elements to a series I already loved feels like something I SHOULD
consider negative but honestly I kind of love it. The Others series is
over… it’s gone. But here it is, rising again and the series being very similar
feels like a good thing to me.
I love this book. I
love the old series. I love Vicky learning about the idiosyncrasies of the
Others around her. I love them learning about her. I love the focus on Aggie
Crowguard who is so much fun. I love Grimshaw trying to stop something
happening that will provoke a lethal response from the Others in the lake and
wild country.
There is less focus
on the interaction between The Others - Ilya Sanguinati, the main force in the
area is far more aware of humanity than Simon Wolfguard was - he’s a lawyer and
he even tries to work within human law to fight against those encroaching on
Vicky’s land and the wild country. It’s an excellent, exciting and really funny
balance between “here is my injunction” and “the fire elemental will turn you
to ash.” And it works, it really works. That balance is struck.
It’s also quite
unique how it works - along with how The Others worked in that our
protagonists’s allies are so powerful that I was reading away gleefully waiting
for the bad guys to be killed and eaten. And that isn’t a spoiler, from the
very beginning we know that’s an option. This series is never about “will the
Terra Indigene win” so much as “how bad will the fallout be”? In some ways it’s
why the police in these series are such fascinating characters - upholding the
law, while also knowing that all that law will be irrelevant if the Terra
Indigene decide they are Done. Dealing with humans who you are literally trying
to stop from killing themselves with their own damn foolishness, always aware
that another extinction level event could easily happen.
I think it was
stronger in this book because we had far less of the confusion between Vicky
and the terra Indigene, far less of them learning about humanity and Vicky
learning about them than we had with Meg and Simon Wolfguard
I also like that the
book acknowledges the previous events of the first series - how the culture of
the Terra Indigene has changed from generally ignoring humanity to paying way
more attention. And there suddenly being a lot more demand for Terra Indigene
to understand humanity more. And there being radically changing culture in
human settlements as so many people died or moved. Even the core - that humans
who were used to ignoring the rules, rules the Terra Indigene probably didn’t
care all that much about before and are now SHARPLY paying attention.
Another excellent
commonality this book had with The Others series was how the protagonist
is vulnerable and weak but not derided for that. Vicky is a woman who has left
an extremely abusive relationship - emotionally abusive not physical. She has
no self esteem, she hates herself, she’s very very nervous and she suffers from
severe anxiety attacks. She can easily be broken or manipulated by angry,
violent, shouting men and is easily intimidated. She also doesn’t feel like the
most intelligent of women, being quite naive and even quite slow at times. But
that isn’t used to present her as useless: she is capable of doing her job, she
has friends who respect her and the fact she can’t handle conflict isn’t used
to belittle her. I also like how her reaction to abuse is also mirrored in
Julian Farrow, ex-cop, who has his own stress and anxiety from their terrible
experiences. Grimshaw, Julian, Ilya Sanguinati and even good friend Ineke (who
is awesome in her own right) are all protective of her without it feeling
belittling. Ilya is actually concerned that his protection may be seen as
disrespectful or implying she’s helpless.
I do think the
antagonists in this book are… a little cartoonish. I can see why - when your
“good guys” are monsters who are literally going to eat people over a property
deal you have to make those property developers pretty damn terrible to stop
the readers thinking “ok… is breaking planning laws really worthy of a terrible
death?”. And I think the book does kind of gloss over things like the death of
employees or police who are not directly responsible for the whole badness but
are still brutally murdered. I think that them being terrible and murdered is
more SATISFYING to read on an emotional level, but that the book could be more
thoughtful - and darker - if we’d looked at these deaths more closely or saw
the terra indigene hunt people that maybe we wouldn’t see as deserving of it.
Like the teens who tresspass on the lake to swim and manage to escape with, at
most, minor injury. It’s played off as a joke but that stops us examining “hey,
some kids nearly got eaten for swimming…” element. The terra indigene are this
big, terrifying threat but they’ve never FELT threatening to me because you
have to be TERRIBAD AWFUL for them to murder you. The fact that the dead all so
richly Had It Coming removed the horror from it
We do have several
poc in the small town of Sproinging though there is little examination of this
are we’re far more focused on human vs vampire/evil fish monster/avatar of the
concept of fire. Still, only a very bit part music teacher sticks in my mind.
We have no LGBTQ people (someone is running to the comments to mention the
euphemistically referred to Simple Life men. Don’t).
And we’re still
compounding, albeit less overtly, a major problem of The Others: the
erasure of Native Americans. Presenting Thasia as a non-human-occupied
continent effectively says Native Americans never existed. Removing an entire
ethnic group because they’re inconvenient is… a problem.
I like this book but
part of me feels slightly reserved. What I love about this book at the
things I love about The Meg and Simon and the wonderful Others series. I
love that series so much and a huge part of me is now elated that this series
is continuing. But… the elements that deviate more from it? The greater
investigation of the Intuits? The Others who are no longer so amusingly
clueless about humanity (and the female pack)? I’m not as much a fan of - I
also aren’t sure where the story goes from here and would like to see Vicky
come more into her own if her story continues. Though I do really like the idea
of the lawyer and accountant mixing the Terra Indigene and human law so nicely
(though… why are the vampires so very very rich? I’d like to know).
I love this book.
There was no way I could never not love this book. But I love it through the
lens of our beloved Meg and I wonder if the parallels were less close, if I’d
have enjoyed it so?
