The Future Falls

I like this world, I like the Gale Family, I like how the creatures of earth and the supernatural creatures blend in together - it takes a talented writer to make a seamless story like this.

The premise is interesting - instead of a bad guy, we get an asteroid that will hit the Earth. While this is the main story, and it never really leaves the focus, the book is more about how the Gale Family works together, the relationship between Jake and Charlie, and the rules imposed on them. I also liked how the ending was handled.

But, this seemingly easy book to read is not so easy if you don't pay attention. Important information is only relayed in one or two sentences, usually mixed with fun banter between family members, and if a reader show more doesn't catch it, things that happen later in the book don't make sense. This is both awesome because it keeps the story moving without repeating, and annoying, because this is the sort of book I like to read for fun.

The characters at times can be quite caricatured. But considering this family is full of over the top women (Grannies) it makes sense and is keeping with the story.

One thing I do like, is that all characters only care about what is important, not what you do with your life or how you choose to dress or who you sleep with, as long as the family won't get hurt, it doesn't matter. Its refreshing, and at times, can be uncomfortable because it doesn't follow societal norms. This doesn't detract from the book in any way, but as a reader it makes you do a double-take if you are expecting a traditional romance (and yes, there is one of those in this book).

I've read all three book in the series, and I think this one is my favourite. Enjoy! show less

"The Future Falls", the third of the Gale Women books, was my favourite so far, mainly because of the focus on Charlie starting to understand what she's really capable of and what this means for her future.

This is not an easy book to classify. Tanya Huff is atrope twister extraordinaire, so I guess that's not surprising.

Still, how do you classify a book that is, on one level, about a Gale Girl Wild Power trying to save the world from an extinction event and on the other is tale of star-crossed lovers, where one of them is a witch who is already part of a polyamorous relationship and the other flips between being a Dragon and a teenage boy?

I guess, the answer is that you don't worry about classifying it, you just grab hold and enjoy the show more ride.

The whole story stands in the deeply disturbing shadow of the power and rituals of the Gale women. This book made it very clear that the priority of the Gale women is to protect the Gale family, even if this means treating family members as breeding stock or as power sources for their rituals, or letting the rest of the world's population die.

Charlie refuses to stay in that shadow. She does what she thinks is right, regardless of the cost to her personally. Her bravery is one of the best aspects of the book. The next best thing about the book is the fast-witted humour, fed by pop culture references to sci fi movies and Canadian pop music. show less

I love this series.
Everything about it.
This is probably the best book I've read in a good long while.
Charlie is at her best here, and we finally get to see the world through Jack's eyes for a while, and the view is pretty cool. Huff's understanding of teenage boys is superlative and engaging.

This series is a comfortable read, homey like apple pie. But watch out: The pie may be be charmed, because darned if you don't end up wanting more.

I don’t know if I’ve outgrown the standard urban fantasy style in the last few years or if this is a weaker or more rushed novel than Huff’s usual, but I found myself almost skimming a lot of this, less from inattention and more to finish the book and move on to something else. In the end, I liked the book okay but I don’t think I really enjoyed it much.

Huff has a good hook, that’s for sure. It’s a problem I’ve never see another novel tackle and I was genuinely worried over how Charlie and her family would solve it, especially as the story progressed. And I was more than happy to see Charlie again (and would happily follow her through more magical adventures if the series wasn’t so wrapped up here). I don’t know if show more it’s her outsider-ness or her music, but I really like her as a character.

But there are a lot of places where the book failed to work for me. I’m often down for Huff’s meandering, coincidence-dropping, gently foreshadowed, character-focused style, but here it felt more like Charlie was beating a brick wall than ever making progress, and her family …. I’ve never really been a fan of the Gales as a whole, I have to admit. They’re all pretty dominant personalities, all positive they know best for everyone else, which leads to a lot of politics and mind games, and while that might be familiar and funny to some, it isn’t for me. I spent a lot of scenes wondering why Charlie didn’t push back more or run away to Europe and change her name.

And the romance? I’m not sure why Huff felt there even needed to be a romance? I think she could have gotten the emotional payoffs through other means, and especially that a lot of the tension of the novel is not the asteroid, but the sexual chemistry between star-crossed lovers. If you want to call a woman in her late twenties and her teenaged distant cousin star-crossed, which, um. Kudos to Charlie saying, “Absolutely not, we’re not doing this”, and kudos to Huff for finding a way to make the end of that subplot decently acceptable.

And then there’s the almost deus ex machina nature of the climax….

All that aside, Huff’s humour is still going strong, and she’s got lots of quirky scenarios and by-play, and she fleshes out the Fae part of her world-building a lot here, which was neat to see. She’s got some cool new characters too, and Charlie’s mental soundtrack, with a song for every situation, is really fun. So there was lots for me to enjoy in this book, just not enough to make up for the bits that made me grumpy.
5/10

Contains: a romantic subplot that’s pretty skeevy on both an age and a genetic level, though it’s solved all right; family dynamics that had my shoulders by my ears; scientist jokes; and a lot of music show less

This book is the third, and the author says (alas) the last, of the books about the Gale family. It's a lovely love story, a magical adventure, a rich and varied picture of family and family dynamics, and often quite funny. The love story, which is between my two favorite characters, seems hopeless...but there is a happy ending and it doesn't feel contrived. It also isn't an "everything is immediately perfect" ending, which to my mind makes it happier.

I enjoyed this book immensely, and I hope there will be more glimpses into this world and at these characters in the future. If there are none, though, the trilogy is satisfyingly wound up in this book.

Good book. The crisis is kind of out of nowhere, and the final solution is extremely weird - not deus ex machina, both because it was well laid in and because they had to _work_ for it. No easy way out here. But - it is rather out of left field. There's a lot more about Gales in general and in specific, and even more specifically about Charlie and Jack. I didn't remember, from the earlier books, their connection and the problem with it - not sure if it was not mentioned before or I just forgot. It certainly wasn't as featured as it was here - that's the real story. The ostensible crisis is really just the excuse to get things moving. I like Gary and Kirin, too - nice people. And even Dan, poor guy. Excellent story, I want to own and show more reread it. Hope we'll see more of the Gale girls (and boys) in the future. show less

I really love the time-twisting in this volume! I keep having to think it out and re-figure just what's happening to whom.
So much fun!
231231 - But there is a whole lot of Gale family stuff and pining to endure before the fun which is stacked deep at the end. So while early impression isn't wrong (5★) it's a mood thing that could have brought it to 3.5.