The Element of Fire

Loved it, loved the reader (Derek Perkins, I think). Set in an Ile-Rien with hints of the late 17th -- rapiers and doublets and so forth. Sorcerers and fay -- a plot to unseat a king with just the wrong allies (the unseelie, how stupid can you get?). Swashbuckler that I apparently read about eight years ago, and was a bit, 'it's ok' -- I do think that a good reader can lift a book into another level (and as you know, do a good no favors if not done well). ****1/2

I took four chapters -- and over two hours of the audiobook -- before becoming completely captivated. The beginning’s neither slow nor uneventful, and I liked the vibe of the worldbuilding, but I didn’t know why I should care. Thomas Boniface, captain of the Queen’s Guard, rescues one sorcerer, Dubell, from the clutches of another, Grandier. The latter continues to pose a threat. There’s palace intrigue: the young king is easily manipulated by his cousin; the dowager queen fiercely wields what power she can.

But when the king’s half-sister, the Fay sorceress Kade, confronts her brother and his mother for the first time in nearly a decade, something clicked. Here is the story’s fraught, emotional heart. Soon after, the the show more palace is attacked and the tension skyrockets. That was the point where I decided that I need to read everything Wells has written.

It would have been easy to begin the book with Kade, with her motives and her sympathetic qualities. If it had, I might have warmed to it faster. However, being introduced to her as others see her, mysteriously and dangerously powerful, and wondering -- as Thomas does -- about what she wants and whether she can be trusted, was actually very effective. I really enjoyed being surprised by Kade. I also enjoyed Thomas’ flashes of humour, and the interactions both of them have with members of the royal family. (It was interesting, seeing hints of dynamics here which are much more overt in the Raksura courts.) I have mixed feelings about what happens in the end, but that seems like the right reaction, somehow.

I liked this so much more than I was expecting to.

“Why would we want to deal with you, sister?” Contempt twisted his voice. “You've threatened us, ridiculed us--”
“Threatened? Oh, what a King you are, Roland.” Kade clasped her hands dramatically and said mockingly in falsetto, “Oh, help, my sister is threatening me!” She looked down at her brother, lip curled in disgust. “If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead.” show less

The kingdom of Ile-Rien has a weak king, Roland, a strong and ruthless Queen Dowager, his mother, Ravenna guarding the kingdom's interests despite Roland and the friends who manipulate him, and some very dangerous enemies.

One of those enemies is Urbain Grandier, a master of scientific sorcery, who is in Ile-Rien with an agenda of his own. He's not actually hostile to the kingdom, but he wants its resources to destroy his real enemy, the neighboring kingdom of Bisran, his native kingdom, who convicted and tortured the sorcerer for what are serious crimes there. He's prepared to use all of Ile-Rien's resources, both wealth and people, to do that--for however long it takes.

Ravenna, and the captain of the Queen's Guard, Thomas Boniface, and show more various other court officials, who may or may not be fully aligned with Ravenna, suspect Grandier is in the capital, but don't know where he is, or what he plans.

Meanwhile, some of the same people, particularly Boniface and the Queen Dowager, are certain that King Roland's friend, his friend from childhood, of having his own plot, a plot to make himself king.

The court sorcerer, Galen Dubell, captured by Grandier and rescued by Boniface, is key to many of the efforts made against these plots.

Adding to the excitement, the king's bastard sister, Kade Carrion, has returned to court after years absent, unexpectedly and uninvited, and no one has any idea what her intentions are. This is especially disturbing because she is the bastard daughter of the late King Fulstan, and the Queen of Air and Darkness. She's half fay, has some fay powers, and has spent much of the last few years in Fayre. Also, years ago, before she left court, Galen Dubell had taught her some sorcery.

Shortly after her arrival, Kade is attacked by a golem. The golem is killed, but it's the forerunner of an invasion from Fayre, specifically by the Unseelie Court. Kade finds herself assisting Thomas Boniface and others in resisting the invasion. The success is partial, and costly, and in the course of it they discover that Denzil and Grandier are in league--though possibly Denzil is confused about how interested Grandier is in Denzil's own goals.

What follows is a complex, tangled, deadly conflict among several factions, with complex, interesting characters. Even the villains are more than just villains; their motives are layered and interesting even when that doesn't change your ultimate judgment of them. This is a really well-done fantasy, set in a world that feels real, and you care about the people, and the country of Ile-Rien.

Highly recommended.

I bought this audiobook. show less

Three and a half stars.

If you are considering Martha Wells, I suggest starting with one of her books besides The Element of Fire. The Death of the Necromancer (review), for instance, or The Cloud Roads (review), or even City of Bones (review). I thoroughly enjoyed–and own–all of them, though all are very different approaches to the fantasy genre. Fire was her debut book, published in 1993, and lacks the finesse of her later works. It is a more traditional fantasy focused on a court setting, with court politics, kingdom disputes and intrusions from the land of fairy defining the struggle.

Much like Necromancer, the story begins with a heist. It’s an engaging way to begin a story, but in this case, requires attention as the team show more begins an orchestrated break-in. Captain Boniface is conducting a raid of a foreign sorcerer’s house, an undercover mission to rescue a kidnapped but disgraced sorcerer Galen Dubell. At the same time, a theater troupe in the capital city of Vienne is preparing to perform with one of their new players, Kade. The two find themselves on the same side when a golem breaks loose during a performance. From there, both internal and external conflicts threaten to destabilize the kingdom of Ile-Rein. Captain Boniface finds himself unsure of who to trust, and Kade discovers herself questioning everything she knew about the court and her upbringing.

Viewpoint alternates between Boniface and Kade, creating a situation where the reader gets insight into each as they work to prevent the kingdom from falling to the opposition. The villain isn’t particularly hidden, but unraveling the complexity of the scheme keeps a few surprises in store.

It took a long time to understand the world Wells was creating, which hampered my initial ability to immerse into the story. Starting in the middle of an action sequence, in a fantasy setting with magical elements is only the start. Adding internal court politics that have their beginning in the distant past, a neighboring country with a radically different culture, as well as the realm of fae means the number of complicated elements build instead of resolve. As Captain Boniface and Kade are also attempting to find their emotional footing, it’s a lot to weave together, and enough for a trilogy. Sanderson, had he written this, would have made the events into a six-book arc. At least. Eventually I lost myself in the world, but I don’t know that this is a book that one would want to pick up and put down, or read over a month, at the risk of losing continuity.

While I enjoyed the writing style, the tone felt uneven. Though the book jacket describes it as stemming from a “swashbuckling tradition,” and cites “Errol Flynn panache, style, and atmosphere,” I would disagree. Multiple deaths and the possible fall of a kingdom raise the stakes beyond a simple adventure where all the hero risks is pride or a short stay in the local prison. These characters are fighting for identity, beliefs and ultimately, their lives.

If you are a fan of traditional fantasy, or a fan of Wells’ work, I’d give this a go. But if you don’t have large amounts of reading time, I’d recommend one of her other works over The Element of Fire, particularly Nebula nominee The Death of the Necromancer, which feels like a more polished version of this work. show less

I'm not sure what I expected going into this but knowing in advance that this was Wells' first book and that she obviously grew as an author afterward helped a little. All in all, there were chunks of this book I really loved, and large chunks of it I felt were slow and at times frustrating to get through. The book could probably be half its length, cutting out not just the drag of uninteresting setting description but also certain characters entirely. It's long and feels its length.

Why the four stars? Because I adore Roland. I found his story really wonderfully tragic and great and after maybe the 1/3 or halfway point in the story he was essentially the only character I cared about. Yeah he's terrible, but he's fun terrible. Thomas was show more largely enjoyable and Kade was great, except when her romance with Thomas was just too generically tropey. With the caveat that in the 90s, I imagine a big fantasy novel with a dashing male knight hero of color would have been really groundbreaking, and I think that's really cool. Even today, that's still a big deal because publishing and racism being what it is. It unfortunately suffers from otherwise being largely the same as many, many other fantasy stories I've read before. And heck I don't even mind tropeyness, I just found a romance I've seen 8000 times in a heavily straight novel way too boring. I'm trying to not be harsh on yet another younger woman/older man relationship but I'm so tired of them. Honestly I wish Kade had just run off with Falaise or become Falaise's lover or something. I unfortunately think Thomas could have been cut entirely to allow the story to focus on Kade, Roland, and Ravenna. I also thought Dontane could have been cut, just to give Grandier more time to shine. I feel like Grandier was so important but I know far more about the little we know of Dontane than Grandier, and I'm far more interested in Grandier's story. I've read stories with large casts and even enjoyed them, but this was just... a struggle at times, since even the enjoyable parts were shrunk under the book's heavy load. Also quite frankly I know it was the 90s but I heavily side-eye the use of the queer-coded villain(s). I'm just tired of it. There's a line in the story implying that Ile-Rein is more sexually open than elsewhere, which possibly includes non-straight sexualities, but when the only potentially queer characters are maybe Denzil and Roland, it's just hard to really be happy about what we're given.

The pacing was the biggest issue, and part of it is the muddied plot, with characters backtracking to do odd things that are pretty stupid and that they probably should have known was stupid, but you're probably in for 40-60 or more pages of them doing it and wondering when the story will move on. There are interesting subplots here that handle child abuse, dealing with trauma as an adult, suicide, bigotry, religious persecution, responsibility, lots of things. But too much of it is lost in other things. I even love all the Seelie and Unseelie stuff, but quite frankly this story was so ridiculously straight I kept thinking of Seelie and Unseelie stories that are overtly queer and far better paced and just overall more enjoyable. I know it was the 90s, but seeing the myriad ways this story could have been better, and knowing that this cast ends here (the next book is a time skip), just made reading it kind of disappointing.

There were also way too many typos. I know Wells reviewed this and edited it a bit when it was rereleased, but I kept catching typos and I normally don't see as many. I am glad she gets control over it at last, but this was annoying, particularly in the second half of the book.

Overall I can't say I recommend this. If you, like I, came to this from loving "The Murderbot Diaries", I would give this a pass, which I know is odd considering I gave it four stars. Supposedly the later novels in the series are better. If you want Martha Wells writing good fantasy, I'd recommend skipping the whole thing and just reading her Raksura series. If you want a queer story about machinations of the Seelie and Unseelie, with lots of politicking, some bone-headed soldiers, fun sexy times, and even some coups and wars, look up Pia Foxhall's Fae Tales Verse, starting with "Deeper into the Woods". Skip this. Or just reread "The Murderbot Diaries", they're amazing. show less

I think I mostly enjoyed this. The first-introduced main character and his relationship to the excellent Queen Dowager reminded me a bit sideways of someone I've been trying to write so it was an interesting compare and contrast while I got into the world - which had various other points of comparison with various historical and mythical courts of England. The second-introduced main character felt a bit more distant and I don't think her subplot was helped much by there being a whole lot of stuff that could be fixed if people had just _communicated_ with each other.

The get-together-and-retire happy ending wasn't convincing for me because the romance felt a bit obligatory and I hadn't really seen evidence he was sick of the *court* so show more much as sick of how this particular storyline saw him getting stabbed a whole lot. But otherwise the resolution of said storyline was perfectly satisfying. show less

Enemies internal, external, and magical threaten the kingdom of Ile-Rein, and saving the throne falls to Thomas Boniface, captain of the Queen's Guard, and Kade Carrion, half-mortal sister of the king. The Element of Fire is satisfyingly full of swashbuckling and mannerpunk, and while the plotting is rather slack, the book's vivid characters and baroque details compensate for the mercurial motivations and abrupt coincidences used to join one scene to another.