There’s a very popular channel on YouTube called CinemaSins; their ethos is that “No movie is without sin” and their videos critique, rapid fire, everything from the best to the worst movies ever made. My wife and I love CinemaSins so much that we often use their more popular jokes and jibes while watching films ourselves, imitating the voice of Jeremy Scott as we go. When I sat down with Cold Magic, multiple Sin alarms went off in my head: photography used for the front cover, a goddamned map in the opening pages, and garbled place names used in lieu of a newly built world (Europa? Iberia?! Come on).
I did have to steady myself, and give the book a fair chance. Done correctly, alternate history narratives can be good, even great. Not to mention you should never judge a book by its cover. Maps are just a thing I need to learn to live with in fantasy literature. It’s part of the genre now. Brandon Sanderson uses them. J.R.R. Tolkein is the one I should blame, not Kate Elliott. I’m sure there are plenty of fantasy readers out there who won’t rate a book if it doesn’t have a map.
Of the books I’ve read this week, I think Cold Magic’s first chapter intrigued me the least. The writing is solid – Elliott has a large bibliography behind her, so she’s obviously got talent and can write in quantity – and the early mystery presented in a conversation overheard by our protagonist in her uncle’s study is of interest, if a little cliche. There’s some exposition of history – the Romans were ousted 800 years ago and everyone’s been fighting ever since, here and there – and the issue of colonialism is touched upon with the misnomer Phoenicians being used for a people who call themselves the Kena’ani. The cliche of errant apostrophes in fantasy naming conventions is another one I’ll have to learn to tolerate.
This is all good enough, but the problem is Uprooted had me hooked for four chapters before I realised what was going on. The Invisible Library spoke to the part of me that needs to obsessive collect and catalogue stories wherever I go. Smiler’s Fair painted a picture of a world with unknown depths, ripe for exploring. Cold Magic has yet to meet any of these standards – but that’s not to say the book is bad. On the contrary, it strikes me as a book that is probably rather good. The competition for my time, however, demands more than good.
Rating? not bad, not great
Keep reading? bottom of the pile but not giving it the boot
Despite my misgivings, you might still want to check out Cold Magic yourself. Pick it up from Hive, where a portion of your money goes towards a local bookshop of your choosing.
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