Catherine Asaro

Misted Cliffs — (2004-2006) Publisher: What was the use of being a powerful mage if you couldn't learn the spells? Once Chime had been the most promising mage in the land, feted and celebrated for her potential and future role in the kingdom. The Iris, he young competitor, made a stunning leap in skill and turned Chime's world upside down. Now no longer the most powerful, no longer promised to a prince — and still unable to harness her magic properly — Chime was set adrift. As was the new king's cousin — and former heir — Lord Muller. Yet when the neighboring kingdom threatened war, Muller and Chime were tasked with uncovering the plot. Both were flawed, yet unwilling to accept a lesser destiny than they had once known. Could this quest be the opportunity for redemption — or would it lead them to their deaths?

The Charmed Sphere

Oh my. Oh my, oh my, oh my. I'm sitting here reminding myself that I'm supposed to start with the good. Well, okay... um, there's nothing egregiously wrong with Catherine Asaro's grammatical structure and spelling. No wildly out of place punctuation or anything of that sort. I'm afraid though that that's really the nicest thing I can say. Heck, it's the only nice thing I can say. This is not going to be pretty, but then, neither was the reading experience.

I'm filled with dread right within the second paragraph, when Asaro for some reason feels the need to inform me that apple yellow is Chime's favorite color. This dread is not soothed as the scene carries on, full of Chime's rather juvenile observations. She sounds more like she's five rather than almost eighteen, and I'm just not happy.

Neither am I pleased with her male opposite, a prince and heir to the throne of the realm, who is named (brace yourself for this one, folks) Muller Startower Heptacorn Dawnfield. Pair that alongside names like Della No-Cozen and Anvil the Forged, and Catherine Asaro is making me miss Janine Cross. But I digress. Here's a snippet of Muller's POV, so you might perhaps see what it was about him that set my teeth on edge so:

And his face. What a disaster. His eyes were too large, his lashes too long, his features too beautiful. Who took seriously a man with pretty eyelashes? He was never going to strike fear into his enemies looking like this. Not that he had any wish to fight a war, but he was far more proficient with a sword than anyone believed.

That's our hero Muller thinking about himself. Aside from the fact that this stems from part of a paragraph talking about Muller's love of clothing (which he goes on about often, complete with lots of complaining about getting said clothes dirty), I really hate the fact that this supposed proficient swordsman has no clue that striking fear into your enemies is all about your attitude. I thought this was something that anyone learning the sword was taught. My bad.

So the characters are juvenile and poorly developed, so how about the writing and world building? Unfortunately, it's all horribly clunky and heavy-handed. The world building especially is handled in sudden info dumps which seem less like competence and more like Ms. Asaro going "Look at how clever I am!" Seriously, she has Chime's brother (who's named Drummer, by the way) knock over a chair in the kitchen for the sole purpose of describing the chair, where it came from, how it was paid for, and what the land's currency looks like, in quite some detail. Don't believe me? Here's a piece of it (it actually goes on for two paragraphs, but I'll only make you read one):

Her uncle would have given them his work for free, but Chime's father refused to let him, paying him with twelve-sided copper coins. For the best pieces he even paid a round copper coin worth twelve of the twelve-siders. Chime loved the shiny coins, which were made at Castle Suncroft. The perfect shapes gave her a sense of completion.

This I suppose is, aside from a poor attempt at world building, also Asaro's way of shoving it down the readers throats that her mages work with a "complicated" system of shapes. Also colors, an element which makes me wonder if poor Anne Bishop is tearing her hair out in frustration. But none of it is really interesting, and it's told to the reader in such a ham-handed way that I really didn't care at all.

As for the plot... I couldn't force myself to read that far. But I couldn't see anything new and different forming. Anvil the Forged and the Evil King of Evil Land want to take over the country, Chime is the strongest mage of her kind in generation, there's love and stuff to be conquered against all odds, and so on. Perhaps Ms. Asaro's sci fi work is good (with a Nebula award, it should be) but her fantasy? Not so much. —Beth Johnson