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Book Review
Sep. 19th, 2013 08:31 amWeather Witch
by Shannon Delany
I received this book for free in a Goodreads giveaway that I had entered because the premise sounded really intriguing. Unfortunately, this book was very disappointing. Set in an alternate 19th century Philadelphia where some people wield powerful weather-controlling magic, it concerns Jordan Astraea and Rowen Burchette, members of the wealthy and powerful uppercrust whose lives are upended when Jordan is falsely (?) accused of being a Weather Witch. For Jordan, that means being stripped of her rank and hauled off to an inland citadel where witches are tortured to jump start their abilities and then enslaved in order to produce ideal climate and weather, channel, electricity, provide proper wind currents for airships, etc. For Rowan, that means going off on a somewhat ill-planned attempt to rescue Jordan.
I had several major problems with this book. I think the book would have been much better off if it had been set in a completely made-up fantasy setting. It pretty much read as such for large portions of the novel, and I was completely unable to discern what using 1844 Philadelphia brought to the setting or story. In fact, the book largely ignores certain historical realities in a rather disturbing way. Delany creates a very rigid and strictly defined caste-like system of hereditary title and rank for her alternate America, which seems entirely out of keeping with even the little I know about that time in America's history. How and why this social structure exists as it does is never really explained. Worse, Delany creates a fictional institution of slavery for the weather witches while almost entirely ignoring the real, historical enslavement of African-Americans. There is only a single, brief reference to the real-world slavery towards the end of the book. The omission was glaringly obvious and just seemed wrong. Regrettably, neither the characters nor the plot made up for the problems with the setting. I found neither Jordan nor Rowen all that interesting, and the few secondary characters I did want to know more about were either not developed or quickly written out of the story. The plot itself was a very typical peril and escape/rescue narrative. Since it's the first of a series, nothing really resolves, yet I still feel no particular desire to find out what happens next.
by Shannon Delany
I received this book for free in a Goodreads giveaway that I had entered because the premise sounded really intriguing. Unfortunately, this book was very disappointing. Set in an alternate 19th century Philadelphia where some people wield powerful weather-controlling magic, it concerns Jordan Astraea and Rowen Burchette, members of the wealthy and powerful uppercrust whose lives are upended when Jordan is falsely (?) accused of being a Weather Witch. For Jordan, that means being stripped of her rank and hauled off to an inland citadel where witches are tortured to jump start their abilities and then enslaved in order to produce ideal climate and weather, channel, electricity, provide proper wind currents for airships, etc. For Rowan, that means going off on a somewhat ill-planned attempt to rescue Jordan.
I had several major problems with this book. I think the book would have been much better off if it had been set in a completely made-up fantasy setting. It pretty much read as such for large portions of the novel, and I was completely unable to discern what using 1844 Philadelphia brought to the setting or story. In fact, the book largely ignores certain historical realities in a rather disturbing way. Delany creates a very rigid and strictly defined caste-like system of hereditary title and rank for her alternate America, which seems entirely out of keeping with even the little I know about that time in America's history. How and why this social structure exists as it does is never really explained. Worse, Delany creates a fictional institution of slavery for the weather witches while almost entirely ignoring the real, historical enslavement of African-Americans. There is only a single, brief reference to the real-world slavery towards the end of the book. The omission was glaringly obvious and just seemed wrong. Regrettably, neither the characters nor the plot made up for the problems with the setting. I found neither Jordan nor Rowen all that interesting, and the few secondary characters I did want to know more about were either not developed or quickly written out of the story. The plot itself was a very typical peril and escape/rescue narrative. Since it's the first of a series, nothing really resolves, yet I still feel no particular desire to find out what happens next.
