Entry tags:
The Siren Depths
Oh, god, all the busy. Got sick over Thanksgiving weekend (thanks a lot, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
inmyriadbits), then the call center job went insane post-Black Friday, as per usual - at least they feed us for free now that they've taken away our lunch breaks? - and I realized that I am technically working 7 days a week at three separate jobs (call center, employee massage, private practice massage). SO TIRED.
But on Sunday, I finally got a chance to sit down and read my copy of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marthawells's The Siren Depths! I've had it since the 17th (delivered while at RenFest, not funny, universe), but I knew I'd want an open night because, as usual, I sat down and didn't stop reading until I was done. I kept getting up for water/snacks and it felt like the clock was a time lapse photo - 9:16pm, 10:34pm, 12:40am. Whoops.
For those of you who haven't read the Books of the Raksura: they're awesome. Moon, the main character, is a shapeshifter was orphaned at a young age and doesn't know who or what he is at first. When The Cloud Roads (go look at the gorgeous cover, trust me) starts, he's spent most of his life hiding in his humanoid form, but the rest of the time he looks like this. LOOKIT THOSE WINGS. Pretty, right? Unfortunately, he resembles a race of horrible sociopathic predators called the Fell, so he's forced to hide who he is and has been systematically betrayed, abandoned and attacked since he was a child. Despite this, he is an utter sweetheart. Well, underneath all the trust issues and paranoia and habitual lying and superior combat skills. I'm really fond of his disembowling talons. Shut up.
The first two books involve Moon finding his people, the Raksura, and his continuing adventures with the colony. The Raksura are a wonderfully alien race while still being entirely relatable, with a tendency to be as crotchety and opinionated as they are communal and gossipy. The world is filled with a huge array of other weird and wonderful races who tend to put their settlements in odd places. Cities aren't built next to waterfalls, but on them, or carved inside ancient statues and into giant trees, or set on the backs of sea monsters.
I really really want to live in a mountain-tree. Not that that's relevant. But I really do.
Martha writes a hell of an action scene, and does, repeatedly, but I love all the emotional hell she puts Moon through over the series, and his slow and never-easy adaptation to living with other people and - so help him - eventually trusting and falling in love with some of them. It's all the emotion hurt/comfort and found family you could want, with awesome world-building and badass action to round it out.
UGH, MOON. I feel like I spent this whole book in a suspended state of hurt/comfort agony. The good kind, where you're torn between shaking the character and smothering them in hugs. It was fantastic to see him figuring out his place with Indigo Cloud, then getting it taken away, and realizing just how crippled he is about trusting people, even when he wants to. The additional hints of backstory we got were awesome in contribution to that - I mean, his pre-Raksura life was obviously horrible, but I loved the insight we got that his attitude towards sex was (historically) as a tool to get people to be nice to him, among other things. Jesus, this kid is fucked up. And yet, still prone to fling himself into danger for other people without thinking twice. I love that. *hugs*
Though, yikes, his mother is scary! But it's easy to see where he got that stubborn streak. :D Their fights were excellently vicious and raw.
The half-breed Raksura/Fell stuff was impressive - basically dealing with the children of rape and war, with an extra dose of interracial/magical issues and threats. I liked that Moon was so accepting of them, but that it wasn't easy or instinctive. (He was mostly kinda adorably grumpy about having *more* relatives to deal with, and about getting attached to more people he needed to keep from dying. *g*) It seemed like some of the others accepted it a little too easily, but we were so tight in Moon's POV that it was hard to tell, and he's not the best at other people anyway, bless his heart.
The climactic scene with the trapped monster felt a bit truncated, to be honest, and the Aventurans also felt a bit underdeveloped compared to the other races we've encountered, but they weren't the real draw of the book for me anyway. And I can't complain about the action sequences - escape-with-a-fireworks-bomb! Yay, fire! I do wish we had a bit more about how it affected the Fell - do they keep rampaging, or decline? How much of their success and drive was related to siren monster? Why/how did they change so much from the Raksura and their civilization-capable ancestors? - but that's pretty long term/news-from-afar stuff, so I get why we didn't. Maybe in another book? If there is another one? *fingers crossed*
Let's see, what else? Loved Jade in this - how she was both insightful about Moon in some ways (his trust/abandonment issues) and blind about others (the pregnancy stuff). Loved the return of Delin, who is hilarious. Loved Stone, as per usual, but there's never enough of him. Loved the confirmation that Moon and Chime are fuckbuddies, which is adorable. Loved the closure we got at the end, though I still want more (greedy! but, hey, I'm from fandom. There's always more.). Loved to see Moon growing into his leadership role, and coping with the emotional stresses that come with.
Shit, now I want to go re-read the whole series. Noooooo, I need to sleep....
inmyriadbits), then the call center job went insane post-Black Friday, as per usual - at least they feed us for free now that they've taken away our lunch breaks? - and I realized that I am technically working 7 days a week at three separate jobs (call center, employee massage, private practice massage). SO TIRED.But on Sunday, I finally got a chance to sit down and read my copy of
marthawells's The Siren Depths! I've had it since the 17th (delivered while at RenFest, not funny, universe), but I knew I'd want an open night because, as usual, I sat down and didn't stop reading until I was done. I kept getting up for water/snacks and it felt like the clock was a time lapse photo - 9:16pm, 10:34pm, 12:40am. Whoops.For those of you who haven't read the Books of the Raksura: they're awesome. Moon, the main character, is a shapeshifter was orphaned at a young age and doesn't know who or what he is at first. When The Cloud Roads (go look at the gorgeous cover, trust me) starts, he's spent most of his life hiding in his humanoid form, but the rest of the time he looks like this. LOOKIT THOSE WINGS. Pretty, right? Unfortunately, he resembles a race of horrible sociopathic predators called the Fell, so he's forced to hide who he is and has been systematically betrayed, abandoned and attacked since he was a child. Despite this, he is an utter sweetheart. Well, underneath all the trust issues and paranoia and habitual lying and superior combat skills. I'm really fond of his disembowling talons. Shut up.
The first two books involve Moon finding his people, the Raksura, and his continuing adventures with the colony. The Raksura are a wonderfully alien race while still being entirely relatable, with a tendency to be as crotchety and opinionated as they are communal and gossipy. The world is filled with a huge array of other weird and wonderful races who tend to put their settlements in odd places. Cities aren't built next to waterfalls, but on them, or carved inside ancient statues and into giant trees, or set on the backs of sea monsters.
I really really want to live in a mountain-tree. Not that that's relevant. But I really do.
Martha writes a hell of an action scene, and does, repeatedly, but I love all the emotional hell she puts Moon through over the series, and his slow and never-easy adaptation to living with other people and - so help him - eventually trusting and falling in love with some of them. It's all the emotion hurt/comfort and found family you could want, with awesome world-building and badass action to round it out.
UGH, MOON. I feel like I spent this whole book in a suspended state of hurt/comfort agony. The good kind, where you're torn between shaking the character and smothering them in hugs. It was fantastic to see him figuring out his place with Indigo Cloud, then getting it taken away, and realizing just how crippled he is about trusting people, even when he wants to. The additional hints of backstory we got were awesome in contribution to that - I mean, his pre-Raksura life was obviously horrible, but I loved the insight we got that his attitude towards sex was (historically) as a tool to get people to be nice to him, among other things. Jesus, this kid is fucked up. And yet, still prone to fling himself into danger for other people without thinking twice. I love that. *hugs*
Though, yikes, his mother is scary! But it's easy to see where he got that stubborn streak. :D Their fights were excellently vicious and raw.
The half-breed Raksura/Fell stuff was impressive - basically dealing with the children of rape and war, with an extra dose of interracial/magical issues and threats. I liked that Moon was so accepting of them, but that it wasn't easy or instinctive. (He was mostly kinda adorably grumpy about having *more* relatives to deal with, and about getting attached to more people he needed to keep from dying. *g*) It seemed like some of the others accepted it a little too easily, but we were so tight in Moon's POV that it was hard to tell, and he's not the best at other people anyway, bless his heart.
The climactic scene with the trapped monster felt a bit truncated, to be honest, and the Aventurans also felt a bit underdeveloped compared to the other races we've encountered, but they weren't the real draw of the book for me anyway. And I can't complain about the action sequences - escape-with-a-fireworks-bomb! Yay, fire! I do wish we had a bit more about how it affected the Fell - do they keep rampaging, or decline? How much of their success and drive was related to siren monster? Why/how did they change so much from the Raksura and their civilization-capable ancestors? - but that's pretty long term/news-from-afar stuff, so I get why we didn't. Maybe in another book? If there is another one? *fingers crossed*
Let's see, what else? Loved Jade in this - how she was both insightful about Moon in some ways (his trust/abandonment issues) and blind about others (the pregnancy stuff). Loved the return of Delin, who is hilarious. Loved Stone, as per usual, but there's never enough of him. Loved the confirmation that Moon and Chime are fuckbuddies, which is adorable. Loved the closure we got at the end, though I still want more (greedy! but, hey, I'm from fandom. There's always more.). Loved to see Moon growing into his leadership role, and coping with the emotional stresses that come with.
Shit, now I want to go re-read the whole series. Noooooo, I need to sleep....