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Post by Rosie on Oct 14, 2018 19:53:18 GMT 10
Welcome to our October read-a-long!
Blurb:
Evvy, a young stone mage in training, is accompanying her mentor, Rosethorn, and another dedicate from Winding Circle while they investigate mysterious happenings on the island of Starns. Her job is to listen and learn, but, being Evvy, she can't just keep quiet and do nothing. With the help of Luvo, the rock being she befriended at her home in Yanjing, Evvy discovers the source of the problem -- a long-dormant volcano. Now she and her friends must save the islanders from impending disaster -- if only Evvy can use her talents to avert the certain destruction that looms ahead.
What did you make of this one? Do you consider it a good addition to the Emelan-verse?
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Post by devilinthedetails on Oct 16, 2018 7:49:41 GMT 10
Melting Stones to me has the overall feeling of a fairly quick, light read. Despite the volcano (which it takes the mages a bit too long to figure out is causing the issues on the islands in my opinion), there is a comedic touch to a lot of the story. Master Fusspot comes across as a so stuffy as to be humorous (which I believe was the intention) and Luvo does a good job of being amusing in an ancient being sort of way. I enjoyed a lot of the characters like Luvo, Jayat, and Oswin introduced in this book. Also like that we are shown what Evvy and Rosethorn are up to while Will of the Empress is happening and to have the hints of the impact that the pirate queen's death in Tris' book had on her daughter. It was a bit disappointing to not have that Evvy and Briar relationship that I enjoyed so much in Street Magic. Of the student and teacher pairs developed in the Circle Opens books, that was my favorite one so I would have loved seeing it develop more.
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Post by Kypriotha on Oct 19, 2018 7:28:44 GMT 10
I've only read Melting Stone once, just after it came out, and I didn't enjoy it as much as the other Circle books. I think that was partly having Evvy as a first person narrator (something we've never had in a Circle book and only once in the Tortall books - and I like Beka as a narrator a lot more than Evvy) and partly because I read the book and it was actually written as an audio book.
It also might have been because it didn't involve any of the four or because I don't enjoy Tammy's attempts to fill in gaps in the Circle books (i.e. Battle Magic). Luvo was also a bit of a strange and sudden appearance, although I didn't dislike him as a character or plot device.
Other than that, it's been so long since I've read Melting Stones (and it's one of the only Tammy books I don't own), that I can't really make any other comments on it - although I do have a vague recollection of Evvy not liking other people, including other children, which on the one hand I can understand, given her past, but on the other hand, it felt too similar to other common tropes in young adult fiction and media where the main character "isn't like the other girls" and doesn't get along with people for me to be entirely comfortable with it.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Oct 19, 2018 9:42:51 GMT 10
Kypriotha, I definitely had a bit of an adjustment to the first person narration of Melting Stones when I re-read it. I wasn't certain if it was a flaw in the narration or if it was just the fact that my default for reading Tamora Pierce books is the third person narration so I had to make the change mentally. I do feel that there is a certain childishness that verges on brattiness at times in Evvy's narration which perhaps is why the work as a whole feels lighter to me than the previous book, Will of the Empress. It was an interesting stylistic choice to write the book from Evvy's perspective, and I'm not entirely sure that it was necessary. I did prefer the Evvy we meet in Street Magic to this version of Evvy, however, though I sympathize with the trauma she has suffered.
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Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!