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Lissibith

Inkspot Fancy

Comics and fantasy and sci-fi, oh my!

Currently reading

The House on the Borderland
William Hope Hodgson
Dust and Light: A Sanctuary Novel
Carol Berg
The Dead
Jen Hickman, Robert James Maddox
Deadlands: Dead Man's Hand
David Gallaher, Jeff Mariotte, Jimmy Palmiotti
Ghost Hunt 2
Shiho Inada, Fuyumi Ono
Devil Survivor 1
Satoru Matsuba
SPOILER ALERT!

Redemption is indeed not easy

The Inexplicables - Cherie Priest

Oh, The Inexplicables. Where do I begin?

 

I wanted to like this. While there were hits and misses in the other Clockwork Century books I've read, I've always enjoyed them. Usually I had trouble putting them down. But this one juust didn't do it for me.

 

The Inexplicables is about Rector, a teenaged orphan and occasional sap (drug) user haunted by his conviction that he got his friend killed in the zombie-infested walls of Seattle. So the night before he turns 18 and gets kicked out of the orphanage, he decides to strike out on his own, try to find his friend's body so he can put the ghost to rest. At that point, a large part of Rector seems to believe he'll just die in some manner. After all, he has nowhere to go, and he knows his future as a sap addict is not a pretty one.

 

But when he gets into Seattle, he finds his awareness of life and how it's gone for others and will go for himself is woefully wrong. This leads him to a decision - does he continue on his previous hopeless, self-destructive path, or does he try to become someone... maybe not better, exactly, but different?

 

The big thing about this book that I think will make or break your enjoyment of the book is Rector. He's... how shall I put this. He's an ass. He's a selfish, whiny, lazy, self-serving, sap-addicted mess of a person at the beginning of the book. He's not terribly much better by the end. And we're in his head the entire time, so we get to see this step by painful step. Only when I say painful... eh, here there be spoilers.

 

First off, Rector's search for redemption lasts about ten minutes after he gets inside, at which point he gets chased by a monster, falls through a hole and injured himself. And when he wakes up, almost all of his problems have been solved, like a fairy godmother stopped by on her way down to Cinderella's place. He's been unconscious for most of the worst part of his sap detox, and while he occasionally thinks about having some afterward, it feels more like it's out of habit than real desire. He's allowed to pick a room and stay with the people who saved him after his fall. And it turns out his friend Zeke is actually alive and well, and more than willing to let Rector back into his life and put up with his whining.

 

And this is the major problem I had with immersion. It wasn't just that I disliked Rector as a character. I can enjoy a book with an unlikeable character. It's that his obstacles often seem to get whisked out of the way through no work of his own. It's that while he does experience actual character growth, it's so slight and so vague that it feels more like it's a result of the situations and not an actual change of character.

 

Having said all that, a lot of characters I loved from earlier books are here, the prose remains as quick and engaging as ever, and Seattle continues to be one of the most immersive fantasy locations I've encountered in books. There were times I found myself starting to hold my breath as the thick air and growing rot of the city were described in just the right amount of detail. And I don't think Rector was unsalvageable, he just didn't work for me. The side plot invoked in the title is pretty good too, especially if the series is starting to head toward its conclusion. I think a lot of people who enjoyed the earlier books will like this, and I wanted to like it SO much. But it just didn't work for me.