_Fated Blades_, Ilona Andrews
Nov. 23rd, 2021 12:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutIt’s been a while since Ilona Andrews have blessed us with a story set in the Kinsmen universe. Like, a decade? Reading a teaser beginning on the blog was delightful, and finally, _Fated Blades_ has dropped. The cover art had also had an early reveal; it continues to delight.
It’s nice to be back on Dahlia, but the skill set of this batch of kinsmen seems new and completely entrancing. Also, we get a glimpse of the wild parts of Dahlia, and some of the early, abandoned settlements, in the form of a temple Our Hero and Heroine take refuge in — reminiscent of a JAK novel, in a variety of ways, and tons of fun.
While Ramona and Matias start out partnered, it is a partnership born of crisis, and complicated from the very beginning by their mutual betrayal (his wife and her husband have decamped together with Romana and Matias’ secret development projects’ information). The visit to the Davenports is weirdly fun, and gives us multiple new perspectives on Ramona, the kinsmen universe, etc.
Why was this the first SF story I’ve read that involved a happily married pair of husbands who have a child together? So much SF has embedded in it, simultaneously, mechanisms for all of the components of making that happen — the ability to blend genetic info from n-contributors into a fertilized gamete, the ability to nurture that gamete into a baby without the need for a human vessel. It’s out there, over and over and over, and yet, here is the first time I see it all come together with (exactly) two dads. (There’s some much more complex stuff out there, I know.)
The fight scenes are well-written, as always.
The development of the relationship between Ramona and Matias, fraught with mutual, gut-wrenching revelations from their individual, recent family, and deep ancestral pasts. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a novella built on a foundation of a two-way Truth and Reconciliation Process, but here we are. And I love every minute of it.
Trying to talk myself out of rereading it immediately ; will probably fail. Highly recommend. I think you do not need to read the other Kinsmen stories first, but honestly, they are short and fun so why wouldn’t you?
It’s nice to be back on Dahlia, but the skill set of this batch of kinsmen seems new and completely entrancing. Also, we get a glimpse of the wild parts of Dahlia, and some of the early, abandoned settlements, in the form of a temple Our Hero and Heroine take refuge in — reminiscent of a JAK novel, in a variety of ways, and tons of fun.
While Ramona and Matias start out partnered, it is a partnership born of crisis, and complicated from the very beginning by their mutual betrayal (his wife and her husband have decamped together with Romana and Matias’ secret development projects’ information). The visit to the Davenports is weirdly fun, and gives us multiple new perspectives on Ramona, the kinsmen universe, etc.
Why was this the first SF story I’ve read that involved a happily married pair of husbands who have a child together? So much SF has embedded in it, simultaneously, mechanisms for all of the components of making that happen — the ability to blend genetic info from n-contributors into a fertilized gamete, the ability to nurture that gamete into a baby without the need for a human vessel. It’s out there, over and over and over, and yet, here is the first time I see it all come together with (exactly) two dads. (There’s some much more complex stuff out there, I know.)
The fight scenes are well-written, as always.
The development of the relationship between Ramona and Matias, fraught with mutual, gut-wrenching revelations from their individual, recent family, and deep ancestral pasts. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a novella built on a foundation of a two-way Truth and Reconciliation Process, but here we are. And I love every minute of it.
Trying to talk myself out of rereading it immediately ; will probably fail. Highly recommend. I think you do not need to read the other Kinsmen stories first, but honestly, they are short and fun so why wouldn’t you?