A sorcerer and a gentleman

Very mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it's well-written, has interesting worldbuilding and character concepts, and focuses on political/social drama rather than a quest or love triangle. On the other hand, it feels very retrograde in some ways - more like a vestige of mid-20th-century lit than a work of '90s fantasy (or maybe my view of '90s fantasy is too rosy). Spoilers will follow.

(Going in, I knew this was a sequel but had been told it works as a stand-alone. I think for the most part it does, although some of the worldbuilding about which countries are which and what's this fiery well? was a little hard to grasp at first. Still confused about some of it, but that's on me for reading Book II first.)

Basic plot summary: Prospero is, of course, a sorcerer in exile with his daughter, the slightly feral Freia. Dewar is a cocky young sorcerer who teams up with young couple Otto and Luneté, a baron and countess-in-her-own-right, respectively. Otto starts a war of independence with the Empire, which then morphs into a war of Prospero vs. Empire, as the Emperor is his brother and usurped his position. Otto captures Freia, then passes her over to the Emperor to use as leverage against P. Dewar frees her and helps her, and the two become close. Prospero is taken down, but makes sure Freia inherits all of his land and titles.

So, I was interested enough to read this whole book, but I never got to the point where I was devouring it - I never got invested - because of three interrelated problems. 1) Lack of compelling emotion in the narrative and characters; 2) the treatment of female characters; 3) plot events seeming to just happen because they happened. I'd write about each one separately, but they all tend to come into play in everything that frustrated me.

For instance, Dewar. I intellectually find him interesting - he's youngish, very talented, bisexual, a fun guy - but never connect with him. This is all very surface stuff. We get hints of a tragic past - one scene reveals that his mother is a cruel sorceress who wants to punish him for running off, and he's still afraid of her - but it comes to nothing: it never appears to inform his actions. He's Otto's friend, but when the opportunity comes up he sleeps with Luneté (who is completely into it), and there's no evidence that this is a gleeful violation of morality, or a change in his feelings toward Otto, or overwhelming attraction, and it has no effect on the rest of the story. It feels like Willey remembered that heroes are supposed to bed hot ladies, so she made it so. Later on, he causes Freia to get captured and chooses not to tell Prospero about it, which leads to her being beaten, interrogated, and raped, and he feels bad about it for roughly five minutes before being annoyed that she's not opening up to him. (Good on him for taking her to Earth to get an abortion, though.) All of his selfish and amoral behavior seems ambiguously approved of, without the emotional satisfaction of a redemption arc or an understanding of why he thinks it's okay to be like this.

Freia herself really has no arc, being an object for most of the plot. (And she's the most present female character! Luneté disappears after Dewar sleeps with her, Miranda - who is, confusingly, not P's daughter - is killed in custody, Neyphile and Oriana pop in for cameos as sorceresses.) She goes to live on her own in the forest for seven years because she rejects her father's plans, she happens upon Dewar when he's wounded and tends to him in a farmhouse (he wants to sleep with her and the reader knows they're half-siblings, which is never really walked back), she tries to take him to Prospero and gets left behind, going from captivity under Otto to a sadistic mercenary to her imperial uncles' palace, then rescued and cared for by Dewar. By the end, she has been completely let down by her father not saving her, and while Dewar kinds of tries to reach her emotionally, he doesn't try very hard. Her shift from loner to leader, through her inheritance, could be an arc, but she's not given enough screen time/action to actually become a leader in and of herself. It actually might have been a five-star book if it had been centered on a journey from Weird Girl In The Woods to a lady commander, but that just didn't happen.

And the other characters, bar Otto - who remains interestingly human - all get this to some extent. Why do they do things? What do they care about? I don't know. These days, I expect a fantasy novel to have much more introspection and naked emotion rather than (I guess) picaresque adventure.

There are comparisons to Chronicles of Amber because of the warring princes, and that's fair, but to me it's the lack of emotional connection and action for action's sake that makes the parallel apt.