Windfall, by Rachel Caine
Jun. 16th, 2006 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperWhen it comes to the Weather Warden series by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rachelcaine, I just cannot keep myself away from those books. They are definitely like M&M's--if they are there in front of me, I have to consume them!
So yeah, I tore all the way through Windfall yesterday, pretty much because it was Absolutely Necessary. And in a word: WOW.
First and foremost, re: the fate of David the Uber-Hot: AIE!
Okay, yeah, fine, no real surprises there--anybody who is familiar with a long-running urban fantasy series these days is pretty much not going to be surprised if the lead character and his or her love interest don't get to maintain a stable relationship the entire time, especially if one or both parties are supernatural in some way. It's happened in the Dresden Files. It's happened in the Anita Blakes. It's happened in the Sookie Stackhouses. I totally expect it to happen in Patricia Briggs' new series that started up this year. And gods know it was all over both Buffy and Angel on TV.
If you want to keep your readers (or viewers) on edge and anxious for more, romantic tension is one of the biggest and easiest ways to do it, and this is almost inevitably going to mean that your protagonist is going to have more than one love interest. Sometimes sequentially, sometimes in parallel. And chances are extremely high that your protagonist and the most obvious love interest will have some sort of tragic separation, which may or may not lead to an eventual reunion. The whole idea of One True Love? Not so big in long-running urban fantasy.
But all this said? AIE! Not that I didn't totally expect that David would get cured of being an Ifrit, since we had that telegraphed loud and clear due to seeing two prior cases of this happening--with Sarah and Rahel. Nor was I surprised by David having to take out Jonathan--or really, when you get down to it, David becoming Biggest King Badass of the Djinn in his place. This is, after all, an urban fantasy, and our heroine's love interests pretty much are obliged by Tradition to be the Biggest Supernatural Badasses of their individual types--David in the Djinn and Lewis among the Wardens (and hold that thought on Lewis, I'll get to him in a minute ;) ). But what I didn't see coming was the Djinn all suddenly becoming the Agents of the Vengeance of Mother Earth. I totally should have seen it coming, since we had this telegraphed too--with all the commentary in the previoius book about how the Ma'at were really big on the idea of balance and how they had arisen in part because the Wardens, in their use of their power to save human lives, were actually really throwing the Earth out of whack. And we also know that the Earth in these books is enough of a sentient entity to have pitched a fit when Jonathan had his mortal death--so no big surprise, really, that "the Mother" got pissed when Jonathan had a Djinn death as well.
But GUH, that King Djinn David is now planted firmly on the other side from Joanne of what promises to be one hell of a nasty conflict in Book Five. And he had just enough time for the obligatory tragic parting commentary to Jo, including a scream for her to run, before he went all red-eyed and scary and GUH! At least he's not an Ifrit any more. Sniffle. :)
Meanwhile, we have Lewis still well and thoroughly in the game when it comes to Jo's potential affections. Most interesting indeed that he had those little exchanges with her about the nature of Djinn love--that it is really not love as humans understand it. I really loved the pot-kettle routine she did with him, and that they actually burst into laughter. That was a fabulous scene and a sign that these two really are good together. Jo does get a lot of super-hot sweet lovin' out of David, but how often do we see them just genuinely laughing together? It's a very human thing, and that alone makes me very, very expectant that Lewis is bound to step in to fill the void left by David the Uber-Hot. Well, that and the fact that he smooched her. Very, very passionately. ;)
What else? Man oh man. I liked the side plot with the sister, though her Mysterious British Boyfriend of course had to be a villain of some kind. I spent most of the scenes he was in just waiting for the shoe to drop there. And I really liked that the cop from Vegas, Quinn's former partner, turned out to believe Jo and ultimately was not an asshole.
And I really liked the side plot with Jo's craptacular job at the TV station--and that we got a neat new side character out of it, Cherise. Very, very cool how Jo got her revenge on Marty.
And I really liked the "Interlude" parts--which were cleverly written, because at first I thought they were from Jo's POV and that she was talking about the storm building up off the Florida coast. Once I realized they were from Jonathan's POV and that the storm was in fact a new incarnation of the ancient storm that had led him to make the deal with the Wardens that enslaved the Djinn, that got cooler. Plus, it was a very nifty way to actually get David's taking out of Jonathan on camera; otherwise we as readers would not have seen it, since Jo wasn't there to witness it. And yeah, it was a suitably tragic and epic kind of thing at the end there. Sniffle.
Last but not least, whoa hey, Jo's Djinn daughter is now alive and kicking! Imara! Well, this ought to be entertaining. ;) And a very interesting question as to why she hasn't gotten drafted into the Mother Earth Djinn Army of Vengeance.
All in all, a non-stop barrage of coolness, and I'm really looking forward to Firestorm now. I do find myself wondering how exactly Ms. Caine will be able to top what's going on in that book in future installments--because really, where do you go from having to save humanity from the very planet it lives on, hrmm?
Can't wait to find out!
rachelcaine, I just cannot keep myself away from those books. They are definitely like M&M's--if they are there in front of me, I have to consume them!So yeah, I tore all the way through Windfall yesterday, pretty much because it was Absolutely Necessary. And in a word: WOW.
First and foremost, re: the fate of David the Uber-Hot: AIE!
Okay, yeah, fine, no real surprises there--anybody who is familiar with a long-running urban fantasy series these days is pretty much not going to be surprised if the lead character and his or her love interest don't get to maintain a stable relationship the entire time, especially if one or both parties are supernatural in some way. It's happened in the Dresden Files. It's happened in the Anita Blakes. It's happened in the Sookie Stackhouses. I totally expect it to happen in Patricia Briggs' new series that started up this year. And gods know it was all over both Buffy and Angel on TV.
If you want to keep your readers (or viewers) on edge and anxious for more, romantic tension is one of the biggest and easiest ways to do it, and this is almost inevitably going to mean that your protagonist is going to have more than one love interest. Sometimes sequentially, sometimes in parallel. And chances are extremely high that your protagonist and the most obvious love interest will have some sort of tragic separation, which may or may not lead to an eventual reunion. The whole idea of One True Love? Not so big in long-running urban fantasy.
But all this said? AIE! Not that I didn't totally expect that David would get cured of being an Ifrit, since we had that telegraphed loud and clear due to seeing two prior cases of this happening--with Sarah and Rahel. Nor was I surprised by David having to take out Jonathan--or really, when you get down to it, David becoming Biggest King Badass of the Djinn in his place. This is, after all, an urban fantasy, and our heroine's love interests pretty much are obliged by Tradition to be the Biggest Supernatural Badasses of their individual types--David in the Djinn and Lewis among the Wardens (and hold that thought on Lewis, I'll get to him in a minute ;) ). But what I didn't see coming was the Djinn all suddenly becoming the Agents of the Vengeance of Mother Earth. I totally should have seen it coming, since we had this telegraphed too--with all the commentary in the previoius book about how the Ma'at were really big on the idea of balance and how they had arisen in part because the Wardens, in their use of their power to save human lives, were actually really throwing the Earth out of whack. And we also know that the Earth in these books is enough of a sentient entity to have pitched a fit when Jonathan had his mortal death--so no big surprise, really, that "the Mother" got pissed when Jonathan had a Djinn death as well.
But GUH, that King Djinn David is now planted firmly on the other side from Joanne of what promises to be one hell of a nasty conflict in Book Five. And he had just enough time for the obligatory tragic parting commentary to Jo, including a scream for her to run, before he went all red-eyed and scary and GUH! At least he's not an Ifrit any more. Sniffle. :)
Meanwhile, we have Lewis still well and thoroughly in the game when it comes to Jo's potential affections. Most interesting indeed that he had those little exchanges with her about the nature of Djinn love--that it is really not love as humans understand it. I really loved the pot-kettle routine she did with him, and that they actually burst into laughter. That was a fabulous scene and a sign that these two really are good together. Jo does get a lot of super-hot sweet lovin' out of David, but how often do we see them just genuinely laughing together? It's a very human thing, and that alone makes me very, very expectant that Lewis is bound to step in to fill the void left by David the Uber-Hot. Well, that and the fact that he smooched her. Very, very passionately. ;)
What else? Man oh man. I liked the side plot with the sister, though her Mysterious British Boyfriend of course had to be a villain of some kind. I spent most of the scenes he was in just waiting for the shoe to drop there. And I really liked that the cop from Vegas, Quinn's former partner, turned out to believe Jo and ultimately was not an asshole.
And I really liked the side plot with Jo's craptacular job at the TV station--and that we got a neat new side character out of it, Cherise. Very, very cool how Jo got her revenge on Marty.
And I really liked the "Interlude" parts--which were cleverly written, because at first I thought they were from Jo's POV and that she was talking about the storm building up off the Florida coast. Once I realized they were from Jonathan's POV and that the storm was in fact a new incarnation of the ancient storm that had led him to make the deal with the Wardens that enslaved the Djinn, that got cooler. Plus, it was a very nifty way to actually get David's taking out of Jonathan on camera; otherwise we as readers would not have seen it, since Jo wasn't there to witness it. And yeah, it was a suitably tragic and epic kind of thing at the end there. Sniffle.
Last but not least, whoa hey, Jo's Djinn daughter is now alive and kicking! Imara! Well, this ought to be entertaining. ;) And a very interesting question as to why she hasn't gotten drafted into the Mother Earth Djinn Army of Vengeance.
All in all, a non-stop barrage of coolness, and I'm really looking forward to Firestorm now. I do find myself wondering how exactly Ms. Caine will be able to top what's going on in that book in future installments--because really, where do you go from having to save humanity from the very planet it lives on, hrmm?
Can't wait to find out!
