silver

POST BOOK BRAIN DUMP:

Andevai has completely lost it. Actually I'm pretty sure throughout the entirety of Cold Magic he's been besotted. Look at what he says about Cat, when he explains what he saw when they first met? I read what he does and says, and all I can see is how infatuated he is. It's probably fortunate the novels aren't from his POV, for he sounds very distracted! Also, his behaviour, oh my god. I don't think I've ever met a character so arrogant and still liked him.



But I do love him, much more than I ought to.



Didn't like the writing out of accents much, although at least Elliott dropped the th-stopping (converting th sounds into d) after awhile.

I like that Kayleigh got some semblance of her life in her hands. Loyalty is one thing, as I think I said already, but what she was doing was putting others ahead of herself--you've got to live, too, Kayleigh. Though I guess that explains why Andevai greeted her immediately when they approached Four Moons House--they're obviously close, as obviously as Duvai and Andevai are not close.

(I keep expecting Duvai's name to be a shortened version of "Anduvai". It would have made good symmetry!)

I love how Elliott drops in little moment where Andevai agonizes over which jacket to wear. It's so common in fiction to have well-dressed people who are magically just like that; it was fun to see Andevai's dilemma while getting dressed (and Cat and Kofi laughing at him for it). Also the part where he buys Cat sandals and says they're cheap, and she tells him later they weren't cheap at all. He retorts that if she'd become accustomed as he had to the price of his clothes, she'd think the sandals were cheap too.

Also, darling Cat, why do you refer to him as "my husband" all the time when you don't like him?! It's like poking at an aching tooth. Just call him "THAT COLD MAGE", "the overdressed fop", or Andevai, or something. (I like his full name better than his nickname, I've got to say.)

This line I want illustrated:

I imagined hungry young women buzzing like bees to a succulently annoyed flower.

CAT PUNCHES A SHARK.

I'm just gonna leave that there.

Bee's commentary about everything was absolutely priceless. Oh, Bee, never change! I would love to see her sketchbook.

When Drake was like "the only way to clear the ghoul infestation dooming you to an agonizing death and 'afterlife' is to have sex with me" my mind went: "uhhhhhhh", because that's the quintessential set-up. Wow, Drake. That's some coercion you've got going there. I've looped right round to admiration, because what better threat?! Then again, the threat of salters is held over the heads of the citizens of Adurnam, too--those prison hulks aren't transporting prisoners to Australia, they're there to infect people.

It took me till about halfway through Magic to realize who Camjiata was in our timeline. I kept wondering where on earth Napoleon was--it is a requirement of every early-19th-century novel to deal with Napoleon one way or another--and then when they mentioned Camjiata had been imprisoned on an island, all the talk about his dreams of empire, his legal code, his disciplined army, seemed to fall into place. Interesting that he comes out of Iberia instead though. France is curiously silent in this affair--actually, most of the countries are, because the politics don't revolve around temporal power at all, except for Camjiata. The politicking is all about the mages instead; indeed, Camjiata is defeated by a coalition of cold mages.

Neat thing: the call backs! Like the one where Bee says, in the middle of Cold Fire, "Yet I still haven't seen a single plump deer, much less one running exceedingly slowly" (page 389) which is a reference to Cold Magic page 407, i.e.: "What do you think dragons dream of, Cat?" "Plump deer who run exceedingly slowly". (I had to google for the page numbers, because I thought both quotes were from one book.)

I really didn't like the last journal of Daniel's though. Ooof, much too on the nose for me.