Title: The Rune Mage

Author: KatrinHollister

Genre: Fantasy

Quick Summary: Oh, rune it all.

Thoughts:

The first reaction I had to getting to this book was a bit of a grimace - not because of the author or the subject matter or anything like that, but because of the length. It became even more concerning to me when I realized that not only was this book 100 chapters, the sequel is only 37. 

That's... Quite the difference. 

And having read all 100 chapters, I really have to say that this book was longer than it should have been. That was my first issue with it.

Don't get me wrong. I love fantasy novels above most other genres, and I love having a lot of it to read, but by the time I was 3/4ths through this book, while I was generally liking what I read, the pacing itself frustrated me. Immensely so. I read this book every chance I had and sometimes, it dragged. 

That said, there's a lot of elements to this book that I liked. Seiren is, at times, a fun character to hate [more on her later]. Maura, rest her soul, was probably my favorite lady. I'm weak for stern, intelligent women and she was that and more. The Woodbeads in general were quick the trip to read about. Loren, too. There's a lot of people and names going around, and a lot of differing personalities, so even if you don't like one character, there's probably a different character that will suit your fancy instead. Though, have to say, think there might have been too many POVs used.

But... Seiren. I'm very conflicted. I liked her, then I wanted to like her, then she did some very bad things and then her characterization got steamrolled a bit before moving along like normal. Which is kind of my second problem. The arc about her human experimentation is good in theory, but the execution left much to be desired. It's a needed arc. And yet... there's a couple of things about this arc that tarnish the rest of the experience - including my feelings regarding Seiren. See, in the sliding scale of morality, human experimentation is on the darker end of grey. And that's fine - a lot of this book centers on differences in morality and whatnot. Here's my issue. Seiren gets into it. Like. Really into it. So into it that, as a reader, it was kinda scary, but I could deal with it and would have accepted it with the proper responses and handling. And Madeleine's reaction to it was so adverse, I really thought it was going to be a bigger conflict down the line. I was fine with that. 

Except, instead, Madeleine is stolen for a little bit and Seiren gets her ass kicked and then immediately decides to walk away from her experiments. Oh, and the fighting they had? The ones where Madeleine screamed and cried and tried very hard to reason with her sister before going sullen and silent and resentful and [rightfully] angry? All but forgotten.

I get it. These two's relationship is very important. So is the human experimentation. You can have both, but this really wasn't the way to have it. It left me incredibly frustrated and disillusioned. Either have her strive to do these bad things and have it carry through the narrative, or don't have it at all.

The magic system was a lot to wrap my head around. Like everything else in this book, readers aren't handed all the pieces right away. They're handed information one puzzle piece at a time, and they have to put it together as the story progresses - which is a lot of fun! There were several instances where this handing of clues was clever. But with the magic system... not as much. We start with a basic understanding: there's rune magic and burst magic in Karma, and the summoning magic in Hanna, and that's what we see people use. Then flash magic gets added. Then chaos magic. And then suddenly I'm trying to figure out how many official schools of magic there actually ARE and the nuances within all of them. And a lot of the magic works well together and relation to each other, but it did come to a point where it kind of felt like kitchen sink syndrome.

Also can we talk about swearing for a second? I'm assuming this world doesn't have a hell, so I don't know why we use it. Though, I too fall in this trap as a fantasy author. Really, the bigger... thing is other swears. It's all "rune this" and "blast that" which is cute and kind of funny, but I'm trying to understand why the swear words in this world are also the official names of magic branches as well. It'd be like being in this world and saying I specialize in fuck magic, then saying fuck it all. Do you see what I mean?

In general, I think one of the biggest selling points of this novel is the plot itself and, as previously stated, the characters. It's not just about Seiren. It's not just about impending war. Oftentimes, the two intermingle so closely - for a variety of reasons - and it's quite well done. There's a lot of nuance that gets explored - that needs to get explored. 

The final issue I would like to touch on, and I was hesitant to touch on, is the diversity factor. 

There are a lot of people in this book. There are a lot of personalities in this book. There's a lot of shedding of expectations - both within the readers and within the book itself. And yet, I found there a couple of nagging tropes and characters that made me... puzzled. Of this entire cast, I can only recall two of them being people of color, and of either of them, one is a crazed, chaotic man content with siding with whomever will let him kill people in fun ways. The other guy is a prime antagonist, killed Seiren's dad and sister, wants to instate genocide, and ends up dying. It really saddens me that I couldn't note counterexamples to these characters like I could anyone else. And in a book rife with diversions to tropes, I didn't really see that here.

My other gripe was with Tesla. She was cool. She was starting to grow on me. And then she died. And I'm upset about it for a couple of reasons. A) Just in general, it really didn't seem like she needed to die? Casualties happen in war and in this plot for a myriad of reasons, most of them fine and good, but when I read her death scene I was very... puzzled. She made decisions that make no sense to me. It makes me wonder why she was killed at all. B) Right before she dies, she has a heart-felt moment with another character - a woman - and I don't know if I'm reading too much into it or if I did in fact read it right, but it came across that they were either lesbians or at least had romantic feelings for each other. And then she just. Dies. This is the sort of scene people point to when talking about Bury Your Gays. Her death didn't make much sense, her feelings revealed only really in the last scene she features in, and she was one of the only queer people I could openly identify - and that's if I'm right. And I'm... really tired of this trope. Really, really, really tired of it.

Don't mistake all of my criticism for disliking The Rune Mage. Despite my frustrations and my confusion with a lot of the choices made, I did have fun for most of it. Would I read it again? Probably not in its current state. As I say with most books, a good round of editing would really make this book shine.