The True Queen
Mar. 25th, 2019 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brainwaneI have now read The True Queen, Zen Cho's latest novel! It was diverting but I didn't love it as much as I enjoyed Sorcerer to the Crown.
I think part of the reason is that I have a bit of a hard time with dialogue and character when 2-3 of the major or secondary characters are dismissive, interrupt a lot, are bad at listening, etc. And, I had gotten the idea into my head that in book 2 we'd see Mysore, which turns out not to be the case. But also: in this interview Cho mentions that the POV character in True Queen is a sourcelander:
And, well, I'm a lot more like Zacharias or Prunella than I am like Muna. So I imagine that affects how much I related to the POV character.
And -- I have adored some fantasy, e.g., Steerswoman, several of Cho's & Iona Datt Sharma's works, Ursula Vernon's/T. Kingfisher's and Margaret Killjoy's work, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and more. But right now this particular book is the restaurant where the waiters don't punch me in the face, and I do like that, but .... that doesn't make it enough for me to love a book...
And -- on some level, I think I want fantasy to build up, for more than 1 book, if it wants to get to a "now this person's core identity/the entire world will never be the same!" plot crescendo. Which is also something that, I now realize, also didn't feel right about The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and makes The Dragon Prince less appealing.
Anyway! It has many fine qualities, it's funny in places, it just didn't strike me the way some of her previous work did, but I continue to be a fan of her work!
I think part of the reason is that I have a bit of a hard time with dialogue and character when 2-3 of the major or secondary characters are dismissive, interrupt a lot, are bad at listening, etc. And, I had gotten the idea into my head that in book 2 we'd see Mysore, which turns out not to be the case. But also: in this interview Cho mentions that the POV character in True Queen is a sourcelander:
In Sorcerer to the Crown Zacharias and Prunella are people of colour in a white man’s world and that meant the confrontation with whiteness was clearer, more direct. In True Queen Muna starts off as Malay in Malaya, and then she makes this voyage in to the metropolis....
It was really important to me to portray in Muna someone whose internal axis isn’t aligned by reference to Europe or the West. She’s not in reaction to or in opposition of whiteness; she doesn’t confront it in the same way that Zacharias and Prunella did because it’s just not as much of an issue for her. Her centre is somewhere outside of all of that.
And, well, I'm a lot more like Zacharias or Prunella than I am like Muna. So I imagine that affects how much I related to the POV character.
And -- I have adored some fantasy, e.g., Steerswoman, several of Cho's & Iona Datt Sharma's works, Ursula Vernon's/T. Kingfisher's and Margaret Killjoy's work, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and more. But right now this particular book is the restaurant where the waiters don't punch me in the face, and I do like that, but .... that doesn't make it enough for me to love a book...
And -- on some level, I think I want fantasy to build up, for more than 1 book, if it wants to get to a "now this person's core identity/the entire world will never be the same!" plot crescendo. Which is also something that, I now realize, also didn't feel right about The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and makes The Dragon Prince less appealing.
Anyway! It has many fine qualities, it's funny in places, it just didn't strike me the way some of her previous work did, but I continue to be a fan of her work!
