08-06-2014, 10:13 AM
I haven't wanted to stop reading a book this badly in a long time. But I finished, wading through my discontent, in the hopes the early promise of the novel would come back around from its nadir. It didn't. It set itself up for the sequel of what will probably be a trilogy. Worst of all, I paid for this book rather than getting it from the library. That really makes it bad.
It's a western with magic in a reimagined United States. Elim and Sil are failing to sell their horses when Sil, the naive whipper snapper, decides to sneak across the border into wild country to sell them there. Sil, the old hand and maybe a bit slow, is forced to follow him. How he is forced to follow him, I never quite made out. That happens a lot in the book. A lot of things happen because they need to happen for the story to move forward.
So they do and they end up in Sixes which is a town lost in the border wars to the natives, which are akin to the Native Americans but not really. They are basically animal forms taking human shape. Everyone in the town has their own language and they all fall into different groups. The crow people are actually crows. The fish people are actually fish. They all are at odds with each other. I don't know if I quite figure it out. But one thing they do love is horses. No explanation ever give why.
Elim and Sil end up in the town. Elim is forced to drink until he is drunk. Sil plays some variation of Faro but the rules are opaque, but I think he wins. Elim is tricked into shooting, I guess, a high ranking town member. But is handled so badly I am never quite sure if Elim killed the guy or he is tricked into thinking he did. So, Elim is hung up in the street to sun bake all day. Sil, who is an idiot, tries to work out a plan to free him. Other things to keep in mind, Elim is half-breed and Sil is pureblood. For some reason Elim could be or not important to the town people because of his half-breed status.
One night in Sixes takes the course of three nights for the story. There are kings that are fish. There is a dead part of town. One of the more interesting or lucid characters sleeps with dead people as part of her profession or calling. Some of the town folk only come out at night.
This was a mess of a book and the only person I cared about was Elim in the beginning. But he spent most of the book hung up by his hands in the street while the plot whirled around him.
No sword fights.
It's a western with magic in a reimagined United States. Elim and Sil are failing to sell their horses when Sil, the naive whipper snapper, decides to sneak across the border into wild country to sell them there. Sil, the old hand and maybe a bit slow, is forced to follow him. How he is forced to follow him, I never quite made out. That happens a lot in the book. A lot of things happen because they need to happen for the story to move forward.
So they do and they end up in Sixes which is a town lost in the border wars to the natives, which are akin to the Native Americans but not really. They are basically animal forms taking human shape. Everyone in the town has their own language and they all fall into different groups. The crow people are actually crows. The fish people are actually fish. They all are at odds with each other. I don't know if I quite figure it out. But one thing they do love is horses. No explanation ever give why.
Elim and Sil end up in the town. Elim is forced to drink until he is drunk. Sil plays some variation of Faro but the rules are opaque, but I think he wins. Elim is tricked into shooting, I guess, a high ranking town member. But is handled so badly I am never quite sure if Elim killed the guy or he is tricked into thinking he did. So, Elim is hung up in the street to sun bake all day. Sil, who is an idiot, tries to work out a plan to free him. Other things to keep in mind, Elim is half-breed and Sil is pureblood. For some reason Elim could be or not important to the town people because of his half-breed status.
One night in Sixes takes the course of three nights for the story. There are kings that are fish. There is a dead part of town. One of the more interesting or lucid characters sleeps with dead people as part of her profession or calling. Some of the town folk only come out at night.
This was a mess of a book and the only person I cared about was Elim in the beginning. But he spent most of the book hung up by his hands in the street while the plot whirled around him.
No sword fights.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit