There is no doubt that Anne Bishop can write a compelling and entertaining story. The problem is that lurking under that very compelling and entertaining story is an ugly miasma of misogyny and -in this book’s case- racism. While not overtly rapey as The Black Jewels trilogy was, this book is still very much within Anne Bishop’s oeuvre, and that oeuvre means it’s sexist as hell and contains some really disturbing relationships.
The plot is simple enough. A girl, Meg, on the run from people who think they own her finds shelter with The Others. The Others are supernatural creatures that dominate the world, and top of the food chain, but allow humans a small portion to live. There is culture clash and danger as the people seeking Meg attempt to reclaim her.
I’m going to start with what I enjoyed. The bits with the ponies was cute. And I liked the cop’s POV chapters. I liked him quite a bit actually. But of course his ex was a slutty, social climbing, gold-digging bitch who was keeping him from his angelic daughter. Because of course she was.
There are so many problems with this book, I’m not really sure where to begin. The world building? It’s really shoddy, really shoddy. Oh, it’s a very interesting idea but the execution is lacking. I like the idea of humanity not being the top of the food chain and how we might develop differently because of that. The problem is that this is not some strange world completely different from what we know. This is earth, with a few minor changes but has developed EXACTLY as we have. Technology, the idea that we would explore and colonize, etc. The only real difference is that most of the world is inhabited by monsters. But even with those monsters, humanity still somehow managed to come up with all the technology (gunpowder springs to mind as the most egregious example) and has spread out to live in and around these monsters. On top of that, somehow even though humans have been interacting with/running from/living with these monsters for thousands of years the two cultures are completely foreign to each other.
As a side note, if you want to protect humanity- as is laid out in the small alt history lesson prologue- you don’t put them in the Mediterranean, which is the meeting place of THREE continents.
And UGH, I could go on.
But the ugliest part of the world building is the inherent racism. My favorite review on Gooodreads sums up the whole book like this:
You can’t just set a novel in an alt-version of Earth, and then completely replace entire groups of people with monsters and not raise questions of racism. If she had set this novel on a world that wasn’t Earth the problem wouldn’t be quite as evident. But this isn’t some alien place, this is an alternate history Earth. Yes, there are reasons within the novels that humans never expanded beyond the Mediterranean area (until it was convenient for plot reasons), but Bishop is still replacing entire cultures and civilizations with monsters. Also, while the Mediterranean is close to the cradle of civilization, humans started/evolved in Africa. Why the HELL are her humans white Europeans? If they never spread out far from their beginnings, they should be Africans. But nope, Africa is dominated by The Others, as she specifically mentions at one point in the novel.
And then there’s the sexism. Men and women have very specific roles in Bishop’s world and they don’t deviate from them. In one particularly infuriating scene Simon-the male lead- gives Meg a new place to live and says “Some females will be by to get this place human clean” But the whole concept of human clean had only JUST been introduced to any one of The Others. Still a female’s job. And that word “Female” UGH.
Most annoying though is the fact that while there are extremely powerful female Others, it’s men who lead the culture. Seriously, why? Why was Simon the one in charge and not Tess or the quartet of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter? And it’s not that he was the Other face that associated with human’s either. He was the boss in charge of that whole area.
And that’s not even getting to the fact that Simon represents my least favorite trope when dealing with werewolves. I love werewolf stories. I love them. Werewolves are my favorite monster. But unfortunately a lot of the stories that play with the werewolf mythos are sexist and have the ugly alpha asshole stereotype. And Simon is absolutely no different. It’s as though in trying to make these werewolves more like animals the authors, and Bishop in this case, simply highlights the worst traits of humanity and calls that animalistic.
Also, the plot moppet annoyed me.
Quick Edit: And I completely forgot to mention how disturbing I found the relationship between Meg and Simon. Meg reads MAYBE 16 in the novel. She’s supposed to be around 24, but because she’s so sheltered she’s just very young. VERY YOUNG. So the developing relationship between her and Simon is just… no thanks.
Doh. I’m sorry I recommended this to you. Everything you’ve said is so true. A lot of the issues I let pass because this was literally the first “urban fantasy” or whatever this genre is called that I had ever read. I should know better then to accept sexist/ racist tropes just because I’m on unfamiliar ground. I admit that I didn’t expect much from the world-building so it didn’t bother me that it was weak.
I haven’t read the rest of the series and I guess I hoped that Meg would get more powerful, which would resolve some Issues? I dunno.
That’s ok. I was a little puzzled at first but figured you’d turned your critical brain off while reading. Something I have totally done, especially in genres I’m not as familiar with. For example, I absolutely see all the problems with Fifty Shades of Grey, but I also enjoyed it while I was reading it. Because I turned the critical brain off, and romance in general is not a genre I read a lot.
My biggest issue with Urban Fantasy, even though I honestly love it, is that it is FULL of misogynist and racist tropes. It can be better, but unfortunately it very rarely is. I tend to be pretty hard on the genre because I have read books that are fun and yet also don’t fall into those tropes. And I get the feeling that while Meg will probably grow in power, she’ll stay the same child-like naïve girl. Because I’m getting the feeling that’s how Bishop likes her female protagonists.
Knowing it was the beginning of a series, I kind of assumed that some of the issues would be solved or developed in later books, but if you are saying that it’s this author’s MO I doubt I’ll bother to find out.
I liked elements of it. I liked how the Others were so not-human, rather than just extra-sexy furry people. Didn’t much care for Meg’s super -powerful powerlessness. Like, they were all fascinated by her while constantly threatening her and controlling her every action.
Can you recommend better, less problematic books in this vein?
To be fair, the only other books I’ve read by Bishop are The Black Jewels trilogy. But Meg is very similar to the heroine from that book in a lot of ways. The child-like innocence is definitely part of that similarity, so that’s where I’m basing my judgment. I’ve been trying to talk myself into reading this months VF pick, which is another Anne Bishop novel, but all the negative reviews have a similar complaint which is why I think it’s a common trope for Bishop.
Seanan McGuire. ALL OF IT. The October Daye books are Fae based, and with some of the older Fae it’s clear that human is very far from what they are. But her InCryptid novels, which start with Discount Armageddon, have supernatural cultures that are in no way human-but also have to fit into human society because humans are the dominant species. It’s all done exceptionally well. Her books go on my autobuy list. The InCryptid novels are told from the POV of humans though, so I’m not sure if that’s what you’re looking for. But as a bonus, she offers a lot of free short stories set in her various worlds on her website so you can go and get a taste of her writing to see if you’ll like it. I’d suggest starting with the InCryptid short stories as the October Daye ones will probably make less sense if you haven’t read the books. (I may or may not have spent a whole day just reading story after story recently).
Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty books are probably my favorite werewolf books ever. Kitty is a DJ who also happens to be a werewolf. Her growth arc is a personal favorite, though I’ve known a few people who can’t get past the first book because she is quite weak. I am very sad that the series is over.
I have some issues with Patricia Briggs, she suffers a little from antiquated gender ideals and tends to fall into the other-women-are-evil trap, but her Mercy Thompson books (Moon Called is the first book) are fairly decent, especially early on in the series. Similarly, Illona Andrews’ Kate Daniels (Starting with Magic Bites) are pretty good. Both of these series have shapeshifters that don’t fall into the furry people category. Though they do occasionally fall into the alpha-asshole trope unfortunately.
Awesome. Thanks for the recs! I’m going in.
My mom had recommended Ilona Andrews too, but since she gave me this Bishop book…. Well. She’s 68 years old, so I’m going to give her a pass. :)
I love reccing books, almost as much as I enjoy reading them. And Andrews is good, though I’m not nearly as enamored with the books as a lot of UF enthusiasts are. I haven’t read the latest one, and I’m not sure that I will as I think the story reached a pretty satisfying conclusion with the previous novel* and I don’t care enough about Kate (and I HATE Curran) to continue.
*I do that sometimes. I did it with The Dresden Files too. If a story reaches a satisfying conclusion and feels like a natural stopping point, I just stop and for me the character’s stories are over. There’s just only so much time in the world and if I’m not driven by a NEED to see what happens next, and neither am I so in love with the characters/writing that I’m willing to spend time with them no matter what they do, then why bother continuing.
I’ve already downloaded and read a McGuire short story and loved it so I’m going to get more. Thanks!
(I’m able to let go of a series when I’m ready, too. I don’t need sequels and reboots forever, sometimes it’s better to just stop, right? Be done.)
YAY! She’s one of my favorite authors. AND she just seems like a cool person. She’s one of the few people I follow on Twitter.
(And totally. I’ve been told I’m weird for that ability though)
Nooooooo! Give Illona Andrews a couple of tries! Malin and I both love her and we can’t both be wrong. It’s science. The first book in the Kate Daniels series, Magic Bites, is rough, but from the third book on the series is very good.
Seanan McGuire is amazing and I love her October Daye series.
I’m into McGuire now and I’m putting Ilona Andrews on my list. You’ve never steered me wrong!
Oh, and if you’re looking for an alt-history earth then Holly Black’s Curse Workers trilogy is really interesting. I have some minor quibbles with the world building, but overall think it’s an excellent novel. They’re all humans though.
I couldn’t finish this due to the detailed descriptions of Megs filing, office organization, and errand running. Pages and pages of office work. This is, of course, in addition to the spot on points you raise.
A LOT Of the reviews I read definitely mentioned this as a negative. I didn’t notice them at all. I have a habit of skimming over technical details that bore me, something I developed as a defense mechanism while reading technical sci-fi books, and probably applied that here without even noticing that I was doing it.
Oh good – my to-read list is already too long, and now I can remove this book from it. Sorry you had to go through it but your review was incredibly fun (probably more so than the book).
I’m glad you liked it. And I love it when a bad review hits enough points that I can remove a book from my TBR pile. Life is just too short for sexist books, you know?
On the other hand there is SO MUCH praise going on for this month’s Vaginal Fantasy book, another of Anne Bishop’s works, that I’m tempted to hate read it just so I can rail against it on the forums over there and maybe wake some of them up to the misogyny Bishop perpetrates in her novels. I’m not super tempted, so it’s unlikely to happen. But slightly tempted.
Holy crap the newest one is EVEN WORSE. It involves the black police officer’s criminal brother.
Their mother came to the town and automatically volunteered to be a cleaning lady and like every stereotype and it was SO BAD SO BAD oh my GOD so bad I am real glad I’m a bad person and obtained the book without the use of currency because YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
Criminal brother’s youngest son is trying to pimp out his little sister. Criminal brother’s wife is a prostitute. They do DRUGS. Like half of the descriptions focus lovingly on the dude being not-white and I am just still reeling from how rEALLY BAD IT WAS.
I’m a terrible person, but other people hating on these books gives me life. So I’m glad you stopped by to tell me about it.
Oh thank goodness its not just me. I had never read a Bishop book before. I had asked for recommendations for relatively clean non-YA fantasty (I’m tired of reading from a teenager’s perspective, but since they are usually PG I gravitate towards them). Several people recommended this series. I bought the first book and I about put it down in the prologue. But kept up with it. Like you said, Bishop is a very talented writer, but when I got to the part about Simon hearing from the Others’ leader in Afrikah I about howled. I had already recognized what happened in “North America.” Although, I had missed/misread that the Humans were from the Mediterranean. I thought it was Europe based on what was stated.
One of my other big complaints was that I felt the world building was so lazy! Moonsday. Sunsday. Really?!?!