Homework Assignment #5
Posted By Tracy on July 13, 2011
Homework Assignment #5
Spellcast by Barbara Ashford
Completely unknown book to me. Not much to say, except that I’m not going to go out of my way to prevent spoilers.
The Adult:
Spellcast is an adult novel, from the scattering of intimate scenes (no cut to black here) to the apt usage of obscenity. The first person narrator uses expletives rarely, usually to humor, and always fitting. It lends to her voice, which dominates descriptions of other characters and fades out somewhat for the graphic sex. One of the sex scenes plays to an interesting point, justifying its existence, and there is a later one as a confirmation of the relationship, but beyond that they aren’t doing anything other than emphasizing the adult rating.
The Ancient Inhuman:
Actually, out of the books I’ve read with an old, non human character, this is one of the better examples. Sure, Rowan has been significantly humanized by the time of the story, but his lapses show what he was just as much as the informed/flashbacked past. He only has a couple assigned ‘old’ characteristics, and they blend in with the rest of the description. All in all, he is shown as being not entirely human, not entirely the age presented. This is preferably to say, the vampires of Twilight which only had ‘old’ tags, a few tellings, and a lot of angst for a group that was still within normal human lifespans, or the vampires of Interview With the Vampire, where they angst a lot and either continually blend in with the new society, or get detached and slowly go mad/wither/die.
Granted, vampires have the excuse of having been humans before, and Rowan is merely becoming more human-like, but still, he reads believably well as a non-human character.
He is also an excellent example of the old, depressed, creative Ancient Thing, interacting with humans. I will have to keep it in mind for certain characters and stories that are in need of editing.
The Ending:
I feel like the ending was supposed to be bittersweet, as most separations of lovers tend to be, but the characters involved are so busy being mature and understanding about it that it comes off as merely an indefinite parting. My reaction was decidedly ‘meh, makes sense.’ If the intent was for bittersweet, then it missed, and I’m not sure exactly how it could be altered to hit the mark. Having the characters actually protest against someone else pointing out the necessity might have worked, but it would rob the couple of the agency they struggled to attain.
But he still should have gone on a road trip or something. Two hundred years stuck on the same parcel of land and he didn’t even look over the fence before skedaddling out of the story and the narrator’s life…
I didn’t get more than a chapter into the book before I decided it’s genre was romance (however with the supernatural/mythological/fantastical leaning). It isn’t. Technically the plotline follows the character development, which coincides with the relationship, but since the romance seems to carry the greater weight of the plot, it still read like a romance novel. This led to the later realization that I am unduly critical of romances. My expectations lower and my sarcasm condenses.
This isn’t fair, and I will have to remember this when reading other romance-heavy stories.