Review: Glass Sword: Victoria Aveyard

WARNING:  THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR RED QUEEN.

One more falls from the TBR.

Glass Sword is the second instalment in Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen series, and picks up exactly where the dramatic climax of Red Queen left off. I really enjoyed Red Queen and when the sequel landed on my kindle in February I was keen to read it – just as soon as I’d finished Pierce Brown’s, Morning Star, because damn that series is awesome – I’ll blog about it later. I digress I was keen to start reading and as soon as I had a moment I started. And got stuck swiftly. I was not the only one of my reader friends to find themselves in such a situation.

I really enjoyed Red Queen when I read it last year – Set in a society  with strong ancient roman/latin influencethe story of the red blooded Mare Barrow from a slum town close to the summer palace of the silver blooded Royal family. In this world the red blooded are subjugated workers – little more than slave underclass – the gifted silver overlords rule with stone fists, blazing fire, siren voices, magneto-like power over metal, Neptune’s control over water and wield plants like a deadly Demeter.

But Mare upsets all of that, when she accidentally unmasks herself as a red with the power of a silver as she unwittingly electrifies Queenstrial.

Thrown into the world of Silver Machinations whilst entangled in the Red rebellion, The Scarlet Guard, Mare finds herself caught between the Crown Prince, Cal, that landed her in the first place and his younger brother, who seems understands her more than she could ever have hoped for in this silver hell and to whom she has been betrothed.

Obviously it doesn’t end well and she ends up on the run with Cal escaping the clutches of the King and Queen.

This is where we find them at the start of Glass Sword. Which despite a blistering opening sequence, slowly crawls into a swamp and moves glacially. With endless faffing around with the red guard and then in the woods as they gather together more newbloods, (reds with silver abilities), to their cause.

On twitter, the author, Aveyard, is outspoken and commonly found arguing with incensed Trump supporters – not necessarily an ignoble cause, but amongst those tweets she levelled comments at reviews who slate novels on the grounds on the grounds of unlikeable characters – specifically female ones.

Well, I’m not here to slate, but Mare IS unlikeable. She is blindly selfish and whilst it’s realistic it doesn’t sit well because she spends so much time whining. When a new character states that she feels that Mare is doing exactly as the Silvers did when they first emerged before the subjugation of the Reds I couldn’t help but agree, in the first book her motivations were purely to keep herself and her best friend off the frontlines, and the second book her actions are driven purely by her hatred of Elara and Maven.

It’s important to not that I genuinely did enjoy Red Queen. It was snappy, pacey, and tense, however a large section of Glass Sword feels lost – Cal is a sullen hollow shell, Kilorn is sulking, Mare’s neuroses are now so old hat I’m bored, the feeling that Farley exists simply to fulfill the role of badass female soldier is nagging and Shade is criminally underused before being used as an emotional mangle.

The rigours of war are harsh but Glass Sword is unrelenting with the barest of gallows humour, the scant occasions usually provided by Shade and once by a delirious Cal. Mare is so depressed and spiralling that the gloom pervades everything to the point that at one point I was unsure if I wasn’t reading the fantasy version of The
Bell Jar.  The puppet King’s pantomine distance taunting in his sociopathically savage notes to Mare, who even when he makes his few physical appearences has all the unreality of a half remembered nightmare.

Thankfully it picks up massively in the third act when there is a definite sense of purpose rather than we may or may not get a hold of some more new bloods who for the most part feel incidental to the story, except Nanny – I want Nanny to be my friend. The final act is savage and the darkness feels purposeful. Every victory also a savage defeat and setting the stage for an explosive start to  the next book, King’s Cage.

Aveyard also published two short stories, Queen Song and Steel Scars, (availiable as eBook, or physically in the Cruel Crown collection). I loved Queen Song which tells the story and background of Cal’s mother, the Queen before Elara, Coriane. Heartbreaking and gorgeous it sets the scene perfectly for the political nightmare Mare finds herself in. Steel Scars is less so focusing on Farley, it sets the scene for the state of the Scarlet Guard as Mare finds it in Red Queen and much like Glass sword was a bit of a slog.  This story is most definitely at it’s best when the worlds of Red and silver collide.

I’ll be reading King’s Cage because now I’ve come this far I need to see this through to the end and I’m hoping with the ending the way it is the story is about to explode.
Beth.