Infidel

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Karen Munro, February 22, 2012 (view all comments by Karen Munro)
This is the second in a trilogy, with the third book not yet out. The first book established protagonist Nyx as a hard-ass loner and emotionally repressed (super)hero. This one picks up several years later, after the dust of those adventures has settled. Nyx is older, creakier, approaching an age that almost no-one in her line of work ever reaches. She's getting a little more reflective, a little less certain. She's also, possibly, getting a little idealistic in her old age--or at least developing deeper conflicts about Queen and country, and the never-ending war.

The story clicks along at a great pace, with plenty of action and intrigue. Because this is the second act of a three-act work, we also see the characters at some of their lowest points. Nyx took a boatload of punishment in the last book, but it's nothing to what she (and others) go through now. Hurley has fully learned the lesson that you have to make your characters bleed.

There are some new developments in the world-building here, which are satisfying and (as always) interesting. Hurley is an amazing world-builder, a real original. One of the greatest pulls for me in these books is just living in her world for a while. I'm fascinated by how she takes elements of our own world and extends, transforms, or otherwise mutates them into her own. Her work doesn't feel didactic--it's not trying to teach me that, say, the repression of women is wrong. Instead, it takes elements of our own familiar patriarchal system, upends them, what-ifs them, and ends up with a complicated, multi-layered world that doesn't look much like ours at all, and has plenty of its own problems.

There are a couple of copy-editing glitches along the way, which are frustrating when they jump out. And the resolution of a final scene felt a little forced and abrupt to me--but came with high drama and realism that satisfied in other ways. I'm curious to see where Hurley will take this in the final book. When does that come out? Soon, I hope.

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Product Details

ISBN:

9781597802246

Author:

Hurley, Kameron

Publisher:

Night Shade Books

Subject:

Science Fiction and Fantasy-A to Z

Subject:

Science Fiction and Fantasy-Adventure

Subject:

Science / General

Edition Description:

Trade Paper

Series:

Bel Dame Apocrypha

Series Volume:

The Bel Dame Apocryp

Publication Date:

20111031

Binding:

TRADE PAPER

Language:

English

Pages:

300

Dimensions:

9 x 6 in 17 oz