Entry tags:

books, let's get literate! 2009

I will warn right now that this review will have spoilers for both Larklight and Starcross. VERY SORRY, my apologies, etc.

I am pretty incoherent about my disappointment with this book. You know when you follow a series and get invested and excited and you're all aglow that when you read the book it will AMAZE and CHARM you? Imagine that feeling being drop kicked by the author! It is no fun, to be honest, and it's even worse that I didn't have a clue Reeve was going to turn off the buffer to his wild imagination and, you know, write a book that feels like it doesn't belong with the previous books not even a little? I do not know what to say! Mothstorm did not live up to my expectations. Larklight was excellent (everyone go read it! NOW!), Starcross a little less shiny but still a fun romp, but Mothstorm!

DOT DOT DOT

It wasn't that it upset me as a story, although I am bummed this is the final bit of canon for the series. It either bored me with really predictable clichés or had me going, "Really!?" and rereading passages to make sure I didn't imagine things. The first book was about Art and Myrtle's epic adventures IN SPACE and I wanted that to continue, but as soon as I began reading this book I realized: Oh SNAP, it's turned into Mrs. Mumby's Totally Excellent Adventure With Other Evil Beings From Beyond Our Universe! Reeve kicked steampunk to the curb and went out and out science fiction, and, well—that lacks a little internal consitency for me.

I did not sign up for this, and I resent, a little, the shift in focus from these two children protagonists having adventures, to the magical mother, and also would like to know what's up with Jack and Myrtle and SUDDEN RECONCILIATION? Would someone like to explain. I was very confused, see: internal consistency!

The story opens on a pre-holiday note as the Mumby's prepare for Christmas and their guests. The pudding goes rogue, the British military shows up, plebes and pirates one and all get pissed off, we get the first hints of how this book is basically going to be All Amelia Mumby, All The Time Except for Brief Periods of Which We Cannot Speak For They Are Blatant Spoilers, and Myrtle and Jack...break up?! When did they get back together, Reeve? I am disappointed in you! It seems a bit ridiculous! Then other events take place and I swear I came really close to not finishing the book. Just...ugh.

Now, to the plot: shenanigans at Uranus! Really, I was bored; I didn't even feel like chuckling every time Myrtle was like, "Don't call it that!". Each new! amazing! thing! was introduced but then we were moving on, super fast, because really, in case you missed it, this book was about Amelia Mumby. At least there was an epic battle, and I'm not counting a scuffle in the dining room.

I dislike that Reeve introduced a new female character and then wasted her. I do not understand what all the world-building was for here since it was the last book. I am boggled. I also...don't know how I feel about the meme business with Myrtle, and the new friends they make at the end of the book. Honestly? Ulla was horrified (rightly so!), but Reeve is going to...introduce a culture with totally opposite gender roles to our own and then convert them to ours? Oh, for fuck's sake. What was the ever-loving point of that? They couldn't have wanted the things they did for its own sake, they had to want to learn to clutch their pearls and knit? The revelation of their queen was just the icing on the cake of my utter despair!

....you know, if I was smarter I would have words about this, many smart words communicating just how problematic I found the gender roles in the book and the good old standby of the cat fight, but in convenient Shaper form, with the girls hemming and hawing and generally being invisible until a handy time where Reeve can make them inept to further the plot, and passing all the goals off to the boys, because BOYS are heroes, not girls. I have a lot of love for Larklight and Starcross, but I find Mothstorm a bit of a Tin Moon jump, which is totally equivalent to and just as ridiculous as the shark jump down here in Did We Really Need This Book land? I mean, seriously, it was like our solar system became a dude and it was time for THE LADIES to duke it out. Awesome!

Remember, girls: propriety can be set aside but it must always be picked up once the mortal peril is over.

At least I liked the last chapter, although I'm not sure about the convenience of it all. And Edward Cullen wasn't it in. Otherwise, it's a total thumbs down from this quarter and I will go read The Alchemists' Revenge 1000 more times to cleanse my palate after I spent the second half of this book vomiting in my mouth a little a lot.