Fire Study

Book Title: Fire Study

Author: Maria V. Snyder
Series: The Chronicles of Ixia #3

Date Started: January 15th 2016

Date Completed: January 16th 2016

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance, Action
Quality Rating: Three Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Two Star

Final Rating: Two stars

Review:

Maybe this star rating is a bit harsh: to be honest this book is okay, but it's just so boring. I was never irritated by anything that happened, but it was all just so flat and dull. I have to say, I was disappointed with the first two books in this series, but with Snyder's reputation I thought I should continue, but really it's not worth the time it takes to read.

Something I love about the fantasy genre is its ability to go all out with the rich and magical imagery and systems, but I've never really got that from Snyder's books. The prose is actually very dry; there's barely any description and it's incredibly straightforward. While I understand the desire to avoid over-complicated fantasy politics and world building, it is pretty boring to just be told that someone walked to the other side of the room and then said something and then looked out the window. Just something with a little more impact and expansion would make everything more interesting.

As I was reading Fire Study I kept falling into the assumption that it was a book aimed at a younger audience than it is. I've already talked about the straight forward writing style, but I also kept getting the feeling that I was supposed to be taking it seriously, yet the book itself wasn't taking itself seriously. Things are written on the page but that's it. Politics is around, but is feels like it's just two groups of people fighting; magic is a big part of the story but there isn't really a system to it; there's friendships but only to further the plot or show how much everyone loves Yelena. World-building is so important in high fantasy, but things feel like they're developed as we go along. I mean, Snyder does well at avoiding a lot of YA conventions (apart from having her characters pass out to change the scene), but doesn't exactly offer many new innovations either.

Fire Study's characters are all very passive. What I keep coming up against is that everything is just so uninteresting. I don't know how you can have a story without believable conflict, and believable conflict with characters that are so passive and seem to solve any problem within a few pages.

Yelena is an okay protagonist, like everything in this book, but I can't really see any development over all three of the books - if anything she's a lot more passive than what was kind of a typical rebellious teenager at the beginning of the series. And again, it's not horrific (there are much, much worse female leads out there) but I'm just brought back to that disappointment of how this series was carried out.

I got through Fire Study very quickly and there's no denying that things are definitely moving, and from the amount of action scenes shoved in there's clear movement in the storyline. It was just I didn't really care because everything was just so dull. I ended up skimming most of this book pretty fast - and the fact that I still knew what was going on proves how straightforward (and dull) it is.

The Ixia Chronicles in general just feel so flat for me. There's so much you can do with the high fantasy genre, but I just can't feel any substance to these books. I'm also pretty sure Fire Study was originally the end of a trilogy before Snyder went on to release more books - but it's not much of a finale. It's a real shame because I really do believe there's potential in the world and characters - perhaps it does get better in the new sequels.

Image Source - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7170750-fire-study