It's so cool, guys.
While Billi is still mourning the loss of her best friend Kay, the supernatural creatures refuse to take a break to let her properly grieve. Last time Billi faced the Angel of Death - now she's up against the polenitsy, a pack of werewolves descended from the Amazons. They are searching for the Spring Child, an Oracle like Kay was, that they plan to sacrifice to their goddess, the infamous Baba Yaga. It's a mission that will uproot Billi from her familiar home in London and take her and her fellow Templars to Moscow and the wilds of Russia to team up with the Bogatyrs, the Templars' Russian counterparts, led by Ivan, the handsome descendant of the mysterious Anastasia Romanov. As the full moon approaches, Billi and Ivan will have to overcome their instinctive distrust of others to fight together for the common good.One thing I really like about the supernatural creatures Chadda creates: they are the bad guys. Sure there are some shades of gray, but the polenitsy are not "kissing werewolves." No one is going to fall in love with these creatures because they are lean, mean, fighting machines, who are more likely to eat you than kiss you, if you were dumb enough to get that close. Additionally, Chadda puts some great twists on traditional folklore - there's the Amazon werewolf connection, which is awesome because Amazons are awesome, and then whole mythos of Baba Yaga. This isn't the scary little witch who runs around in a house on chicken legs; she wields unbelievable power as the physical embodiment of Russia herself. Scary. And awesome, like the werewolves that worship her. With a bunch of women in the roles of both adversary and ally, Dark Goddess has no problem passing the Bechdel Test. Yay!
The action is absolutely nonstop, which some can see as a good thing, but actually ended up undermining a bit of Chadda's worldbuilding for me. It's established early on that werewolves are bad news. As in, two fully-trained Templars could take on one werewolf and probably win - but their chances of survival decrease exponentially if a second werewolf is added to the equation. Yet Billi repeatedly tackles the werewolves, almost always with the odds against her, and she rarely even gets a full night's sleep, let alone a chance to really heal. Since she keeps coming out on top, it takes away the feeling that she's ever really in danger, thus dramatically decreasing the tension.
If you haven't read Devil's Kiss yet, I highly recommend you read that before Dark Goddess. Chadda throws us right into the action in chapter one and spends little to no time rehashing people or events from Devil's Kiss - so even if you have read the first book, you might want to re-read it as a refresher. These are the sort of fantasy books I want to see more of - women who know how to handle themselves and know what they want primarily, and the action is more important than the romance. And in the case of Billi SanGreal, you get all that, plus a bi-racial heroine!
Logging you in...
bookgazing 45p · 733 weeks ago
Interesting ideas about Billi not sleeping, or taking time to heal, but going on. It makes me think of a book I just finished 'To Say Nothing of the Dog' where the hero NEEDS rest throughout the book but is denied it and that causes all kind of problems. Do you think we could do with more heroes and heroines who are realistically affected by all the stress they're placed under, or would that realism mean the action would be hampered/ that they'd be less likely to win? And would that be a bad thing anyway if good didn't triumph in every book (I mean for the literature, obviously the fictional world would be upset;)
angelacraft 35p · 733 weeks ago
lol, I talk too much. Continued in next comment...
angelacraft 35p · 733 weeks ago
I always love heroes with flaws (and villains with goodness/rationale behind their evil actions), so I would love more heroes who are affected by the stress. I don't think it would hamper the action - unless they are taking a time out after every single battle. In reality we don't always get to be well rested before we're thrust into the next big stressful event - I just want to see that reality reflected in how well they might fight the next time. (Also, would love to see some books where good doesn't really triumph. Mockingjay flirted with that ending - when it looks like Coin is going to be the new president. And that's also a book where every major action scene is followed by the protagonist passing out and waking up in the hospital, a clear case when the rest hampered the action).
bookgazing 45p · 732 weeks ago