The Hourglass Throne by KD Edwards
Dec. 27th, 2022 02:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightreadsThe Hourglass Throne
3/5. Third book in this series about a young magician rebuilding his shattered powerhouse on Atlantis. Very queer, which I say specifically instead of gay, as these books continue to play with flavors and shades of intimacy that are more unusual than your typical M/M.
That’s what’s best about them, IMHO – the queerplatonic bond at their heart is becoming more closely entwined with the queer romance. This book specifically takes the opportunity to not be about soulmates – or at least, not soulmates who love each other romantically or sexually. And the triad, in all its queer-romantic-platonic glory is exactly the sort of thing I like—there’s a proposal scene here that is just so odd and multiparty and perfect, it’s great, where the platonic guy is like “dude, marry my platonic soulmate who is sitting right here and not proposing to you, here’s the ring he got, cool? Cool
On the minus side, these books can be clumsy. Our main character has serious trauma, and that is sometimes handled well and interestingly, and sometimes handled like it’s hot off fanfiction.net. And the author made the puzzling choice to stick Covid into this book in the most stilted, awkward, deeply unnecessary way that was jarring every time it came up. Also also, the thing where Rune, a superpowered super privileged literally entitled lord, has all these opinions about social justice for the masses while he scrambles madly to accumulate more wealth and power from within his super corrupt aristocracy is, uh, not a great authorial choice most of the time.
As a side note, we’ve all been waiting for the big reveal that one of Rune’s rapists is Lord Tower’s kid since book one, right? That does not pop off in this book, to be clear, but I keep reading each one, wincing a little, waiting for it. At least the consequences of that will be less wrenching now? Ha? Ha? Ha?
3/5. Third book in this series about a young magician rebuilding his shattered powerhouse on Atlantis. Very queer, which I say specifically instead of gay, as these books continue to play with flavors and shades of intimacy that are more unusual than your typical M/M.
That’s what’s best about them, IMHO – the queerplatonic bond at their heart is becoming more closely entwined with the queer romance. This book specifically takes the opportunity to not be about soulmates – or at least, not soulmates who love each other romantically or sexually. And the triad, in all its queer-romantic-platonic glory is exactly the sort of thing I like—there’s a proposal scene here that is just so odd and multiparty and perfect, it’s great, where the platonic guy is like “dude, marry my platonic soulmate who is sitting right here and not proposing to you, here’s the ring he got, cool? Cool
On the minus side, these books can be clumsy. Our main character has serious trauma, and that is sometimes handled well and interestingly, and sometimes handled like it’s hot off fanfiction.net. And the author made the puzzling choice to stick Covid into this book in the most stilted, awkward, deeply unnecessary way that was jarring every time it came up. Also also, the thing where Rune, a superpowered super privileged literally entitled lord, has all these opinions about social justice for the masses while he scrambles madly to accumulate more wealth and power from within his super corrupt aristocracy is, uh, not a great authorial choice most of the time.
As a side note, we’ve all been waiting for the big reveal that one of Rune’s rapists is Lord Tower’s kid since book one, right? That does not pop off in this book, to be clear, but I keep reading each one, wincing a little, waiting for it. At least the consequences of that will be less wrenching now? Ha? Ha? Ha?