Review: The Pretender's Crown (Inheritor's Cycle, Book 2) by C.E. Murphy

[megwrites]

Title: The Pretender's Crown (The Inheritors Cycle, Book 2)
Author: C.E. Murphy (mizkit; cemurphy.net)
Genre: Fantasy
Page Count: 461
Publisher: Del Rey




The basic plotline: After the events of The Queen's Bastard, Belinda has escaped her execution in Gallin and fled back to Aulun, while Javier returns from his brief time away on the seas to find that his mother has been poisoned and he is now the Gallic king, but when he arrives to hear the news in the court of his uncle, the king of Essandia, his witchpower is revealed and suddenly the secret he's been trying to keep his entire life is uncovered. With a blessing from the Pappas, Javier reluctantly uses this power to go to war against Aulun and against Belinda, who's power has grown under the tutelage of Dmitri. But power isn't all Belinda has gained. She's found out things that have been kept from her and that knowledge changes everything as she fights against her former lover in a war for the fate of all Echon, a war that is only part of a larger plan by an alien queen to take hold of the Earth for her own purposes.

The positives I really enjoyed the first volume in the Inheritor's Cycle, and over all I was very pleased with this one, too. I think what I liked most was the deepening of the inward mysteries of the universe that Murphy has set up for us, and the extension of the politics. Moreso even than the last book, this one set in play a delicate, twisting game of alliances and treacheries played by people who are all very ambitious, smart to varying degrees, but all deeply flawed in the end.

I enjoyed that the book was not all Belinda's story, either. As much as I liked her character and her ruthlessness and willfully blind loyalty in the last book, it was good to see that the setting and events got to take the main stage instead of being upstaged by any one character.

I also was glad that this novel did not pull any particular punches and was surprised that it turned out that Javier and Belinda were actually twins - and boy does that make half of the first book a real eyeball burner - but I was glad, as a reader, that it actually went there and did that. It gave a devastating consequence to the things done in the name of the alien queen.

I like that this novel made real progress within in the universe and not only told the story it was meant to tell, but advanced the larger arc of what's going on with the alien queen that is controlling all this.

There was a lot of character growth in this novel, and I must say that I ended up liking some characters I didn't particularly like or notice in the first novel. Dmitri and Rodrigo, particularly, became much more intriguing and even likable to me. I was kind of sad to see Dmitri get offed, because I thought his plan to serve his alien queen actually was the best one.

I confess I like Belinda much better in this book, because she's no longer ruthless and blind, but rather turns on her own loyalties and, in a strange way, gains a much greater power in giving up the throne and the power she could have had. It was good to see her do a 180.


The negatives I felt that there were some places where the descriptions of the witchpower in use, as well as some of the battle scenes were too abstractly written, not concrete enough to be well understood. The language was beautiful, sometimes too beautiful, but there were times when I was left going, "Uh, what does that actually mean?"

There were also points where the novel was overwritten, and by that I mean things that ought to have been obvious to anyone who was paying attention were described in great and florid detail. In parts there there was so much description of inner feelings and magic it was hard for two characters to have a conversation, because their lines would be a page and a half apart.

I also felt the narrative was impeded by Murphy's choice to go back and forth between present tense and past tense without a discernible reason for doing so. It was kind of hard to switch my brain in between reading them to get a time frame straight in my head. This may have something to do with the fact that I have difficulties in reading and keeping lines straight, so other readers might enjoy it. It wasn't bad enough to make me put the book down.

I had a bit of a logic problem with the premise, but it's nothing that a bit more of a detailed explanation of the aliens and their world wouldn't fix. My problem was with their strategy of "gentle" invasion. If they have the power to, for instance, control the weather or control people's minds and memories, why can't they either cause big storms to wipe out people or put things in people's minds at the right place, without causing wars? I mean, why not just insert the plans for guns and weapons and technology in the right minds? Or, why not mind control everyone on planet Earth if they can bend people's wills?

Again, I think more explanation my resolve some of these questions, so I'm waiting until the next book to make the final judgment.

The only other misgivings were that most of the information about the aliens that are coming to Earth was given away in the prologue, rather than being as much a revelation to the readers as to Belinda. I think I might have appreciated some of the politics more if I wasn't distanced from them by knowing they were all plots within plots.

I also felt like perhaps the premise that human advancement comes most quickly during times of war and distress didn't take into account that while weapon advancements may happen quickly in times of conflict, there are other types of developments that are greatly slowed down in times war, and in fact, war may be just as much a cause of delays in development as it is an advancements.


CoC Score. 0. No characters of color in the book with any speaking lines. I'm tending to be more forgiving about this because it's a European fantasy. The only but is that I'm concerned about the premise. I'm concerned that it's Euro-centric fantasy and the sci-fi premise is aliens taking over the whole world. However, there's nothing in the book to keep the reader from assuming that there aren't witchbreeds in other courts in other countries all over the world, from India to China to the Americas to Africa (or, rather, their fantasy counterparts) also playing similiar type games. So I'm holding off on criticizing the entire premise until I see whether the author has the witchbreeds as just a European phenomena, or if it's worldwide.

GLBT Score. 5. The one gay character lived! The through the whole book! Of course, he was deeply closeted, but what do you expect? I'm just glad that finally I broke my streak of "books where the gay/lesbian gets it first". Thank you for not letting me down, C.E. Murphy. From the bottom of my queer little heart, I commend you for not offing him. I would have liked to have seen more queer characters, of course, but the ones who are demonstrably GLBT have mostly stayed alive. Kudos!

Gender Score 10. Powerful women in all shapes and sizes, everything from an old, determined queen to a sharp, quirky little Khazarian princess.

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~M~