Sapphique

by Catherine Fisher

Grade: Good
Story: ... um... well... not quite sure where to start, actually. There are a lot of characters and mythology stuff and a living prison.

Well.

I'm a bit ... confuzzled. I don't know what I think exactly. Fisher is obviously a brilliant writer. I think her prose is superb. All the Sapphique stuff is awesome. It's just a bit confusing. Make that a lot confusing.

And I was so happy with the lack of romance in Incarceron. But I think it was a lot because there seemed to be just hints of it between Claudia and Jared. That definitely continued in Sapphique. But then the ending...

Which brings me to my main point. On the one hand...
I love how real she makes it. In reality, Claudia would probably marry Finn in the end, because it was necessary for the kingdom. In reality, would Keiro turn out to have a lovely movie-moment where he throws away all his wickedness? Probably not. In reality, your "hero moments" are tiny things that nobody notices. And Keiro had some of those. Just nobody (including the readers) really noticed them. And in reality, you don't have most of your questions answered. Things happen, and you never know why. I'm kind of glad we never found out if Finn was Giles or not.

On the other hand...
Claudia and Finn??? Noooo!!! I loved Jared way more, and so did Claudia obviously, and I don't even understand properly what happened to him. And I don't get all the Sapphique stuff, and is that real magic that Rix is doing? Blah!!! I want to know!!! And Catherine Fisher is rotten  at giving information away in her FAQ on her website. Pretty much as bad as LOST was.

But on the other hand...
Keiro? Attia? Jared? Claudia? Even the Queen? And the Warden? And Incarceron!!!!! What a set of characters. They are all awesome, really awesome. The evil ones all have some good, and the good some evil. Except maybe Jared. I don't think there was any evil there at all. But he was still awesome, so that's ok. The only character that I didn't really get drawn to was Finn. Out of the whole set. In fact, it reminded me greatly of Joss Whedon in that respect. The only two authors it seems who can do that to me. Oh, and J. K. Rowling! That makes three! I don't like the main hero (Mal, Finn, Harry, etc. NOT Buffy, though. I love her. (And ok, ok. I liked Mal. It's just that all I really liked about him was his hilarious comments. Which was the writers' faults, and not his.)), but all the secondary characters are some of my favourite characters in my reading/watching history. All together in a big bunch.