Hiba Ajaz Khan Ajaz Khan من عند Mahishi, Bihar 852216، الهند
** spoiler alert ** so i skimmed through this before i started seriously reading it, because i admit it - i read the spoilers. i knew what was coming. i was totally horrified and stunned by what was going to happen and i wasn't sure how i felt about the idea of it at all BUT... i love this series. so i bought the book, and sat down to read the last novella first. yes, i know, but still. i had to. what i found very much surprised me. i loved it. it made me cry, but it really worked. i bought it all, hook line and sinker. we all knew that jaenelle was going to die well before daemon. he is from one of the long lived races, she is from one of the short, and there has never been any indication that witch, in spite of her massive amounts of power, is capable of extending her lifespan past that of any other short lived person. i was actually far more upset about saeten. he is already dead for goodness sake! couldn't he stick around for the children who are still alive? it depressed me that he would choose to end his life deliberately just because jaenelle dies. it seems so selfish and unlike him. i mean really, what about poor daemon? as if he wasn't destroyed enough already! drink the blood wine already, and fade away *after* your very highly strung and incredibly powerful totally devastated child has had a few decades to recover! all of the novellas in this book have hints about what is to come. it does a good job of subtly bringing to the fore surreal's feelings for daemon, and by the time we get to last book i was more than resigned to her fate. i hated the fact that surreal - who i have adored from the first - does not get her own huge flamingly wonderful love story, it broke my heart that she gets her happy ending but she will always be second best. at the same time, i really can't imagine who else could she have ended up with. who else could put up with her strength and crabbiness. who else knows her inside and out and doesn't hold any of her past against her... who else could put up with daemon, for that matter! and daemon, well he needed someone who knew HIM, who he is and what he could do. he needs someone who knew the self he left behind in terreille. i was GLAD he could turn to surreal. she is perfect for him, even though he isn't particularly perfect for her, at least at first. no he will never love surreal the way he loved jaenelle, but he loves her. he loves her almost as much, even if it is different, and she is going to be around for a good long while. i'm going to be picturing them happily off in the future, with more children and a whole slew of the kindred. even if it doesn't happen in a book it's happening in my head, and i am quite happy that way :)
I did savor many parts of this book, especially McCallum's well-selected poems. The reason I didn't rate it more highly, however, is because sometimes I found his narrative overly reactionary as opposed to solutions oriented. I completely agree with his premise -- we are in desperate need of "ecological intelligence," but what I would like to learn more about is how such intelligence would look in actual practice, such as in systems design, or in everyday life. He spends most of his time delineating the need for such intelligence, and in pushing back against embedded perspectives. I'm already convinced. I want to hear more about how to live it! Overall, I think this book is a good reminder to those of us who desire to be more mindful in our lives, and I did like his emphasis on the language of poetry.