Title: Cold Magic
Author: Kate Elliott
Genre: Fantasy (historical)
Length: 502
Quality Rating: 8
Content Rating: PG
I had never heard of this book before but the tag line on the cover got me: "When science and magic collide--it is the innocent who will die". Granted, I thought the later half was a little melodramatic, but the first bit about magic and science colliding peeked my interest. Fantasy writers don't often delve into time periods with lots of science. They tend to stick with the middle ages.
I found the book to be fast paced, with a sympathetic main character. In fact the entire way this book was written struck me as very YA. So if you have a friend or daughter who is afraid to branch out of the YA section, this would be a good book for them. Cat is engaging, the love story is not intense but instead subtle--and enjoyable in its subtlety. The alternate history aspect is fascinating. We're presented with a world where the Romans ruled for much longer than they did in our world, and its an exotic and fascinating world.
It's been a while since I read this book, so I don't know exactly if it should be PG or PG-13 but nothing in this book stood out to me. There is violence but not excessively and mostly in a self defense situation. However, its possible it should be PG-13, so when I reread this book to prepare for the sequel I will update you. However, if it is PG-13 its definitely closer to the PG side of the spectrum.
It's definitely an intriguing premise. I think that sometimes writers shun away from science because of the stigma associated with it. In other words, people who read sci-fi tend to be quite snooty about getting certain details correct.
ReplyDelete