Elemental Logic series, by Laurie J. Marks

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I got the first book in the series from a recent Humble Bundle and started reading it thanks to a recommendation by wychwood, and then I got the other two in the next few days. I enjoyed the series a lot! It has very good h/c and excellent found family feels. It also has great female main characters, almost no straight people, and relationships that I liked a lot. The magic system is interesting, if a bit vague. I really like the series' take on what happens next after the country is conquered: there's no black and white and especially not along ethnicity lines.

Fire Logic: Whoa, the beginning is dark. Excellent job making me like Ransel just before killing off him and the entire Ashawala'i. I liked Zanja a lot, how she started to slowly try to move forward, and even though I'm often annoyed how quickly characters fall in love here I thought her giant crush on Karis was pretty believable. Excellent pining, and for a good reason too: not a misunderstanding, but Karis' best friend trying to do what is best for her. Norina almost kills Zanja because she's afraid Zanja caused Karis harm, and later realizes how much she erred, mmm good stuff.
I really like Medric! I shipped him and Emil pretty much as soon as they met and I was very happily surprised when it became canon two pages later.
An interesting twist to think about: what if Medric had been the one to dream about an Ashawala'i destroying the Sainnites?

Earth Logic: Emil killing Zanja because of fireblood visions, mmm yes excellent h/c material. But it wasn't clear enough to me why Zanja had to die. What did the storyteller accomplish? She didn't have that much of an effect on Clement. She did on the soldiers, and I can believe that the storyteller's stories had a big part in eventually allowing the Sainnite soldiers accept becoming Shaftali, but that's not shown (not really in the third book either.) Seems like a pretty flimsy reason. At least Norina was there and knew that three firebloods could go too far and how to make sure there was at least a way to call Zanja back. Firebloods. (I still like Medric so much.)
I like that Karis' relationship with Zanja, while solid, is difficult for both of them because of their very different approaches to, well, life. I understand Zanja's impatience as well as Karis' fear of doing the wrong thing if she acts too soon, especially considering her vast power. (A little bit more communication couldn't hurt…)
I liked Clement too, and her friendship with Gilly.
I also liked Garland, and not just because he's a cook.

Water Logic: Poor Clement :( At least she was mostly successful. I do want her to get her happy ending, but I'm not convinced by her relationship with Seth yet. Actually Seth was the first PoV character that didn't really grab me and that I don't feel like I have a good feel for. I did feel very sorry that Damon died.
Surprise time travel! Yes, water witches are rare, and I imagine it doesn't happen often, but it still seems weird that it doesn't show up in old stories and so on.
What did Medric see this time? And why did he choose to reveal as little as he did? I still don't have a good grasp of what he can see, it seems very random. Have I mentioned that I want more Medric stories?, his past and his abilities and what it means for his family are fascinating.

Another series I've bookmarked for this year's Yuletide.

Comments

[out_there]

Huh. I might keep an eye out for that series.

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I hope you like it if you decide to check it out! There's a fourth book planned, but afaik there's no publishing date yet and the third one came out several years ago.

[lilysea]

I looked it up on Amazon, and was surprised to discover that I know the illustrator in person!

Kathleen Jennings is a member of the Australian SF community. She's lovely, talented, and funny.

[schneefink]

The covers of the first two books are very pretty!
(The third book apparently had a different publisher and I like the cover slightly less.)

[alatefeline]

I love this series! Pleased that you've come across it!

[schneefink]

Cool! Are you open to brainstorming? Because I've been trying to figure out how Medric's childhood&teenage years could have played out, based on what we know about Sainnite child raising, and I'm not quite sure what makes the most sense.

[alatefeline]

Give me a couple of days to reread and sure. It's been a little while.

Based off of what I remember, though, he's a /mess/ so don't assume he got *functional* childcare, just childcare that didn't actually kill him.

[schneefink]

Great! :D

Oh yes, child"care" for loose definitions of the word. I was mostly wondering about the Sainnite system. Their female soldiers don't have kids and almost all Sainnites appear to be soldiers, so almost all children are half-Shaftali. In "Earth Logic" we learn that some prostitutes literally sell their children to the Sainnites. There are no children in the garrisons, instead there is one garrison where all children are raised by retired Sainnite soldiers.

Interestingly a parent-child bond still seems to exist: Clement remembers her mom fondly and seems to have been close with her, and Medric mentions that his father regularly told him stories. Maybe the parents visit?

Medric also says his mother was a fireblood and appears to have memories of her. But he was obviously raised Sainnite, and the Sainnites wouldn't have been happy with his mother raising him, or most likely even have frequent contact with him. She clearly didn't have much if any opportunity to share what she knew about firebloods with him. I wonder, it's even possible that Medric barely knew his mom at all and only dreamed of her. I think in canon he also dreams about the past on occasion. He definitely dreamed about the present, so maybe he dreamed about his mom as a child while she was still alive.

Medric also mentions that the Sainnites dislike elemental blood, but got him a Shaftali tutor when his seer abilities became apparent. A tutor that was killed a year later for spying and seems to have tried to deliberately sabotage Medric's abilities, fun.
Zanja says Medric speaks Shaftalese without an accent, it's unlikely he learned that in one year. So did he learn from his mom after all?

Just some of my thoughts so far...

[dhampyresa]

I got mired in the dark beginning of book 1 and stopped reading, but maybe I shouldn't have.

[schneefink]

Yeah, the beginning is pretty dark. Fwiw, the death of the Ashawala'i and the (mostly off-screen) torture of Zanja right afterwards is by far the darkest part of the series imo.