My friend G had recommended this series to me about a month ago and despite having many things to do and read at the time, I will freely admit the addictive qualities of these novels. It also turns out that she’s an acquaintance of an acquaintance sort of person.
Characters
It wasn’t that I was taken necessarily by the primary characters. In fact, I thought Bridget, the protagonist in The Firebird’s Vengeance and A Sorceror’s Treason, to be increasingly tedious. I kept wanting to wrench Zettel’s narrative back to her secondary characters: the Tuukosovan witch/servant who foils Mistress Urshila’s plans (FV), Mistress Urshila herself (FV), Anna’s tutor (FV), etc. It just seemed that the more she wrote about a person or the more they spoke, the less I liked them. I had problems with Zettel’s male protagonists, both heroes and villains. They are stuck in a bipolar pattern of either being introspective to the point of incredulity or thoughtlessly, suicidally reckless.
Mythology
What kept me coming back was Isavalta’s cosmology. Fantasy novels usually derive their cosmology from Tolkien who in turn derived his from Germanic/British traditions, so it is rare for a fantasy novel to wander east of the Danube for its mythos. The wonderful thing in the Isavalta series is that not only does Zettel play with Indian, Russian, Slavic, and Buddhist (even a moment of Chinese) folklores, traditions, and myths, she often FEMINIZES them. The main deities are: the Vixen, Baba Yaga, and the Seven Mothers (Hastinapura). There are male deities like Nanapush, but they are secondary, at best. This made the books fascinating and unique. Mercifully unlike most fantasy writers, Zettel restrained herself from overplaying her gods.
Plots
I remember FV, in particular, dragging but if you can abide by some squishy romance (I pretty sure these books are categorized as romance) the plots are fine. I also remember being struck by the immolation of Hung Tse (FV) as analogous to our 9/11, but that’s really just a small observation.
I also must admit that while I had problems with the character of Bridget, I loved the setting of a late 19th century Lake Superior town and lighthouse. If Zettel should be remembered for anything, it is her wonderful, spare styling of that era. I wanted to just hug Zettel every time she took us there. As a Michigander, I think that this area is woefully under-represented in literature, so I’m ecstatic to have read these novels for that perspective alone. And to write this setting with fantasy, and include all of this other material, well… I’m giving Zettel some major props!