Title: Written in Red Series: The Others #1
Author: Anne Bishop
Published: March 5, 2013
Genre(s): Urban Fantasy
Page Count: 433
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:As a cassandra sangue, or blood prophet, Meg Corbyn can see the future when her skin is cut—a gift that feels more like a curse. Meg’s Controller keeps her enslaved so he can have full access to her visions. But when she escapes, the only safe place Meg can hide is at the Lakeside Courtyard—a business district operated by the Others.
Shape-shifter Simon Wolfgard is reluctant to hire the stranger who inquires about the Human Liaison job. First, he senses she’s keeping a secret, and second, she doesn’t smell like human prey. Yet a stronger instinct propels him to give Meg the job. And when he learns the truth about Meg and that she’s wanted by the government, he’ll have to decide if she’s worth the fight between humans and the Others that will surely follow.
Urban fantasy: the genre that is eternally interesting to me, yet eternally lets me down. I’ve tried again and again and again, and I’m never satisfied. Written in Blood was so promising, too. But in the end it was just overwritten and underwhelming, with a problematic…well, everything.
WORLDBUILDING
Like most of the book’s fans, I agree that the world of The Others is really fascinating and has potential. I like a lot of what Anne Bishop did, with this alternate universe where humans are prey under the oppressive regime of the various supernatural forces that came before them. It’s just that any scratching beneath the surface of the novel’s premise reveals how shaky and nonsensical this world really is. It looks good and sounds good, but upon any closer inspection, it’s clear that it’s not actually impressive or worthwhile. In fact, it’s downright troubling.
Several other reviewers have gone into better depth and offered more cohesive criticism, but I’ll briefly summarize my own issues with Bishop’s worldbuilding.
Firstly, the The Others are the “indigenous” people of the world. So how, exactly, does it look for a white author to write about a race of savage, monstrous First Peoples who are out mindlessly hunting and eating the poor humans and subjugating them to an entirely oppressive regime, seemingly just because they, as the stronger entity, can? That’s hella weird. ALSO the reader is supposed to root for The Others when they’re doing all the aforementioned eating and oppressing just because the author says so? Sorry, no.
More that that, why does this world seem to be so similar to ours if it’s entirely different? There is no plausible evidence given that human society would develop along the same lines as our own in this alternative universe. The reader is just supposed to take it as a given, even though every time I even thought, logically, about what seemed most likely, it was far from what the author portrayed. I’m sorry, but none of this makes sense.
MARY SUE…
Let’s cut to the chase: the main character of Written in Red is a Mary Sue. She’s a pure, childlike character with no real-world experience who everyone is immediately drawn to and likes, and somehow she does things that nobody else ever can for no other reason that her specialness and yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, sure, she’s slightly endearing, but COME ON.
Also important to point out that all the female characters in this book are shallow and two-dimensional, Meg the Mary Sue included. The “villain” is a misogynistic representation of a female antagonist, etc. etc. Also there’s this character whose defining characteristic is the shade of her magical hair. Got real tired of hearing the hair explained for paragraphs at a time. Better character building, please.
…AND THAT ASSHOLE LOVE INTEREST
Look, I get this is a thing in urban fantasy/paranormal romance, but aggressive alpha males are gross. The book’s love interest spends most of the book trying to contain his homicidal instinct to eat the Mary Sue. And that’s sexy? How? Also, as previously discussed, The Others just want to eat humans, but Mary Sue gets a free pass because of her special blood. Barf.
So, of course, romance.
Which I don’t buy.
OTHER ODDS AND ENDS
I just feel like this book was “interesting” to read but also really frustrating. The prose is so dense and overdescriptive that it was a chore to get through, and the characters were interesting enough up to a point. It’s just that any closer scrutiny of the book reveals too many issues and things that are extremely off-putting to me.
I just feel like I would like urban fantasy better if I could find a UF author who wrote characters that felt A) real and not gimmicky and B) had worldbuilding that actually held up under close inspection.
Sorry, Written in Red, but you’re not worth the fuss.
