Nov 24 2008
rhiannon lassiter: borderland (rights of passage series)
Apparently Rhiannon Lassiter really likes writing trilogies, and apparently I’m really good at reading only the first book of said trilogy, because that was the case with Hex too. I’m pleased to say that Borderland fixes some of the problems that marred an otherwise good story in Hex, but not so pleased to report that some of the problems remain and a few additional ones crop up too. (I should also probably add that I think “Rights of Passage” is a clever title for the trilogy, since much of the conflict in Borderland stemmed from who was and who was not allowed to travel between worlds and what they should or shouldn’t be doing there–but of course it’s also a play on words for “rites of passage,” since it’s about young people learning what it really means to grow up.)
The characters are more immediately likable, for one thing. Zoe, the protagonist, does snub some less popular peers in school, but that mostly crops up out of an understandable desire to make friends–she’s an Army brat and as such moves a lot, so she has to make new friends pretty often. She has a good relationship with her dad, too; even when she realizes she can’t possibly tell him about all the confusing problems cropping up because the friends she does make bring her, literally, to an alternate world, she still goes to him for advice, respects what he tells her, and tries her hardest to keep from worrying him. There is a goth girl who only wears black, but at least her name’s Morgan, not Raven, and although her characterization’s a little uneven, not only does she come across as more sympathetic than Raven ever did, but she’s also used for a rather clever purpose: in the world of Shattershard, black is a color that only powerful mages wear, and Morgan uses this perception to her advantage.
The worldbuilding is decent too, and rather than set up overly obvious good guys and bad guys in the political/military factions vying for power in Shattershard, Lassiter looks at the motivations for each and gives us characters on either side that readers can relate to, making the inevitable battle all the more tragic (it’s not a huge surprise when the character most eager for war gets a fast lesson in how awful it really is). Characters whom everyone else thinks are the height of cool actually do live up to that idea, more or less, and when they fall short, it’s because they’re supposed to, not because their characterization was sloppy.
Even so, most of the main characters don’t seem to quite get there. You like them okay if you’re supposed to or at least feel sorry for them when they get in trouble, but nearly all of them show some personality trait that’s just a little uncomfortable. It’s a bit hard to know whom to root for. And while it’s the first of a trilogy, it seems not entirely complete enough even for that, with hints about characters’ backgrounds and motivations that never become more than hints, not even strong enough hints to be sure they’ll get more development later. A few of the bad bits in Lassiter’s writing style got cleaned up at the expense of others, and I kept wincing at lines that just sounded rough. Apparently the 10 years between Hex and Borderland didn’t fix all of her mechanical or stylistic issues.
