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The Mageborn Traitor

1997Melanie Rawn

4.2/5

This is really one and a half stars. Glenin, Sarra and Cailet are all grown at the start of this book, and they stop being pawns and start actually moving pieces themselves. Some more successfully than others.Okay, here's where Rawn lost me: for some unknown, incomprehensible reason, Sarra and Cailet come over all stupid for plotting purposes. And not just for brief moments - for entire stretches of the second half of the book, I was muttering "you're supposed to be smarter than that". And the women from the first book were smarter, I think... Or at least they were smart enough to know when they were doing something dumb, especially when that dumb thing is passively shambling along towards a certain trap. And I think this is enough text to hide any spoilers underneath the fold, so you've been warned.Spoilers: Cailet is an idiot. She knows that one of the most powerful mages in generations has arrived at her school, and she knows it's one of two people. And then inexplicably, she just frets about it. She doesn't cast any spells, she doesn't appear to do much digging or observation, she just waits for the evil one to show his hand. And then the still-undercover evil one kills what looks to be three-fourths of the remaining Guardian Mages, and does she act then? NO! She then knowingly and with very little preparation walks right into Glenin's trap. What the hell?Sarra, feh. She seems to be a politician who has no real feel for politics, shoving through legislation that is a good idea but not good timing. But moreover, when Glenin's trap swings shut, Sarra appears to have not even considered what the teeth of the trap would be. Of COURSE she's going to unmask you, you idiot - you and Cailet! You're the politician, you're the one who should have seen this coming! Ugh!As for Glenin? She is a vicious, nasty, conceited creature who executes a rather brilliant plan perfectly. And her sisters are so stupid that I have to say Glenin really did deserve to succeed. Yeah, she'd turn into a brutal tyrant, but at least she knew how to use politics and magic accurately. By the end of the book, I truly didn't care which of the boys was Glenin's son. I'd guessed early on which one he'd be, and the amount of red herrings thrown into the mix didn't really divert me so much as bore me. It felt drawn out needlessly, and with Cailet sitting there like a stump, it's not like there was any real promise of action. Collan's death ("death", I'm pretty sure) was abrupt and weird. So was the Deux ex Grandmachina. So was the domestic violence vignette.And lastly, lastly lastly: I have no earthly notion why Jored wasn't killed dead where he stood. Who cares that it was Taigan holding the sword? Why the hell would Cailet stop her from finishing him? Why would she remotely imply that Taigan shouldn't kill him because she'd feel - what, guilt for it afterwards? It's insane, he just successfully plotted to kill her dad! He's a wildly powerful mage who wants to kill some of your family and sexually enslave the rest, and he's standing there defenseless for a few moments... Stab him! Lop off an arm! He's wiped out almost an entire generation of mages single-handledly, and he's going to try to murder you if you don't pin him to the floor with a sword RIGHT NOW. Kill kill kill!That might have been the last straw for me, come to think of it. Bored by the is-he-or-isn't-he-evil game, then disgusted by Sarra and Cailet's idiocy, then whiplashed by Collan's death ("?"), then doubly disgusted by Sarra's political blindside, and now I have to sit here and read about Cailet literally preventing her niece from finishing off a mass-murderer because of feeeeeeliiiiiings or something. Die in a fire, all of you.I'm guessing Rawn knows she lost control of this story. She's never going to finish it, I'm pretty sure. And to be honest, now that Cailet's lost all of her childhood spark, Collan's "dead", Sarra's... well, she's boring, frankly, and apparently not a very good political mind. And Glenin's dead as well, of course, more by chance than anything else. So Rawn managed to kill off all the children, the comic relief, the wicked witch, and now we're left with Jored, who may well be an evil mastermind but I'm quite certain Rawn had a major redemption storyline queued up for him, and I'm just not sure I could take that in the third, never-to-be-written book.Meh!
Picture of a book: The Mageborn Traitor

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