Freya Marske
Pan Macmillan, 9 November 2023
Available as: HB, 432pp, audio, e
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9781529080988
I'm grateful to the publisher for providing me with an advance e-copy of A Power Unbound to consider for review.
With A Power Unbound, Marske at last centres a book on Jack Alstom - Lord Hawthorn - one of the more enigmatic of the gallery of magicians and magic-adjacent individuals we've seen in this series, and a character who's always had a whiff of brimstone about him (Violet, you may recall, asked him to ruin her in A Restless Truth). As a reminder, the first book, A Marvellous Light, largely follows Sir Robin Blyth, our non-magician gateway to the world of these books, a Civil Servant and the Home Office's liaison with the enchanted world, and Edwin Courcey, his magician counterpart, as they fall in love while the second book, A Restless Truth is more Sapphic in tone, with Maud Blyth and the aforementioned Violet getting to up all sorts on an ocean liner. Behind the personal entanglements, though, a dastardly plot is evolving, a scheme to take all of the power of the British magicians into one pair of hands. This has proceeded as the conspirators find pieces of the "Last Contract" and as Jack, Edwin, Maud and others seek to prevent that.
A Restless Truth also introduced Alan - journalist, radical, peddler of smut, and thief - as a sort of counterweight to Jack and - given the previous books - that means there is a big element of will-they, won't they in A Power Unbound. The powerful distaste between the two men, a distaste with its roots perhaps in a contrast between Alan's working class suffering and Hawthorn's hauteur, has not gone away but since the events of A Restless Truth Alan has also been enlisted in the last-ditch effort to save British magic. Marske does a terrific job here at unpeeling layer after layer of Alan's feelings - his resentment of those who, as well as being born with wealth and power, have inherited magic too; his revulsion at what was done to Jack to remove his magic (yes - finally, we're learning more about what has been going on, and it's riveting!) and his desire to protect and nurture his family.
Plus, of course, his attraction to Jack...
Fantasy novels can often be accused of ignoring real social conditions, as well as being oblivious to the actual politics of a world in which magic is real, but Marske inverts this, making questions of power, agency and privilege central to the narrative. It's perhaps in keeping with this that when things get steamy between Jack and Alan (sorry, minor spoiler, but surely you expected that? It's not just me?) the liaison between titled aristocrat and scrabbling guttersnipe doesn't dodge those same issues of power and consent, with some lovemaking scenes where these things are in fact central to the sexiness, Jack and Alan negotiating their relationship by stages through some saucy role-play.
And yes, if you're a reader of a traditionalist hue who doesn't an appreciate these themes, maybe this book might not be for you - but I would still encourage you to at least try it. There is also plenty of conflict, scheming, magical combat and racing for time, as the clock counts down and the villains finally make their move - enough to keep any reader satisfied even if they don't really get on with the more tender parts of the story.
For me, A Power Unbound does several difficult things very well. It rounds off a complex through-plot, which Marske has made us care intensely about. It does justice to the historical background of the Imperialistic, Edwardian setting, without uncritically adopting the prejudices of the time (this is shown most fully in the Queer narrative strand, one of the reasons it would be a mistake to see this as something secondary). It does credit to characters we've come to love. And, even at this late stage in the trilogy, it gives us a great deal of new information to round out, explain and motivate pretty much everyone.
Lastly - and of course not lastly - it tells a rattling good, exciting story in its own right and totally lands the ending.
In short, I'm sad to see this series end, but it goes out firing on all cylinders, the perfect ending to the trilogy.
No comments:
Post a Comment