Ok, I am trying my best to keep the momentum up here because I feel that I may not have much free time in the next few weeks after quarter starts.
As I mentioned in my review of the first book, Obernewtyn, The Obernewtyn Chronicles ended up expanding beyond the author’s original plans. There was originally going to be five books in the series, making The Keeping Place, the penultimate volume. Instead, The Keeping Place ended up as book four of seven. And maybe the book-fates or something kind of knew this would happen, because when you step back and look at the series as a whole, The Keeping Place has a rather strong case of middle book syndrome.
Ashling also hit me as a bit of a middle book by the amounts of plot threads it ran with and didn’t resolve, but at least Ashling kept a ripping pace throughout most of the book. The Keeping Place doesn’t. The whole first part of the book—The Winding Road— makes for a very slow start, compared to the other books. I guess the name fits, though.
This doesn’t mean it is all bad—far from it. To refer once again to my review of Obernewtyn, I didn’t originally read this series in order, and The Keeping Place was actually my entry point. And what stood out for me then was how the slow start to the book made the goings on at Obernewtyn and the politics of the Land feel very grounded. Which is ideal, as politics plays a heavy role in this book.The question of rebellion, which ran across the last two installments, is not as over as we imagined. After the Sadorian Battlegames, the Misfits came to the conclusion that most of them are not really very warlike, and that the rebellion is probably not a fight they are fit to serve. But in the interim between the two books, the question has been re-examined; while most of the Misfits are not much for direct combat, they’re in possession of a set of unique skills that would be really helpful with co-ordination and strategy.
This does make you ask what kind of strategists are some of the leaders of the rebellion, anyway, if they don’t immediately work on getting a bunch of telepaths and coercers on their side? In this instance, it’s a case of keep asking, and you will be answered, because there are some aspects of this re-examination that are very suspect. And this is before we are made aware of yet another concerning development—Rushton has gone missing.
Aside from the rebellion, what we do get a lot of in The Keeping Place that made me very happy is more time with the Teknoguild and their shenanigans. Reading about the young misfits tangling with anything from the Beforetime always delights me. Currently, they’re obsessing of a the ruins of the Reichler Clinic Reception Centre—a Beforetime clinic that may have been involved in research into psychics and ‘paranormals’— suggesting that Misfit Talents pre-date the Great White. They are, of course, very excited:
Most of us accepted that we would probably never know the true history of the Reichler Clinic, but the Teknoguild continued to pick at the mystery like an old knee scab.
Beforetime Misfits? Of course the Teknoguilders intend to dig further into that, and they go to some impressive lengths to do so; in the name of obtaining any kind of documentation they can about these Beforetime studies, they rig together some makeshift open diving suits to navigate the flooded parts of the city. However, since these are the same group of people who got flummoxed deciding where mermaids belong on the evolutionary tree after finding some pictures in a book, who knows how much sense they would be able to make from any notes or journals they actually obtain?
Elspeth herself has another reason to be interested in the Reichler Clinic; she has recently been having true dreams of a Beforetimer named Cassy, who visited the clinic prior to the Great White. It turns out she left something there for Elspeth, which probably supports the question of whether or not they really was Beforetime Misfits more than any documentation could.
Dreaming is a big deal in The Keeping Place. Aside from her true dreams of Cassy and a woman named Hannah, Elspeth has been having less pleasant dreams as well. It turns out, just like in Ashling, she’s still being haunted on the dream trails by a certain malevolent little shit. And when they’re not chasing her, she’s dealing with the mental emanations of a comatose Misfit Thank Christ she has Maruman watching over her, as things only seem to be getting worse. Thankfully, dream-Maruman is a formidable force, even if physical real-life Maruman is still a grumpy, enigmatic little weirdo:
I looked up, craning my neck. There was no moon and I was glad. I had spent so much time with Maruman over the years that I had grown to dislike the sight of it looming over me, especially when it was full and looked like a burning white eye peering mercilessly down. I had no idea why Maruman felt as he did. His moon loathing was as much a part of him as his legendary bad temper and queerly distorted mind.
As always, if Maruman is upset with something, grumping about something or just being difficult about something; pay attention to it.
… that’s one of the benefits of the reread. Or even reading them in order. I can pick these things up a lot easier than I did the first time around.
But I’m still of the mind that The Keeping Place suffers from middle book syndrome. I think I preferred the tight and concise world building of both Obernewtyn and The Farseekers over the sort of fluffiness in the narrative found here. However, this won’t be the last time I make this complaint. And it is probably the reason why we have seven books instead of five.
For for cbr16bingo, this is Tech. For the Teknoguilders and the city under Tor
