Beth Szwiec 2008-10-27
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A lot has already been said well by the previous reviews. But I guess I need to add my wish that Ms. Caine consider wrapping up the storyline on the main characters here and move on. From the blurb at the end of my copy, it sounds as though the next warden/djinn book is going to focus on new players. Great idea, but some satisfying closure is still overdue for Joanne and David. Midway through Gale Force, I thought this would be the book to do it. Instead, I found myself almost irrationally ticked when I reached the end and found that indeed it was not.
I've never related well to Joanne as a character/heroine, but I love the world she inhabits and the people who surround her in it. That's why the earlier Warden novels work so well, I think. Not only are they incredibly rich in characterization, but the plots were timely -- echoing with an eerie relevance to many serious issues about nature, society, humanity, and current events and trends. (And no, not talking about fashion either.) Much of that depth and complexity seems to have been lost, and I wonder if Ms. Caine is as tired of the main players here as I am becoming. The number of negative comments about David alone in the reviews for Gale Force is an ominous sign of a breakdown not only in characterization, but in the communication between author and reader.
This series peaked for me with Chill Factor and Windfall (3&4). I felt Firestorm worked well enough, and though Thin Air required more perseverance on my part, it still had a few new things on offer. Gale Force was not what I expected, and not in a good way. The sequence where Joanne and Jerome Silverton unearth the dead djinn was the closest I came to that Old Feeling, and it was lamentably short.
Of course, there's a rhythm to good serial fiction, but the danger comes in turning too formulaic. With this series, we've already been through the obligatory pregnancy arc, the amnesia arc, the persistent love triangle arc, and now the "resurrected big-bad" arc. And with a near-total lack of resolution at the end, I might add.
Again, I'd love to hear about new characters in the old universe if that's what it takes to get back to the inspired storytelling. But it's time to give Jo and David a rest. Even Harry Potter got his HEA from Rowling after seven phenomenal installments. I've got room in my heart for one more with Joanne, but after that, no matter what Caine does, I'LL be taking the breather...
