Collin’s Reviews > The Isle in the Silver Sea > Status Update

the fact that I don't like this book at all is the greatest reading disappointment of this year so far.

the head archivist's name is APOLLONIUS ROLAND??

I'm more baffled, intrigued, and distracted by the presence of casu marzu, a traditional Sardinian ewe's milk cheese made with live fly maggots, at this no-name roadside inn in an extremely insular fantasy version of England, than I have been by any of the plot/relationship stuff so far. I don't care about tales or incarnates or soulmates. what's up with this inn's Sardinian cheese situation. let's dig in here.

time to pick it up again this morning and I'm brokenhearted to report that I Don't Want To.

It Doesn't Matter but this setting isn't A Totally Fantasy Island From My Imagination, Wink-Wink, it's just. England. Simran is from India. and now I'm thinking about the Implications, and all this destined soulmate reincarnation cycle is the actual least interesting thing in the world to me. do tales work this way elsewhere? if not, why? how does this affect ALL OF HISTORY in such a way that leads to England?

it does not matter but I always get so Pixar Cars Has A Car Pope about stories like this where the alternate-universe setting is Actual England with London and the White Cliffs of Dover and immigrants from Literal India and such. London is named that because of the Romans. all of this knight stuff draws heavily on French tales of chivalry. what's the religious history of this version of England, of this world?

also potentially very petty of me but the idea of all this extreme state control over tales and the incarnates within them in order to keep England literally afloat and existent -- tales which seem to be very white and heteronormative, all blond-haired blue-eyed knights and pale-faced queens and such -- BUT ! the world is queernorm. is very funny to me.

this book: here is a tavern and a witch with a fairy ring trap and knights on destriers and magic barges and magic archivists and magic leatherbound books
me: okay, cool, magic medieval/early modern England setting, got it
this book: simran's got a pistol
me: okay, weird, but pistols were around earlier than a lot of people expect, i can roll
this book: we use the words 'queer' and 'trans'
me: the lord is testing me

this book is almost 500 pages long but I promise you that if the book's font was a normal size, it would be like. 350. 400 tops. and then you could make the margins bigger, maybe widen the line spacing, and I wouldn't feel like I was looking into the magical thicket around Sleeping Beauty's castle.