The title of Laurie J. Marks’ Fire Logic is at once a huge problem, and a nice bonus. The problem part comes in because it makes the book sound incredibly awful — elemental-themed fantasy (the sequel is Earth Logic) is never, ever good; the bonus comes in because it sounds so awful that if you do read it, you can’t help but be pleasantly surprised.
But only mildly. The book is strongly generic for its subgenre, and its subgenre is one that I don’t like. Oddly enough, there’s no name for it (that I can think of), but I know it when I see it. It’s got vague mysticism, magical king-and-the-land crap going on, soldiers who are casually and frequently bisexual, and usually a culture clash going on for good measure. If you like that sort of thing, hey, here’s more of it.
Comments