Sci-fi/Fantasy Fan Book Review: Melusine by Sarah Monette

Melusine, the fantasy novel from Sarah Monette, is, despite many positive qualities, in some ways a blueprint on how not to write a fantasy novel. Monette's book is filled to bursting with the tropes of the fantasy genre.  I think the only one she doesn't hit on is dragons – otherwise we have long separate siblings, vague stuff about wizards and magic, nefarious one-dimensional villains, a pseudo-medieval environment and a cat burglar who winds up being the book's heart. Her reliance on these tropes weakens and distracts from the story she wants to tell in Melusine; unfortunately, the structure of the book makes whatever this story may be rather painfully unclear.  If she knows what it is, she hasn’t told her audience.

One of the most challenging things about writing a fantasy novel is creating a new, convincing world that draws the reader in. There are several ways to approach this. One strategy is to focus on small, relatively unimportant details to remind the reader that they're nowhere they've ever been before. Monette predominantly attempts to tackle this in Melusine with the naming and structure of time units and money. Unfortunately for her book, Monette executes on both of these sloppily and then overuses the terms such that they never seem organic or particularly clear. In addition, the naming of the money in the world of Melusine is particularly problematic – the monetary unit is a "Gorgon" and this reference to a mythical creature that has no relevance to the novel’s created world is just the first of many sloppy distractions that include similar pointless use of mythological creatures and figures from phoenixes to labyrinths.

Melusine also has problems in the area of characterization, while Mildmay, the previously mentioned cat burglar rises above the fantasy novel cliché's he's saddled with to be an engaging, funny and occasionally touching creature, his counterpart in the nobility, Felix Harrowgate, never comes to life. Monette clearly doesn't truly understand status issues, a not uncommon problem from American authors trying to write on societies with nobility, and so the habits, desires and prides of nobility in the world of Melusine seem well beyond her.

Additionally, Felix's backstory involves several problematic themes including rape, prostitution and magical training. None of these three elements, which interlock in a critical way in the narrative, is handled in any fashion that I found believable. Monette feminizes Felix's character in his response to all three subjects, and this really works against her clear desire to portray the book's gay and lesbian characters as just like anyone else. More research on sex work and the real-world theories of magickial practice would have done a tremendous amount to ground the fantasy world Monette tries to create in Melusine.

The matter of magic, which is essential to most fantasy novels, is particularly problematic. Monette never decides if magic in Melusine is a scientific or spiritual discipline, nor does she clarify to us why some people can and some people cannot do it. Its place in society is presented in an unclear fashion, and the structure of what is possible and how is never clearly presented. If the reader doesn't desire to do magic or have access to magic from reading a fantasy novel, a large part of the fantasy novel has failed. For Sarah Monette, magic in Melusine seems like an afterthought – sure, it drives the story, but it's only there so that she could write about these characters.

Similarly Monette lets us down in the villain of Malkar (first of all, could she have worked a little harder on coming up with a name slightly less clichéd?). We're never given any insight into his motivations, nor an understanding of what is seductive (or particularly impressive) about his power. I can appreciate her desire not to make him a complex villain, object of desire or even an anti-hero (like, say, Philip Pullman's Lord Asriel in the His Dark Materials trilogy or Severus Snape in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series), but more than two dimensional would help provide a better understanding of Felix as well.

I do give Monette credit for being willing to kill off and disappear characters. The real world isn't neat, and it's important to Monette to reflect this. Unfortunately, she takes this habit too far in Melusine and leaves many loose ends hanging. Similarly, it's unclear just what Monette felt Melusine is about – is it about family reunion? The nature of love? A quest narrative? A political struggle? Perhaps Monette intended for Melusine to be an epic encompassing all these aspects, but instead it feels like a fantasy novel without a goal.

I read Melusine as part of a queer-themed book club. The greatest benefit I've gotten from the novel is that is has forced me to make a significant start on my own novel, partially out of frustration with the idea that I should celebrate mediocre novels merely because they have queer content.

~~~~~~~~~~

Racheline is a performer, writer and long-time fan of sci-fi and fantasy literature, who believes truths lurk in all art, no matter how fantastical. 

You can find all of Racheline's Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fan articles at www.gather.com/scififan

Keep up with Racheline's other postings and Gather activity by joining her Gather network -- just click here racheline.gather.com and select the orange "Connect" button on the left-hand side of the page.

You'll find Racheline and other Book Correspondents, plus celebrity author content and plenty of other bibliophiles at Books.gather.com