Tome Thursday: Soundless

Hello everyone!

It's time to blog about another book, and I just realized this week that I'm running low on movies to review, as in, I'm running low on the movies I've already seen and stocked up on. I think I need to revise my strategy a bit so that I can cram some more in, although to be honest I'm not entirely sure how that's going to happen.

There's just so much going on! Not only online, but away from the computer, as well, and reading has always been my escape, more so than watching something.

But I'll make it happen, somehow.

In the meantime, I'm no slacker when it comes to blogging, or at least I try not to be, although this Tuesday was a bit of a cheat as far as things go ...

Still, you enjoyed Bernard the Flamingo, right? Right?

Back to books.

And the author that I usually adore, Richelle Mead.

I've blogged about her before, a number of times (here, here, and here; also mentioned here), because, let's be honest, I do enjoy reading a good paranormal romance, which Vampire Academy and Bloodlines certainly were!

So when I heard she would be trying her hand at writing a single book, with no follow-up, I was thrilled!

Soundless had all the qualities of a successful novel in my opinion: it was said to take place high up in the mountains, the inhabitants of the described village had lost their hearing a long time ago, so they lived in perpetual silence, and it would be heavily influenced by Asian cultures.

Me, when someone mentions there could be an influence other than American or British?

Squeal time!

And I won't say that the book was bad. I just found it a little bit ... lacking.

We begin our story with a description of life in this mountain village, through the eyes of Fei, who is an artist, meaning she has a post from where she observes what is happening, and paints a picture, a sort of record about it, for the next day. Other castes include miners, who dig into the earth for a precious metal they send down from the mountain in exchange for food being sent up, Elders, who lead the village, servants (self-explanatory, I think), and beggars. Why beggars?

Because people have also begun losing sight. 

Among them is Fei's own sister, and while she tries to do everything she can to help her, it is eventually discovered, and she is sent to the servants. The situation continues to deteriorate as, wit less people to work in the mines, less food is sent up the mountain (because, honestly, that's how you're going to make the miners work better, nacht). Fei's old sweetheart is all for rebellion, which includes climbing down the mountain to speak to the line manager.

One night, in a dream, Fei senses a presence and wakes up with hearing restored to her. This isn't explained until much later, but for now she is the ideal companion for the heart-sick puppy, I'm sorry, old lover boy, as she can hear rocks and avalanches and warn him. They slip away in the night and climb down, on their way finding an abandoned village and mine, with a similar fate towards which their own seems to be headed. Horrified, they reach the valley, only to find a rich city close-by, and the startling truth:

the king had no intention on helping the village, and he is keeping them on the mountain with a lie, as he only wants the precious metal he covets, and doesn't care about the subjects.

The pair has to flee, intent on getting word back home, although only Fei is the only one who makes it up the zip line (old lover boy sacrificed himself to enable her escape). But when she paints a record of what they had seen, a riot breaks out the next day among the villagers, stopped only by the arrival of the king's soldiers, who had blown up the blocked mountain passes to gain access (yeah ... the king is a piece of work), also bringing with them chained slaves to emphasize their point.

Fei, however, figures out what needs to be done: piecing together the story, from a legend that said that a mystical creature, the pixius, were tired and wished to sleep, taking away the people's hearing, when in truth, the king and his soldiers had waged war on the animals, and the handful survivors pulled away into sleep, waiting for the right people to restore hearing to, and Fei is the beginning. How to save the situation? Shout out to the pixius, which brings them roaring back and killing the king's soldiers, establishing a sense of peace and balance once more.

Man and Nature again in harmony, the passages now open, the villagers now begin a new life without castes, with fledgling trade routes, the pixius among them, and Fei set to marry the young man she was always destined to be with.

Whew.

Okay, well, the general story is quite good - but honestly, it had so much more potential. There was hardly any Asian influence actually depicted in a way that you could unerstand it as such - if we hadn't been warned, it could have just been any other city, actually, surrounded by high mountains. The main couple was okay-ish, but I think the problem is that Mead is much better when writing over a series of books; two hundred pages weren't enough to convey what she wanted to.

All in all, I give it a solid three out of five stars, but I wasn't as impressed as I could have been.

xx

*image not mine