Let's take a look at the Moontide Quartet by David Hair, shall we? This adult fantasy series was recommended to me by my friend Fable. This review contains mentions of CSA. Spoilers ahead.
In this book we follow various characters, from the bungling mage-apprentice Alaron to his battle-hardened aunt Elena and a lowly market girl called Ramita. They live in a fantasy world where the tides are crazy due to how close the moon is to the planet. This makes boat travel impossible. A bridge was built between the two continents, and crusades to the eastern continent are set to begin once the tides allow for it.
While I do have some mixed thoughts on this book and generally the series so far, I do find myself enjoying it quite a bit.
The questionable bits? Well, for starters, this book series leans heavily on our real Earth's continents, cultures, peoples, etc. To the point at times I wonder why it was set in a different universe at all and not just in an alternate version of our world. The two continents pretty much correspond to medieval Europe and the Middle East/India, cultures you find on our world are present there as well (though under a different name), the religions are eerily similar (the Kore faith is basically Christianity with magic, the Amteh faith is pretty much Islam), and so forth. At first I really didn't like it, but I do think that by now I've gotten a bit used to it? I'm still a bit ambiguous on it, as it also partially feels lazy, like the author didn't want to bother developing the world very much outside of the magical aspects.
Also, I don't think all of the representation may be all that great. The author is white, yet has no problem using slurs for groups such as the G-slur. There's also racism present in this series, which I'm not too fond of. Yes, it's "realistic", but that doesn't mean it's necessary. There's already so much racism in the real world, it really doesn't feel needed to included it in this world against races that directly correspond to races in our world. Using terms such as "mudskin", just... no thanks.
There's also the subject of Ramita. She is (early on in the story) selected by the legendary elderly mage Meiros to bear his children. Against her will she's taken away from her life at the market and her lover and now has to bear the children of this mage. The book keeps going out of its way to make Meiros seem like a good person, but he still impregnated a fifteen-years old girl. Yes, he's not a pedophile or anything, he isn't doing it because of that, but I don't care what his ulturior motives are. He still impregnated a little girl for his own morals and even though Ramita grows to love him in a way throughout the story and he is humanized a whole lot because of it, I just don't feel comfortable with that. He doesn't deserve to be portrayed like that for impregnating a minor.
So I must hate this book, right? No, I really don't. It was easy to get into (partially because of the similarities to our world) and as someone who doesn't have the easiest time getting into adult fantasy that was definitely appreciated. I, of course, felt uncomfortable during the instances mentioned above, but that doesn't detract from the writing actually good, the characters rather interesting and enjoyable (for the most part) and the pacing being really well-done as well.
I'm going to have to split my stars up again over here, like I did with Clan of the Cave Bear. I'm not fully comfortable recommending it because of the issues I brought up, but for my personal enjoyment rating it'll get a decent amount of stars.
Rating:
4/5 (personal score)
3/5 (critical score)
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