Cast in Fury

August 7, 2010

Cast in Fury (Chronicles of Elantra, #4)by Michelle Sagara

When a minority race of telepaths is suspected of causing a near-devastating tidal wave, Private Kaylin Neya is summoned to Court—and into a PR nightmare. To ease racial tensions, the emperor has commissioned a play, and the playwright has his own ideas about who should be the focus.…But Kaylin works her best magic behind the scenes, and though she tries to stay neutral, she is again drawn into a world of politics—and murder. To make matters worse, Marcus, her trusted sergeant, gets stripped of his command, leaving Kaylin vulnerable. Now she's juggling two troubling cases, and even magic's looking good by comparison. But then nobody ever said life in the theater was easy.… (goodreads.com)

Two things:One - It seems that with every book in this series that I have read I do not understand a good chunk of what the hell is going on. And yet, I continue to adore the series and characters.Two - I thought the book was going to be about Kaylin and the playwright. The story starts off that way and then goes completely in a different direction as it tells Marcus' story. The summary is rather misleading.I kid you not about the being confused for every book. I don't know if it's me or if it's just the way things are written. Any action/fight scene in this series boggles my mind and I have started skimming over them until the end when I feel like the book is written in my own language again. Luckily I feel a little less alone because my husband has also been reading these books (recently) and he came to me to ask what the hell was going on in such-and-such scene and I was all, "Guuuh??" because I didn't know. I was relying on HIM to TELL ME what happened. It normally works that way. My poor dyslexic brain sometimes can't figure things out very well and I have my husband read what I just did and explain it to me. heh. Also I have read a couple of reviews recently of this series where the blogger has also been confused for the same parts I have been. So maybe it's not me.I thought we were going to spend the entire book trailing after this moody playwright whom I grew to enjoy just as that part of the story was pushed aside for 2/3 of the book only to be taken up again in the EPILOGUE! Good heavens. The main focus of the story is Kaylin's unofficial investigation into Marcus' troubles. He's been arrested for murder which seems to have come out of the blue and of course the acting Sergeant hates Kaylin and is ready to kick her out of the Hawks for good.That was another thing that I thought would be addressed more - the trouble that Kaylin always gets into and then having to deal with it with this acting Sergeant guy who hates her. But it was tossed to the background as well. Rather disappointing.I had a hard time following the Caste rules of the Leontines what with the laws that kept Marcus in jail and why he wasn't being given a trial and how his Pridlea was set up. All of that went over my head. I am hoping my husband can break it down for me once he's finished the book. ;)And again there was a fight scene near the end that completely baffled me and so I just raced through it hoping it would be summed up at the end of the fight and it was. I have no idea what goes on with "old language" and "words" and power and stuff. Things are left very vague and almost too vague for me to even have an idea of what's going on in my imagination. When something like "Kaylin didn't know what she was speaking but she said it, the word, the one word that held all the power it got better" (that is NOT an actual quote I'd like to point out, but it's close to what is written often in these books). So Kaylin doesn't know what language she's speaking or even how to pronounce the words she saying and yet she DOES and these words hold POWER and somehow she is MAGIC. And I am left going WHAT THE F---?There is vague in storytelling and there is way too vague. I think this series falls a little too deep into the way too vague category at times.And yet I love the series. I need more when I am done with a book. I love Kaylin and Marcus and Ybelline. I love the dialogue, it's the description I have trouble with.I want to read the next one right away but I just realized I have one more library book to read before Tuesday. So I shall get to that one next. With the crappy English section my library had it's hard to renew books since they are in such high demand.The Chronicles of Elantra