The Iron Princess by Barbara Hambly
Review by Cyndi J. (cyndij)
Barbara Hambly, well-known author of the Benjamin January mystery series, returns to fantasy with THE IRON PRINCESS.
Clea is the second daughter of a very rich merchant prince, one of the rulers of the city. Far from a pampered socialite, she’s been disinherited a couple times and spent her formative years on the run, learning tradecraft from the thieves and secret fighters of her mother’s family. She hates her father but there’s still just a bit of loyalty left.
This is a grim world. Magic used to be reliable, but over the last few generations spells increasingly go awry. The substance adamine helps it work, and so the search for it becomes larger and larger, with thousands of slaves brutally treated to dredge adamine from dangerous swamps and rivers.
Out of the five classes of mages, only the Crystal Mages seem to have control of their magic, but Clea believes they have malign intent. Horrible monsters are erupting from the adamine mining areas, killing hundreds, and Clea has seen the Crystal Mages attempting to control the monsters for their own ends. They also seem to have designs on her younger half-brother, whom Clea loves despite herself. Clea is determined to save her people and her little brother.
She goes in search of a legend, the incredibly powerful magician Ithrazel who supposedly destroyed an entire city 75 years ago, and was punished for it – bound to a rock in another world, with giant eagles disemboweling him every day only for him to resurrect each night. Of course she’s going to find him. Then it’s just a matter of forcing him to work with her…easier said than done.
Hambly has wonderful powers of description. The world is described in detail, although there isn’t much beauty here – I would have liked a few more moments of grace for the characters to enjoy. But there are some lovely phrases your eye will go back to. The characters are well-drawn, you know who’s talking without being told. Clea is tough and determined, Ithrazel tired but even after decades of torture, he’s slowly finding it within himself to care what happens. Hamo turns out to be a lot more interesting than I thought; would have been good to see more flashes of that. However, the reader will notice stereotypes.
It was slow to get moving. I wasn’t sure at first exactly why Clea went in search of Ithrazel – what did she expect him to do? Then I waited expectantly for Hambly to explain why he’d destroyed the city (that seemed a rather large character flaw) and I wasn’t disappointed. In the second half the action really gets going and it all comes to rather an explosive ending. I really liked the explanation behind the Crystal Mages’ need for young mages, I definitely wasn’t expecting that.
I don’t know if Hambly intends to make this a series or not. It works as a standalone, but there are still plenty of problems for Clea or Ithrazel to solve if the author decides to go back to it. So – excellent world-building, good characters, and good pacing after the first part.
