WARNING: CRAWLING WITH SPOILERS
I recently (as in, this morning in bed) finished The Forever Man, which is Book 3 of the W.A.R.P series by Eoin Colfer.
Eoin Colfer who wrote the ever-brilliant Artemis Fowl series.
I talked a little about Book 1 of W.A.R.P, The Reluctant Assassin, in my three quickfire book reviews post, a while back. Long story short, the first book had amazingly detailed characters with remarkable stories and believable chemistry and amusing banter, and the villains were deliciously cruel and ruthless and, especially in the case of Garrick, endlessly compelling. It is really an exquisite read.
I didn't ever talk about the second book on this blog, but The Hangman's Revolution is pretty much just as good. The characters are at their height, the villain, though less enigmatic, is equally ruthless (more of a Hitler than a Son of Sam type) and the cliffhanger at the end had me begging for the next one.
So here we are. At the next one. And, judging from its ending, the last one.The Forever Man.
A.K.A The return of Garrick which I was low-key waiting for, because Garrick is the most delectably sadistic villain I have ever had the pleasure to read about.
Garrick had not lost his touch, as a villain. I'll admit, the beginning does not surprise anyone who reads the back of the book - you know from the get-go that the unnamed man who hides in the shadows and chuckles at Chevie's anachronistic accent has to be Garrick, because the back of the book tells you who they're running from, and who else could it honestly be?
He still manages to introduce himself with a bang though, what with dousing Riley in his supposed brother's blood and all-but killing Chevie. Oh, Garrick, truly you have an eye for the dramatic. He is a stage magician, after all.
And after that is where things start getting a bit zany. And I mean, zany for Colfer, who, as I may have mentioned, writes books about twelve year old child geniuses who kidnap fairies for their gold.
Essentially, they get sent back to the seventeenth century, where Garrick has already established himself as a Witchfinder, and he gets the poor town of Mandrake to turn against Chevie and Riley as a witch and her familiar. Chevie then gets rescued by a former F.B.I agent like herself who got stranded in the period. It's kind of funny that I brought up the Son of Sam, earlier, because guess who this agent's partner is?
A talking dog.
Well, actually, a person who became a dog after the time travel. But he can still talk like a person.
Also there's a ghost. Of a dude who died twice in the series so far. How he got in the seventeenth century is a bit iffy. Don't worry, though, he'll die for the third time, to make up for it.
Also featuring: a giant squid who is actually F.B.I, a giant boar who is not, and "It's not a wormhole, it's an inter-dimension!"
It's a fun book.
And I love Eoin Colfer. I really do. But despite the goofiness and amusing things and, naturally, tension, there was one thing that made this book a little less satisfying than his others in the series:
Chevie and Riley, our two heroes, who specifically contrast each other, barely interact in this book. Instead, as soon as one escapes, the other gets in grave danger, and the book is essentially a game of tug of war between who is saving who from certain death.
And it's a shame that they don't interact, because that is when they shine. Riley and Chevie are designed to be foil for each other, with Chevie as the cynic and Riley as the idealist, with Chevie from the twenty-first century and Riley from the nineteenth, with Chevie as head and Riley as heart. That, and their shared wit, makes them so much fun to read about together. Don't get me wrong, I love them both on their own, and would probably read books of one without the other in it. But when you're reading a book with both of them in it, having them not really interact just seems like a massive waste of opportunity.
What makes this even weaker is that Riley and Chevie yet spend the entire book thinking about each other. I believe it. It makes sense, considering they're constantly saving each other. It's just that it gets kind of tiring, when they don't even talk to each other.
Also, and I'll come right out and admit that this is largely my own personal bias: but Colfer threw in romance. And I am not one to look at a awesome, trusting, platonic friendship and say, "You know what this needs? Romance." I kind of really like awesome, trusting, platonic friendships as friendships, and I appreciate them even more when they're different genders because people apparently believe that isn't possible. Turning it into romance... it almost seems to simplify it. It's almost lazy.
And it irritates me that "Oh, this book is for a slightly more mature audience than Artemis Fowl was. Romance is a must." Because that wasn't so in the first books, and they were great! Why fix something that isn't broken?
That being said, I still kind of believe it. Because Riley and Chevie, platonically or otherwise, were kind of meant for each other. They were designed that way. And, kind of like in Avatar: The Last Airbender, where Aang had a thing for Katara - it's a younger, sweetheart of a boy who feels something for an older girl who is warm and kind-hearted but also a badass. It's understandable. Who wouldn't have a crush on Chevie, or Katara, for that matter?
And just like Aang and Katara, the older girl respects the boy and eventually falls for him, seeing past his age and, at times, naivete, because she's seen him through it all. Which also makes a certain amount of sense.
Also, Eoin Colfer did a pretty good job with that kiss on the pyre. Hot damn, literally. Surrounded by flames. That is an image to remember.
But... for all that? It didn't feel necessary. It didn't feel like it added something to the story that was missing before. It felt, as I've mentioned, like a simplification of the friendship that Riley and Chevie had already shared. And, yes, that is entirely my own bias (and bitterness about being single, probably), but it's my opinion nonetheless.
The other thing is that the ending seemed... abrupt. And I just know, from the way that all the bows were tied so tightly and neatly, that this was the last book in the series.
And I'm glad that Chevie and Riley got happy endings. God knows they deserved it. But it was almost too much to be believed. You mean to tell me that Chevie managed to go back to her own time before her dad died and save him? Then go back, no longer an old woman? Meanwhile. Riley goes back to his own time and becomes an ultra famous magician and marries an inexplicably-youthful Chevie from the future and has a kid and finds his brother and learns his true name and they all live happily ever after? And doesn't even have to end Garrick himself, despite it being almost entirely his fight? Despite Garrick literally putting Riley through psychological and physical torture for the entirety of his life, Riley isn't the one that gets to exact retribution? There would have been a certain delicious irony around Riley, the aforementioned Reluctant Assassin, using Garrick's training to bump off Garrick himself. Instead, you're telling me that both their hands are clean of anything that could have sacrificed their moral compasses, that they fell in True Love as teens and married and had a happy life in the nineteenth century with no unanswered questions?
It's a Disney ending. And as much as Disney loved fairytales, they didn't like them when they were violent, and this one was. So it seemed kind of abrupt, and kind of out of place.
So... maybe this isn't the correct reaction... but it kind of seemed like, what was the point?
And I'm not sure why that was my reaction. But it was. It just felt kind of pointless.
It's because it feels as though no one had to sacrifice anything. Even in Artemis Fowl, a kid's book, he sacrificed his life, because that was the point, that was the culmination of all he had learned, him learning to self-sacrifice for others. Connor Broekhart, of Airman, sacrificed years of his life and everything he was, so of course his eventual happy ending was earned.
Chevie and Riley went through a lot, but I'm very hard-pressed to tell you of a time when they actually sacrificed something of themselves for something outside themselves. I mean, yes, Riley leaped into fire for Chevie, but he would have done that regardless, because Riley is just like that, especially with his only friend. So what's changed?
Am I making sense?
I don't know, it's possible that I just like the taste of bittersweet too much. But it just seems... really, implausible that, after everything that happened, everything worked out perfectly for important characters.
Also on the subject of deserved endings, Constable Cryer's ending was a bit harsh. He was a bigot, and a zealot, and an extremely prideful one, but did he deserve to have his flesh burnt off my molten silver and no one helped or mourned? It's hard for me to think so. He was, after all, a victim of Garrick's indoctrination. It makes him weak-minded, and yes, a boot-licker, but it doesn't make him evil. I'm not asking for a redemption arc, I'm asking for recognition that he wasn't the sort of evil that his awful, unmourned death would seem to suggest.
That being said, Isles and Pointer? Handled perfectly. I almost cried. Charles Smart, too, come to think of it.
And really, all in all, I enjoyed the book. Like, a lot. Like, I couldn't stop reading it. It was hilarious and the characters were their wonderful selves and the new characters were instantly endearing. It was witty and it was an adventure and Garrick, who is quite possibly my favourite villain to hit the pages of a book, is wonderfully evil, as usual.
There was just some things that seemed, to me, like it could have been done more... suitably.
I know I've talked much longer about the flaws than about the good things, but I promise, it was a very good book. Colfer writes a good story, and I adore these characters. It's just A) unusual for flaws like these to appear in one of his books - I usually don't come out of one of his books feeling dissatisfied - and, B) easier to talk about what's wrong than what's right. How many times can I say the word "delicious" about a book?
No, but seriously, read the series. It's great. Yes, even this one. I love it a lot. It will be in my heart forever.
Hah.
The Forever Book.
I'm funny.
