Name: The Alchemist's Daughter
ISBN: 9780739326107

Katharine McMahon

The daughter of an eccentric chemist, young Emilie Selden is a scientist in an eighteenth-century world that dismisses female accomplishment, until an encounter with the temptations of the outside world lures her away from her home and her work.

A Novel

The Alchemist's Daughter

Growing up under the watchful eye of her father, an eccentric chemist, young Emilie Selden is a female scientist--and alchemist--in an eighteenth-century world that dismisses female accomplishment, until an unexpected encounter with the temptations of the outside world lures her away from her home, her work, and her father. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

Michael Springer

Those of you who are Old School know about the original Legend of Zelda. The first game in the Zelda franchise was epic. It was badass. In my personal opinion, few games have been as awesome since. 

This book is a lot like the original Legend of Zelda. Unfortunately, it is like all the crappy and stupid aspects of that game, and none of the cool ones. Witness as I extrapolate. 



The main character in this book lacks personality. All of the things that sound kind of cool about her--like she knows about alchemy--in the end amount to practically footnotes as she wanders her way through a storyline, always doing the most obvious thing at the moment. At first, she takes the tools thrust upon her by her father and lets him mold her personality entirely. Like the little old man in the cave who gives Link his first sword, thereby bringing slaughter upon the legions of weird animals wandering Hyrule, Protagonist's father gives her the tools of alchemy and the knowledge of a very limited set of topics (sciences and alchemy are about it). She takes these tools and does the obvious thing with them, seemingly content being her dad's clone.....

....until a MAN walks in. And then, it doesn't matter who he is, she is all hot and bothered and blushing and virginal, unable to focus on her alchemy or science. But, she remains true to her father, not going after any of these guys until one of them rapes her. 

After he rapes her, she marries him....you know, because that makes sense. 

But, because Link is only capable of following instructions and killing like some little puppet serving the war pigs--let me try that again. Because Protagonist is only capable of doing what she's told, she marries the young and handsome rapist--even though she witnesses signs that he's only out for her money before they even get married. 

This is the pattern that she follows through the rest of the book, following the clearest instruction provided for her, slowly gaining cooler clothes and items. But, unlike Link, these items don't give her greater hit points or make it so she can do cooler things. She just continues being a uni-dimensional tool, ignoring the ways those around her are using her or manipulating her. 

The plot also shares some common elements with Zelda because everything is foreshadowed way ahead of time. Every plot point is predictable, almost from the point the involved characters enter the storyline. Let me just throw some archetypes at you. Feel free to guess at the ENTIRE PLOTLINE in the comments, and you'll probably be right:

Overly Protective Father
Flat Protagonist
Kind, Sweet, Widowed Reverend
Handsome, Money-Hungry Rapist Husband
Sneaky, Distrustful Maid
Mother who is Entirely Unknown by Protagonist, and is Never Talked About By Anyone.

The climax wasn't ENTIRELY clear until about two thirds of the way through the book, so that's a mildly good thing. But by the time you get there, end is entirely abrupt and exactly what you'd expect. 

And, after reading the other Goodreads reviews of this, I was expecting some serious alchemy porn! I was excited about pages talking about strange experiments, and perhaps digging up bodies or...well, SOMETHING cool. Alchemy was the big draw for me here, but there actually wasn't enough focus on that for me. Mary Shelly can write some passages about science that add texture. This book didn't have texture, and the texture it didn't have wasn't improved by the small amount of alchemy included. 

Unlike some of my reviews, I'm not being harsh just because I'm grumpy. I'm actually in a pretty friggin' good mood: It has been a long time since I've read anything by Ann Coulter. I just got a job I'm totally excited about, and I'm buying a beautiful house in a little over a month! So, coming from that frame of mind, let me reiterate: this book sucks. Skip it. 

But you should totally play The Legend of Zelda. Link is a flat character, but he's a flat character who'll put his foot up a moblin's ass. 



I mean that as a good thing.

The Alchemist's Daughter A Novel

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