Emma Bull

Being the only person who sees the other-worldly creatures, Eddi McCandry plunges into excitement and terror when she becomes a pawn in a bitter age-old battle between two faerie courts in modern Minneapolis.

A Novel

War for the Oaks

Sarah Escorsa

💀 DNF at 44%.

Let’s see, what can I tell you about this wonderfully captivating book, apart from the fact that it’s supposed to be a pioneer of the Urban Fantasy genre? (view spoiler)[
  I’m assuming that whoever said this didn’t have that kind of pioneer in mind when they made that particularly canny assertion. Then again, who knows?
 (hide spoiler)] Well, I guess I could start by telling you that’s it’s boring as fish. Not sure what I found most sleep-inducing in this slightly very NOT engrossing story, to be honest: the painstakingly detailed music/band-related stuff, the constant use of appalling song lyrics as filler material (yay!), the positively gripping details about the MC’s fantastically thrilling life (the remarkably entertaining tale about her going bike shopping brought back fond memories of Cal Leandros' utterly gripping car-related problems in Nightlife), or, in grand PNR style, the marvellously abundant, delightfully informative (if a teensy little bit pointless) clothes description (“tight black jeans that bring color to the room,” (view spoiler)[🙄🙄 (hide spoiler)] yay!).



You sure got that right, Bertie dear.

Some ridiculous eccentric authors would have chosen to focus on the Fantasy aspect of their Urban Fantasy story, but Emma Bull obviously knew better than to fall into this nefarious trap when she wrote the book. Why get lost in such futile musings when you can fill three quarters (and a half) of your story with a Big Fat Nothing (BFN™)? Why lose time explaining why the silly fae chose to involve your attractive, slender, clear-skinned, blonde MC (view spoiler)[🙄🙄 (hide spoiler)] in their war, what the stinking shrimp said MC’s role in said war is supposed to be, or what the bloody fishing hell said war is about, when you can go on and on and on (view spoiler)[and on and on and on (hide spoiler)] about Magnificently Mundane Stuff (MMS™)? Yes, why indeed. (view spoiler)[
  

  

  
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And you don’t want to get me started on the despicably bland, abominably unemotional writing (I suspect the story was drafted by an apathetic barnacle with lethargic tendencies). Or on the slightly horrific pacing. Or on the somewhat soporific plot. Or on the flat as fish characters (they put my favorite herd of ironing boards to shame, which is saying something). Or on the author using song titles as chapter headers. I mean, really. What are we, eleven and a half?



➽ Nefarious Last Words (NLW™): I skimmed through read 44% of this book and still have no bloody shrimping idea what oaks have to do with anything. Which is quite outrageous, if you ask me. 

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[Pre-review nonsense]

Well that was utterly fascinating.



➽ Full review to come and stuff.

Dean Bray

I don't think there has ever been, or ever will be, a book written that will have such an impact on me as War for the Oaks by Emma Bull. I have aphantasia and I lived most of my life not knowing what that was, or that it wasn't normal to not be able to visualize in my mind images of any kind. When reading books I could never see the characters or places, even with the desciprtions given I could not picture them. However, Emma Bull did not just describe things with the sense of sight. With her writing I could 
  hear
 the characters. I could 
  feel
 their emotions. I felt a part of the war itself, and found my heart tethered to each and every character in one way or another (except Stuart- ha!). Emma Bull changed what I expect from authors when I read books, and how I wish to craft characters myself someday. If I could recommend only one book, it would be this one- always. This book is absolutely the benchmark I use to measure all other works of fiction. It cannot be beat.

Darren S. Layne

As for some of us who feel that the themes and writing of Lord of the Rings is a bit plodding and obvious only after being inundated by so many fantasy stories since it started the genre, so too does War of the Oaks brown upon the branch in the wake of the Urban Fantastic eloquence and creativity of de Lint, et al. Emma Bull may have launched the popular concept of UF, but her writing feels outdated only due to the leaps that have been made in the genre since 1987.

Bull is crafty, clever, humorous, compassionate, and dreamy - these things should remain untouched by any sophomoric review. But for me, the Phouka was a little too foppy and formulaic, Dan the keyboardist was a little too marginalized-minority-guy, the Queen of Air and Darkness was a little too Cruella de Ville (and weak as hell), and Eddi, the main character, was a little too self-centered and naive for the story to resonate with me deeply.

But really, it was the pages upon pages of detailed description poured into how a band's music comes together that had me desperately wanting the end to come faster. Describing how bass notes and drum beats intertwine once or twice is fine. But when the entire story crescendos into a magical music-fest, painstakingly rendering an aural medium into into a written one...well, it's a bit like trying to describe a song to someone who has never heard it. The effect is lost, and because there's so much of this throughout the book, it has an anti-climactic ending that left me wanting more depth, more interaction, and more dialog.

Sure, music and artists are staples of Urban Fantasy stories. That's how magic is crafted. I just don't want to have to read a book about how every note of that craft is rendered. Perhaps Emma Bull could have attached a soundtrack!

War for the Oaks A Novel

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