The Wilding by Friedman

The Wilding by C.S. Friedman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I really like this sequel. It continues to be rapey, way rapier than the first one even, so that's a very big caveat right up front for those of you for whom it's a deal breaker. It's mostly a deal breaker for me usually, but I like everything else so well that I'm able to ignore it. There's also a fair amount of gender essentialism going on here, too (for example, psychics can be either male or female but in both books we only get extended portraits of female psychics; Braxin culture is extremely patriarchal and male dominated; we do see that from both male and female perspectives and we do get to see some interesting avenues of power that are open to women). IDK I just like this series. *shrugs*

It skips ahead several centuries and shows the fall out of what happens in the first book. Friedman is a master plotter and really good at building alien cultures. She's also very good at creating characters whose arcs I am avidly following even when they're not likable people.

I need to find out if she's written something more recently. I'd be interested to see if the rapey elements have faded out of her writing.



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