Review: Chill Factor by Rachel Caine. Book 3 of the Weather Warden Series

Joanne and David are trying desperately to catch up with Kevin and Jonathon – Kevin has stolen Lewis’s powers, the most powerful Warden in the world and without them Lewis is slowly dying. And Jonathon is the most powerful of the Djinn, bottled for Kevin to use. Between them they have vast power and the potential for extreme destruction – especially since they’re extremely careless how they use that power. The growing instability is threatening a global environmental disaster.

Then there’s the organisations that shape the world who are determined to become involved. The Wardens want David and Jonathon’s bottles, Lewis playing his own game and a new force, Ma’at, sees the Wardens as a deadly threat – but has little compassion for humanity.

It’s been a long time since she has been in Vegas as well – but the place holds terrible memories for her of events that are very much connected to the current crisis – and the growing number of missing Djinn.

I’ll start with fulsome praise for the World Building. The world building and research is impressive but, again, perhaps too impressive. It’s not as extreme as the last book, but I’m not a meteorologist (or a seismologist for that matter) and while the science is well explained, there’s a lot of it. It’s nice to see magic have a grounding in reality, but at times I think I’d be happier with “she waves her hands and it rains” than the scientific chain of events that causes air born moisture to form precipitation. It’s impressive, but perhaps too much for the lay reader.

Beyond the world building of the magic, the Djinn, Ma’at and Wardens are all coming together with more detail and more information about each of them and how they interact together – and in turn adding a lot more information to the magic system and the way the powers actually work. It’s artfully done without ever resorting to lecturing even if Joanne’s point of view about weather manipulation can be excessively complicated and detailed.

The story is fascinating – all these organisations, the dilemma of taking down Kevin, how Kevin himself is not an entirely unsympathetic character, Jonathon’s own plotting and Joanne trying to negotiate between these many different forces and powers – and choosing who to trust. We have the very struggle of getting near Vegas with the most powerful Djinn in the world trying to brush you aside; the complex ethics of what to actually do with Kevin; the need to save Lewis while at the same time dealing with his and the Warden’s behaviour and, through all that, the presence of Ma’at, their own agenda, their demand that Joanne joins them and their own shady ethics. There’s a lot here, a lot of twists and turns and several times just when you think it’s all ironed out, a new curve ball lurches out to surprise you. It’s well paced and interesting never dragging but I do have to say there may be one twist too many – towards the end of the book I reached a point where I just wanted her to win already and be done because there was so many new twists added on at the end.

I’m really curious how Joanne reacts to the people around her from here. So much has opened up – the true nature of the Wardens, Ma’at, the Djinn, Lewis, yet at the same time she has been given zero reason to trust any of them. In fact, each of them has betrayed her in some fashion, sometimes pretty severely. Where does she go here when she has little reason to trust or want to be part of any of these groups?

Review: Heat Stroke by Rachel Caine, Book 2 of the Weather Warden Series

Joanne is now a djinn. Saved from certain death by David in the last book. She now has to learn the realities of her n ew life, with the new senses, the new body, the new powers and the sheer new world that comes with being a djinn, a creature of smoke, fire and pure energy.

But things aren’t so simple – David has hurt himself creating Joanne and he is bleeding power into her. And there’s a whole hierarchy of djinn, including a virtual god who is very not happy with this – and has an ultimatum. Either Joanne learns how to sustain herself within a week, or he will destroy her to save David.

And to make matters worse, there’s a rift into the demon realm – a rift that is producing sparks that seem to be doing odd things to the world – and the djinn.  It has to be sealed and Lewis seems to think he knows how – but he needs a djinn to do it.

Then there’s Yvette – a Warden out to bottle and capture some djinn. And a sadist who has her eyes on David

I liked the story – we had major issues coming together. The frustration and need to escape as a djinn, the coming of age of learning ton be a djinn, the love story of David and Joanne and the mystery of the coldfire- it was a mix of genres without a simple box to put it in. I did feel it seemed to leap between several storylines and not know exactly where it was going –but it coalesced in the end. We had the coldfire, Joanne learning to be a djinn, the capture of Joanne and her ongoing relationship with David, all of which seemed to run vaguely parallel to each other but be rather separate – and it was a little frustrating because I rather wanted to just get on with one of them – any of them would do because I actually enjoyed them all. But they did all come together towards the end of the book, establishing one dominant storyline that had roots in all of them which was really rather nicely done. I still think I would have preferred a story that, say, focussed on Joanne being a djinn, but I still liked it and am impressed by how it was done. Especially since elements of the story felt superfluous at first, a distraction, btu then came back to be dominant near the end.

The story does end with a cliffhanger - with Jonathon and Lewis both in doubt. I’m not normally that keen on cliffhangers – hints to keep me intrigued but not a sudden plot break – but Rachel Caine seems to like them a lot since her Morganville Vampire series uses them as well. I will say that the cliffhangers in this series are much better and tend to leave with n introduction to a new plotline more than breaking in the middle of a plotline. I think of it as more of a prequel or insight into the next book than a fingernail-biting tense finish.

The story of Joanna learning how to be a djinn and what it means to be a djinn is fascinating and added so much to the world building of this book. It’s also interesting how both the Djinn and the Wardens, to some degree, view the other as the ultimate power. From their creation to the Ifirt to the formation of another djinn and the consequences of it there was a lot of world building here – and it was all done reasonably – no lectures no info-dumping. It all fit the story. And the way they depicted the djinn being captured – and the full extent and powerlessness of it was really well done. The combination of both ultimate power from being connected with a human but at the same time being utterly helpless in the face of their commands.

Review: Ill Wind by Rachel Caine, Book 1 of the Weather Warden Series

Joanne is a Weather Warden. A Warden gifted in the elements of Water and Air, who has the solemn duty to protect humanity from Mother Nature’s devastating wrath. But one mission to dissipate a terrible storm enmeshes her in plots beyond her measure.

She’s now on the run, with a demon mark, no less, and with the entire organisation of the Wardens hunting her for murder. A crime for which they could kill her or strip her of her powers. And if they find the demon within her, then it’s a near certainty that she will have her powers ripped away.

Her only chance is to get rid of the demon – but there are so few ways to do that. The easiest would be to pass it on to a Djinn – and curse the Djinn to live the rest of eternity in torment – not a fate she can contemplate, especially after meeting Djinn. Or there is Lewis, an old friend, a rebel and the most powerful Warden the world has ever seen.

But she has no idea who she can trust, very few friends and she is hunted not just by the Wardens, but also by a vast storm she conjured accidentally while fighting for her life – that now follows her relentlessly. And then there’s someone else, some enemy who continually strikes at her. To say nothing of Djinn that pop in and out – and who knows who they serve or what agenda they follow?

The world is rich and huge and novel. The different Wardens acting to protect humanity from the vagaries of Mother Nature is such an unusual concept. Throw in the Demons and the Djinn and we have something fascinating that actually took an effort of will for me not to reach instantly for book 2 the minute book 1 was finished, I wanted to know much more so soon. Storywise I’m impressed. We have a combination of survival and mystery with an extra side-order of mystery. The main mystery of what Joanne’s doing and how she will save herself and who is to blame – or even if there is someone to blame-  is huge and fascinating and constantly kept me guessing – and I guessed wrong every time. Yet the clues were there – but I never remotely imagined the results. But we have so many other mysteries along the way – who is David, who is Rahel serving and constantly what what what is happening!

We also had what I normally consider a contrived plot line. We start with secondly – Joanne on the run from something. And we don’t know the why and wherefore of that something for a while, adding to the mystery. But it works because it allows the full mystery to be complicated without us having to be infodumped vast amounts of world building so we can understand it. Without this method, I suspect this would be the second book in the series and the first book would be slow, meandering and just full of infodumping to set up this book. So, I’m impressed, a literary trick I normally loathed was used to good, nay, brilliant effect.

The world is doled out in nicely sized chunks through nice little vignettes that give us flash backs into Joanne’s past – and they fit and are interesting rather than a distraction. The various forces arrayed against Joanne happened often enough to keep the book exciting without it being too much of a survival horror that the mystery was lost. And the character interactions were fun, real and very human.