2007-06-20 Thin plots continue to let Black down

I continue to enjoy Holly Black's gift for imagery (which this book gives full rein to) but whilst there is more story to this book than there was to Tithe, it does suffer from the same character relationship problems and I think this is really down to Black putting so much effort into her main character of Val that the side characters remain nothing more than ciphers when they should be rich and satisfying. Take Luis for example, he should be fascinating given that he has Sight, has already lost one eye to a faerie, clearly mistrusts them and yet bound himself to serve a troll in exchange for his brother's life. In practice however, he is never more than a checklist of attributes, which prevents him from leaping off the page. Ditto Ravus (who reminded me far too much of Roiben in Tithe but with longer teeth, ditto Lolli (who was too irritatingly shallow to ever be believable) and ditto Dave and Mabry. In the latter two cases, this really affected my enjoyment of the story because if they're the central bad guys, they need to have more of a motivation than a desire to shag Lolli senseless (in the case of Dave) and to gain revenge on Ravus (in the case of Mabry).

I've also noticed that for a second time, Black uses a somewhat improbable set-up to kick-start the heroine's adventure - the main character's sudden and somewhat soapy discovery that her mum is having it off with her boyfriend. Whilst I have no doubt that there are mothers who like to bonk their teenage daughter's boyfriend, this is so briskly dealt with and so totally lacking in credibility, that I found myself wishing that Black had found a less contrived way of sending Val running off into the city.

Valiant is a much darker book than Tithe. There is particular reference to drug-taking, with Val, Dave and Lolli essentially becoming hooked on a kind of powdered magic called Never, which temporarily gives them the power of faeries. Black does well in showing Val's increased dependency on the effects of the drug and showing the effects of withdrawal. However, she never really gives Val a good reason for taking it in the first place and whilst she takes care to establish a set of rules for taking Never (including never more than once a day for two days in a row), she is quick to disregard the same - again, without offering an explanation or justification. Valiant also has a sex scene (straight), which is perfunctory, in-keeping with the subject matter and perversely chaste (a little like a fade out to a 1930s movie) and the dialogue is peppered with the f-bomb (although again, this is not gratuitous and gives the text some much-needed credibility).

The final critical issue with the book is with the lack of credibility of the central romance. I had similar concerns with Tithe but at least there was sufficient interaction between the characters to live with it. In Valiant, there simply isn't. Black is going for a Beauty and the Beast vibe but they don't have enough page time to be credible. In fact, in many ways I think it would have been more believable to have their relationship grow into a firm inter-species friendship than some great love story.