Book: Shadowplay
Author: Laura Lam
Trigger warnings: racist cops, drug abuse |(if you spotted any I missed please let me know so I can add them, thanks)
Sub-genre: Victorian steam punk
Page count: 393
Points of Diversity: Intersex, Bisexual, Person of color, amputee
Intersectional Diversity?: yes
Would Recommend?: no
Once again I’m giving a general *spoiler warning* for this whole review. I can’t really explain my overall feelings for the book without giving some minor spoilers, though I won’t be giving details on how it ends. Before I continue I do want to say that Shadowplay is a vast improvement over Pantomime in terms of its portrayal of diversity. It’s still not perfect and still has a few problematic elements, but it’s wonderful to see this improvement all the same. It makes me want to read more of her work despite the harshness of my last review. I may not have liked either books but I do have a lot of respect for Laura Lam as an author because of the progress I’ve seen in Shadowplay.
With Pantomime, I enjoyed the book for the most part aside from a few problems that niggled at me. It wasn’t until I reached the last chapters that things took a turn for the worse, leading me to reflect more on the past problems on top of the ending. This led me to my conclusion of it being a mostly enjoyable read but still a poor representation of diversity that left it on my “not recommended” list.
I found little of that enjoyment with Shadowplay. In truth, I found the book rather dull for much of the middle and found it nearly impossible to get into aside from rare moments. Granted, this could easily be because my poor experience with the first book, coupled with the problematic elements I came across in this one, put up barriers in my mind that kept me from getting absorbed. It’s entirely possible that if I had been able to set aside my past issues, and been able to set aside the problematic elements, then I would have been able to get absorbed and find the book much more enjoyable. On the other hand, I would argue that I shouldn’t have to ignore past experiences and I especially shouldn’t have to ignore problematic elements in order to enjoy a story.
However, I think the primary reason I found this book so dull was that half of it read like a Disney Channel teen drama. The mystery of Micah’s powers and who he is, him being a fugitive, the exploration of the ancient history of Elada? All of it takes a backseat about a quarter of the way in to be replaced with him getting mixed up in a magician’s old rivalry. This reads like a Disney Channel teen drama because I actually remember catching bits and pieces of a movie on that channel that had two high schoolers competing against each other in a talent show, as magicians. I don’t remember much of the movie but thanks to all the melodrama and the transparent wickedness of the opposition that was present there and here, I couldn’t help but think of it as I read Shadowplay. Teen dramas may be interesting to some, but they have always been tedious to me, even when I was a teenager (man I sound old XD).
As the book neared the end, focusing back on Elada’s history and the role Micah would play in its future, it became more interesting. Laura Lam has built a fascinating world here, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It makes me wish I got more enjoyment out of her books because, problematic elements aside, they are good stories with a fascinating mythos and excellent prose, even if a lot of the plot elements hold little interest for me. But, as I said, those problematic elements should not be put aside.
First, let me note a major positive: Lam has greatly improved her portrayal of intersex individuals since her first book. Pantomime seemed to consider intersex people to be mythical chimera with special powers who were once worshiped as gods. In Shadowplay this is fixed. It starts with Micah making occasional mentions of other people who had been born with intersex bodies similar to his, it’s just that no doctor he saw had come across one exactly like him. However, the possibility of there being such wholly human individuals is acknowledged.
Micah meets other chimera throughout the story who play prominent roles and are not intersex. This gives us hints of what is later confirmed by Dr. Pozzi (the guy who gave Micah to his adopted parents and a chimera himself) that Micah’s abilities are separate from his sex.
Micah also speaks with the ghost of an ancient chimera named Anisa who tells him that “kedi” is simply their world for people like Micah who have both male and female body parts, whether they be human, chimera, or alder (another ancient race no longer around). When Micah asks about kedi being worshiped, Anisa says that some were but also points out some men and women were worshiped too.
No longer are Kedi portrayed as these mythical, magical gods worshiped by a long dead culture. Now Kedi=intersex and it is made clear that intersex is present in many different forms in all the different races; and that the power Micah and other chimeras possess has nothing to do with being intersex. Micah is intersex and chimera, not chimera because he is intersex or intersex because he is chimera, which was the impression I got in Pantomime.
If Lam’s first book had made mention of these elements in some fashion I would not have had the problems I did with her portrayal of intersex. I am very happy to see these changes and I get the sense this was her intent with kedi all along; she just didn’t portray it well. It shows that Lam is learning and growing as an author. I know my last review was harsh but after reading Shadowplay I do find myself wanting to see more of her work and I do hope she keeps writing because of the improvement I’ve seen.
However there are still problematic elements present, even if they aren’t as numerous as before, and those do need to be addressed.
- Micah thinks an abusive murderer is a man to be pitied
- A dead woman is described as looking like a “broken doll”
- We learn about Drystan’s past and he becomes even more unlikeable
- We have a blackface analogue
1. Micah thinks an abusive murderer is a man to be pitied
A brief recap: Bil, the ringmaster of the circus Micah and Drystan, his love interest, were a part of, wasted circus funds on expensive artifacts (driving it to bankruptcy and putting many people out of work), abused his wife, killed her, kidnapped Micah to hold him for ransom, sexually molested him, committed a hate crime by beating and attempting to kill Micah after finding out he was intersex, and killed Aenea who was Micah’s girlfriend at the time. Micah’s response? “Bil had been a man to pity,” (pg. 36) Not “hate”, not “anger”, but “pity”.
I find this problematic in that it seems to be trying to excuse what he’s done or act like it’s not all that bad. Pity implies sympathy and how do you feel sympathy for a man who murdered two women and tried to kill you? How do you have sympathy for someone who caused you so much pain?
I think my biggest problem here is the way it’s worded though, as if Micah thinks everyone should pity Bil. Maybe the intent was about Micah personally feeling pity but that doesn’t seem to fit with his character. If the pity route was going to be taken I think it could have used more detail as to the kind of pity and more fleshing out of what else Micah feels towards Bil. Otherwise it just comes off as dismissive of his crimes. And notice how Micah never mentions pity for Bil’s wife, Frit, or for Aenea, or anyone else Bil hurt?
2. A dead woman is described as looking like a “broken doll”
This is a descriptor that always bugs me whenever I see it. Micah remembers Aenea’s death and describes her as looking like a “broken doll” after she got her head smashed in. The “broken doll” metaphor is a common method of describing dead women and I find this problematic in many ways. First, it objectifies the women described this way. A doll is a toy to be played with. To describe a dead woman as a “broken doll” takes away the humanity she had as a living person, reducing her to a broken toy that can only be thrown away. It also implies that before becoming broken she looked like a “doll”, again reducing her to an object, a thing to be played with, and something that is replaceable.
Second: it infantalizes women described this way. A doll is a toy and toys are things associated with children. Dolls themselves are associated with little girls. It reduces a once living breathing, vibrant woman to a little girl’s play-thing. This further takes away from the humanity that the woman has lost already by being killed.
Third: it’s just inaccurate. I get the concept, it’s meant to be descriptive of how the eyes look empty and glassy when a person dies as well as refer to how limp and broken their body is. But I don’t know of any dolls that have blood and brain matter spilling out of their heads when they get cracked open. I also don’t know of any broken dolls that get rigor mortis. Maybe this last one is nitpicking but in my mind it just draws the wrong kind of image and I think there are better ways for a dead body to be described. Ones that don’t objectify the person you are describing.
3. We learn about Drystan’s past and he becomes even more unlikeable
In Pantomime we learned that Drystan was a runaway from a noble family just like Micah was. In Shadowplay we finally learn why Drystan ran away. At first, he was your typical spoiled brat who thought he could have whatever he wanted. He wanted a woman who didn’t want him back. His solution was to stalk and harass her until she had to publicly tell him off and yell at him. Present day Drystan calls her melodramatic for this. Yeah, you stalked and harassed her, and yet she’s being melodramatic for daring to be upset about it.
This experience led him to adopt a philosophy that said in order to be great you had to be the best you could be and then be the worst you could be. So Drystan starts acting like a dick to those around him, steals from his parents, and finally gets a woman he doesn’t care about pregnant and leaves her behind so she can die thanks to a botched abortion. After that, he runs away, falls in with a bunch of drug dealers, and gets addicted to a drug called Lirium (though he does manage to break it)
I get the idea that he’s supposed to be haunted by guilt and all but I sense that he doesn’t truly grasp the weight of the crimes he’s committed. Aside from calling the woman he stalked melodramatic, Micah has to point out to him that what he was doing was stalking and not funny, only to have Drystan dismiss the allegation. He also believes that it’s his involvement with drugs that would keep his parents from ever taking him back. Drystan thinks drug dealing and addiction is a worse crime than leaving a woman he got pregnant to die. All that on top of how he acted in the first book really leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth over the idea that this is the man our protagonist is now dating.
One positive note though, Lam does give a very accurate portrayal of the lingering effects of drug addiction. When Drystan comes across a hidden stash in another man’s house we see how tempted he is to use it all these years later, and his mixture of disappointment and relief when he realizes it’s not actual Lirium.
4. We have a blackface analogue
A bit of background here: While Pantomime was vague with race descriptors, Shadowplay is much more detailed. As such it is confirmed that Drystan and Micah are white. They also come from very wealthy, noble families with ties to royalty. The country they hail from, Elada, is an empire that has been going in and out of war with the other countries in the archipelago, trying to maintain control over these countries as colonies. The style and culture of Elada is highly reminiscent of Victorian England. There is also a great deal of racism towards people who are from these other islands who are people of color.
Now that Drystan and Micah are on the run they find they need disguises and a source of income. They shack up with an old magician friend of Drystan’s named Jasper Maske who starts teaching them his trade. They decide that they are going to earn their living by putting on magic shows, while avoiding detection by wearing disguises that come in the form of “Glamours”: rare, ancient technology that will alter their appearance. All this would be fine, except they choose to disguise themselves as foreigners, specifically Temnians, who are described as having golden skin, black hair, and black eyes.
Maybe the intent was more to have Temnians be based on Middle Easterners rather than black people but either way it is still highly problematic and appropriative to have people from privilege take on the guise of an underprivileged race for their own benefit. They take on the Temnian disguise because it will make the show seem “more exotic”, not because it will make it easier for them to hide. In fact it makes it harder for them to hide because the policiers (their word for police) are more suspicious of foreigners, making it more likely they will be discovered because they will be under greater scrutiny.
In Pantomime there were minor hints of racism in the form of exotifying people from the other islands. We see this in that many in the circus adopt fake accents to make the shows seem more magical and mysterious to their mostly white audience. In Shadowplay the racism becomes even more blatant. However, we only discover this racism when it affects a white person.
Micah and Drystan put on their disguises and decide to do some street magic in order to earn some coin. When they are done and packing up to leave they run into a couple of policiers who don’t bother hiding their disgust toward them. Micah and Drystan give them a friendly greeting, which is not returned, and head off. The policiers follow them for some time before finally wandering off. Drystan has to explain to Micah that the policiers are following them because they look like foreigners. We learn through Micah’s narration that in her old life as Iphiegnia, or Gene, he would have received a smile and a tip of the hat from the policiers. We don’t learn the full extent of the racism towards people of color from people of color. We only learn of it through how it affected a white person taking on the guise of a person of color. A guise that he can take off whenever he wants and change whenever he wants.
***
With all of that I find I can’t recommend Shadowplay just as I couldn’t recommend Pantomime. I personally didn’t find it as offensive in it’s portrayal of diversity as the previous book, but that’s probably got a lot to do with the fact that I, myself, am not a person of color. I do want to praise Laura Lam for fixing the intersex issue that was present in the first book. She earns more points with me personally in that she didn’t throw Micah into another love triangle.
Shadowplay also brought us our first primary character who is a confirmed person of color. Cyan is Temnian and, while she starts off as an assistant, she later becomes Drystan’s on stage partner while Micah works the props backstage. Cyan is also another chimera, having the ability to read minds, and is bi-racial, as we find out her father is Jasper Maske himself who had an affair with her Temnian mother.
However I do have a few other nitpicks in that I personally found the ending to the magician rivalry rather corny and predictable (though I have no idea how that could be fixed), the ending twist in the last chapter was eye rolling, and I constantly found myself cringing over the seemingly random changes to the spellings of names. But then, spelling changes are something I’ve never been too fond of in fantasy. Maybe the spelling changes were meant to be reminiscent of how things were spelled and pronounced in Victorian times, or another language like French or Latin but I honestly have no idea. If that is the case then you can chalk it up to ignorance on my part.
Still despite everything this book does receive higher marks from me then Pantomime did and I am curious to see how Laura Lam will do with the third book in the series, Masquerade, set to come out in 2016. I’ll be sure to give you my thoughts when that time rolls around as well as looking at some of her other books later on down the line.
Mars WaterDragon 