2024 fantasy, first of its series. Rae is dying of cancer when she is
given a choice: be dropped into her sister's favourite fantasy series
Time of Iron, complete a task, and be healed and back in her own
body (or stuck there if she fails). Of course she takes it. Pity she
never actually read the first book…
So yeah, it's basically isekai: Rae is dropped into the body of
Rahela, the villainous Beauty Dipped in Blood, on the night before her
execution for treason (heated iron shoes and everything). She has a
vague idea of what's going on, enough to parlay into a reputation for
prophesy, but this is one of those fantasy series where everybody dies
sooner or later, probably painfully. Rae decides that if she's going
to have to be a villain, she's going to glory in it. And she remembers
at least the outline of the plot.
Combine the grimdark setting (and the very limited things Rahela can
do to improve it) with Rae's insistence that the people in the story,
particularly minor characters, aren't "real" even though there's
plenty of evidence that they have feelings of their own, and her basic
inexperience at the ways of thought of a back-stage plotter, and I
found this very hard going. Individual incidents can be quite fun
(someone will tell me that this is meant to be comedy), but there's
very little sense of progress or even success. Time of Iron isn't
good fantasy, it's third-rate potboiler that's trying to be A Song
of Ice and Fire only with more angst. And of course Rae has her own
experience of everyone abandoning the terminal case back in the real
world to draw on too. (Which is very well drawn indeed, Brennan has
experience of this, but of course isn't exactly a cheerful contrast to
the rest of the book.)
There are bits that do work well, in particular the development of
some of the minor characters, but this is very much a feels-first book
and I really didn't like the feels. I don't have any enthusiasm for
this kind of fantasy played straight, which for me is a precondition
for enjoying a parody of it.
Oh yeah, and there is no sort of resolution: this is the first of a
series, and it ends in a classic all-is-lost moment.
I won't give this an "In Brief Avoid" tag, because someone other than
me might well enjoy it hugely, but I am unlikely to carry on with the
next book unless someone tells me it's very different.