Will Sargent reviewed Artichoke tales by Megan Kelso
Review of 'Artichoke tales' on 'Storygraph'
2 stars
This is about a land divided between North and South, and the people that live in it.
Unfortunately, it's very difficult to tell these people apart. They all have exactly the same face, and very similar interests -- apothecary, poetry, raising children. In one situation, I had to backtrack as I realized I'd confused the girl picking flowers with the war torn soldier she has a crush on, because they look almost identical -- the only way I could distinguish them is that the man has hairy legs.
And the story makes no sense. Cannon requires technology and infrastructure, and it's nowhere to be found elsewhere. There's supposedly widespread resentment between North and South, but so many people don't know the background behind it. There's not even consistency of time -- people tell stories of their childhood and stories, but the only reference is to "Market Day" -- there's no …
This is about a land divided between North and South, and the people that live in it.
Unfortunately, it's very difficult to tell these people apart. They all have exactly the same face, and very similar interests -- apothecary, poetry, raising children. In one situation, I had to backtrack as I realized I'd confused the girl picking flowers with the war torn soldier she has a crush on, because they look almost identical -- the only way I could distinguish them is that the man has hairy legs.
And the story makes no sense. Cannon requires technology and infrastructure, and it's nowhere to be found elsewhere. There's supposedly widespread resentment between North and South, but so many people don't know the background behind it. There's not even consistency of time -- people tell stories of their childhood and stories, but the only reference is to "Market Day" -- there's no timeline and no year laid out to indicate when someone is envisioning the past, which makes following the story even more confusing.
And for a story about war, the feeling of starvation, of privation and of simmering resentment and hatred... just isn't there. It's more like a family squabble writ large. It doesn't add up. It's a bit like Cerebus in this -- there's clearly meant to be a theory and a logic behind war, but it doesn't hold together in the moment.
The usual warning about subjectivity applies even more so in this review. I'm almost certainly missing something in my understanding of the plot, but the fact that I've had to work so hard just to assign dialogue to the right character means I've absolutely no desire to read it again. So let it be done.