Jan 12

Jan 12 Mindbond by Nancy Springer

(This is the second book in a series and thus this review spoils the first book rather dramatically. Proceed at your own risk.)

I re-read Madbond before dipping into Mindbond. This was unnecessary, as the important bits of Madbond are hamfisted into Mindbond. Characters even theatrically re-tell stories of great importance to the plot.

Coming in hot off of Madbond also probably didn’t do Mindbond any favors. On my initial read-through, the shock of Kor dying in the first place lessened the unbearable sentimentality of his being cried back to life. Not this time.

I was in a state of sentimental fatigue before I even opened Mindbond. This is not good, as it’s not a chapter or two in before another character is cried back to life. Never mind the fact that they become blood brothers by way of scars on their fingers and by touching said scars they get a surge of energy and the power of the two mystical heroes of lore.

So, so very much of Mindbond is Kor and Dannoc thinking or talking about their relationship. If this were a romance novel, I’d say they had a clearly unhealthy obsession with each other and that, for their own good, they should probably pop off to different sides of the world because there’s no way this relationship ends in anything other than a murder-suicide.

Which isn’t a spoiler, but damn if there isn’t a scene in Mindbond that comes close to proving me right.

And then there’s Tassida. I had hoped she’d take some the emphasis off of Kor and Dannoc’s relationship, but she only makes it worse. Not intentionally, but damn it all to hell, here comes the love triangle and now Kor and Dannoc have a wider range of feelings they can feel, discuss, and obsess over.

This is made even worse by the fact that Kor can feel Dannoc’s feelings. And it just keeps. coming. up.

Dan drifting off to sleep feels a twinge of lust for Tassida, then Kor feels Dan’s lust, then Kor feels sad, then Dan feels bad for feeling lusty and making Kor feel sad, then Kor feels bad that Dan feels bad and assures him it’s okay/natural, then Dan tries to feel better so that Kor won’t feel bad, but he doesn’t quite succeed …

It’s like an infinity room of feelings.

And Tassida is barely ever around. She’s convenient for the plot—she appears to help save the day—but she darts off the second her imperative task is accomplished.

She’s not the only one. Tertiary characters are all so damn convenient, providing exactly what Kor and Dan need at any moment, then disappearing or dying the next.

I almost quit Mindbond multiple times and set myself countless ultimatums: if you don’t like it by page 74, just call it quits. Okay, maybe page 88. Okay, page 115.

And yet I finished the book. I genuinely wish I could say that there was a good reason why.

The plot is a thin veneer applied to Kor and Dannoc’s relationship status.

The only real intrigue coming into Mindbond was the cause of the atrophying world, but that question is answered somewhat early on and no proper question or plot replaces it. And much like that rare Barbara Hambly series that I very much didn’t like, again the enemy is undefeatable. Kor and Dannoc’s only concern is survival … and their relationship. And not always in that order.

About the most positive thing I can say is that Nancy Springer’s technical writing is faultless and I find it relatively easy to read a book that is technically well-written even if I struggle with other aspects of it.

But that’s not the reason I finished Mindbond.

No, I finished Mindbond because I wanted to know if Kor, Dannoc, and Tassida have a threesome.

I mean, it makes sense to me. It’s impossible that Kor and Dannoc weren’t written with some latent gay feelings for each other.

I have receipts.

“I truly felt it. Him. In me. Or had I been taken into him?”

“Dan, do you know how long it’s been since you handbonded me willingly?”

“You want me to—to enter into your being?”

“You scamp,” I told him huskily. I was not the only one who could love forever. Love without end, boundless as the sea.

Okay, so they are totally in love with each other yet only seem to think that they love each other like brothers … even though Dannoc has a brother that he loves with none of the white-hot intensity of his feelings for Kor. They are both in love with Tassida, which—hear me out—feels to me like them taking baby steps to acknowledging that they are, in fact, in love with each other. They just had to, you know, bounce the signal off a satellite first. If they are in love with each other by proxy of Tassida that’s totally not gay, right?

Alas, there’s still the lingering jealousy. One might argue that proves that they’re not hot for each other, but I pose a counterpoint: what if most of that jealousy is that the other person is willing to be openly in love with Tassida—but not him? DUN DUN.

I thought this was just a stupid runaway thought until near the end of the novel, when, spoiler, Tassida displays that she now has matching scars to Dan and Kor identical to their bloodbrother scars. That’s right, scars, as in two: she can handbond with both of them at the same time! What whaaaat!

Honestly, I’ll probably eventually read Heartbond or whatever the next book is called, but it’s not for noble or even reasonable … reasons. I’m just too curious about whether this threesome-watch turns into a threesome-warning and whether or not Kor and Dannoc ever realize that they’re in love … and absolutely, irrevocably, bad for each other.

Cover art by Tom Kidd