Carrie Vaughn is an author whose work I really enjoy. It’s taken me awhile to catch on to this – one of the downsides to reading so many books each year is that when an author only publishes once a year, it takes me some time to realize the consistency of their work. Fortunately I have recognized that I like Vaughn’s work and now seek it out. …Though I’m a little late finding this one. Late, because this is a follow-up to The Naturalist Society, which I did not get a chance to read.
Ava Stanley is the daughter of two Arcane Taxonomists and it’s expected that Ava also has Arcane powers, but her magical abilities have been a bit slower to appear. While her parents draw power from particular birds and fauna, Ava’s powers come from the microscopic – bacteria and the like. This will be helpful in her goal to become a doctor studying the link between bacteria and disease. This is turn-of-the-century (into the 20th century) and the idea of a woman studying medicine – even one with Arcane powers – is still uncommon and unusual.
While Ava begins a trip to do more research, pirates take over the ship causing much panic and concern. it does, however, help Ava create a bond with the other travelers and a chance to use some of her Arcane abilities.
I struggled a bit with this book and I wonder if having read the first book might have helped me. Mostly I felt that this world world (world building) wasn’t clear to me. I ‘got’ the idea of Arcane abilities, but their uniqueness or rarity is unclear.
The pirates…. What was that all about? Their appearance has nothing to do with Ava or her parents. It’s merely a plot device to change the course of Ava’s action – but we haven’t been invested enough in her original direction to really care (again … maybe this comes in the first book?) The appearance of pirates is pretty dramatic and given a fair amount of page time for something that turns out to be rather banal.
Ava sees some success if her chosen direction, but there’s really been no obstacle in her path to get there (except maybe those danged pirates). So … no character growth? Not really.
There’s something missing here. Maybe it’s just me missing something. Maybe this just fits into a bigger story arc, but I didn’t see much beginning-to-end story here. I enjoyed Vaughn’s writing, but the plotting and character building kind of let me down with this one.
Looking for a good book? Carrie Vaughn’s The Glass Slide World is missing a few elements that would make it a really good novel. It’s a follow-up to The Naturalist Society and perhaps those who’ve read the first book will enjoy this more.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
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The Glass Slide World
author: Carrie Vaughn
series: The Naturalist Society #2
publisher: 47 North
ISBN: 9781662530500
paperback, 284 pages
Looking For a Good Book 
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