The education continues as Zoey makes a new mistake that has to be dealt with.
Creative Staff:
Writers:P.C. Cast & Various
Artists: Joëlle Jones, Jonathan Case
What They Say:
Having gained a new understanding of her affinities for earth, wind, and water, Zoey Redbird moves into more dangerous territory as she attempts to master a lesson in fire. Zoey seeks guidance from the secret vampyre history of Cleopatra and her relationships with two great Roman leaders-Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Readers gain knowledge about Zoey’s maturation as a fledgling vamp as she becomes the leader of the Dark Daughters.
The Review:
House of Night keeps to its structure as we’ve seen in the first three issues and while it may be a bit formulaic, it works rather effectively to tell the tale they want to tell here. Zoey’s education as the new leader of the Dark Daughters is one that is simple at its core but it does a decent job of getting us to know more about how the world operates and just how deep into history of the vampyres are with it. The present day material could be the real drag on things when you get down to it, but they’ve done a good job here in working it over as we see them go through the motions but also have the growth of the main cast to tie it together. Zoey in the present here has found herself in a good lick of trouble while hanging with her friends as she ends up accidentally killing a snake. It’s not exactly a mistake but it’s a panicked moment that happens and she uses her fire abilities to end its life.
This doesn’t exactly go over well with the “owner” of the snake and it also reveals and interesting bit of history about how snakes are related to women, with the whole birth, fertility and power of what woman have. That snakes are a symbol of evil and poison is something that men brought into play over the years in order to weaken what it really means. And for Zoey, she has to learn about that because what she did is something that needs to be understood and rectified since it could impact her role as the leader of the Dark Daughters. And since she’s so intent on not making the same mistakes as Aphrodite did when she was in charge, that means another history lesson.
This time around it goes back to 51 BC and deals with Cleopatra, one of the earliest well known vampyres and one that had a whole lot of influence because of the scale of her power that she got from Nyx. Her desire to see Egypt remain free from Rome is one that plays well and she shows a simple way in classic form that fits with the method of storytelling from the book Zoey and the others are reading from. Cleopatra’s story of securing Egypt and the relationship she establishes with Mark Antony plays out well here as we see the fear that was raised over the way the two bonded due to her vampyre nature and how it affected the overall balance of power between the two nations. Watching Cleopatra’s fall through her use of power as an allegory to what Zoey is going through may be heavy handed, much as the other stories have, but it’s effective and does some good fleshing out of the way the world works overall.
In Summary:
House of Night is still a series that I’m somewhat surprised I’m enjoying because of its novel origins in a genre I’m not much of a fan of. Zoey’s story as the expanded bookends is again well done here as we see her struggle with the position and what it all entails. And though she’s young of age, we do see some growing wisdom over the course of the series so far in how she intends to handle things, though she also quickly learns that others won’t go her way even as earnest as she is. Combining that with the fun and interesting historical story with someone who has definitely had a huge impact on the world, twisting it just a little with the whole House of Night aspect. It works well and makes for an engaging world to immerse yourself in. This issue continues things well and with one more to go it looks like the whole thing is a good interlude for the main story in the novels yet holds itself together well.
Grade: B+
Readers Rating: [ratings]
