Cinda WIlliams Chima’s The Dragon Heir, the third book in a trilogy, just doesn’t measure up to the previous books, The Warrior Heir and The Wizard Heir. The characters are likeable and the plot is gripping and full of action; what bothers me is just a certain lack of narrative logic. For instance, the two most powerful characters, disappear early on a quest that doesn’t feel particularly important and that ends up forcing a confrontation with powerful enemies on to their allies. Then they never come back to help, despite being desperately needed. In addition, another character who was previously shown to have a talent that is very rare but that runs in her family, turns out to be pivotal to this book – by virtue of another completely unrelated inheritance in her blood. Too much coincidence for me.

Too make it clear, this isn’t the level of problem that leaves me unable to read or even reread the book – but it does mean that unless I find a hidden logic I missed this time, I’m never going to read it and feel entirely satisfied.

On the other hand, I really don’t know if I’ll be able to finish Edith Gelles’ biography Abigail and John. She just keeps saying stupid things or not saying interesting things. For instance, she described John Adams’ father as a cordwainer and farmer, nothing that “cordwainer was the 18th century term for a shoemaker”. That sounded so unlikely I looked it up; I didn’t know what a cordwainer was (when not an early SF author) but I did know that a shoemaker was called a shoemaker (or cobbler) pretty far back. Apparent;y a cordwainer was a certain type of shoemaker, working specifically with cordovan leather (named for Cordoba) or other soft fine leather. The implications to that are interesting enough to deserve more attention – first, that Adams’ father was working in a luxury trade (and that i could coexist with farming and second, of the level of luxury available int he Colonies at the time. She misses stuff about Abigail too; for instance, during their courtship, Abigail signed letters to John as “Diana”, in the classical allusion popular at the time. Gelles speculates that this is to emphasize the virgin aspect of the goddess and show a bit of maidenly reserve along with the affection she expresses. All well and good, but then why do we see Abby using Diana in letters to friends too? I wonder if her identification with the goddess who achieved power and agency despite her maidenhood went a little deeper and would like to see that explored.

But the thing that really annoyed me was when the Adamses early in their marriage (1768) moved to Brattle Square in Boston and their biographer notes, “…they identified their location to visitors as the White House. They didn’t consider that the name was prophetic.” No, duh. Since it referred to a building was not yet built in a city that didn’t yet exist, as President and First Lady of a country no one had yet thought of with a form of government that hadn’t yet been invented, I don’t really think they can be faulted for neglecting that consideration.

There are biographies that are fascinating to read even if you’ve never heard of their subject (in fact the Adams’ own great-grandson Henry wrote one of the best-known of those), and then there are the ones you can only read if you have an inherent interest in the subject. This is one of the latter.