In Which Vampire Court is Pretty Much What You'd Expect
Just to note. I've had to take a bit to recover from chapter 20: the prologue part 2. My dogs give me wary looks when I pick up this book.
Bella, Edward and Alice are escorted by Jane, Demetri and Felix out of the dark tunnels that lead into an office building. Honestly. They take an elevator down to a fancy-deluxe business foyer where they meet the receptionist (of the damned?), a human named Gianna. Not what I was expecting at all (good things). From here, they meet the Voluri in what amounts to a castle turret inside the office. I don't know. It's a fancy office building constructed around a stone castle in the middle of Italy. Fine.
Waiting is Aro, who is attired as you'd expect an ancient vampire to be. He's a telepath (different rules than Ed: more powerful but must touch you), plus he's quite tickled with Bella and Edward. They are then joined by the less amused Marcus and Caius. Aro is very interested in Bella and her siren call to Edward as well as her weird immunity to certain powers. It seems she is similarly immune to his own telepathy and Jane's magic: brain pain. We also meet Alec, who's magic powers are not described yet.
"She confounds us all", Aro says. Amen, brother. Her plot-specific powers are certainly confounding.
Aro essentially asks Bella to join the Volturi, although intentionally or not it sounds like a double-entendre: join for dinner or join as a member. He also asks Alice and Edward, everybody refuses. Finally, the trio of superpowerful creatures of the night point out that Bella is a liability and has broken their rules, so she has to die. Aro doesn't want to waste her talent, so again: she can be a vampire or a meal. Instead, they accept that Edward is going to do the wahmpirization eventually because Alice steps forward and Aro scans her. Either Aro is really dumb about how Alice's powers work or he sees something we don't. He calls the vision "fascinating" and laughs, so I'm guessing there's something sekret going on here that we'll all be privy to in the next book.
The Volturi let them go and they return to the foyer where they pass Heidi, who has been out hunting for tourists to feed the Volturi. At least the chapter ended on a realistic note.
SumUp C+
So now we know who and what the Volturi are. Plus we've seen the reception area of the damned! At first I thought Gianna was a reference to Gehenna (hell), but apparently it's just a normal Italian name. Live and learn.
On the one hand the Volturi are pretty stock characters for Vampire Royalty. Think Underworld. I did like the office building environment, it was at least a step away from the ever-present dark ages vibe you get from most vampire lairs. The tourists as food was especially a nice touch, especially Heidi the hotty being bait. Bella's reaction is sort of silly, but it gets worse shortly.
I'm all but drained when it comes to Bella's ever-evolving vampire resisting powers. They are as plot-specific than Alice's and I can't imagine what they'll turn into when she gets wahmpirized. I'm also annoyed at the Aro and Alice interaction. He seems either supremely confident in his own powers or foolishly confident in Alice's, which doesn't paint him as being smart. I'm assuming there's some special whatnot that Alice is plotting that will set this all to rights, or at least attempt to. Maybe it'll make sense. Maybe I'll care. It's a magical world sometimes.
So this get's a borderline good grade thanks to descriptions, realistic feeling Vampires (Felix et al) and the twists and garnish that Meyer has added to the Volturi. They were interesting and believable without being too cliche. Can't wait to see where we go with that.
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