Willful Child: Wrath of
Betty by Steven Erikson is a sequel Willful Child. Therefore, I recommendthat you stop now and read the review I wrote for it as I think it’s valuableto have that perspective before getting to what I write below.
If anything, in the two years since I wrote that review, my
thoughts on Willful Child have only grown
stronger. I think it is a superb satire of far more than just Star Trek, but read the review for
that. I’ve come to realize that while the humor of that book is certainly
coarse and inappropriate, that plenty of people ‘get it’ and therefore see what
Erikson is doing in the book. All this adds up to me being very happy to read
the sequel.
Unfortunately, I was largely unimpressed. Of course, I enjoyed a
lot of what Erikson was doing with the book and how he plays with both time
travel and parallel-dimension issues. I particularly found the gender-swap /
parallel world parts to be well done and timely given so much of what’s going
on. And of course, it’s hard for someone like myself to not be immensely amused
by the comic-con sequence. Really, Wrath
of Betty is worth reading for those two parts regardless of my overall
disappointment.
Where does my disappointment come from? It’s all in the timing. Wrath of Betty continues the satirical
directions from Willful Child, with a
strong focus on the consumerism and rampant capitalism of the Western world.
And this is unfortunately where it misses. Often the most effective satire
works because it feels particularly timely to what’s going on in the culture it
targets. Generally consumerism and capitalism are perfect elements for satire
to target, but at least for me, it misses the elephant in the room for a satirical
book published in 2016. I am speaking of the big issues we all see too much of
right now – from Brexit to the US election and the idiot who will remain nameless,
and war and refugees, etc. etc. A satire focused so much on consumerism simply
doesn’t stick with me right now – it feels off topic, especially since reality
is so primed for good satire (though admittedly, Brexit and the US election are
often plenty satirical without any help at all).
I do think that the focus on consumerism and capitalism in Wrath of Betty is likely to be more
timeless and therefore would have more staying power than the satire I wanted
to read. But, it remains that I simply couldn’t enjoy things as much as I
wanted to. Yes, I realize that due to just how it works writing a novel, that Wrath of Betty was largely written well before
reality jumped the shark, but that intellectual knowledge doesn’t really help
my reaction to the book.
So, while I think Wrath of
Betty is a worthy follow-up to Willful
Child, it didn’t work well for me. However, it may well work for you.
Willful Child: Wrath of
Betty: Amazon
