Review: He Who Drowned the World

Title: He Who Drowned the World

Series: Radiant Emperor duology #2

Author: Shelley Parker-Chan

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Violence, blood, injury, death, bullying, self-harm (graphic), grief (severe), sexual content (explicit), misogyny, ableism, sexual assault, miscarriage, infidelity, murder, child death, parent death (mentions), suicidal ideation, body dysmorphia, homophobia, that complicated sexual trauma where you have sex when you don’t really want to as a means to get something else

Spoiler Warning: This book is second in a series, and reading beyond this point will expose you to spoilers of the first book, She Who Became the Sun.

Back Cover:

How much would you give to win the world?

Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor.

But Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbor in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband—and she’s strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. To stay in the game, Zhu will have to gamble everything on a risky alliance with an old enemy: the talented but unstable eunuch general Ouyang, who has already sacrificed everything for a chance at revenge on his father’s killer, the Great Khan.

Unbeknownst to the southerners, a new contender is even closer to the throne. The scorned scholar Wang Baoxiang has maneuvered his way into the capital, and his lethal court games threaten to bring the empire to its knees. For Baoxiang also desires revenge: to become the most degenerate Great Khan in history—and in so doing, make a mockery of every value his Mongol warrior family loved more than him.

All the contenders are determined to do whatever it takes to win. But when desire is the size of the world, the price could be too much for even the most ruthless heart to bear…

Review:

This is a hard book to review. Not because it was bad, or even because I’m ambivalent about it – on the contrary, it was spectacular and I loved it. Even having read the first book nearly two years ago, it didn’t take me long to get back into the story. It kept me engaged throughout and even got my heart speeding up in a few particularly tense scenes. It was, above all, astonishingly good.

And I think that’s a large part of what makes it hard to review. I can’t share all the emotions it made me feel by writing about it. To get the full experience, you have to read it yourself. It’s vivid and intense and full of twists I didn’t see coming but probably should have and the kind of book that leaves you completely exhausted at the end because you’ve been feeling so much along the way.

Another part of what makes this hard to review is how utterly dark it is. The first book was dark, too, don’t get me wrong. Zhu is not a good person. She is ruthless and ambitious and claims she is willing to sacrifice anything to reach her goal, and this book puts that to the test. This is also a book where Zhu starts to challenge the bounds of a likeable character. In the first book, she was ruthless and ambitious and violent and did a lot of really horrible things. But in the context of a world that would rather let her starve than inconvenience a man, it didn’t seem unreasonable. In this book, she had reached some measure of security – though still under threat, she was one of the four dominant military and political powers of the area. But her ambition to be the greatest kept her pushing onwards, even as she destroyed others in the process. She was still a dynamic, compelling character and I never really stopped rooting for her, but as the book progressed I found myself repeatedly confronting the reality of her actions and not really being sure how to feel about them. In some ways, it feels weird to even apply moral judgements here, though I can’t fully explain why. But eventually both I and Zhu were looking at the consequences of her ambitions and wondering if it was really worth all that.

(Yet another thing I appreciate about this series: None of the women in these books – whether or not you want to count Zhu and her ambiguous gender identity as a woman – are shamed for their ambition or treated any worse than the men for their crimes. The society is blatantly misogynistic, but the narrative refuses to be.)

General Ouyang was a major player in the last book, and he still is in this one, but to a lesser degree. Some of that is because of his arc. Following on the events from the climax of book one, his is an equal but opposite story to Zhu. While Zhu’s ambitions propelled her to further heights, Ouyang’s relentless pursuit of revenge drove him to further lows. Zhu’s resolve clarified as Ouyang’s mind descended into chaos. I found myself mainly feeling compassion as he destroyed himself on the teeth of his own self-loathing. I wish he could have had a better ending, but he was so far gone that I think he got the best he could.

This book, being the last in the series, was an ending for every character, though not all of them died. Writing-wise, their endings made sense, fit with their arcs, and felt narratively satisfying. On a personal level, so many of them deserved better. Xu Da deserved better. Ma deserved better. Ouyang deserved better. Even Baoxiang deserved better (he deserved better last book, and even before – he is yet another case of an antagonist who I really just feel bad for).

And this brings me to the final reason this book is so hard to review: There is just too much to say. I haven’t said anything about Baoxiang’s story, even though he was a point of view narrator. I haven’t talked about the gender politics involved in this story, or the absolutely spot-on depictions of that very specific and hard-to-define type of sexual trauma where you have sex when you really don’t want to or with someone you don’t want to have sex with as a means to get something else, or the theme of being seen in a gendered body (and, to a lesser extent, a visibly disabled body), or how it’s paced so well that it feels like so much is happening without ever feeling rushed or monotonous, or the really awesome historical setting, or the ghosts.

If I talked about every amazing thing in this book, I could go on forever. But I’ve focused this review mainly on the characters, because despite all the action and adventure and ghosts and politics and invasions, this is a story about these characters and how their actions, good, bad, or otherwise, shape (and often end) the lives of the people around them and, ultimately, the course of history. This feels like a book (and, honestly, a series) that you could keep re-reading and discover something new every time. (It helps that these books are long.) So few sequels live up to their predecessor, but this one does – but it’s also unique to the point where I can’t say whether She Who Became the Sun or He Who Drowned the World is better because they’re both so good for different reasons and in different ways.

I’m running out of eloquent ways to say “this is an amazing book, you should read the whole series,” so there you go. This is an amazing book. So was the first one. You should read both – especially if you like stories that show your emotions no mercy.

The Radiant Emperor duology:

1. She Who Became the Sun
2. He Who Drowned the World

Review: Black Powder War

Title: Black Powder War

Series: Temeraire #3

Author: Naomi Novik

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death (severe), animal death (graphic), war, violence, guns, injury, gore, racism (mentions), slavery (mentions), misogyny (mentions)

Spoiler Warning: This book is third in a series, and reading beyond this point will expose you to spoilers of the previous books.

Back Cover:

After their fateful adventure in China, Capt. Will Laurence of His Majesty’s Aerial Corps and his extraordinary dragon, Temeraire, are waylaid by a mysterious envoy bearing urgent new orders from Britain. Three valuable dragon eggs have been purchased from the Ottoman Empire, and Laurence and Temeraire must detour to Istanbul to escort the precious cargo back to England. Time is of the essence if the eggs are to be borne home before hatching. Yet disaster threatens the mission at every turn–thanks to the diabolical machinations of the Chinese dragon Lien, who blames Temeraire for her master’s death and vows to ally herself with Napoleon and take vengeance. Then, faced with shattering betrayal in an unexpected place, Laurence, Temeraire, and their squad must launch a daring offensive. But what chance do they have against the massed forces of Bonaparte’s implacable army?

Review:

I am generally not much for historical fiction, war books, or books that are heavy on politics, and this series is all three. But it also has dragons (and is written by the spectacular Naomi Novik), which I think is why I have stuck with it so far. But I really struggled with this one.

At the end of book two, it seemed like everything was pretty much back to normal. So I naturally assumed the whole book was moderately entertaining but irrelevant to the overall series. I was wrong. First of all, the entirety of this book is taken up with the journey back to England and the mission they did along the way. I didn’t read the back cover and didn’t realize that until the book started and Lawrence and Temeraire were still in China. And second, the experience in China seems to have shifted the entire main plot of the series. I’ll come back to this in a moment.

For the most part, this book was enjoyable. There was plenty of action and adventure and occasional shenanigans. It was fun seeing other parts of a world with dragons, including Istanbul, some other military regiments (Austrian and Prussian if I remember correctly), and some feral dragons. However, some of the challenges Temeraire and company faced felt overly contrived, especially in the beginning. And Black Powder War is so far the heaviest on the war and related politics. I’ll be honest, it got kinda dull in the middle.

Even though this book had a lot more about the war, it feels like the whole focus of the series is changing. Seeing how dragons are treated in China versus England really affected Temeraire, and his driving goal is now dragon equality. He spent most of this book trying to get Lawrence on board. It seems likely to me that this goal will become a driving force, if not the main plot, of later books. And I’m not really sure how I feel about this new direction.

Ultimately, I think I’m going to wait until Lawrence and Temeraire get back to England before I make judgements. This book didn’t have much of the relationship between Lawrence and Temeraire that I loved or any of the fun details of the aerial corps, but they did spend a remarkable amount of time trying to avoid getting killed, so it’s forgivable. I may not be much for historical fiction or war books, but I do love this idea. Considering how awesome so many of the concepts are and how much I have adored Naomi Novik’s other works, I’m disappointed to find that though I like this series, I don’t love it. I’m going to take it one book at a time and see how it goes. Maybe future books will surprise me.

The Temeraire series:

1. His Majesty’s Dragon
2. Throne of Jade
3. Black Powder War
4. Empire of Ivory
5. Victory of Eagles
6. Tongues of Serpents
7. Crucible of Gold
8. Blood of Tyrants
9. League of Dragons

Review: Naamah

Title: Naamah

Author: Sarah Blake

Genre: Strong Magical Realism feel, but it’s also set way back in biblical times so potentially Historical Fantasy … it’s definitely weird and fantasy-adjacent, but it’s hard to nail down

Trigger Warnings: Death, child death, animal death (graphic), pregnancy, childbirth, excrement, gore, sexual content, infidelity, unreality, incest

Back Cover:

A wildly imaginative novel of the reluctant heroine who rescued life on earth.

With the coming of the Great Flood—the mother of all disasters—only one family was spared, drifting on an endless sea, waiting for the waters to subside. We know the story of Noah, moved by divine vision to launch their escape. Now, in a work of astounding invention, acclaimed writer Sarah Blake reclaims the story of his wife, Naamah, the matriarch who kept them alive. Here is the woman torn between faith and fury, lending her strength to her sons and their wives, caring for an unruly menagerie of restless creatures, silently mourning the lover she left behind. Here is the woman escaping into the unreceded waters, where a seductive angel tempts her to join a strange and haunted world. Here is the woman tormented by dreams and questions of her own—questions of service and self-determination, of history and memory, of the kindness or cruelty of fate.

In fresh and modern language, Blake revisits the story of the Ark that rescued life on earth, and rediscovers the agonizing burdens endured by the woman at the heart of the story. Naamah is a parable for our time: a provocative fable of body, spirit, and resilience.

Review:

This book is dark, graphic, occasionally gross, and above all extremely weird. “Wildly imaginative” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

I picked it up mainly because I am all about mildly-to-severely blasphemous retellings of Bible stories. The story of Noah’s Ark, told from the perspective of Noah’s wife who doesn’t seem to be fully on board with their deity’s decision to genocide the world, seemed right up my alley. And there were indeed many things to like in this book.

Things I liked about Naamah:

• A raw and deeply human story about unnamed and unconsidered Biblical women (Naamah herself, but also her sons’ wives)
• The logistics of keeping eight people and probably thousands of animals alive and sane on a boat for nearly a year
• The emotions that come with being on a boat with a bunch of animals for nearly a year and basically being the only survivors of an intentional apocalypse
• Naamah herself, a woman who meets the living God face-to-face and still tells him to fuck off

As for what I didn’t like quite so much:

Now, I am no stranger to weird books. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that I generally enjoy weird books. But this book is so weird in so many directions that I’m not at all sure what I’m supposed to make of it. It’s practically plotless, held together by sex scenes and extensive dream sequences, and for something that’s ostensibly some kind of Biblical reimagining contains a whole bunch of nonsense that doesn’t seem to fit anything.

We should probably talk about Abraham’s wife Sarai showing up as a time-traveling god-like figure. Or the sentient bird that can only talk when he’s sharing Naamah’s dreams. Or the angel living underwater with a bunch of dead children. Or that scene where Sarai takes Naamah to the present day and she watches Law & Order: SVU. We should probably talk about it, but I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to make of any of this.

Naamah has a unique problem where if you cut out the sex scenes, the dream sequences, and the weird stuff that feels discordant with the rest of the book, there isn’t a book. It’s part slice-of-life on the Ark and part magical mystical unreality I-don’t-even-know-what. I appreciate the sacrilege and the symbolism of Noah’s wife questioning the atrocity of the flood. But I’m unsure of the plot, point, purpose, moral, or any reason for this book to exist, and I’m unsure if there is one to find.

Is Naamah a good book? I’m not even sure how you judge a book like this. When I finished it, I found myself scrambling for meaning because there must surely be a point or idea or theme or something here, right? I was left with an overwhelming sense of what-in-the-world-did-I-just-read befuddlement. I legitimately have no idea what I’m supposed to take away from this story. Naamah has me well and truly stumped.

Review: Phoenix Extravagant

Title: Phoenix Extravagant

Author: Yoon Ha Lee

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: War, death, confinement, violence, blood, parent death (mentions), romantic partner death (mentions), injury, body horror (mild), torture (mild), excrement (mentions), colonialism, racism (mild), sexual content

Back Cover:

Gyen Jebi isn’t a fighter or a subversive. They just want to paint.

One day they’re jobless and desperate; the next, Jebi finds themself recruited by the Ministry of Armor to paint the mystical sigils that animate the occupying government’s automaton soldiers.

But when Jebi discovers the depths of the Razanei government’s horrifying crimes–and the awful source of the magical pigments they use–they find they can no longer stay out of politics.

What they can do is steal Arazi, the ministry’s mighty dragon automaton, and find a way to fight…

Review:

I really like the idea of magical art. That, and the idea of stealing a magical dragon automaton to fight against an invading government sounded hopelessly cool. Plus a nonbinary protagonist in a magical East Asian setting had to be great. I had pretty high hopes for this book.

And overall, it was … fine. It was good enough to finish and had some interesting ideas, but it never fully grabbed me.

The world was interesting, although I spent more time than was good for my story comprehension trying to place exactly what the setting was. (It took me a while to determine it was probably a fantasy version of the Japanese occupation of Korea, but I still wasn’t completely sure of that until I checked the author’s site.) I also found the societal structure and the role of an artist in how society was set up interesting. I don’t know how much was historically accurate and how much was made up for the story (besides the obvious), but it was interesting regardless.

Normally I spend some time in my reviews talking about the characters. But that’s hard to do here because there’s not a lot to them. Jebi gets into conflict with their sister because of differing values – their sister values patriotism and ideals, while Jebi values survival more. (And that made it easy to dislike their sister, since I also value survival more.) Jebi enjoyed painting and art, and that’s about it. From the back cover, I expected them to have a bit more revolutionary spirit. But in fact, Jebi can’t fight at all and actively avoids political involvement.

That strongly contributed to the fact that very little happens in the book. The whole stealing-the-dragon part doesn’t happen until nearly three quarters of the way through. It had its moments of awesomeness, but overall it was incredibly slow and tipped over into dull and boring several times. Jebi spends a lot of time feeling guilty and sorry for themself, and even the bits about the value of art as a cultural artifact and for its own sake felt like an aside that never really got fleshed out.

I like a lot of the ideas here. The ideas were why I picked up the book, and the foundations here are solid. As it is, Phoenix Extravagant isn’t bad. I enjoyed it enough to finish it, and there were some genuinely great moments. But on the whole, I think I would have liked it more as a faster, more action-based story with a more dynamic protagonist.

Review: Throne of Jade

Title: Throne of Jade

Series: Temeraire #2

Author: Naomi Novik

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death, blood, injury, animal death, animal injury, war, misogyny, sexism, xenophobia

Spoiler Warning: This book is second in a series, and reading beyond this point will expose you to spoilers of the first book, His Majesty’s Dragon.

Back Cover:

When Britain intercepted a French ship and its precious cargo–an unhatched dragon’s egg–Captain Will Laurence of HMS Reliant unexpectedly became master and commander of the noble dragon he named Temeraire. As new recruits in Britain’s Aerial Corps, man and dragon soon proved their mettle in daring combat against Napoleon Bonaparte’s invading forces.

Now China has discovered that its rare gift, intended for Napoleon, has fallen into British hands–and an angry Chinese delegation vows to reclaim the remarkable beast. A reluctant Laurence has no choice but to take Temeraire back to China–a long voyage fraught with peril, intrigue, and the untold terrors of the deep. Yet once the pair reaches the court of the Chinese emperor, even more shocking discoveries and darker dangers await.

Review:

I enjoyed His Majesty’s Dragon more than I expected to. I am not much for historical fiction, especially military historical fiction, even if it does have dragons, and I was delighted by how much I enjoyed the relationship between proper gentleman William Lawrence and smart but young dragon Temeraire. I had pretty high hopes for the second book.

Throne of Jade, though, was … rough.

I love the ideas at play. It’s fascinating to see how dragons – the massive variety, large enough to be ridden by a whole crew of men – fit into society in the early 1800s. But Throne of Jade is weirdly plotted and weirdly paced. Admittedly, much of the story is spent on a long sea voyage and there are only so many ways to make a long sea voyage interesting. But someone keeps trying to assassinate Lawrence, and besides a little conjecture, nobody really bothers to try and figure out who or why. There is someone powerful trying to kill him, there are four different attempts (several of which result in injury), and it’s just kinda … ignored? And then that whole attempted assassination plot thread is resolved too easily and entirely by accident – the culprit is revealed unintentionally while the characters are working on something else entirely.

The pacing here is so weird that I did not recognize the climax was even the climax. Part of that could be because there isn’t really one overarching plot in this book. There’s a bunch of smaller plots that overlap in parts, but nothing that could be called The Plot, and so no main thing to be finally resolved in a climactic scene. Because of that, it also seems much shorter than it is. There are a lot of words, but it says little and not much happens.

This book overall had less of what I really loved about the first one. There was less action (actually next to no action), and less of the Lawrence/Temeraire dynamic that I loved so much. There was less Temeraire in general, actually, and less of him being awesome and exceptional. (China was a really cool setting, but it took away much of Temeraire’s awesomeness since Celestial dragons are rare but not unknown in China.) This book was more about Lawrence – his fears, insecurities, and jealousies. It made for an okay story, but it set him and Temeraire at odds sometimes when I really loved seeing them work as a team.

I am really not sure what Throne of Jade is supposed to be, and it feels like the book itself isn’t sure either. It seems like in the next book things will be pretty much back to normal, so I’m not even sure what the point of this was – unless the events at the end of this will come back and be important later in the series. Overall, I’m going to chalk this up to growing pains. The Temeraire series are Naomi’s first books, and sequels are hard. I’m going to keep reading and I expect book three will be better.

The Temeraire series:

1. His Majesty’s Dragon
2. Throne of Jade
3. Black Powder War
4. Empire of Ivory
5. Victory of Eagles
6. Tongues of Serpents
7. Crucible of Gold
8. Blood of Tyrants
9. League of Dragons

Review: Kaikeyi

Title: Kaikeyi

Author: Vaishnavi Patel

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Sexism, misogyny, death, grief, war, violence, blood, abandonment, domestic abuse (mentions), parent death (mentions), infertility (mentions), forced marriage, pregnancy, religious bigotry (minor), animal death, sexual content with dubious consent (mentions)

Back Cover:

In the vein of Madeline Miller’s Circe comes a bold and sweeping debut that reimagines the life of Kaikeyi, the vilified queen of the Indian epic the Ramayana.

“I was born on the full moon under an auspicious constellation, the holiest of positions—much good it did me.”

So begins Kaikeyi’s story, that of a young woman determined to create her own destiny in a world where gods and men dictate the shape of things to come. But as she transforms herself from an overlooked princess into a warrior, diplomat, and most-favored queen, Kaikeyi’s will clashes with the path that has been chosen for her family. And she must decide if her resistance is worth the destruction it will wreak.

Review:

I have to start out by saying that I have not read the Ramayana, although it is on my list of things to read eventually. So I had zero context going into this. But I do know I love reading books in interesting settings (ancient India certainly fits that bill) and usually enjoy vilified characters getting to tell their side of the story, especially when said character is a warrior queen fighting against society and the gods themselves to make her mark. I didn’t know if I was going to get an anti-hero or a heroine whose story got told only by her enemies, but I was excited to find out.

Kaikeyi herself was a fantastic character. As a woman, her purpose in life was to be married off; as a princess, she learned a lot about politics and diplomacy; as a stubborn sister, she convinced her brother to teach her to fight and drive a war chariot. She is also on-page aro-ace, making the eventual marriage an even worse prospect. And she also has a magic that lets her influence others’ thoughts and feelings, which adds an extra dimension to the politics. She wants equality for herself and other women, and she will use all the tools available to fight for it.

There is a lot of politics and diplomacy in this book. Normally that’s something I don’t enjoy, but Kaikeyi’s magic and its uses in getting her way made it tolerable and sometimes even enjoyable. I also love reading about characters who are good at what they do, and Kaikeyi is very, very good at what she does. I’m sure some of it is the magic, but she’s also had a lot of practice and is determined to make life better and more equal for women. Somehow even the fully political parts never crossed the line into dull.

I very nearly did not finish this book, and that is not at all the book’s fault. I’ve been under a lot of stress related to an unnecessarily complicated and frustrating move, and apparently my emotions are a little raw. As the book moved towards the end and things kept getting worse and worse as the climax approached, I nearly stopped – not because I didn’t want to see how it ended, but because I couldn’t handle the emotional intensity. I assumed it would have a sad, tragic, likely violent ending (again, have not read the Ramayana, but “vilified queens” rarely have happy endings in any mythology) and I liked Kaikeyi too much to want to watch that happen.

But I pushed through and I survived (and the ending wasn’t nearly as tragic as I expected). And I am very glad I stuck it out. Even without the context of knowing the Ramayana, Kaikeyi is a great book. I suspect that it would be even more interesting and engaging to someone who knows the original myths of the queen who is reimagined in these pages.

Review: His Majesty’s Dragon

Title: His Majesty’s Dragon

Series: Temeraire #1

Author: Naomi Novik

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Sexism (brief), injury, blood, death, death of animals, war, execution, sexual content (mentions), animal cruelty/neglect

Back Cover:

Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors ride mighty fighting dragons, bred for size or speed.

When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes the precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Captain Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future – and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

Review:

I had actually looked at this book a year or two ago and decided that I really wasn’t interested. Dragons are cool and historical fantasy can be good, but I’m not interested in military fiction at all, and the Napoleonic Wars are not a historical period I particularly care about. Then I started looking to see what books my library had by Naomi Novik (my surprise favorite author of last year) and discovered that she wrote this series. So I had to give it a shot anyway.

And surprisingly (though less surprisingly considering the author), it was very good.

Even though this is about a British Navy officer forced to switch to the airborne division after he ended up bonded with a dragon, it’s not really about the military. It’s not even about the war against Napoleon that Lawrence and Temeraire are training to fight. It’s about Lawrence, honorable and disciplined military officer and perfect 1800s gentleman, and Temeraire, very young but blazingly intelligent, and the relationship between them.

Considering Lawrence and Temeraire don’t see a single battle until 63% of the way through the book, this story has no right to be as interesting as it is. It’s mostly about training, relationships, culture shock, strategy, and a not insubstantial amount of politics. And yet I enjoyed every minute of it.

I really enjoyed the clash between Lawrence’s strict Navy background and clear social dynamics from being raised as nobility and the informality and social upending of the Aerial Corps. I also enjoyed the relationships. Not just between Lawrence and Temeraire (although that was a spectacular friendship), but between our human and dragon protagonists and the other humans and dragons in the Aerial Corps.

This book is just plain awesome. There’s dragons, of course, which are always epic, but there’s also a strong emotional element to the story. It has ups and downs, sadness and joy, and some great Epic Battle Feelings in the climax. Overall, this is a fantastic book (not that I expected any less from Naomi Novik), and I am definitely reading the rest of the series.

The Temeraire series:

1. His Majesty’s Dragon
2. Throne of Jade
3. Black Powder War
4. Empire of Ivory
5. Victory of Eagles
6. Tongues of Serpents
7. Crucible of Gold
8. Blood of Tyrants
9. League of Dragons

Review: Gods of Jade and Shadow (DNF)

Title: Gods of Jade and Shadow

Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death of parent, physical abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, body horror (mild), injury (mild), death (mentions), sexual assault (attempted, brief), death of animals, gore, blood

Note: Trigger warnings in DNF books only cover the part I read. There may be triggers further in the book that I did not encounter.

Read To: 57%

Back Cover:

The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather’s house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own.

Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather’s room. She opens it—and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother. Failure will mean Casiopea’s demise, but success could make her dreams come true.

In the company of the strangely alluring god and armed with her wits, Casiopea begins an adventure that will take her on a cross-country odyssey from the jungles of Yucatán to the bright lights of Mexico City—and deep into the darkness of the Mayan underworld.

Review:

I was originally going to do a Review Short for this one, but it turns out I have a whole review’s worth of thoughts after all. Mainly because I am just so disappointed in this book.

The concept is fantastic. I love stories of old gods who aren’t worshiped or believed in anymore who have to get help from mortals to stop the evil machinations of other old gods, and that’s essentially what this is. It’s also featuring Mayan gods and set in 1920s Mexico – a mythology and setting that I haven’t read much about (I don’t think I’ve ever read something set in 1920s Mexico, actually). The concepts are great and the plot is solid. It’s everything else that left much to be desired.

Mainly because there isn’t anything else. The people are cardboard cutouts bouncing along as the plot demands. The plot itself plods along, not exactly slow but never changing pace. There are no twists and no obstacles to give it texture, it never speeds up to drive tension, and it never slows down to leave room for character and setting. I spent over six hours with these characters, and the only things I know about them are things that were told to me by other characters or the narrator. (The narrator also looks down on Casiopea because she’s young, which was very irritating.) I spent six hours in 1920s Mexico, but all I know about it is “flappers, but it’s hot outside.” The plot seemed determined to force its way forward at the same pace regardless of anything else.

I loved the gods and how much the story shows of them, but they were still cardboard puppets forced along to the constant plodding of the plot. There were demons and ghosts and spirits and the Mayan underworld and fascinating ideas about the spacial limitations of deities, but I had to grasp for those interesting bits as the plot pushed me past. It glossed over all of the interesting parts that might have given it flavor – Mexican, Mayan, 1920s, mythological, or anything else – in favor of a relentlessly monotonous pace. Even with the threat of death for the protagonist and bad things for humanity if the antagonist won, I couldn’t bring myself to care.

I so wanted more from this. I wanted it to bring together 1920s Mexico and Mayan myth into something rich and magical and bursting with mood and atmosphere. I wanted a world I could sink my teeth into – and I think if I’d gotten that, I could have forgiven flat characters. I might have even been able to forgive a lackluster world if the characters were compelling and had personality and chemistry, even though the world was what I really wanted out of this story. But this book has neither, and the plot is far too straightforward to be interesting. As great as the ideas are and as much as I wanted to like this book, I just couldn’t find a reason to care.

Review: She Who Became the Sun

Title: She Who Became the Sun

Series: The Radiant Emperor Duology #1

Author: Shelley Parker-Chan

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: War, death, death of children, misogyny (severe), sexism, injury, blood, gore, vomit (mentions), animal death (mentions), fire (mentions), racism, body shaming, ableism (severe), death of parents, cannibalism (briefly implied), alcohol use, classism, dysphoria (minor), toxic relationship

Back Cover:

“I refuse to be nothing…”

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu uses takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother’s abandoned greatness.

Review:

I put a hold on this audiobook at the library, and I’ll admit, when it came ready I wondered what I was thinking. I’ve read a lot of Chinese- and East Asian-inspired fantasy lately, including a completely different one that was also a fantasy version of a real ruler of China’s journey to power. But I’ve also DNF’d many, many other similar books recently. So I was a little skeptical going in.

Everything on the back cover is basically the setup for the story. The girl does not get a name, either because her father and brother don’t think her important enough to use it or her family never bothered to give her one in the first place. Surrounded by famine so terrible that people have resorted to truly terrible means, there was no reason to put effort into keeping a daughter alive when you could instead save a son.

But the girl lives. She takes her brother’s name and identity to enter a monastery where there would be food. There she discovers how far she will go to survive. She believes her true fate is nothingness and death, but if she has a strong enough will, she can convince Heaven itself that she should live.

That is the story. It is a monk who is not a woman* but who must hide her woman’s body, whose choices are nothingness or greatness and who will sacrifice anything, even breaking her own heart in the process, to seize her fate. As a girl child in a world that would rather let a girl die than let a boy be uncomfortable, she chose to live by any means necessary.

She is not a good person, but she is a strongly compelling character, a queer anti-hero who does many things that are morally dubious or outright wrong but who I still want to see succeed.

Her journey is set against a war – the Red Turban Rebellion – as the Chinese attempt to overthrow their Mongol rulers. And hers is not the only perspective in the story. There is also the eunuch general of the Mongol rulers, biding his time in dubious favor with various Mongol nobility until he can get revenge for his slaughtered family. There is also Ma, engaged to the son of a Red Turban leader as the rebellion’s leadership jockeys for power, who gets significantly less page time but no less importance than the other two. The threads of fate surround everyone and draw them ever closer to their glory or doom.

This review is poetic because that’s what this book evokes. The writing style isn’t poetic, and the book itself is full of violence and gore and hatred, but the story feels like an epic saga, the kind of thing that gets put to song and sung throughout the land. I occasionally had a difficult time keeping the names straight – though I’m pretty sure that’s a limitation of reading it as an audiobook – and the sheer excess of misogyny was hard to read at times. But I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. The sequel hasn’t even been announced yet, but there is going to be one and I can’t wait.

*About gender and pronouns in the book: Though raised as a girl until age 9-ish, Zhu declares herself not to be a girl. She presents as a man and uses he/him pronouns with others, but declares herself to be in a space between or outside the two genders, neither male nor female. The parts of the book that are from her perspective use she/her pronouns for her, so that’s what I use in this review.

The Radiant Emperor Duology:

1. She Who Became the Sun
2. He Who Drowned the World (August 2023)

Review: Timekeeper

Title: Timekeeper

Series: Timekeeper #1

Author: Tara Sim

Genre: Historical Fantasy/Romance

Trigger Warnings: Homophobia, death of parent (kinda), trauma, explosions, death, violence, panic attacks, blood, grief

Back Cover:

An alternate Victorian world controlled by clock towers, where a damaged clock can fracture time—and a destroyed one can stop it completely.

A prodigy mechanic who can repair not only clockwork but time itself, determined to rescue his father from a Stopped town.

A series of mysterious bombings that could jeopardize all of England.

A boy who would give anything to relive his past, and one who would give anything to live at all.

A romance that will shake the very foundations of time.

Review:

I took this back cover copy off The StoryGraph. The one I read put much more emphasis on the steampunk/fantasy elements and the mystery of who’s setting the bombs and played it like the romance was going to be a side thing. If this is the back cover I’d read, this book wouldn’t have ended up on my To Read list, because even though I’ve discovered some romances are fine, it’s usually not what I gravitate towards. So I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t, because this was a perfectly enjoyable book.

Our protagonist is Danny, the youngest clock mechanic to pass the mechanic test. He loves his job repairing and maintaining the clocks that keep time running smoothly, and secretly hoping he can find a way to save his dad, who was a mechanic when something went wrong and the clock broke, trapping him in an area where time completely stopped. He also has lingering trauma from a bomb that tried to destroy another tower while he was working, and conflict with his mother who partially blames him for his father going to the clock tower that broke and trapped him. He wasn’t an incredibly compelling character, but he was likeable enough.

His love interest and the romance between the two was probably my favorite part of the story. Danny meets Colton in the clock tower in the town of Enfield, where he first mistakes him for the apprentice helping him for the day and only later discovers the truth: Colton is a clock spirit, the personification of the clock tower and the force that keeps time running. Colton doesn’t know much about love or the world outside of Enfield, but it was delightful watching his and Danny’s relationship grow.

The romance is not the main plot, though. There’s also Danny trying to rescue his father, protests and counter-protests about a new clock tower being built, a series of bombs targeting clock towers, and internal politics and rivalries in the clock mechanic’s union. None of these were particularly uninteresting, but I definitely cared about the romance the most.

This book does have some problems, mainly in the secondary character department. The reveal of the unexpected antagonist was supposed to feel like a big betrayal, but Danny’s relationship with that character was never built in the book – I was just told that he and this character were close instead of actually seeing it. The reveal that this character was behind so many bad things was definitely surprising, but lacked the emotional impact it wanted to have.

I’m also going to criticize the worldbuilding, but as someone who has read a fair bit of steampunk-type books. I found it limited and lackluster, a basic 1800s London with cars and clock towers that control time slapped on top. It didn’t detract from the story, but knowing what great steampunk/alternate history worldbuilding looks like, I found it uninspired. If those aren’t genres you typically read you probably won’t have an issue with it.

There was only one moment (that could have been cut without problem) that set a hook for book two. Without that one moment, this would have been a perfectly self-contained story with a satisfying ending. It very much felt like a case of “my agent sold this as a trilogy” than the story actually needing to continue. Personally I think there’s enough to explore in this world that a second book could be reasonably interesting, but I was also happy with the ending and I didn’t love this book enough to want to read the rest of the series. It is a perfectly enjoyable book – I just have no desire for more of it.

The Timekeeper series:

1. Timekeeper
2. Chainbreaker
3. Firestarter