Review Shorts: March 2022

Welcome to the March 2022 edition of Review Shorts – where I do have opinions, but an entire review for them would be overkill.

Forged: Writing in the Name of God by Bart Ehrman

See it on The StoryGraph here

Status: Completed

Not a lot of new information if you’re familiar with scholarship on the New Testament canon and extracanonical works (and I am). The main point of this book seems to be “If something is written by an author pretending to be someone else it’s a forgery and we should call it a forgery god damn it!” Actual scholarship is secondary to Bart making a 300+ page case that his preferred terminology is the only valid terminology.

Circe by Madeline Miller

See it on The StoryGraph here

Status: DNF at 74%

There’s no plot, just the story of the witch Circe beyond her encounter with Odysseus. It started off very rich and atmospheric and just dripping with Ancient Greek Mythology vibes, and I liked it quite a bit. Then Circe’s priorities shifted from navigating the worlds of gods and mortals and understanding and perfecting her power to something entirely different (and possibly a spoiler): She decided she wanted to have a child, and seeing her have that child just reminded me of all the reasons I never want to have kids. The first 60%-ish is fantastic, and then things changed and I just didn’t care anymore.

Trigger Warnings: Injury, blood, gore, torture, death, abandonment, fire/fire injury, abuse, sexual assault, rape, body horror, sexual content

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance trilogy #1) by N.K. Jemisin

See it on The StoryGraph here

Status: Completed

I have to stop comparing everything N.K. Jemisin writes with The Fifth Season, because that series is in a class by itself. This book was perfectly good, with a lot of interesting takes on gods, a hint of the Protagonist Does Impossible Things/Absurdly Powerful Protagonist tropes that I love, and a really good climax. The story feels complete, though, and I feel no need to read the rest of the series.

Tags: Protagonist of Color, Author of Color

Trigger Warnings: Death, death of parent, gore, violence, imprisonment/confinement, slavery, body horror, classism, sexual content (on-page)

The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight trilogy #1) by Katherine Arden

See it on The StoryGraph here

Status: Completed

Very similar to Spinning Silver in concept – a little village in a cold snowy place under threat from terrifying supernatural beings of the snow – with the bonuses of a protagonist who may or may not be a witch and of one antagonists being the “holy man is horny and upset about it” trope (which is one of my favorite kinds of antagonists). Very atmospheric and an enjoyable reading experience, but not all that memorable. I’m on the fence about reading the rest of the series.

Tags: Nonwestern Setting

Trigger Warnings: Death, death of parent, injury, death of animals, blood, gore, body horror (mild-moderate), death of children, misogyny, religious bigotry

The Thousand Eyes (The Serpent Gates #2) by A.K. Larkwood

See it on The StoryGraph here

Status: DNF at 62%

I wanted to do a full review of this, but I only have one thing to say. I misunderstood book one (The Unspoken Name) and thought this series was, fundamentally, Csorwe’s story. It isn’t, and Csorwe herself was barely in this book. Tal and Shuthmili are good characters, but Csorwe was the one I really loved, and without her driving the story, I didn’t quite care enough to finish reading.

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, gore, self-harm, mind control, confinement, body horror (mild), torture (mentions), death of children (mentions)

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

See it on The StoryGraph here

Status: Completed

A fascinating new framework to look at American race relations by framing it as an issue of caste. It makes a lot of sense and explains it a lot better than racism (which is often ill-defined anyway) or classism. A combination of length, rigorous academic analysis, and graphic descriptions of atrocities made it hard for me to get through, but it was a worthwhile read.

Tags: Author of Color

Trigger Warnings: Racism, racial slurs, racist violence, death, death of children, torture, slavery, hate crimes, antisemitism

Stealing Thunder (Stealing Thunder #1) by Alina Boyden

See it on The StoryGraph here

Status: Completed

I picked this up for fantasy in a fictional version of the Mughal Empire in India, not for romance. Yet despite there being dragon-like creatures and politics and the threat of war, the heart of this story is a romance with an almost-unrealistically perfect guy, but it was sweet and satisfying nonetheless. The point of this book seems to be “hey, trans girls, you can be loved,” and it was an enjoyable story so I can’t really complain. I feel no need to continue the series, though.

Tags: #ownvoices Transgender, Trans Author, Trans Protagonist, Nonwestern Setting, Protagonist of Color, Indian Protagonist

Trigger Warnings: Transphobia, misgendering (occasionally), deadnaming, survival sex work, rape, sexual assault, pedophilia, grief, death, blood (mentions), war, sexual content (off-page)

Review: The Unspoken Name

Title: The Unspoken Name

Series: The Serpent Gates #1

Author: A.K. Larkwood

Genre: Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Blood, death, death of children, torture, body horror, mental/emotional abuse

Back Cover:

What if you knew how and when you will die?

Csorwe does — she will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice.

But on the day of her foretold death, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Leave with him, and live. Turn away from her destiny and her god to become a thief, a spy, an assassin—the wizard’s loyal sword. Topple an empire, and help him reclaim his seat of power.

But Csorwe will soon learn – gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.

Review:

There seems to be a theme lately of me picking up long books with low expectations and actually enjoying them a lot (*cough*Spinning Silver*cough*). I was intrigued by the protagonist raised to be a human sacrifice and then deciding not to die, but that back cover didn’t seem like it would be worth a whole 18 hours of audiobook.

In a way, I was right. The entire plot on the back cover is done 65 minutes into the book – I actually looked at the timestamp because I couldn’t believe it was so fast. The beginning skims though Csorwe’s time at the temple of the Unspoken one, blazes though her choice, and covers two years in a matter of minutes (literally 2% of the book, I checked the timestamp). It was moving too fast for me to really care about much that was going on, interesting ideas be damned, and the only reason I didn’t stop there was because I didn’t want to get in trouble if I got caught having my phone out long enough to queue up another book.

But by the time I went on break and could have dropped this book and started a new one, I didn’t want to. Nearly an hour and a half in, the meat of the story finally started.

This is the book I switched out with The Body Keeps the Score (since I could only read that one two hours at a time and I needed something to fill the other six hours of a workday), and alternating the two makes for a heck of a reading experience. It’s never explicitly mentioned and I don’t even know if the author intended it, but Csorwe displays so many characteristics of an abused child. And none of the abuse is physical. Growing up as a destined sacrifice, it was lack of caring and connection and being told since she was old enough to understand that it was her duty to die and that’s what all the adults in her life wanted for her. After her escape, it was psychological and emotional (unless you count putting her in dangerous situations as physical abuse) from Belthandros Sethennai, the wizard who rescued her and who hits 8 of the 9 diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And she genuinely loves him because she believes him convincing her not to become a human sacrifice means she owes him her life.

For something that seems like it should be a rollicking fantasy adventure and has so many wizard duels, creepy cultists, and fantasy settings, it is surprisingly character-driven. In fact, it is almost entirely character-driven. The only thing that could really be called a plot is that Belthandros wants a phylactery and uses Csorwe as one of his tools to get it. That doesn’t really sound like enough to fill 18 hours, but it’s also full of dead worlds, ancient crypts, snake goddesses, prison fortresses, reluctant allies, and a very sweet romance between Csorwe and an adorable research nerd in a similar situation to Csorwe before she met Belthandros. It was quite enough to keep me interested and engaged.

I have a ton of things I want to say, but considering that the entire back cover plot wraps up 5% of the way through the book, saying much more is probably a spoiler. The beginning was very rough, but after that I enjoyed it thoroughly. I didn’t know there was a sequel going in, and I don’t even know what it’s going to be about, but I love Csorwe, I enjoy her love interest, I thoroughly enjoy exploring all the weird and wonderful and eerie places that exist in this world, and I bet I will enjoy book two.

The Serpent Gates series:

1. The Unspoken Name
2. The Thousand Eyes (February 15, 2022)