#mfreview

Author: Melissa Caruso

Opening Line: ‘Here, my lady?’

This was excellently enjoyable!

So, Amalia is the daughter of a noble family who basically gets accidentally stuck partnering the lower-class Zaira, who has incredibly powerful magic. This is a less than an ideal circumstance that makes for a thoroughly good read.

Amalia is the viewpoint character, but Zaira is her equal in importance – and Zaira, delightfully, is bisexual or pansexual. Both of them are really great characters; Zaira in particular is great fun, they work well in counterpart with each other and I look forward to seeing their dynamic develop in the next two books. I found myself particularly enjoying Amalia’s character development – between her and Zaira you have a really good range of emotions and competencies.

The characters in general were well-written, as were their relationships with each other. I thought Amalia’s relationship with her mother was particularly interesting – Caruso could have easily rendered it simplistically but chose to make a much more interesting dynamic.

It’s very much an examination-of-how-we-handle-magic type book, and the world-building is good – complex enough not to be boring, simple enough to be easy to follow. There’s also a reasonable amount of scope in there that I imagine Caruso will be able to pull from as she expands in the rest of the trilogy.

All of that combined with a good twist and a satisfyingly nasty villain means that I had a great time reading this, and I’m really interested in reading the next two books! 

5/5.

You might enjoy this book if you enjoyed: Green Rider (Britain), The Black Magician Trilogy (Canavan), The Chronicles of Ixia (Snyder).

Author: N. K. Jemisin

Opening Line: ‘Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we?’

So previously I reviewed the first book in this trilogy, The Fifth Season. I recently got to reread book one and then read straight through books two and three, so it seemed to make more sense to review the whole thing as a trilogy.

The problem is, every time I sit down and try and string together some sentences, I just end up making vague gestures at my computer screen.

Friends, this trilogy is overwhelmingly, jaw-droppingly good.

It’s actually really hard to be articulate, because I just kind want to run around yelling? Or fill this whole review with keysmash. But I’ll try. I’m trying. I promise.

The story is set on a continent (country? Landmass of some kind?) called the Stillness. This is an extremely sarcastic name, because Stillness has a vast amount of tectonic trouble. Low-level quakes are pretty common. And every so often, their world enters what they refer to as a Fifth Season: basically a near-apocalyptic event. Sometimes volcanic, sometimes an earthquake or a tidal wave, sometimes a combination, sometimes all of the above. Humans retreat during these times and survive as best they can until the fifth season ends, then (mostly) rebuild civilisation from scratch.

One thing seems to survive down the ages, and that’s a deep hatred of Orogenes. These people have the ability to detect and control tectonic activity (a simplified explanation, but it’ll do). So they’re deeply necessary but also treated with very little trust.

In the middle of all of this we have Essun, and Damaya, and Syenite. Damaya is a young girl discovered to be an Orogene, on her way to the Fulcrum where Orogenes are trained to both use their ability and obey without question. Syenite is an adult working for the Fulcrum, finding out that the world is not quite what she thought it was. And Essun… Essun is living out her own private apocalypse in the middle of a very real one.

That’s about as much as I can explain without getting too detailed or two spoilery. But a list of other things found in this trilogy: stunningly good writing; complex but well-revealed world-building; a trans secondary character; multiple non-straight relationships; a polyamorous three; people made of stone; a surprising but brilliant use of perspective; a wealth of well-written female characters. Jemisin keeps a precise balance between an intensely personal story and one at a scale almost beyond description. Not to mention that she manages to write about a brutal world where characters go through some awful things without ever making her reader miserable – I never felt worn-down by the story, just absolutely enraptured.

Please read this trilogy, folks. I need more people to talk to about it!

One of the best fantasy series of all time. 5/5.

You might enjoy this book if you enjoyed: The Realm of the Elderlings (Robin Hobb), Strange the Dreamer (Laini Taylor), The Black Prism (Brent Weeks).

Author: Audrey Coulthurst

Opening Line: ‘When I was seven winters of age, my mother caught me in the hearth stacking red-hot coals with my bare hands.’

I’d heard so much about this before I got it, so I was very excited to read it!

The two bi princesses are everything I was promised – Denna and Mare are both nicely rounded characters whose relationship feels very natural. Partly that’s because it’s so slow-burn – Coulthurst takes her time in building the two of them as characters, then as friends, then as mutual crushes, and finally as a couple. My only complaint with that is I wanted more of them as a couple. I felt like I was waiting for a lot of the book. But there’s a possible sequel on the horizon, so hopefully that’ll come out there!

One of the things I loved the most about this queer-characters-in-fantasy set-up is that there is no homophobia in this society. Early on, for example, there’s casually a couple of gentlemen dancing together in the ballroom. Reading something like this where queer people are just a normal part of the society… it feels like breathing out. Like my shoulders had lost tension I didn’t realise they’d held. There’s definitely value in telling stories of bigotry and exclusion and finding yourself despite your culture, but I would love to read more escapist “this is how it should be” fiction. It’s just so enjoyable.

The set up is nicely done, and the whole fictional universe feels very coherent. I thought the twist was good (no spoilers!) and I particularly enjoyed Denna’s mother and sister as secondary characters. Neat magic system, too! It really felt like Coulthurst had left room to explore it further. I’m looking forward to the next one!

A fun, entertaining slow-burn romance with a political edge. A solid 4/5.

You might enjoy this book if you enjoyed: The Green Rider series (Kristen Britain), Ash (Malinda Lo), The Chronicles of Ixia (Maria V. Snyder).

Author: Sarah Tolcser

Opening Line: ‘There is a god at the bottom of the river.’

Caro’s father is arrested, and in exchange for his release she agrees to transport some mysterious cargo… of course, it wouldn’t be a good story if it went smoothly.

A good story that connects the lives of two families from very different parts of society, this was a fun read. The characters are good. Caro is a great, kick-ass teen female lead; and Markos is entertaining too. The arrogant-noble-boy-learns-some-damn-manners trope is done enjoyably well, as is the somewhat predictable romance.

The plot wasn’t too predictable though! I enjoyed the twists and turns, and it felt like a fresh take.

The strength of this book is in Caro but also in the magic system, which is frankly intriguing. I’d love to read more stories about it, though I think Caro’s could end here.

No central queer characters, though there is one background lesbian (it’s not much, but it also shows just how easily it is to drop in background diversity, and I was glad it was there).

Enthusiastic and worth giving a chance. 4/5.

You might enjoy this book if you enjoyed: Sea (Sarah Driver), Althea’s arc in The Liveship Traders Trilogy (Robin Hobb), The Old Kingdom Series (Garth Nix).

Author: Maria V. Snyder

Opening Line: ‘Locked in darkness that surrounded me like a coffin, I had nothing to distract me from my memories.’

Okay, so I went into this expecting only to read Poison Study, the first book, which is what I do with most of my fantasy reads. However, it hit me like a brick… so I got hold of the other eight (curse my self control). I read the nine-book series in about two weeks (including delays as I had to order some of the books and they took a few days to come in), and I feel slightly like I’ve drowned myself in the story, but in a good way.

We follow the point of view of Yelena (with other points of view coming up in later books) who is assigned to be the food-taster for the leader of the country instead of being executed for murder. From that point, everything gets progressively more complicated and intense, but in a thoroughly enjoyable way. I could probably gush for pages about this series, so let’s go through some of the major points.

The character creation and development work is solid, good, and interesting; their motivations make sense in unexpected ways, which makes for an enjoyable story. Snyder is good at common-sense twists, the kind that you don’t necessarily see coming but make complete sense when they happen – my favourite kind. The only exception to this is in the romances, sometimes. They’re great as potential romances, and great once they’re actually a couple, but the jump from the former to the latter sometimes seems to be jarring – it doesn’t feel quite natural. You can definitely see her improve through the books, though. And she has a tendency towards writing found families, which I love.

The world-building is great, and the magic system is a nice balance between overly simplistic and overly complex – though I will confess I was occasionally confused by some of the twists in the system, I suspect that was largely because of how fast I was reading. Snyder’s plot-work is also nicely done, and she uses some lovely narrative devices across the whole series – and I won’t spoil it, but I will say it has a wholly satisfying ending.

One major note: trigger warning for rape. Our main character is a rape survivor, and the incident itself is described pretty evocatively in the first book. It’s also a topic that comes up every so often throughout the rest of the series, though it is always explicitly framed as a terrible thing – there’s no “was it wasn’t it” debate, which is something.

Finally, despite being a series about assassins, fighting, and poisoning, it doesn’t ever feel excessively grim. There’s a lot of fun, some really satisfying scenes and genuinely good relationships between people. Snyder avoids putting you through genuinely believing someone is dead more times than necessary (which for me will wear me out and pull me out of the story after a while) while still keeping the peril level high, which was impressive.

Overall, one of my favourite additions to my collection – and I’m very glad I bought the whole series! Going to give this a 4.5/5.

You might enjoy this book if you enjoyed: Green Rider (Kristen Britain), The Black Magician Trilogy (Trudi Canavan), A Dance of Cloaks (David Dalglish), The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy (Emily Gee), Uprooted (Naomi Novik), the ‘Sweep’ series (Cate Tiernan).

Author: N. K. Jemisin

Opening Line: ‘Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we?’

I was enthralled from the very first line – and it only got better.

The Fifth Season is set in a world on the brink of disaster – if not, in fact, over that brink. The planet is unstable, and the society both dependant on and disgusted by people who can manipulate the vibrations of the earth. Many of the characters that we meet are such people, and the narrative jumps around time to give us a deep, fascinating insight into how this world works.

I’ll be completely upfront here: I think this is possibly the best book I’ve read this year. The world-building is deep and complex and quite slow to be explained, but Jemisin never leaves you feeling lost or confused – and the scale of the world does an incredible range from world-ending, beyond-understanding big right down to tiny and human.

The characters are brilliantly created – Jemisin’s methods put me in mind of Robin Hobb’s Fitz, where the adult character’s personality is very much grounded in their life until that point. All the characters sit perfectly in the world that Jemisin has created. There’s a very casual inclusion of a trans character, and at some point there’s a poly trio.

There are no monsters in this book, but the monstrous is very much present. I did hit a point where I was sat with my back against the wall, just reeling and a little too scared to leave my room! But it’s very much not a horror book. There are no real coming-to-get-you scares, but Jemisin seems to excel at invoking the kind of fear inspired by, say, thinking about how deep the ocean is.

Awe-inspiring. 5/5.

You might enjoy this book if you enjoyed: Realm of the Elderlings (Robin Hobb), The Final Empire (Brandon Sanderson), The Black Prism (Brent Weeks).

Author: Laini Taylor

Opening Line: ‘On the second Sabbat of Twelfthmoon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky.’

I’ve been eyeing Laini Taylor’s books ever since I read her short story set, Lips Touch (which was fantastic, but not medieval fantasy exactly). So I was delighted to get my hands on a copy of Strange the Dreamer.

The book has two main characters – Lazlo, a young man with a deep interest in the mysterious, vanished city of Weep, and Sarai, a young woman living a very isolated life in a very strange place.

Taylor is excellent at creating not just a setting but a whole environment, from colours to emotions to history. It’s a very vivid read, folding fairy tale in with romance and adventure, and the images stay with you long after you’ve closed the book. The magic system is nicely done, with its edges in mystery, and she paces the unfolding of the story extremely well.

All the characters in the book feel three-dimensional and real, with that kind of life behind them that makes it feel as though they’re living and breathing and moving even when the focus of the narrative isn’t on them. I loved Lazlo and Sarai, and found myself wrapped up in their problems and challenges very quickly. I can’t say too much more about the book without spoiling it, but I will say this: bring a box of tissues.

A brilliant, evocative read – I can’t wait for the next book in the series to come out! 4.5/5.

You might enjoy this book if you enjoyed: Ash (Malinda Lo), Uprooted (Naomi Novik), The Name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss).

Author: Rachel Hartman

Opening Line: ‘I remember being born.’

Well, that was excellent!

This is technically a YA novel, but I’d say it skews towards nearly adult in places (and I’ve definitely seen it shelved that way occasionally). Seraphina, our main character, is a wonderful creation – she’s sympathetic, interesting, and Hartman gets just the right balance between commendably brave and realistically nervous.

The world-building is wonderful, too. I love the idea of a world where humans and dragons coexist, and Hartman’s fascinating take on that doesn’t pull any punches – there’s a lot of nastiness stewing, and a lot of rising tension between the two cultures. It would have been easy to make this a black and white story, but there’s a blend of moralities here that Hartman uses to question the difference between accepted behaviour and moral behaviour.

All of the characters are done very well, and several develop more complex layers where you least expect them to. Kiggs, Glisselda, Orma, Lars, even Viridius – all of them feel real and interesting.

All in all an excellent read that I was very invested in – I look forward to getting book two! Going to give this one 4.5/5.

You might enjoy this book if you enjoyed: The Rain Wild Chronicles (Robin Hobb), The Old Kingdom series (Garth Nix), The Final Empire (Brandon Sanderson).