#russian fantasy

First thing you need to know about it is that I started reading it from the 10th book (out of 13 total) and I happen to think 9-13 is the WEAKER half of the series. I loved it instantly. So, y'know.

Second thing you need to know is it's sex-positive. Like... maybe a bit too sex-positive at times. I don't think court ladies should be using quite those slang words for sex quite so out loud while in public. But, y'know, in this case I think A for effort does it.

Third thing... well, it's a fantasy isekai with a soap opera type connected cast spanning three worlds (technically five, but two of them don't have any specific coincidence type soap opera shenanigans happen on them so I'm not talking about them). The (original?) protagonist is the only person who DOESN'T have soap opera backstory connections to any other characters (read: to half the cast, in the case of everyone else). Because of this, and the story being heavily multi-POV, she is increasingly a side character as time goes on. Like, she's genuinely instrumental to the first two books' plot and its resolution, but after that it sometimes feel like she's being given Badass Stuff To Do as a matter of checklist "and let's not forget HER either". She never STOPS having badass stuff to do, mind, it's just... increasingly not ABOUT her, you know?

The plot basically has two halves: the politics-intrigue-save-the-world half, and the interpersonal drama half with like a dozen separate romantic plotlines (some of which are in from the start, some are introduced later). This separation becomes very obvious as in the 8th book the last of the interpersonal plot wraps up with the protagonist marrying her love interest. And then the 9th book comes in like "oh shit we're not done with the save the world part, strap in folks because it's full speed to the finish now". And it's not like books 9-13 LACK character interaction, it's just that the main thrust of the "will these two ever reconcile and/or recognize each other" fun stuff from the first 8 books is over and the narrative is visibly less dense for it. There's SOME "recognizing each other" leftovers, just... FEW.

(Although "okay, but what the fuck is that guy doing in MY APARTMENT?!" "...with MY SISTER?!" will forever remain unparallelled as the funniest dramatic irony payoff reveal ever. Bless all of these books)

Notable Fun Shit:

the classic "humans might be naturally straight, but ELVES are both far more alien and very fuckable, and sexual orientation is heritable, and their descendants can't be told apart from 'pure' humans without some very targeted magic DNA tests, so y'know" Russian fantasy setup. However, it is made much funnier and more confusing by the protagonist coming from our world the end of the 20th century and being like "yeah I know gay people exist and I don't give a shit, I'm far less concerned by the lady making eyes at me than by her friend who wants me DEAD, can we focus on that instead". Were elves there too? Or is it that queer shit never actually needed an extra special elf explanation and elves are just also there? WHO KNOWS

in the world where our protagonist finds herself, isekai is a known, extensively studied and thoroughly integrated phenomenon. There are multiple possible mechanisms for it, but it's always someone who was about to die / something that was about to get destroyed over at the other side, and they can't come back to their original world (but they CAN travel to other worlds via other means) because they're super dead over there but they're fine in their new life and get automatic magical linguistic integration (languages they hear get mapped on languages they already knew in order of how well they knew them, descending). The automatic linguistic integration also works on other isekais, so two people could be both speaking Russian and hearing each other as English and Spanish respectively (this happens, specifically) or speaking what sounds to them like the same language but one is speaking English and the other Russian (this also specifically happens). (Most isekai exchanges are with our world, others are outliers). The whole thing is time displaced, so our protagonist gets to say hi to an actual medieval peasant at one point. The target world has of course set up to mine the immigrants for technology / culture / other possible contribtuions. In ways that are variedly nice based on where they land. Our protagonist lucked out, another guy who's basically a protagonist extremely did not (the one she hears as speaking Spanish)

speaking of time displacement, the "contemporary" time period that you go to when you just go to our world the less deadly and more normal magic way is several centuries ahead. Ft. hackers, cyberspace, several explored worlds and cultural preservation of other worlds diplomatic agreement with elves. This is VERY plot relevant. This is like half of the intrigue part of the plot, with the other half being the guy from the target world having been isekaid into a third, post-nuclear-apocalypse world after being VERY killed and finding himself very thriving there because of all the necromancy he can do and they aren't prepared enough to nip in the bud. Ft. people who have no intention of keeping to international diplomatic agreements when they can profit otherwise, idiot patsies, portal timing complicating invasion logistics, and a lot more fun stuff

a pseudo-litRPG magical vision "class" system? Like, people can have particular magical "features" to their soul, that qualify them as having a "class", which in the target world is an actual legal distinction that for example cuts through sexism (women who have a class are allowed to do whatever, as opposed to everyone else) (notably one of the classes is "warrior" which doesn't require special soul features and just requires training + willingness, so that's fun). The one that gets the most exploration in the series is "Bard". Bards have a "Fire" in their souls, that compels them to create/perform or else they get really depressed. It also compels them to be impulsive / emotional / do stupid shit For The Aesthetic, so Bards don't tend to survive well when they are also Warriors or Mages. The protagonist is a Bard. Mage is obvious - they have some source of magic (I forgot the official term used in the book) and they can do magic because of it. There are no particular mental effects, but Mages can be very dangerous to themselves and others when untrained / insufficiently trained. Thieves have a Shadow, which makes them (1) lucky, (2) have an eye for opportunities, (3) compelled to do cloak and dagger shit. Some Thieves are criminals, but merchants and law enforcement agents / spies also do very well with the class. Then there are Clerics, who have Faith to one deity or concept or another. They, like Warriors, don't need to be born with it. Clerics get powers from making some sort of oath that deprives them of something they like and keeping to it. The more they want the thing, (and deny it to themselves) the stronger the powers. Notable Clerics in the plot include a guy who failed at keeping his "don't indulge in gluttony" oath but this one time made himself a sandwich and then didn't eat it for a whole day while it was right over there smelling delicious because he was too busy with triage in a field hospital and he got real swanky healing + undead busting powers for that one day, and also a chastity oath girl in a band with four extremely attractive and extremely interested guys, who is the most powerful healer anyone in the cast knows. And finally Alchemists, who have a Light, and get analytical abilities + compelled to analyze shit - basically scientists, except when they're, for example, investigators. Thief + Alchemist = the Sherlockest Holmes to ever have a cocaine addiction. People with classes tend to form adventuring parties and do DnD shit, except when they have mundane professions instead. Or are in the army, as like, most warriors. All of these classes, except Warrior, can be lost when you lose the corresponding thing, but can also be regained later. Losing is usually the result of extreme personal trauma, but some waxing and waning is also more or less normal. Regaining is... about as rare as losing, relatively speaking.

Mages can potentially keep themselves young forever, and yes there is actually a secret shadowy mage cabal behind the world leaders. They raise their nominal "heads of state" since childhood and they meet in secret and try to negotiate diplomatic shit with each other before then advising their dearest students how to maybe handle it. They do not have perfect control (they are not, in fact, formally in charge, just advisors) and they do not always get along well, and they're surprisingly benevolent + good for this world. There WOULD be more wars without them playing brakes. (You might wonder if none of these countries have demoracies. Answer: at least one has a "President", but it's an oligarchic republic, and the guy raised by a mage had a bit of an unfair advantage in getting ahead. It's implied also that his mage grandmother only got invited to the council after he took power, and she's not widely liked)

Shoutout to The Bisexual Guy (not the only bisexual guy in the cast, but the only prominent one) who insists that having one (1) boyfriend and one (1) girlfriend at a time means he's never cheating on anyone. He never sleeps with another woman when he's already seeing one! And same for men! (Non-binary people don't exist in this book.) He's a half-elf, and it's not clear if it's elf culture that could be blamed for this one, because he's the son of a hippy musician dad and an elf mom who was a fan for long enough to have a kid and then mostly shove him off onto the dad. I think he did spend SOME time with elves being basically collectively raised because none of them culturally give enough of a shit to do individual childcare, but mostly he was raised by his dad and his band touring around and having fun. (I don't remember if they had more kids, I think the answer is yes, but he's the only half-elf)

I never realized how much fun false identities and intertwined backstories and secret parentage can be before I read this series. It's sooo good at milking soap opera shit for BOTH espionage AND personal drama, generally at the same time. (This is why the later books are weaker: just espionage is also amazing, but not nearly as insane (positive))

The protagonist's love interest starts the series with a permanent disability he's extremely unhappy over, and he never gets over it or heals it, but he does manage to start a new life he can be happy in anyway. Pretty swanky all in all.

He does manage to randomly and unbeknownst to him at the time heal another permanent disability, which was infertility. This proves both joyful and extremely contextually inconvenient. For the last several books, the protagonist gets to do all the badass shit while also pregnant. This is not good for the mental health of anyone involved. Very fun for the audience, though, especially when she gets to imply that she doesn't know whose the kid is to a person for intrigue reasons for her safety. (The only reason why that statement is untrue is because the other guys Took Precautions, not being officially infertile) (The love interest is aware, and is just happy she got a good excuse to keep her safe in That Situation. Jealousy? What? No, they weren't strictly formally together at the time after a breakup and before a reconciling-leading-directly-into-marriage. And he had to make visits to like five gals himself after he found out the truth to make sure he only had one accident in between healing and learning about it)

The series is very, very funny, and also very very dramatic and campy about it all. You want your blorbos tortured? Yeah this is the place for you. You want blorbos who aren't currently actively being tortured but who have it in their backstory? Fucking welcome :D

"We're fated to be married because of a magic curse, but like fuck am I going to admit I'm the curse guy. I'm just going to vaguely imply I know him and he wouldn't mind, instead. Hey, it has the benefit of being true! I wouldn't mind if that were the situation!" "Shit, there's now a second magic curse that's going to give me migraines for the rest of my life until and unless I marry her. But I dramatically broke up with her becuase I thought I was going to die and now I'm too embarrassed to come back, so migraines for the rest of my life it is" (Note: divorce exists in this setting, and there would be nothing preventing them from getting married to satisfy the curses and then immediately divorcing) (some blorbos don't need extra special external torture, they do the job perfectly fine by themselves <3)

the series does not gloss over the existence of sexual assault, nor over what it does to people (nor that this varies). It's pretty idiosyncratic about it given that emotions magic is a thing, and so is sex magic, and so is at least one sex magic deity who has opinions on things like this, but honestly even with all the retrospect it holds up. So sometimes the therapy is magic therapy, it's no less real (tm) for that and doesn't exactly solve all the problems anyway

All the politics holds up and checks out. If there's an unrealistic part, it's the high proportion of Good People in the highest echelon of taget world society... but there's the secret shadowy mage cabal to explain that, and the fact the two most powerful of them are a Power Couple (tm) that probably founded and guided the whole thing to their taste, which is good, and two good people being super powerful mages and managing to eliminate the competition is not that straining of suspension of disbelief. And everyone who isn't from their creche is... realistically realistic. (You might wonder about the elves. There is one (1) elf who gives a shit about the whole 'dont touch other worlds especially specifically this one' diplomatic agreement, with a bunch of understudies and underlings who are in it either for personal reasons or under his leadership, he's just personally powerful enough a mage + influential enough a politician to hold the whole thing up by himself. When humans start wondering if he really is and try to fuck around, they find out)

it IS in fact an isekai, or portal fantasy perhaps fits better. its so weird and good?

the protagonist: a guy. yes, i know, it's sad. but he's sad and cute and it's honestly just good. relatable without being an everyman. the sort of guy who would be a tragic poet except he's very self conscious about this part of his personality and prefers to be funny instead. hes very good at being funny. his narrative voice is fantastic i promise you will like it

the method: our protagonist had been having the same vivid and memorable dream for years where he meets with another guy in a very odd looking but very comfortable cafe and has drinks with him and it's very soothing. one day the dream guy makes him a job offer, and gives him extremely specific concerningly-kidnapped-by-fae-like instructions to follow when hes awake. when the protagonist wakes up hes got little enough going on in his life that he decides hes got pretty much nothing to lose by trying to follow the instructions. to his bafflement, it works. hes now in another world where hes got a job offer and a boss who summoned him from another world and is very self-satisfied about it. dont ask why he wanted an employee from another world (actually, do ask. very much do ask. its important and hes not telling you the full truth at all)

the genre: magic detective mystery. not always murder mystery mind you, theres plenty of fun magic stuff that can be concerning and require investigation without anyone being dead. mostly murder, but really not always. and yeah the protagonist is a magic cop but its like. its like a treatise on what police should be like in an ideal world where its actually good. and you really do need some people to do the job of extremely capable mages capable of untangling whatever bullshit people accidentally or deliberately wrought on themselves and/or people around them (they also have non-magic police. those are worse, though still not to irl degree, because this magic world has some wish fulfillment ass laws. not quite fully automated gay luxury communism but they're getting there)

the magic system: the mc learns two, but is made aware that a significantly larger amount exists. basically every country in his new world has its own chosen special magic system. also theres 'true' magic thats the kind of thing that can summon you from another world and is the coolest. not geographically locked. our world meanwhile is a magic dystopia and no-one here realizes it except for people who do, mostly subconsciously, but they can do jack-all about it so thats how depression happens so much. the local magic system the mc learns actually has clearly defined 'levels' ('steps') and divides neatly into two kinds, 'black' and 'white' - except instead of any good/bad connotations 'black' deals with material objects and 'white' with abstract concepts. the neatly divided thing is to the point where they have pocket sensors that tell you what step-and-color spells have been cast around here (v helpful for magic cops, except of course when the magic system involved is not the local one. well at least they tell you that fact then). theres no litrpg elements though, and what step magic the mc can cast is not really treated as important. its just a worldbuilding element

the woke: eh. goes with the weird russian-specific-i-think trope "specifically elves are bisexual/gay but they intermix with humans and thats why some humans are too". ableism... bad. very bad. the whole thing is founded on a deep understanding of particular kinds of being non-neurotypical but very, uh... ignorant that that's what it is. soo bad. fatphobia: very rarely comes up i think, but, uh, also. sexism... sincere well-intentioned attempt to worldbuild a society without it but i wouldnt say it worked. fun attempt though. queerphobia: actually a pretty damn successful attempt to worldbuild a society without it (a society that the mc is very much not from and periodically smacks into this, which is always fun), though i feel it could do with more non-cis-or-straight main cast. my favorite part is the part where the protagonist is told to crossdress for infiltration anonymity one time and is weird about it in a classic transmisogynistic sort of way and everyone around him is like ??? @ the entire thing like what? whats funny we dont get it. whats embarrassing. why are you being so weird about it. what IS the problem. and then he asks himself the question and realizes there's no reason and proceeds to not be weird about it henceforth. uses the disguise as an opportunity to bond with his love interest that he had just had magic drama with, and she loves the idea and approves fully. girl-boy interactions are awkward but hell yeah they can have a girls' night. also as an opportunity to prank his flirty coworker who is about 15 minutes into lying his ass off to this cute girl who is totally into him before the protagonist finally can't take it anymore and breaks down laughing. the coworker finds this also hilarious once he figures it out and it becomes a good prank memory between them

the power fantasy: yes. the mc is mega super special. hes not the first person to ever be so mega super special and theres even specialized predators that go after people like him (his boss is like, halfway there) so the power fantasy is well tempered by challenges. also the genre is inherently investigative so the mc being super powerful is not always particularly. relevant. to the challenge at hand. like its nice that when he figures out who the culprit is he can win the fight no problem but the main conflict is usually figuring out what even happened so yeah. good. also the dose of existential horror this book loves to pair the power fantasy shit with is a great balancer too

the humor: this is the first book in my life that actually made me laugh out loud, to tears. like i am not usually very expressive when Experiencing Stories, i never cry over books or shit like that, and i had never made an out loud noise over a book since i'd learned how to read not-out-loud. until that book. those books. they are hilarious. they are ridiculous. it goes super well with the existential horror

the language shit: this is the fun one and the one that spurred me writing this post! so the backstory is that the mc was talking to his future boss in his dreams right so they already somehow spoke the same language. and this doesnt become a problem when the guy comes over either. he understands the words, be they a different language or the same one (this is never really addressed in detail, which given the fae vibe i'm honestly fine with). HOWEVER the new culture has ALL ITS OWN IDIOMS. sooo many of them. the irl author is bilingual and has lived in another country before writing this and you can tell. the mc picks up local idioms more and more over time but early on it often happens that he says some idiom of his own and his friends and coworkers instantly turn into a descending horde of gremlins like "OOOH WHAT DOES THAT MEAN" and after he does his best to explain they just. start using it. mixed with their own idioms. colored by their own understanding. questionably correctly. they eat that shit up. at one point the guy brings over his movie collection and a dvd player to watch it on (it works in another world because magic, it makes sense in context) and thus introduces his coworkers to Another World's Pop Culture which they react to the way you would to being introduced to another world's pop culture. he regrets it immensely forever after

the romance: alas, the mc is tragically straight (and is incapable of being normal about learning other people aren't, at least until he's given 15 minutes to sit with the fact it's perfectly normal in this new world. its actually really satisfying to read tbh). his turbulent love life however introduces us to two absolutely IMMACULATE girls (and they meet each other through him and instantly become besties btw) who have their own shit going on. theres never drama in the sense of romantic triangle or jealousy but theres the FUN drama along the lines of "magic rules say we cant see each other but we're still coworkers so lets figure out how to painfully and caringly be friends" and "i can't survive here. i have to leave. i love you but i cannot be where you are right now" and "sooo i panicked and now im basically dead so no we're no longer dating but i still exist in this other place so come see me sometime actually". just. fucking ace. (technically theres a love triangle for approximately five minutes between the mc and his flirty coworker both flirting with this girl but she was never actually into the flirty coworker and he knows it so when she actually is into the mc hes like ok fine fair enough). the series DOES HAVE OTHER FEMALE CHARACTERS BTW. and they are awesome. not on a 1-to-1 basis with male characters alas but they are soo good

the vibes: immaculate. lovely romantic urban mystery. sometimes the ghost eats local children but sometimes the city just has a different street layout at night and some locations are only accessible at that time and that's just normal. sometimes the culprit is a restaurant owner who figured out how to make people into super extra delicious food with magic and sometimes the culprit is a group of idiot teenagers who found a description of a ritual in an ancient book and decided it would be a great idea to try it, and sometimes the culprit is an ancient dying beast from the depths of the ocean that accidentally got stuck on a ship's prow and brought to foreign shores where people don't know how to be careful of it. just. incredible

does he get to come back home: yes! at least twice that I can remember! both are horror. the conflict is that he desperately needs to get away from there if he is to survive. not in a 'magic soul sucking will actually die' sense but in a 'depression is a deadly disease' sense. it's really cool tbh

And I really want to know which writers, if you are willing to share, because suddenly I am INVESTED /nf

well one of them is by Boris Akunin whose stuff i actually am not particularly into, ANOTHER THOUGH is by Gromyko!!! In the short story collection book of the Kosmoolukhi series. They’re a bg character but they FUCK in all ways including literal (ft. magically transfiguring a previously straight character into one that is Not), it’s great

I feel like there have been more but I cannot clearly remember any other alas )=