6 Books with Anna Kashina

Anna Kashina writes historical adventure fantasy, featuring exotic settings, martial arts, assassins, and elements of romance. Her "Majat Code" series, published by Angry Robot Books, UK, received two Prism Awards in 2015. She is a Russian by origin, and a scientist in her day job, and she freely draws on these backgrounds in her writing. Her newest novel, SHADOWBLADE, has been released by Angry Robot Books on May 7, 2019. You can find her online at https://annakashinablog.wordpress.com/ or on twitter @annakashina

Today she shares her six books with us.

1. What book are you currently reading?

Uprooted by Naomi Novik. I just started it, but I am already spellbound. Books with fairy tale themes are my weakness, and this one has such a different take on it. I actually picked it up in a store while I was waiting for someone, and from the very first page, I couldn’t put it down. This almost never happens to me, and when it does, I treasure the experience.

I constantly wish I could read more. Between my day job, writing, and kids, reading becomes a guilty pleasure I have to get excuses for, rather than a normal activity. I really need to think of changing this somehow.

Now that I have picked up Uprooted, I will definitely read Naomi Novik’s other work.


2. What upcoming book you are really excited about?

The Orchid Throne by Jeffe Kennedy. I am a big fan of her work, which is in the same genre as mine – historical adventure fantasy with elements of romance. Every Jeffe’s book is a treat, highly recommended to any fan of the genre, and I just can’t wait to read her newest novel. It’s the first in a new series, upcoming this September from St. Martin’s. I am excited!

3. Is there a book you're currently itching to re-read?

Terry Pratchett’s Witches Abroad. Coincidentally, it is also based on fairy tales ☺. I absolutely adore Discworld novels, and among those, the novels about witches and the night watch are my favorite.

I tend to re-read Witches Abroad every once in a while. It’s my comfort reading, and every word is just so brilliant.

There are close seconds among the Discworld novels, and I could easily add more to this list. I have a special shelf for them, and when I don’t have time to re-read them, I just tend to come and stare at them lovingly.


4. How about a book you've changed your mind about over time--either positively or negatively?

At a risk of sounding nerdy, I want to mention War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. It was my required reading in middle school, and I devoured it at the age of thirteen or so. While I did find the detailed war scenes boring, I loved everything about the “peace” parts, the depiction of the Russian high society, the characters, the interactions, the love affairs. Oddly, I didn’t think of it as a serious book (probably because I also tended to skim over the more philosophical passages), but more like a very entertaining sitcom.

When I picked up War and Peace as an adult, I was looking forward to the same enjoyment, to reliving the fund I had as a child. But it felt as if I was reading a completely different book. The characters seemed flat, depressed, predictable, and boring. The war scenes became more interesting, simply because I could now appreciate the intricate research that went into them. But, I simply couldn’t get into it. I put it aside fairly quickly and never returned to it again.

I had an opposite experience with Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which started to make sense to me only as I grew up. I actually find it really cool that the same author can evoke such opposite effects with two different books.


5. What's one book, which you read as a child or young adult, that has had a lasting influence on your writing?

J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Having grown up in another country, with very limited access to books – especially by foreign authors – it was the first fantasy I ever read. I fell in love with it. One my favorite things about this book is the worldbuilding. I am a very visual reader, and Tolkien’s hauntingly vivid settings stayed with me all these years and influenced the way I approach worldbuilding in my own books. When I close my eyes I can easily see the scenery from his books, even after many years. The way he describes forests… My novels are nothing like Tolkien’s, but this trilogy taught me so much about building and effectively portraying a world.


6. And speaking of that, what's *your* latest book, and why is it awesome?

My latest book is Shadowblade, coming in May from Angry Robot Books. It is an adventure fantasy, featuring elite blademasters, fancy sword fights, and romance. It tells a story of a young girl, Naia, who overcomes enormous odds to become one of the top blademasters in the empire, and then is thrown into an elaborate political plot where she would need to apply her entire skill set to get at least a chance at survival. It’s set in a medieval world, visually fashioned after the Middle East, and it was enormously fun to write. I hope the readers get the same kick out of it as I did when I wrote it.

There are two reasons why it’s awesome. First, the cover. It features one of the best art pieces by Alejandro Colucci, and it is not only beautiful, but also the exact reflection of the book. If the cover speaks to you, this is probably the book for you. And yes, it’s also really silky. If you see it in a store, you’d definitely want to hold it and caress it. You know how people always say not to judge a book by its cover? Not the case here. You should totally judge it by its cover, which is absolutely irresistible.

The other awesome thing is that I believe Naia’s story delivers an important message. She is a young girl who starts out of a very bad situation and fights her way to the top – just because she never gives up. This is the motto I live by.

And yes, there are the sword fights. I tend to feature skilled warriors in my books, and I always wanted to write a novel that describes some of the behind the scenes work that goes into training someone to fight like this. This was one of the reasons working on Shadowblade was so much fun.

Microreview [Book]: Shadowblade by Anna Kashina

An action packed lost heir story with a refreshing focus on autonomy and consent.

Another day, another book with a lady with a sword on the cover. In the case of Anna Kashina's new novel, we are treated to two swords! Winning a place in my heart over the "just a knife on its own (or maybe a snake)" cover trend, the promise of a lady with a sword, especially one striding so impactfully towards the reader, is one that's hard to resist even for an action-agnostic reader like me. Who is this lady in comfortable footwear and a practical haircut (and subtle but unmistakeable decorative boobplate, but let's gloss over that for a minute)? She's holding one of those swords like I would hold the one supermarket bag I'd accidentally put all the heavy tins into, but despite that she seems to know what she's doing, and I'm excited to learn exactly what she's got going on.

This, we soon learn, is Naia. Naia has been training to be a member of the Jaihar, a stratified order of elite warriors who are drawn from orphans and other children pledged to them at a young age, and trained from birth in various martial and mystical arts. Naia is uncannily good with a blade, but has apparently made a lot of enemies in the lower camp where she's been trained, and is on the verge of being kicked out for a mysterious insubordination incident: she's attacked an instructor and has curiously little defence for herself. Luckily, fate intervenes, as the head of the Daljeer, scholarly order shows up looking for a young woman at just the right age to impersonate a mythical princess from the murdered Challimar dynasty. After a few tests demonstrate that Naia's natural abilities significantly surpass the training she's been given so far, she's given a second chance in the upper camp with the Jai, and put on a path to engage in political machinations which, we note in an aside, she might actually be born to do...

Naia's training and her mission to impersonate Princess Xarimet divide Shadowblade neatly into two halves. The first half, in which Naia goes from near-outcast to prodigy of the upper camp, sets out an interesting and refreshing take on the concepts it is dealing with. Although Naia is set up as the only person who can set out on the particular mission she is being trained for, and that she could be more than the impersonator which the Jaihar officially want her to be, Shadowblade returns again and again to Naia's agency and her own desire to learn and train with the Jai. The Har section of the camp where she has come from is defined, at least in the limited views we get of it, by brutality and bad eggs, with the incident that almost led to Naia's expulsion soon revealed to involve her stepping in to protect a servant almost being beaten to death. The Jai, the elite warriors, instead come across as being defined by respect for each other and for their students. It's fascinating to watch Naia go from being beaten down and undervalued to training with people (mostly men - unfortunately this is a pretty dude-heavy story, with only two living women of particular note) who respect her, encourage her to reflect on her performance and identify her own weaknesses. There's a constant prioritisation of consent in Naia's narrative which could so easily be absent from a story like this, especially once the romantic tension with Jai master Karrim starts.

Naia's training goes by in a series of montage-like chapters which take us through multiple years of weapons training, understanding her own weaknesses, and learning more about her Chall heritage from Mehtab, a mysterious woman from the Daljeer order who quickly becomes one of Naia's most trusted tutors. She also introduces her to the magical in-universe reasons for decorative boobplate, which involve iron-calling properties that throw off everyone wielding conventional weapons, and... that bit is fine, I guess. The building up of trust and agency in the first half of the book plays right through into the political action of the second, where a fully trained Naia is sent off on her mission to challenge for the Empire's throne in the wake of the old Emperor's death, removing the unpredictable son who has seized it in favour of a more pliable - though uninspiring - candidate favoured by the Daljeer. The deeper threat to Naia comes from a slightly different angle and builds up into a climax which really pays off the themes of consent, autonomy and learning to trust one's own judgement and surround oneself with people who respect it. There's not much that's surprising about how this plays out - the twists are well signposted in the narrative and the general thrust of what's going to happen was fairly easy to see unfolding - but this is a narrative that's more about the "how" than the "what", and the unfolding of Naia's victory not just within the terms of her mission but against those in the background who are setting her up to be a pawn.

Shadowblade is a book which seems to know exactly what it's doing and what it wants to prioritise, and how to make the other elements of the story work towards that goal. The focus is on delivering an action-packed story true to its blade-twirling hero, and that means the political plot, the empire's history with the Chall and the betrayal of a generation before which led to Naia's coming into the Jaihar are all just fleshed out enough to carry her story. There are vaguely Asian, desert-culture trappings to Chall and Zeg which aren't really fleshed out, but there's honestly not much recognisable "culture" in Naia's sheltered corner of the world - we could be anywhere, and I'm fine with that. The lack of women in Naia's world outside Mehtab is odd and frustrating despite the narrative attempts to wave it away, but there's a core of central characters who, with the exception of a few interchangeable seniors, are all distinct and interesting with believable quirks and motivations. Shadowblade leaves itself open, though not in need of, a sequel and it will be interesting to see whether some of these worldbuilding aspect get explored further in future instalments.

Action-driven novels are hit and miss for me but this one was satisfying on a level that I wasn't expecting it to be. While Naia's world is not the deepest or most fleshed out you're likely to visit this year, this entertaining, driven story does what it sets out to do while centring consent in a way which most narratives of this trope have no time or space to do. If the confident, blade wielding woman on the cover of Shadowblade is calling to you, I recommend you pick up her story and give it a try - it does what it says on the tin, in ways that I'd like to see a lot more of in future. Just, maybe we can go with plot relevant full body armour next time, please?

The Math
Baseline Assessment: 6/10

Bonuses: +1 Weaves consent and autonomy into a destiny driven story; +1 Satisfying action with a great payoff

Penalties: -1 Brilliant woman protagonist is surrounded almost entirely by men in, uh, plot relevant decorative boobplate...

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

POSTED BY: Adri is a semi-aquatic migratory mammal most often found in the UK. She has many opinions about SFF books, and is also partial to gaming, baking, interacting with dogs, and Asian-style karaoke. Find her on Twitter at @adrijjy.

Reference: Kashina, Anna. Shadowblade [Angry Robot, 2019].