Book Review: A Philosophy of Thieves by Fran Wilde

Fran Wilde’s A Philosophy of Thieves mixes a heist story, a found family story, and a nuanced and considered look at a post-climate-change future story into a readable combination

Roosala Vane lives a double life (at least double). She’s studying at great expense at an academy in New Washington, her technical skills blossoming and growing. In her world, she seeks to become a creator and designer and builder of printed objects (and also, a hacker).  But that is not her own identity. She is really Roo.

Roo is a member of the famous (and infamous) Canarvier troupe. The rich and powerful of this world have a particular game they like to play. They like to hire troupes of thieves to crash their opulent parties and steal from the guests and the estate. These hirings are carefully negotiated as to where and what is out of bounds, and the game is to try and catch the thieves before time runs out. The Canarviers are the best in the business. They don’t get caught, they stay within the contract, they are flashy and showy, and give the guests a good time. But times are tight and they have to take a tricky contract. One that will push Roo to the limit.

And, it turns out, Roo has an identity that she herself doesn’t even know...

Roo’s story is the heart of Fran Wilde’s A Philosophy of Thieves.

The heart of the book is Roo’s drives. She is the engine that keeps the novel going. We start off with a Canarvier heist, but things go wrong from the get go. The leader of the Canarviers, King, is captured. The Canarvier troupe is on the knife’s edge, and Roo not only needs a way to free King, but help keep the Canarviers solvent. And so she agrees to do a gig for Mason Graves and her girlfriend Evangeline Benford. The Benfords are rich and powerful, and the money for the gig could be enough to spring and free King on bail before he is shipped off to Alaska. So Roo is determined to get this gig to go off, get the money, free her mentor, and keep the Canarviers going.

This does not quite go to plan, and the novel delves into a rapidly rising series of improvises, plots, plans (including Mason’s) and the aforementioned identity that Roo is thrust into, very unwillingly. It’s not so much a heist novel as a post-climate-change technothriller that has strong worldbuilding and revolves around family and family relations, and the prices one is willing to pay for their ambitions and dreams.

I do want to say a few more words about Roo, no matter what name you give her. (More importantly, and a subtle point Wilde makes, it’s her for to decide how she names herself.) Roo is an extremely Wilde character that readers of her earlier work will find classic grace notes in. A relatively young woman, intelligent, clever, fierce in all the right ways. Sometimes self-doubting, but always loyal and determined to achieve her ends, which often revolve around her family and those whom she loves and protects. The very forward way Roo moves to try and meet her goals (which are so aligned with others, rather than herself) is endearing and sometimes painful. While we have a good sense of all the characters, especially the alternate POV Mason, Roo is where the heart of this book lies.

But it is the world, no surprise to anyone who has read more than one of my reviews, that really sucked me in and kept me turning pages. Yes, I was engaged strongly with Roo and her plight, struggles and adventures. (I only slowly warmed up to Mason; I kept seeing him as an adversary although he is much more *opposition* than *adversary* to Roo.) But it is the world that we see that is real and developed just enough for us to exert a playground of the imagination.

It’s a world after climate change has had its hammer blow. Seas have risen. Areas everywhere are devastated, to the point that even the atmosphere outside of domed or climate-controlled areas is detrimental to human health. There is a definite social and economic stratification of society in this world: Enclaves, Towns, and then the Skirts, which are definitely a drop in social class, and then the often poisonous and barely habitable regions outside of those. Crossing those regions is dangerous in and of itself, as we see a situation where a crossing goes wrong and leaves some of the characters in a salt flat where, if not rescued, they will absolutely die.

Wilde’s worldbuilding goes far beyond geography and goes into the implications of a post-climate-change world on things large and small. The loss of some of our cultural heritage as the seas rose, and the preciousness by which the rich hoard what they do hoard, is a particularly noticeable beat. And while this is a word of hacking and 3D printing, there are things that are hard and rare to come by. Natural foods like fresh blueberries are a treat only for the rich, grown in a greenhouse at high expense. And this is a world that is disconnected, too. We don’t get a sense of the grand politics (is there a United States still? *Maybe*), but not only are the city-states of this world seemingly semi-autonomous if not even more so (with a heaping side of corporate state politics), but getting to other Towns and Enclaves is mentioned as being difficult even for the ultra-wealthy Benfords.

It’s not something that is ever casually done. This leads more to the idea that this is a fragmented world, where Towns and Enclaves, with their Skirts around, are islands of civilization surrounded by devastation. While the rich and powerful are doing okay, those on more slippery rungs of the ladder need help. This is a society that the rich barely recognize as a society. And yet, while it is not the most pleasant of post-climate-change worlds, but it is one that Roo helps us be convinced is worth trying to save, rebuild and improve.

One interesting bit of worldbuilding and also a way to convey information is the in-world documents that pop up between chapters. Wilde’s excerpts from a digital magazine called Enclave and Towne provide board messages, private feeds, and more. It all feels a bit like Wilde has taken a page from Stand on Zanzibar, although the messages, articles and more are very much hyperlocal. Rather than trying to build out the world beyond the narrative (as we see in the Brunner novel), these documents review, reflect and comment on the action or action-adjacent items. It helps focus and direct the worldbuilding further to the plot and characters, and yet allows us the playground of the imagination that suggests there are plenty more feeds and channels like this we do not see.

I’ve been thinking about expectations lately, where a book’s logline or descriptive text do or do not match the reading experience. And so I want to quote from the promotional materials from the book:

“In these pages, you’ll find aspects of gaslamp fantasy complete with suave lords, charming rogues and high-stakes social events. You’ll find intricately planned and dangerous heists, brought together by a team of sniping but loving family members united around reclaiming their leader and father, King. And you’ll find astute interrogation of climate change and class in the tradition of our most esteemed science fiction.”

This all comes out nicely, except the phrase “gaslamp fantasy” kind of sticks in my craw a bit. Is it that we don’t quite have a good phrase for the kind of SFF that this book is a part of? There used to be, once upon a time, a phrase called “Fantasy of Manners” that was common in some corners of the SFF genresphere... back when it was in paper fanzines and maybe early newsgroups. It’s a mode of SFF that is very social- and class- oriented in nature, and often would deal with these strata of society in one form or another. Wilde’s novel definitely does this in spades, commenting on the very stratified society of her post-climate-change setting. There are a lot of scenes of intrigue, manners and social situations inside of those halls.

It’s not quite steampunk or dieselpunk; the punk is not there, but the aesthetic and feel are there. But can you have it outside of the time period?

The first time I came across this was in Walter Jon Williams’s Drake Maijstral novels, where a minor aristocrat/burglar in a galactic empire where Earth is conquered gets himself into some very funny situations, with social commentary to match. The feel is of this Fantasy of Manners throughout. Also recently, is work such as Malka Older’s Mossa and Pleiti novellas, which are set on space platforms orbiting Jupiter. While the nobles are replaced by academics squabbling and jockeying with each other, the “gaslamp fantasy” feel is there. Novels such as Everina Maxwell’s Winter’s Orbit also seem to partake of this sub-sub-genre. But again, can you have gaslamp fantasy set in the future? It’s not a gigantic niche of books, and gaslamp is the closest thing we have to a way to describe it. Gaslamp fantasy may almost set the expectations for the reader, but as a term for novels set out of period, it is a frustratingly incomplete and inaccurate term for novels such as Wilde’s. (A counterpoint: there ARE airships of a sort, even on the cover of the novel itself.)

Genre assignments aside, the novel does feel complete, deliciously done and recommended to all and sundry. However. the ending suggests a potential for future stories, and the back cover has #TheCanarvierFiles. Is there a sequel in the works? If so, I’d read it. Roo, once again, is a main draw, as is the world Wilde has built. I far more associate Wilde with her fantasy than with her SF, and this novel shows that I should recalibrate that association. More, please.

Highlights:

• The strong and abiding main character of Roo, and her struggles with identity, and her drives and needs.
• Vivid commentary by illumination of class, power, and wealth in a post-climate-change society.
• Come for the heists, stay for the worldbuilding.
• This Highlight approved by the Enclave and Towne, Stillwater Edition.

Reference: Wilde, Fran. A Philosophy of Thieves [Kensington Books/Erewhon, 2025].

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Book Review: Hornytown Chutzpah by Andrew Hiller

A light, funny, and audacious novella that relies as much on screwball comedy as it does hard-boiled noir, with more than a dash of Manischewitz wine

Solomon, or Sol the Wise Guy, has a problem. He lives on the borders of Hornytown, which is an annex of Hell that has now popped up in the middle of D.C. He used to work for the police force, but now has gone private. It’s a classic noir setup, except the woman who comes to his office is a demon, and it might be that she actually didn’t kill the Mayor of Hornytown like she said she didn’t. Sol is going to have to load up on a lot of Manischewitz wine. And maybe even stronger stuff, like chicken soup, to deal with what’s arrayed against her... and now, him.

This is the story in Andrew Hiller’s novella Hornytown Chutzpah.

The novella runs on, and will succeed or fail for the reader, on the conceit that the Christian theology is correct, with a few twists. Satan clearly exists, and demons are a thing, and you can really lose your immortal soul or bargain with it. Consecrated food and drink really is your best defense. But Sol is not Catholic, not even Christian. He’s Jewish, so when he goes armed, it is not with holy water and communion wafers; it is with a water gun filled with blessed Manischewitz wine.

In keeping with that, the novella’s tone is a bold genre-splitting mixture of a few influences. First of all, it runs on noir movie beats that anyone who has watched a few of them will recognize. Sol is the classic private detective that you can recognize and love: former police officer, barely making rent, a cupboard existence at best. Enter the femme fatale who needs his help (which is a demon in this case) because no one else can help her. Urrie is depicted perfectly in the role, a demon who may not have actually done the murder that everyone has said she did, but can you actually trust a demon’s word on that? Sol is in over his head, and we are soon on the tracks of the noir story in classic fashion, and the author hits those beats. Of course the cops come immediately on Urrie’s heels, right out of a noir movie. After that, we are plunged into Sol and Urrie having to flee into Hornytown in an effort to clear her name and find out what really happened with the mayor’s death, and who really did it, and why. Sol gets reunited here and there with some old associates, some friendly, some hostile, some neutral, and begins his investigation in earnest. All streets will eventually lead to the Mayor’s residence and the revelation of the true circumstances of his death, but it follows noir beats all along the way.

In addition to the noir beats, there is definitely an undertone of sometimes screwball comedy to the proceedings. Again, keeping in the era that this story throws back to in many respects, this novella owes as much to His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby as it does to The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep. The novella is noir, but it plays a lot for laughs in a light and frothy tone throughout. Sure, we can believe that Sol and his friends are definitely in danger, but it is leavened frequently by strong notes of humor.

And then there is the tone that underlies it all, and really, is what will make this novella work for you or not. It is really the central conceit of the story. Hiller has written it from a strong Jewish perspective that feels a bit like a flanderized and deeply immersed version of NYC-style Jewish culture. I’ve already mentioned the wine, but it goes far deeper than that. Word choice, idiom, Yiddish phrases, and a perspective from entirely within that community prevail in the book from start to finish.

The first paragraph sets the tone for the entire book. Your reaction to this paragraph, in essence, will tell you whether this book could be for you or not. I suspect, given just how out of the usual bounds the novella is, that was precisely the point:

The sheyd passed by my mezuzah like it was a smoke detector without a battery. The furshlugginer thing was supposed to protect the first born, but my dime store tchotchke just blinked blissful ambivalence. Underneath my desk, my toes clenched and unclenched.

Really, what I have said to this point, and that paragraph, tells you whether this story is for you or not. There is a glossary at the end, written casually, to some of the terms and phrases and ideas. I didn’t need it myself, since I grew up in New York and had plenty of contact with the community and many of its members. You can’t live there and not pick up some of it. If you are truly confused, I’d still advise you to not look at the glossary before reading the novella, because it does in fact inadvertently spoil the ending.

Even for it being comedic noir, this worldbuilding the presence of someone who is religious and immersed in a culture that is not the default Christian culture of America¹ is an interesting and clever choice. I suppose you could write this story from the perspective of, say, a devout Italian Catholic, with holy water and communion wine and communion wafers, but it would not be as funny. Spraying holy water on a demon is something that happens all the time in fantasy with a Christian theology. Shooting a demon with a super-soaker full of blessed kosher wine is, as far as I can tell, never been done before in fantasy fiction.² For all of its comedy and playfulness, the novella really does have a strong message about doing good, doing right, and being a good person, regardless of one’s religious trappings. In keeping with that, the novella, I am happy to report, is queer-friendly and inclusive. I think the author may have missed a trick in not making Sol himself queer, but he is following the noir track between Sol and Urrie, so that would have defused and depowered their relationship significantly.

Hornytown Chutzpah, like a good noir movie, keeps the pace lean and mean and knows when to move the plot along so that the story doesn’t flag. Like a screwball comedy, it knows exactly when to hit the comedy beats and when to become more serious (although it leans more toward the former than the latter). And it knows when to hit you in the heart and soul, like a nice bowl of chicken soup from your Bubbe on a cold winter’s day.

At the time of the publication of this novella, it is being funded on Kickstarter.

Highlights:

• Strong fusion of noir, screwball comedy and Jewish humor
• Lean and mean; never overstays its welcome
• For all of its origins, inclusive, modern and welcoming

Reference: Hiller, Andrew. Hornytown Chutzpah (Atthis Arts, projected 2026).

¹ I am not going to say Judeo-Christian, because, in my experience, many who use that phrase are piggybacking on the first part and only mean the latter in practice.

² It does feel like something Poul Anderson could have cooked up with Stainslaw Lem. About the only contemporary author I can think of that would even contemplate a scene like this is Lavie Tidhar.

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Book Review: Audition for the Fox by Martin Cahill

A fantasy story with hidden depths and nuanced contemplations of deeper subjects.

Martin Cahill’s debut novella, Audition for the Fox, has a premise that at first feels light and frothy and before cracking open the novella. The setup is that Nesi, who is a godblooded descent of one of the 99 pillars (gods) needs a divine patron in order to leave the temple she has lived all of her life (there are those who would capture and kill people like Nesi for their power, so it is non-negotiable that she can't leave the temple without such a patronage). There are 99 gods in the pantheon, and Nesi has had interviews/tests with 96 of them, and failed (in a funny bit, one of those is her own divine ancestor, Bison). So, if Nesi does not want to stay at the temple, or wait years and try auditions again, she has three choices, the God of Assassination, a God of Battle...and the God of Tricks, the Fox. Nesi decides on the last. And does she get an audition!

While the logline does say that she is thrown back 300 years in time when her homeland was occupied, that doesn’t quite show how dire Nesi’s position is, and how a god of tricks is far deeper than you might think. The novella opens us in a in medias res, and only gives us some background and establishes what is in the logline after Nesi is already in the deep end. Indeed, Nesi is back in the past, the past is not fixed, and yes, she could absolutely die here during the occupation.

Audition for the Fox, then, is a story that starts off as a story of survival, adaptation, and resistance. In that, instead of dealing with a relatively shallow god of tricks, Nesi and the reader find out just how complicated and complex Fox really is. Nesi asked for this trial, and Fox is not going to let her get out of it as easily as Fox’s brethren seemingly shrugged off her failures.

And it’s a story of belief and revolution, and resistance. This is not to say that there isn’t humor in it, but it is a far far more serious novella than I expected. I was going in to this thinking, even when the time travel was revealed, that this would be a much lighter fare than it actually is. The power of trickery to mildly befuddle an occupation, or showing a small light against the darkness of that occupation. And there is that, too but there are more and much deeper things going on here.

You see, the Wolfhounds of Zemin, in this era, are devotees of one god, the Wolf of the Hunt. The 100th God (which, yes, already made me start wondering right from the get go). They are the kind of monotheists who forbid, absolutely, the worship or respect of any of the other gods. Why the 99 other pillars do not intervene at all is not precisely clear, but given how hands-off Fox is once Nesi is going, there may be a timey-wimey effect here¹, or a reluctance to muck with the human world as the Wolf has done. One parallel I thought of, in contemplating this, is how little for so long the Maiar and Valar actually do anything to stop Melkor/Morgoth in rampaging across Middle Earth.

So, Nesi, babbling about the Fox in an era where such outward belief will get you punished, puts her on the radar of the occupying force. In turn, it makes her a leader, of a very small force, to commit small acts of resistance against the Zemin. As the story proceeds, then, Nesi realizes that while she can’t start the revolution against the Zemin alone (one that will take decades), but she can certainly be one of the first pebbles in the eventual avalanche. And it is recognizing that her potential is to do that, and in the precepts of the Fox, act on that, that is in the end the story of the novella.

So there is a lot more here too, in a tightly and sometimes to the brim novella Cahill writes to overflowing a bit in the book, I find this to be a feature. A fair chunk of this story and the worldbuilding are conveyed through stories within the narrative and the power of story (which clearly is something the Fox has in spades) is a central pillar (pun intended) of the novella. Fox tells some of their background through some of their encounters with other pillars. Nesi tells her story of some of her failed challenges. Fox addresses the reader and breaks the fourth wall. Cahill makes it clear that story alone can’t overthrow the Zemin and won’t (and also shows us how her people, the Oranoya, changed after the occupation, a “build back better” approach to their society in the wake of that authoritarian takeover), but story and narrative are important and central to Cahill’s narrative.

The novella also shows how authoritarianism is bad for the oppressors as well. We are introduced to a character, Teor, who is definitely not of the marching to victory type of Zemin. And yet, the society that he is in him is forcing and molding him into a shape, a design, an ethos that he himself does not want. Teor is a great example of how toxic empire can be to the denizens of the imperial system itself, as well as to the oppressed. Teor is shaped and molded to be an oppressor and is not allowed on his own to pursue his point of view and ethos. Part of Nesi’s ultimate arc is not redeeming him on her own so much as to show him that there is indeed another way of being.

I do have a criticism of the novella that I want to highlight here, for as much as I enjoyed it. It is something that broke my immersion a bit. As mentioned above, we have an invading and occupying force that is intent on universal conquest and universal devotion to the Wolf God. We are in a relatively isolated fortress far away physically from the main centers of their control in Oranoya and power. It’s a backwater, plain and simple. And while they do give a justification on why they hesitate to murder her, it didn’t sit with me, given what we see of the Zemin (see above, Teor). So it felt more likely to me that long before her grand and culminating strike against the Zemin, they would have had her killed or permanently imprisoned as a brutal example of what happens to resistance. Instead, she gets a series of lesser punishments, even when it is clear that she is a Troublemaker and probably should be dealt with harshly.

Aside from that concern, I found the nuance, depth and exploration of theme in Audition for the Fox to wipe away my changed expectations and draw me into a novella that has a lot of things to say about authoritarian systems and living under them that is unfortunately very relevant for today. With a richness to the worldbuilding and its approach to story, I highly enjoyed Fox and Nesi’s story. The story ends satisfactorily without any need for a sequel, a one-and-done story that will draw you in with its deceptively light premise, and leave you thinking much about authoritarianism, oppression and how to resist it--and the costs of that.

So this novella sits in a spectrum of recent books that clearly are playing in overlapping spaces. The epic fantasies of R R Virdi (The First Binding) are entirely about the power of story. The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez is theatrically staged. Much more recently, The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson has a strong element of a trickster god manipulating events. Other works are exploring god spaces, the spaces of what telling story can and does do to a narrative, and, I will note, fighting authoritarian oppression or resisting it.

--

Highlights:

• A bright and delightfully playful cover...that belies the contents
• Strong themes of resistance and fighting against oppression and authoritarianism
• A powerful story that uses the power of story within it. 
• A novella not from the 800 pound gorilla of novella publication and award winners and nominees.

Reference: Cahill, Martin, Audition for the Fox [Tachyon, 2025].  

¹ For the Fox, anyway, it's absolutely timey-wimey.(and I use that deliberately, given the grace note that the novella ends on). They know this past, has brought Nesi to it, and they are aware of the opportunity and possibility to change history (and not necessarily for the better). I do appreciate that it doesn’t feel like a stable time loop here, that what Nesi is doing is new and fresh and not just “playing out” something that is foreordained, which is true of a lot of time travel narratives. Nesi even calls them out on this and Fox responds that the future is NOT set in stone.

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Book Review: The Outcast Mage by Annabel Campbell

An interestingly crafted world and characters with resonances to today

It is said (well, I have said and paraphrased others) that science fiction doesn’t predict the future, or even reflect a future so much as it talks about today and what is happening today. Secondary World Fantasy has often been very different, and more conservatively looking backward on a past that never really was, more than anything else. You “can’t get there from here in fantasy;” it’s not showing an aspirational place, or usually even our own world as it exists now. Urban or Contemporary Fantasy is one thing, and that is often very topical and political, but secondary world fantasy, not so much.

I feel like that paradigm is being confronted, lately, when it comes to fantasy. Is this due to the decline of science fiction versus fantasy (at least from an anecdotal observation)?¹The Outcast Mage by Annabel Campbell is stepping up to the plate to challenge that paradigm along the way of telling its absorbing story, with interesting characters and immersive worldbuilding. It’s a secondary world fantasy, not even science fantasy, that boldly leverages real-world and contemporary politics today. Let’s dig in.

We have several main characters that the novel revolves around. Our primary POV character is Naila. Naila is a student at a magical academy in the city of Amoria, a city of glass and magic where magicians are dominant and those without magic are second-class citizens. Naila tested as having magical ability, but frustratingly, she has shown absolutely no ability to control her magic, and she can’t leave the academy until she does. She’s a grain in the sand in the oyster of the academy, irritating the establishment all around her. She is the titular Outcast Mage, a magician who can’t even do a single spell. She’s Rincewind, but played straight and to more serious effect.

Naila’s life changes when she runs into Haelius. Haelius is not only a magician, but a wizard, a powerful, idiosyncratic one, whose raw power is unquestionable and his eccentricity undeniable. On paper, he’s one of the most powerful people in the city, if not the world. But he is interestingly complex and sometimes fragile as well.

Their meeting and their efforts to help each other, Haelius very curious about Naila’s untapped talent, and Naila frustrated at being caught between two worlds, would make a pretty solid if not particularly noteworthy fantasy novel. Haelius is a few years older than Naila, but this is not the kind of book that is a romance, or a romance in the making, although the bond that the two develop is a strong and interesting one. Haelius tries to unravel Naila’s true nature, and finds that it is stranger and odder than even he, a premier wizard in Amoria, can possibly guess.

But that’s not all that is going on here, and this is where we start to get into that paradigm challenge. Another POV character is Larinne. Larinne is Consul of Commerce (Amoria is something of a republic, at least at the start). She does have her hands full helping manage trade, but she soon gets into the attention of Oriven, and here is where the novel starts to look at things from a contemporary angle. Oriven is a nakedly ambitious politician who uses the power of demagoguery to sow fear, dissension, anger and intolerance, particularly toward foreigners, and also the residents of the part of the city called the Southern Quarter, reserved, almost like a ghetto, for those that do not have magic. While a Senator with tyrannical ambitions certainly can invoke, say, Star Wars, the rousing of intolerance in the public, and the reactions to it are very much a lens to the rightward yanking of governments in many countries. Oriven’s rhetoric that Amoria is in decline and that people must act, quite frankly, could be rewritten as “Make Amoria Great Again” without missing a beat.

And as the novel goes on, and Oriven’s power grows, the climate of fear and the power that he gathers and wields does feel unnervingly like it is set in the modern day. Like in Samantha Mills’s The Wings Upon Her Back, a science fantasy novel I reviewed in 2024, Oriven’s authoritarianism and efforts at social control are very pointedly resonant with the current state of affairs in a number of countries around the world.

And the political is personal, as Naila comes from non-magical parentage. So her visits to her family in the Southern Quarter become more and more fraught as Oriven’s campaign continues. Campbell does a great job in showing that these systems of control and manipulation, stoking hatred and fear, ultimately hurt people and put strain on their relationships with those they love and trust the most.

On the theme of foreigners and what is directed toward them, another POV character, Entonin, shows us the hazards of that, and the fruit of Oriven’s campaign as well. He is a priest who has come to the city on ostensibly a diplomatic mission. Oriven and his efforts, though, not only blunt Entonin’s efforts, but manage to poison the well and portray his work as an attempt to undermine the city and set up a war. Again, this feels really relevant and important in a world where countries are being poisonous to longstanding allies and ruining once friendly or neutral relationships, stoking the fires of hatred and violence.

Let it be said that, for all the political relevance that is the heart of this piece, and my perspective on it, the novel does have what you’d expect in a rich and interesting fantasy. There’s interesting theories on how magic works (and what is exactly going on with Naila). The city of Amoria itself, underneath its glass dome, in the desert, in a normally inhospitable place, is a wonder of worldbuilding and rich immersion into a fantasy landscape as one could hope for. It reminds me somewhat of Ninavel, a mage-ruled city in a desert in Courtney Schafer’s Shattered Sigil series. Ninavel was far less organized as a polity than Amoria; Amoria may be a republic falling to a demagogue tyrant, but it is a functional polity in a way that Ninavel, ruled by gangs and mages in cutthroat competition, is not. But the vision of a city using magic in an inhospitable place is a good one, especially when the fragility of longtime systems is shown, as well as how they threaten the city when undermined. That, too, is part of the political water of the book.

So one final note on that worldbuilding. For all that is turning into a totalitarian autocracy under Oriven’s ambition, I do want to give Campbell credit for escaping the too often retrograde feudal or monarchical systems of government that many secondary worlds rely upon. While we don’t get any points of view into that government other than Larinne, as above, there is enough shadowplay to feel how Amoria should work and act when not under stress, and that is NOT with a King/Queen and a court. Republics and systems with representation are worthwhile to explore in fantasy, and once again, the book shows what happens when such systems are turned to evil ends.²

With some stunning revelations at the end, the book doesn’t quite end on anything like an potential offramp. I do look forward to more in the series, and I hope Campbell continues to explore this contemporarily resonant space she is engaging in with her world and characters. Secondary world fantasy CAN talk about the contemporary world in an engaging and relevant way, and I hope the author continues to do so.

Highlights:

• Relevant to contemporary politics in a fresh and interesting way
• Strong set of characters with engaging stories and connections
• Immersive and rich worldbuilding

Reference: Campbell, Annabel. The Outcast Mage [Orbit, 2025].

¹ Outside of the scope of this piece, but just looking at what books publicists try to sell me on, and the books in catalogs and the like I am exposed to, Fantasy is Queen. Not even just Romantasy, the new Hierophant of Fantasy’s Court. I think it’s been like that for a long time, perhaps even during the entirety of my fan writing life, but it feels even more lately that science fiction is increasingly a smaller portion of the SFF landscape. Thus, fantasy has an opportunity to pick up some of that slack. Science fantasy as well; see later on when I mention Samantha Mills.

² So, if fantasy is going to pick up the slack (see note ¹), it’s going to have to give up the monarchy as the paradigm of government. Even autocracies, soft and hard, in the modern day really aren’t monarchies. So am I calling for fantasy writers to expand their horizons? Well, yes.

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Second Look Review: A Palace Near the Wind by AI Jiang

The first half of a duology of one woman’s struggle to preserve her world’s culture, and find her mother, through an arranged marriage.

Liu Lufeng has a problem. She is the eldest daughter of the Feng family. They are wind walkers, they can talk to and harness the wind. They are literally made of wood. But she must negotiate the safety and continued survival of her people, and so Lufeng will marry the human King. But she soon learns that not is all that it appears and the people, especially her younger sister, are in more danger than they know. And the revelations will surprise the reader even more than Liufeng herself.

This is the story of A Palace Near the Wind, first in a duology.

Jiang slides us quickly into a fantastic fantasy world where we don’t know the rules, where we are immediately in a world that feels a bit like Faerie. People with bark skin, branches for limbs, the magic of wind. The proposal of marriage feels like something out of a faerie story that you may have read many times before, too. A human noble marries a faerie princess and she goes back with him to his human world. This does not all go to plan. Simple, right? Not so simple as all that Jiang keeps us off balance throughout, and slowly and surely starts revealing more and more facets about what is going on.

For you see, Lufeng has a plan to save her world. She’s the eldest daughter, the princess who has let her sisters be married one by one...and now to defend her younger sister, she will not only marry the king, instead...but will seek to end him and his reign entirely, to ensure peace and safety for the wind walkers. And so she spins a plot and plan to kill the King in order to stop the endless marriages and the danger to her people. Complicating this are threats against her, her mother (a prisoner), and the looming potential threat against her younger sister. But as soon as Lufeng arrives at the palace, revelations of who the King really is, what the palace they go to really is, and the nature of the world throw her plan off course.

And most importantly, revelations of what Lufeng and her people actually are and where they came from.

The novella is entirely from a tight point of view set on Lufeng, and it often takes others to jostle loose key information that the protagonist already knows, and has not told us. That, plus the information control that Lufeng herself has to fight through, to find her siblings, her mother and protect her people mean that the entire novella is one of slow revelation. That revelation is sometimes punctuated by violence, or outright dark fantasy or horror (such as a rather disturbing banquet scene). Lufeng and us get a real sense of the world, perhaps even more than Lufeng herself really understands. We get words, names, concepts and worldbuilding blocks that she can’t quite fit together, but I as a reader could see what Jiang was and is doing. It’s another classic case of the reader having more information than the main character.

With that said, I don’t want to get into too much detail on that front, because this novella is one of discovery, revelation, of pulling that veil aside, for the reader somewhat faster than what Lufeng manages to do. It does leave the locations (including the titular palace) and world we see as an amazing and inventive world that I truly liked immersing within, even if I kept having a Bluebeard like feeling that Lufeng’s plot and plan was doomed to disaster from the get-go. And indeed, the longer Lufeng is in the palace, the more complicated things get for her, and for the reader as those veils are pulled back. And again, it is a case of the reader knowing and understanding and putting pieces together that Lufeng is slower to come to. I think Jiang does a good job in having the reader in a tense state of “will she “get it” in time to save herself and the Wind Walkers?”

Overall, the tone and style of the fantasy reminds me heavily of Neon Yang’s Tensorate series of novellas. A wild, unusual fantasy world where elements of science fiction creep in, almost unexpectedly here and there to provide a fantasy landscape that is original, immersive and creative. This is most definitely not your typical fantasy within the Great Walls of Europe by any means. Also, as mentioned above, the revelation of information as to what this world is really like and what is going on, both to our main character and to us, is a masterful use of information control and plotting that I had previously read in Jiang’s “I am AI” .

Also, too the theme of characters who are not what they appear, even to themselves, is something very much in common in a very different subgenre, setting and main character. The revelations I mentioned above are not just about the nature of the world, but the nature of Lufeng’s family, people, the King and the rest of the society around them. While the motif and metaphor of an outlander princess getting a rapid education in court politics and history is not a new one, in this setting with the additional worldbuilding that is going on, it takes on a whole new dimension and layer of meaning.

And finally the writing. The writing and descriptions are sharp and sometimes brutal. Given the subject matter and what Lufeng goes through,there are parts of this novella, and revelations, that are not at all easy for the reader, much less the character. And there is a real wonder, too, for the reader as we are introduced, again and again, to the strange elements of the world.

This is, to be clear, really the first half of a longer text and there is no good jumping off point. The narrative stops, not very cleanly. If you like what you’ve read here, you will want to read it, knowing that, like I, I am very curious as to what “happens next”. The revelations, reveals and the slowly clarifying situation are intriguing, but it is clear Jiang has more surprises in store. And I am quite invested in seeing what those are.

--

Highlights:

• Inventive fantasy world, worldbuilding and revelations
• Interesting use of information control vis a vis the main character and the reader
• Sharp, sometimes brutal writing--but too, wonder.
• Gorgeous cover art

Reference: Jiang, Ai, A Palace Near the Wind, [Titan Books, 2025]


POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Book Review: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

An epic fantasy that provides new twists and avenues for familiar genre conventions

Class and social distinctions. Longstanding grudges and plans within plans. Unusual use of point of view, including an effective omniscient and at first unexplained points of view. Strong grounding in personal relationships. Unexpected revelations.

These are the themes and tropes of Antonia Hodgson's The Raven Scholar.

The bare bones of the story, laid out, would not seem out of place in a lot of fantasy novels. The whole idea of a "country mouse" going to the city and trying to thrive there against all odds is one that goes back at least to the Roman Empire, and probably a lot earlier, too. Our titular Raven Scholar, Neema Kraa, is just that.

But the novel keeps us off balance right from the beginning. Neema is a side character for the opening of the book, and in fact does not appear in that opening or seems to have any importance, at first. The opening revolves around a mother and her two children under the equivalent of house arrest since the father led a bloody insurrection. The Emperor gives the male child a choice, and sets off a chain of events that runs through the center of the book. The female child undergoes a slow and painful death, the male child trains to try and succeed the Emperor, and our titular Raven Scholar is summoned to give a historic flourish to the decision.

Jump forward in time, and our Raven Scholar is a member of the court, although she is far more interested in her studies than courtly intrigue. Intrigue finds her, however, and by twist and turns, and unwilling response, she finds herself in a deadly competition to succeed the Emperor. The fact that her friend (and perhaps more than a friend) is also in this competition only heightens matters. And Neema is keeping secrets… as is everyone else in this competition and this court.

All this, with Neema trying just to do House Raven credit in the competition and not discredit it with a bad performance, would make for an effective and interesting novel. There are plenty of interesting and often tangled secrets, lies, betrayals, alliances and conflicts among the participants to succeed the Emperor (the Emperor is a selected, term-limited position). Even the backstory and secret intrigues that Neema and the reader are only slowly made aware of are part and parcel of what would normally be a fine and upstanding fantasy novel, one worth recommending if one likes the intrigue and schemes of a "deadly decadent court".

In addition, we get a novel that nearly bursts at the seams with rich worldbuilding detail. We learn a tremendous amount, fed to us in a steady stream, of the scheming Houses, long-standing social tensions, history, philosophy, literature and more of this world. While the action really is restricted to mainly one island where the Emperor lives, the world beyond that island feels visible, tangible and real.

And then there are the characters. We start with Neema, our titular Raven Scholar, our country mouse turned city mouse and dumped into the deep end, but her history and background turn out to be more complex than first indicated. This is also true (and sometimes surprising even to themselves) of all the contestants, the Emperor, and several secondary characters. Many of them have full-fledged character arcs, or the appearance of same: they hew and defy their Houses, and they are remarkably three-dimensional and human, uniformly. These are the kind of people you can imagine meeting for dinner and really having a sense of how they'd act. (looking at you, Cain! (but not JUST the scion of the Fox)).

The best way the novel handles this is in the trials and competition. The competition to become the next Emperor proceeds by a series of bouts and trials, one for each of the Houses. We get a sense of the characters from how they do in the trials… but also in the design of their own trials for the others. (One does not participate in their own trial, of course.) How Cain and the Foxes see the world and really are is seen in the Fox Trial, and Neema's Raven Trial is also illuminating, but even something like the Ox Trial shows that the steady and patient Oxen (including our Ox trial participant) are NOT the simpletons and fools that the rest of the Empire makes them out to be.

But where this novel really shines is in the extra it brings. The novel feels like it is in the tradition of a stratum of fantasy novels and stories in a mode that Jenn Lyons's A Chorus of Dragons series did not invent, but certainly is a strong and striking example of. The novel uses unusual points of view (including omniscient ones and ones whose provenance and nature are not explained at first) to give a wide kaleidoscope of what is going on. The novel sometimes feels like a slowly emerging picture from a jigsaw puzzle. Certainly, with a murder mystery on tap, that was going to be baked in, regardless. With all the moving pieces of the various factions, plots and plans, that was going to be the case. But the unusual and extra point of view lets the reader have more of a sense of what is going on than even the biggest characters, and with the social and literary commentary on the proceedings from within the world, The Raven Scholar really comes together as a stunning example of the form. It's on the low end of true doorstoppers (650 pages or so), but with all that is in here on offer, it feels longer still.

R. R. Virdi's Tales of Tremaine also sits in the same space as the Lyons series and what Hodgson is doing here in The Raven Scholar, as well. The slightly metafictional commentary on the nature of the story, as well as the stories within stories that all three series employ, seem to be part of a genre conversation on the nature of story that has always been there,¹ but has been getting more of it lately. Writers like Hodgson, Virdi, and Lyons are interrogating fantasy stories on multiple levels by using these sorts of devices.

I say, then, though, that The Raven Scholar is not a "101 book" for genre readers. If you have never read a fantasy novel in your life, starting your fantasy reading here is probably going to be an exercise in frustration and confusion.² Or at the very least, you won't get as much mileage out of the book as if you had already read some fantasy novels and were ready for the usual tropes and devices to be deployed and subverted.³ But if you are ready for that gear shift, The Raven Scholar is here as an excellent new book to explore this region of genre space.

Highlights:

• Complex, complicated and intriguing epic fantasy
• Excellent set of characters
• Doorstopper: feature, not bug

Reference: Hodgson, Antonia. The Raven Scholar [Orbit, 2025].

¹ Take Scheherazade as an example. Or even The Odyssey, which has a lot more of Odysseus recounting things than you'd think. In fact, the whole bit about the Trojan horse is from the Odyssey, NOT the Iliad.

² The older science fiction model that comes to mind here is Dune (and whether or not Dune is really SF or just fantasy in SF garb is a whole other essay). But the points of view, the deep dives into character, the literary history, the framing of the Dune story, the subversion of tropes (sometimes so subtly that too many people don't even realize they are being subverted) are things that readers who have not read much SF can entirely miss.

³ In a different way, the metafictional books Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan and How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler are doing that subversion, but from a much punchier populist angle rather than a literary one.

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Book Review: The Mercy Makers by Tessa Gratton

A bold, lush fantasy novel that is more a fever dream than a grounded reality, and makes it work

The Mercy Makers is the story of Iriset me Isidor. She is the daughter of the Little Cat, Isidor, a notorious criminal. She is a demure woman who isn’t all that involved in her father’s criminal activities. She is the epitome of the stereotype of the Mobster’s daughter not truly involved with her father’s criminal empire. Small, demure, quiet. Harmless.

However, Iriset is also secretly Silk. Silk can do magic and change things, and even people. She’s a prodigy and determined to explore and build her talents, even if those lean into or cross over into the heretical. She boldly walked into the Little Cat’s court in disguise and carved a place for herself to work on her designs on behalf of the Little Cat. And her masks and skills have helped the Little Cat expand his reach and power... and to eventually be noticed by the Empire.

So, when the Little Cat is captured, so is Iriset, but as Iriset, and not Silk. Iriset is eventually brought to the palace to be a handmaiden of the sister of the Emperor. Her father is still imprisoned, due to die. And no one, as far as Iriset can tell, knows that she is Silk. And of course a plan starts to hatch to use her skills to save her father. Iriset may be a handmaiden of the Emperor’s sister, but it will take her prodigal abilities as Silk if she is to save her father. Or herself.

The Mercy Makers tells Iriset/Silk’s story, from a tight third-person point of view.

I could spend the entirety of this review discussing the extremely byzantine plot of the novel. What I described brings us to the quarter turn of the novel. It is the living embodiment of the meme “And then the plot really got going.” And this happens several times in the book, when Gratton decides that the plot, always twisting and interesting, needs yet another kick. The novel as a result never flags. It has moments of quiet, of grace and beauty, but always holds the reader’s attention.

So to speak in general terms, Iriset falls deeper and deeper into the machinations and the plotting of what is ostensibly supposed to be the epitome of order and power.

And she is aware and comments on this dichotomy (especially since the Empire has apparently taken the dangerous Silk into its heart). This is an empire, and we will get into that, so the palace is supposed to be the center of order and regularity. What Iriset finds is that the palace may ostensibly be that center, but in actuality it is anything but orderly. And of course she must and will pull on those threads... and be pulled on in turn.

But there is a lot more going on to discuss, and a lot of the plot is something I’d rather have readers discover for themselves. There is a cliche or at least a guideline that sex scenes should build and develop character and plot in a SFF story. It should not be “just about the sex.” I think this is a guideline that goes back to the earlier days of SFF, which were much less interested in depicting sexual relations (and also in general the changes in literature in general). But even then, in straight up fantasy I’ve read, there is not a lot of sex that doesn’t keep at least some veils, or fade to black.

Gratton’s work is of a different caliber altogether. There is a lot of sex in the book, and explicit at that. Like in the movie Sinners, the main character does, in fact, like to have sex.¹ The main character has sex with both men and women in the course of the novel. This is perhaps the most explicit fantasy book I’ve read, and sex is portrayed in a positive light throughout the book.

And it turns out to be extremely important, plot- and characterwise (which means that skipping the scenes is a fraught activity if you don’t like explicit sex scenes). The sexual situations build the character of Iriset, and those she has sex with impinge on the plot as well as develop Iriset as a character.

And even outside of the explicit sex scenes, the book is, in a word, *charged*. For an empire and a court developed on Order, there is a heck of a lot of undercurrents going on. That runs through the entire book, and again, goes straight to character and the plot. For, you see, as much as Iriset is devoted to her plan to save her father, she winds up getting entangled, not only in the schemes of others in the courts, but emotionally as well. That entanglement complicates the plot deliciously.

So yes, in all the sex, and the complicated plot, this is a lush and rich novel, full of details, both in setting scenes and in worldbuilding. This is an intensely detailed world, on all the senses. We are engaged in how this world feels, from food and drink to decor, fashion, and setting details. The palace rooms, gardens, the cityscape all come to life. And it is a world that is both familiar and yet unearthly, and Gratton takes delight in showing it to us. This is a fantasy ’verse where a moon is perpetually bound above the caldera where the city lies. As a result, eclipses are predictable, regular, and tie into the religious beliefs, outlook, and calendar of the Empire. It’s often giddying to read passages, knowing in the back of your mind even when a conversation is relatively mundane and regular, that this very different and unique world is right outside the door—or right over their heads. It is a fever dream, or perhaps a lucid dream, of a reality for the reader to be immersed in.

And the novel has a lot to say about empire, and the whole imperial project. The Emperor is trying something new with marrying a powerful noble via alliance rather than outright trying to conquer her nation. The change in the scope and methods of the imperial project are not universally welcomed. And of course the novel has a lot to say about resisting imperial authority, the limits and problems of power, and how it influences and affects those who wield it. Iriset goes from being the daughter of a criminal mastermind resisting that power to being on the inside seeing it wielded. The internal fundamental contradictions of empire are laid bare in her story.

As a result, a lot of books and properties came to mind as touchstones for me as I read. The end of the arc has an advertisement for Antonia Hodgson’s The Raven Scholar, and that book really fits in well with this one on a lot of levels, and readers who enjoy one are going to, I think, have a likely chance of enjoying the other. I was also reminded of the roleplaying world of Glorantha, which has a moon hanging in one fixed place in the sky and unusual rituals with supernatural beings as part of the wonder of the extraordinary inside of the everyday. There are plenty of deadly courts in fantasy and I could list dozens. Most recently, Birth of a Dynasty: A Novel by Chinaza Bado once we get to the royal court, certainly has this in spades. The world of Ai Jiang’s A Palace Near the Wind is even wilder and stranger than this one, but the intrigues of its own court came to mind, especially with someone falling into a court with an agenda of her own that is thwarted by events and movements of the heart.

Given that this is a society obsessed with masks, my mind went to Jack Vance’s The Moon Moth. And of course, given Iriset is really Silk but pretends to be a hapless noble,² there is a lot of Zorro/Scarlet Pimpernel in her. The masks and the whole double life of Iriset had as Silk (and has, as she tries to cobble together things in the court) speak a lot to the novel’s theme of identity and what identity we show to others, and to ourselves. Masks and reflections, images from within and without—Gratton definitely works these themes and ideas fruitfully in Iriset’s story.

The novel ends on a phase transition, as we start to find out what is really going on and what the real central conflict of the novel is. In that way, it feels a bit like Annabeth Campbell’s The Outcast Mage, and like discussions of that book, I will avoid any revelations on that score. It does promise that the second novel is going to be rather different from the first, and given the change in the political and social landscape at the end of the novel, I am extremely intrigued to see where Gratton’s story goes next. She surprised me several times in this novel, and I very invested in continuing this ’verse.

Highlights:

• Sex-positive, lots of graphic sex that builds both character and plot. If that turns you off, this novel may not be for you.
• Richly detailed, lush, immersive world.
• An extremely interesting, twisty plot.
• Strong and fascinating character beats and developments in character.

Reference: Gratton, Tessa. The Mercy Makers [Orbit, 2025].

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin

¹ The movie Sinners, unlike a lot of contemporary movies, does unapologetically have multiple characters of various types have sex on screen and those people be shown to enjoy it.

² Hapless noble, not hapless woman. To be clear, there are a lot of women in power and authority in this empire; it is extremely egalitarian in that regard. Amaranth, the Emperor’s Sister, is possibly the second most powerful person in the court and the empire, but the challenger to that position is a spoiler.

Book Review: A Song of Legends Lost by M. H. Ayinde

A twisty, kaleidoscope of a science fantasy novel with a set of interesting characters in a world they do not realize they don't understand as well as they think.

I’ve mentioned science fantasy a lot in these reviews, since it is one of the main chords of my SFF upbringing and development. We’ve seen books in this space where the science fantasy was anything but simply fantasy without even a hint of anything beyond that. Other novels have not mentioned explicitly they were science fantasy at all, but in the final analysis, clearly are.

For me, science fantasy works best and makes me happiest when it is essential that the two genres work and mix together. Science fantasy stories that are more than, oh look there is a raygun in this fantasy world. Or, oh look, in this science fictional world, there is the barest hint of something supernatural. But when the story surely can’t work without both elements, where the story feeds on being in this borderland, that’s when science fantasy works the best for me.¹

And so we come to A Song of Legends Lost by M.H. Ayinde, first in a prospective trilogy.

A Song of Legends Lost is set in a secondary fantasy world that is under constant threat from creatures called greybloods, scavengers and dangerous leftovers from a previous fallen civilization. The society and world of Ayinde’s book respond to this threat by having certain individuals call upon the spirits of their ancestors, being able to manifest them from the beyond, to help fight these threats. One of our main characters, Jinao at the beginning of the book, has tried for years in vain to be chosen to do this, to be allowed and able to invoke one of the warlord ancestors that protect the Nine Lands, his ancestor, Mizito. 

So far, so good. Straight up fantasy. Spirit magic. Invokers. Threats from beyond. But we dig a little deeper. Another major POV character, the first we meet, Temi, brings in the science part of this equation. Her family are bakers, and also have a side business using old “techwork” to make water votives (purifiers) and other small bits of what are at best questionable and otherwise illegal uses of ancient and forbidden technology. So Temi is hip deep in old technology from a lost age that many (and rightly as it turns out in the course of the book) consider hideously dangerous, even as she is trying to help her family scratch out a living at the bottom of society (far different than the noble born Jinao).

What’s more, it quickly becomes clear, although Temi is driven to distraction, that some sort of ancestor spirit has attached themselves to Temi. Just what this spirit is, and why it has done so, and what its own plans and goals are the major throughline and mystery of the book. But the result is that Temi embodies the science fantasy nature of Ayinde’s novel better than any other character. Jinao is all about the ancestor spirit of Mizito and where that leads him (mainly down a road of confrontations with a ferocious greyblooded adversary called the Bearnator). Other POV characters we get are all about the techwork and ancient forbidden technology and only latterly wind up having to deal with spirits themselves.

But Temi? Temi is in these two worlds from the start, and it is her story that embodies the twin science fiction and fantasy narratives that infuse this book. She has to deal with the consequences of her techwork, and also with the spirit attached to her. Add this from a lower-class perspective and you can see why she is the focus, primary protagonist for the novel. She's the anchor everything and everyone else comes around.

The book is also about legacy, and history, and how a society, or a government (very appropriate and timely in our era) shapes the narrative of the past to its own ends. Sometimes, as this book shows, it’s not even done consciously. But the throughline of A Song of Legends Lost shows that a perception, a worldview, a conception of how the world works that is far out of line of reality can stand for a long time, but it cannot stand forever, and when reality finally bites, it can bite rather hard. The people of the Nine Lands think they know their origins, their history, their heritage, their duty. 

It turns out that, in truth, they are wrong about all four. And soon learn that the price of their misconceptions (and outright being lied to) is going to be very high indeed.

So this makes the book a painful (for the protagonists and their society) slow revelation and education as to the true state of affairs. What the greybloods are, where and what the ancestor spirits are, the nature of techwork, and even the fundamentals of the governing society. We the reader (in a excellent use of perspective and information control) learn more and faster than any individual protagonist about what is really going on, but it is an unlocking series of revelations. 

Along the way we get some vivid action sequences. A book where spirits of the ancestors are invoked to face hordes of smaller or sometimes a few large opponents, with named and diverse weapons and skills makes those sequences some of the highlight of the book. Jinao is not prepared for all this and he takes a beating again and again as he tries to learn better against his mysterious opponent. But we also get a city invasion, stand-offs between various factions, and even spirit on spirit combat. The book is rich on the details of the kinetics of these sequences and it is a good testament to the author’s writing skills.

We also get some carefully constructed character arcs (poor, poor Jinao, I really felt for him this entire book in a way even more than Temi, who ostensibly is the more primary protagonist), and a slow unfurling of the true state of the world, and what is going on. The variety of characters we get from all levels of society provides an well considered set of characters from various walks of life as we see them respond to the fractures in society that occur as the novel unfolds. 

I am reminded of Erin Evans’ Empire of Exiles, where the fugitives of a once continent spanning set of cultures are bottlenecked into a small peninsula, the threat of the force that occupies the rest of the land a supposedly containable force outside the peninsula, or is it, really? Intrigue, and adventure inside the lands of the Salt Wall, but the menace of what is lurking outside the Salt Wall threatens everyone and everything.² There are some very hard truths the characters in the duology come to learn about their world, much like the characters in Ayinde’s novel. 

For those particularly interested in such matters, there is some queer representation here, one of the warlord ancestors, for instance, uses nonbinary pronouns. Queerness is not a focus of the book, but it is present. More prominent, and subtler, is the multicultural nature of the Nine Lands society, with names, concepts and even weapons which invoke places from Mesoamerica to regions of Africa to regions of Asia such as China and Japan. This feels like a book that the author decided to entirely take her worldbuilding inspirations outside of the Great Wall of Europe.

This is the first in a trilogy and there really isn’t an off-ramp here. And I get the sense that (like many trilogies) now that some of (but not all, clearly) the blinders are off, the real story of the series can begin. The writing is solid, I love the science fantasy world Ayinde has created, and I am invested in the characters as they face a threat, and really a world they did not grow up to expect. 

--

Highlights:

• Science fantasy goodness
• Layers of misinformation peeled away, showing the dangers of deceiving an entire society and oneself
• Excellent action sequences

Reference: Ayinde, M.H., A Song of Legends Lost [Saga Press, 2025]

¹ So the elephant in the room is Star Wars. And when Star Wars is NOT obsessively interested in the “Skywalker Saga”, and has the Force be much wider (potentially) than just a bloodline, this is when the science fantasy works the best. Episode IV and V (until the Vader revelation). Episode VII and especially VIII (with its subsequently wasted ending). When there is a sense that yes, there is all this high technology, but there is Something Else, and that is important too, even if you don’t believe in it.

² Side note, really but has to be mentioned. Relics of Ruin, the second book in the series, not only has a summary of the first book but it has it in character as a document/missive from a character telling you the events from their perspective. This is one of the best uses of form I’ve ever seen and Evans deserves praise for it. 

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Review: Forged for Destiny by Andrew Knighton

With an unwitting protagonist sculpted into the role, Andrew Knighton’s Forged for Destiny works to upend, critique and examine the idea of a Chosen One in fantasy settings

If you have read any fantasy published in the last five decades, you know the Chosen One motif. A child who is destined, by fate, destiny, the Gods, the Force, to rise up against a tyranny, throw down evil, get the girl, and usher in a new time of peace, prosperity and goodness for all. You know the shape of this narrative well enough by now. Even if you have not read fantasy, cultural osmosis means you’ve been exposed to it.

This is, however, not a typical Chosen One story. What if that story was falsified, made out of whole cloth? What if its elements were all manufactured, including the Chosen One himself? Andrew Knighton’s Forged for Destiny is an epic fantasy that looks and deconstructs the Chosen One narrative through the eyes of its unwitting protagonist.

That theme is right in the title. The full title of the book is Forged for Destiny: A Heroic Fantasy with a Chosen-One Twist. The novel is definitely not hiding what it wants to do, and does it with a pun in the title in the process. Further, the novel makes it clear in its prologue that the prime movers behind Raul’s “Destiny,” Valens and Prisca, are trying to bootstrap it from the start. Finding a random baby as the city of Pavuno is falling. Taking the time to have that baby branded, marked, in accordance with the legend and prophecy and destiny they are weaving for him. Going out to the hinterlands and having him grow up in rural isolation. A theater troupe who comes to the village on their circuit to nurture ideas of the old kingdom, and old good king Balbainus standing up for what’s right.

Raul is being groomed by both Valens and Prisca to be the point of a spear to oppose the Dunholmi invaders who have conquered the country for the last two decades. What Valens and Prisca don’t count on is that Raul is not a perfect puppet, and even with all of their plans, he does have a mind of his own.  And so, armed with a sense of his destiny but willing to go off-script for his own inculcated virtues and values, Raul’s story does not play out quite according to plan. He’s a genuinely good person who tries to do the right thing, time and again. I think Knighton’s goal was to make us feel for Raul and identify with him since he IS being so manipulated into his role.

This book is very concerned with the power of story and its ability to persuade, and perhaps, to create a reality out of nothing. It’s fascinating to see Valens and Prisca try and again to set up the path for Raul from the very beginning, and to see Raul fulfill, sometimes too well, their lessons and expectations.¹ To that end, the worldbuilding of this world and the socio-political setup is what I want to focus on. This is a world where the invading Dunholmi are wary of both literacy and the small magics that people use. As a result, most actual books are banned and not allowed. Professions of copyists and the like are not allowed either, although a few people are allowed to be scribes (and they are watched like hawks). Books and the like are valuable treasures that are among some of the things that Raul and his insurgents, once they get going, look for.

Also, take the theater troupe. They are allowed to perform, but have a permanent sword of Damocles over their heads. Displeasing the Dumholmi in a play is a great way for a theater troupe to lose their liberty, or their heads. The novel explores the problems of censorship and restriction of the flow of ideas too. And yet, later in the book, we get the reasons why the Dunholmi are doing what they are doing. It’s not caprice or needless cruelty. The novel undercuts that, too.

All this comes to the power of story, and the manufacture and nurturing of story and its ability to change people’s lives and motivate them. Tell the right story, and a people can rise up to oppose tyranny, or come to accept the new state of affairs. Raised on, and learning the heroic stories of, the fallen monarchy shapes Raul and his character. He believes in the old stories, in the chivalric virtues; he is immersed in them. But he is not a tabula rasa. Raul is at his heart a genuinely good person. Time and again, he acts in a heroic or merciful manner where the “Script” would have him act differently.²

But the novel further complicates it all in several ways. Prisca supposedly can see the future. Or so she says. She uses this to push and motivate Raul at various points to keep him on the path she has chosen, or try to. If this were the world of Leverage, we could definitely see her as the mastermind of the operation. Valens might be inculcating virtue and fighting skills to Raul, but this is, really, Prisca’s long hoped-for plan to restore the monarchy and drive out the Dunholmi invaders. How much of her oracular gift are lies? We do get stuff from her point of view, and magic is real, but the preponderance of the evidence as we go along is, indeed, that she is trying to mostly bootstrap a non-existent prophecy and destiny onto Raul and onto the people of the land.

The novel does intriguingly at points break Raul’s point of view to look at his story from elsewhere and the tropes it is critiquing. Take Yasmi, for instance. She is the young star of the troupe, and clearly meant to be the Dulcinea for our knight Raul to have as his pole star to keep him on the path. In a bog-standard Chosen One narrative, especially a couple of decades past, that would be the entirety of her role, with about as much characterization and autonomy as a number 2 pencil.³ Yasmi, however, wants to be a star with a capital S, and given opportunity once they get to the big city, has ambition enough to be willing to leap for the golden ring. This, of course, is yet another crook and twist in Prisca’s plans. She also wields the most overt magic in the book, with a set of masks that allow her to take the shape of various animals (the wolf being her favorite).

Like many of these books, while following Raul and seeing him stumble, try to right, and for a while follow Prisca’s plan without deviation, what these sorts of books, including this one that is critiquing the tropes of antagonist and villain, is where a lot of the juice lies. Sure, you can have faceless guards, barely sketched lieutenants, and a villain with barely any characterization, and make a serviceable book. But if you have a complicated villain with some depth and characterization to them, it makes Chosen One narratives richer and deeper. And if you can get stuff from that point of view, even better.

Enter Count Brennett Alder, who is administering Pavuno. We do get some scenes from his point of view scattered throughout the book. He doesn’t think much of the city in its now parlous state. He has a scheming Chamberlain as his second in command. But he is erudite, ambitious, intelligent, and willing to use a variety of tools and techniques to try and quell the rebellion Prisca is brewing around Raul. One can sympathize with him, his goals and his point of view. Is he a foreign tyrant and governor of a conquered province? Absolutely. Is he having a big monument to that conquest being built in the city? Again, absolutely. Does he keep up the restrictions on magic and books? Again, absolutely. But (unlike Tur, who is his dark shadow) he is not capricious about his evil and his goals. And in his confrontation with Raul at the climax of the book, the cards are on the table and we truly get him. And that’s why he’s such a good foil for Raul and the rebellion.

The book is well written and entertaining and a good read even as it fulfills and inverts the Chosen One tropes. It’s not innovative in style; its innovation and creative forces are mainly focused on looking at those tropes critically, even as its protagonist is forced/guided/coaxed onto that path. The novel ends with an incomplete total story, and with Raul launched into a new phase. But if you wanted just to ride off into the sunset with the Chosen One trope examined and done, you could stop here.

It’s not really my place to detail where I hope the story goes in the second and final(?)⁴ volume, Forged for Prophecy, but I hope Knighton stays to his strengths. I could see how so very easily the second book could fall into a more standard form and template; my hope is that he does not take that easier path. I think he has plenty to say about these sorts of narratives, while at the same time providing a very readable story in the process.

NB: In January 2024, on this blog, Roseanna reviewed Knighton’s novella Ashes of the Ancestors.

Highlights:

• Right from the title, tells you it is going to invert and play with tropes
• A strongly told story on its own merits
• Solid use of theme and character

Reference: Knighton, Andrew. Forged for Destiny: A Heroic Fantasy with a Chosen-One Twist [Orbit, 2025].

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

¹ The book does its best to avoid the “Chosen One must be a dude” by having Valens and Prisca look for a girl, but unable to find a suitable one, get the male baby that turns out to be Valens. There are plenty of female warriors as antagonists to avoid cliched ideas that only men get to wield swords. So we could have had a “Raulia” instead of a “Raul.” I think that might in some ways have made for a slightly more interesting book and would have further critiqued the Chosen One trope from the start.

² Consider Luke Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back, who leaves Yoda to go and try and free and save his friends, because it’s the right thing to do. Yoda and Obi-Wan certainly would have had him stay on Dagobah, train and oppose the Emperor later (even if it meant the end for his friends).  But of course Luke IS the chosen one, son of Darth Vader. Here, Raul is a nobody who gets sculpted into that role.  Some comparison to pre- Rise of Skywalker Rey (before we find (to my sorrow) about her “true heritage”)  might be warranted. Or Finn, for that matter.

³ Sadly, that is still too common today, but such books are more frequently found in self-published fantasy and SF catalogues than from mainstream publishers large and small.

⁴ I have noticed a rise in duologies as opposed to trilogies these days. Some of these duologies have felt like trilogies squeezed down; others have been a single book padded out to two-book length. This one does feel genuinely like two halves of a story.