Book Review: The Gryphon King by Sara Omer

A monster-filled secondary-world fantasy that takes its cues and worldbuilding inspirations from points east of the Bosporus Strait

In a world of Khans and khanates, opulent city states and dreaming complacent kingdoms, Sara Omer’s The Gryphon King revolves around the driven desires of Bataar, the man who would be the titular Gryphon King as his ambitions and desires run up against a kingdom and its formidable women. One of them, Nohra, has worked hard to be one of the Harpy Knights, given one of the powerful weapons of her kingdom; and she rides and cares for her carnivorous pegasus, Mercy. Quite frankly, Nohra would rather be flying and defending the throne. But when Bataar shockingly and suddenly conquers her kingdom of Dumakra as part of his very successful campaign for universal conquest of the continent, Nohra finds herself nearly a hostage in the palace, a Harpy Knight chained to the whims of the Steppe Conqueror. She is definitely interested in getting rid of Bataar and restoring her homeland. But in the midst of courtly politics, intrigue and trying to walk a fine line with Bataar, strange things have been happening in the Kingdom. Monsters are afoot… and not just the titular Gryphons, either. Nohra and Bataar find themselves the unlikeliest of reluctant allies.

This is how the novel thus unfolds:

We have an interesting set of flawed characters, with secrets, lies, and hidden agendas, drawn into uneasy alliances and conflicts. Bataar and Nohra are our sole point-of-view characters, except for a chapter at the end featuring a character about whom any talk is extremely spoilery, so I will leave them out of the discussion. In addition to the monsters, I wonder whether this character is more of a central axis of the novel and the trilogy than one might first expect. Bataar, despite being a capable warlord, a cunning strategist, and a clever ruler, is arrogant, and way too often puts himself right in the front line of danger. Nohra, despite being a Harpy Knight, has some rather large blind spots, and she is sometimes overfocused on her goals and misses the bigger picture. Qaira, Bataar’s wife and political right hand, seems to have scheming plans of her own that neither Bataar nor Nohra suspect. Other intrigues fill out the narrative. Having conquered Dumakra, Bataar has set himself a whole host of headaches. This provides plenty of drama for the reader in between the more bloody conflicts.

What I really want to talk about, of course, if you have read any of my reviews, is the worldbuilding and the structure of the book. This is epic fantasy, clear to the vein, but there are notes of grimdark and darker fantasy in here. One of the comps given in the promo kit is Hannah Kaner’s Godkiller, and I think that is a good book to tie this to. It’s not full-on grimdark, even if, as noted above, we have a whole raft of flawed characters whose motivations, secrets and desires leave us with no clear white and black hats. It’s definitely taking notes from grimdark, showing the influence of that subgenre on the main body of epic fantasy. The courtly intrigue and very rich worldbuilding put me in the mind of a more straightforward Jenn Lyons. No footnotes, and playing with reference and metafiction, but keep the very rich empire and complicated characters. Samantha Shannon, in The Priory of the Orange Tree mode, also feels like a book and author that has kinship with this one.

But the world itself is what fascinates me. Omer has described herself as taking notes from the Ottoman Empire, and there is definitely the courtly intrigue, including among wives and concubines, that you’d find in, say, Magnificent Century.¹ Also the decor, the social relations, the descriptions of palaces and spaces, all point to, as I said above, cultural and social touchstones east of the Bosporus, toward Anatolia, Armenia, Persia and Central Asia. The physiogeographic setup of the continent is varied, ranging from the steppe that Bataar comes from to the dry desert realm that dominates Dumakra, and high mountains as well. There is a map, but I admit that I have strong questions about the river setup on the map and the geology of the continent as a result.

But returning to the cultural worldbuilding: I think, especially with Bataar and his steppe origins, the feeling I kept getting was not the Ottomans at all, but rather Timur the Lame. Tamerlane was a Turkic-Mongol warlord of the 14th century. Born on the steppe, like Bataar, he was injured at a young age, again, like Bataar. Tamerlane got the steppe tribes to unite under him to go on campaign. Same with Bataar, although that part of his story gets skipped over; we go from his formative fight with a gryphon to him off conquering.

Tamerlane had a wide set of military victories against a variety of opponents. Bataar seems a little less cruel than Tamerlane (who was very cruel, so don’t be deceived here), but is no less ambitious and expansive, and clearly is “punching above his weight” in taking on polities that he really shouldn’t. Both men want to conquer the world, and Tamerlane did a pretty good job at it, and in the first few chapters until he reaches Dumakra, Bataar is doing an excellent job, and is eager to continue his conquest. Granted, in our world, Tamerlane didn’t have to deal with carnivorous pegasi and worse, but the military genius, the fluidity of his responses, and the determination are all things I see in Bataar.

But yes, going to the fantastic, this novel is full of monsters. The pegasi and gryphons in this world, besides being strong and ferocious with beak and claws, also carry a debilitating and sometimes deadly infection if you are scratched by them. There are aquatic monsters as well, and then there are the ghouls. The ghouls are nasty and dangerous, and remind me of the ghuls in Saladin Ahmed’s Tower of the Crescent Moon. And fittingly, like those, they are found in a set of ruins our main characters camp in—and really, really shouldn’t have. This goes back to the flawed characters, and how Omer effectively uses their weaknesses to help drive the plot, again and again. They might be competent, strong and talented, but they have feet of clay.

There is definitely magic and mayhem (and even a hint of Gunpowder Empire) to the magic and the weapons that the Harpy Knights wield, as well as other magical items that show up. Omer is tapping into cultural touchstones that have rarely gotten play as the center. Places like Dumakra and the Steppe of Bataar’s homeland have, if they have been shown on screen in fantasy novels, often been places visited rather than the focus. And when we do see Southwestern Asian fantasy, it’s often been hundreds of years before, in the Caliphate, rather than the Timurid and Ottoman Empires. The Mughals, a couple of centuries ahead, and some distance east, seem to be also finally getting their due as inspiration for cultures, societies, characters, and worldbuilding. There is a rich vein here that Omer is mining for plenty of untapped potential. I find it interesting that her “Europe” analogue, Aglea, is off screen to the far north of the map. Omer is exactly inverting the tropes of the Great Wall of Europe by having the “Europeans” be the area only seen on a map and of much lesser importance.

There is one other thing I want to mention about The Gryphon King, which you may have picked up on already. The book is neither marketed as, nor actually is, the hot new invented category of romantasy. It’s firmly and apologetically widescreen secondary-world fantasy, and while there are all sorts of dynastic and court politics, schemes of succession and ownership based on marriage alliances, concubinages and the like, this novel does not fit in the romantasy category in the least. Just to make sure, since I seem to see every fantasy novel written by a woman labeled as “romantasy” these days, I looked back at the publicity for the book. It is, in fact, not. That is not to say that there isn’t a loving and clever marriage in here, as well as characters plotting for such marriages, and various characters finding each other attractive. But the focus of the novel is on more sociopolitical relationships, and sibling relationships, and, of course, the monsters.

If you want courtly intrigue, adventure, politics, and a large helping of man-eating monsters, based on Medieval Southwestern Asian motifs and cultural touchstones, The Gryphon King is definitely for you. It’s the first book in a series, and it only comes to a stopping point, but with a very appropriate hinge. I look forward to more in Omer’s world and characters.

Highlights:

• #teamgryphon
• Strong use of Southwest Asia as inspiration for setting and character detail
• NOT romantasy: epic fantasy with notes of grimdark and plenty of intrigue
• Richly written, with an excellent eye for detail

Reference: Omer, Sara. The Gryphon King [Titan Books, 2025].

¹ A Turkish TV historical drama that tells the story of Suleiman the Magnificent, Ottoman ruler, and his wife Hurrem, former slave girl. I came across this show last year by complete accident (someone in a seat in a plane in front of me was watching it, I took a screenshot and eventually figured it out). It's hugely popular in the Middle East but much less well known here. Which, frankly, if Netflix or the like got wind of it, an American version would come out, yesterday. Complicated, crafty and fascinating.  Think of it as I, Claudius, except for Suleiman, and you're there.

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

Review: Godkiller by Hannah Kaner

A quartet of protagonists thrown together by their separate needs to visit the site of a battle against the gods. 

Kissen, Elogast, and Inara are three very different characters with very different agendas and problems. 

Inara is a young woman who watches her family home get destroyed, the residents killed. Thrown on the road, this last daughter of a noble house winds up running into and traveling with two very different and dangerous people.

Elogast is a baker now, but once he was one of the foremost knights of the realm, and still is the king's friend. But the king is dying from the long delayed results of the last war. So, Elo marches off toward the ruins of Blenraden, the site of his greatest battle, a battle against gods, to find a cure for his king.

Kissen, the main lead of the novel, is an out and out Godskiller, the titular character, a Veiga. Kissen has had a very unpleasant relationship with gods for a long time. That metal leg she has? She lost her leg in being freed from being a fire god's sacrifice, long ago. So, she, too, in order to help Inara, is now headed toward the wrecked and ruined city of Blenraden. She is more than equipped and trained and ready to take on any gods. It's her duty and her pleasure. 

This of course is all  more than a bit of discomfort to Inara's secret companion, a small god named Skedi. 

Their stories are the matter of Hannah Kaner's fantasy novel, Godkiller.

Kissen as the titular character gets the most development and perspective of the character for the most part. Hers is the prologue that sets up her career, and while all the protagonists get rotating turns in POV, she is the one the author focuses on. She provides disability representation in having an artificial leg, although it does not hinder her too much in her job of killing gods, of which I will speak anon. 

Elogast, the knight turned baker turned knight, is our second MC. He is the sort that his sense of duty can overwhelm his good judgment to go where angels fear to tread. Some of his best stuff is when he actually talks about his craft of baking. He has been put into a difficult position with his friend the king, and I am glad the book does explain why he is so loyal, although the reader is left guessing (although I guessed correctly) where the bond really formed. And it is clear that, although he does not articulate it so, that he is definitely suffering from PTSD, and this is handled with nuance and good writing.

Inara and Skedi round out the pair. Inara is the orphaned protagonist thrown out on the road and into Kissen's care by the destruction of her home. The author slowly makes it clear, however, that she has something quite unusual about her, that she has a secret, a power, that she does not understand herself. The slow reveal of her power and how the characters react to it, is well done.

And then there is Skedi, and the heart of the worldbuilding and raison d'etre of the book. Skedi, you see, is a small god, in a world full of gods. Gods of things as small as one particular crossroad and as large as a god of an entire ocean.  Thousands of gods, and maybe more.  But as trade, commerce and the world has widened, the wild gods, gods grown out of genius loci, out of places, came into conflict with abstract and one might say foreign gods. The conflict caused a war, and devastating destruction, enough that the king declared that all gods were anathema and had to be destroyed, and of course worship and sacrifice to any god was forbidden. 

Kaner makes it clear that the Veiga, the Godkillers used to enforce this (and make good money) to do so, are really fighting an impossible battle here, but for the moment the Kingdom is brutally destroying shrines and rooting out outright believers in the gods that are now anathema. But given that all the gods in this world are born out of human need, belief, fear and desire, there really is no way to do this forever. And it is a strain on society, and helps show the rather harsh nature of this world. The king's efforts to suppress the gods, as well as the fact that the kingship fell on him rather unexpectedly makes it clear that the kingdom's future is very much in doubt as well. King Arren's head very uneasily holds the crown.

So back to Skedi. He is a small god of white lies, but he is strangely bound to Inara. Killing him, as is the natural thought of Kissen, and of Elogast, might just kill an innocent young woman in the bargain. Skedi does know he is on thin ice, but his nature and his impulses, both seen in his point of view, and seen from outside, are a fascinating character study. He also, interestingly, has a lack of self-awareness of where he came from and how he bonded to Inara in the first place. Gods in this word, Skedi included, are potent in their own sphere, but they are flawed and imperfect, too. 

So if it is not clear at this stage in the review, I will say it outright: yes, Godkiller is a grimdark fantasy novel. While there have been challenges to it, it remains a strong paradigm within the secondary world fantasy genre. Godkiller runs in the tradition of writers like Anna Stephens and Anna Smith Spark and fits in that sub-spectrum of the grimdark tradition. Strong female characters, very much concerned with their points of view, lives, and problems. This tradition of grimdark often avoids some of the worst excesses I've seen in grimdark, especially when it comes to the treatment of women, and is less interested in being "darker than dark". I appreciate that the novel hews in that direction. If grimdark is the base template, at least it is a somewhat more inclusive template.

The city of Blenraden, wrecked and ruined by the Gods Wars, is the highlight and centerpiece of the book. It's a fascinating and well done ruined city as important setting, a dangerous place where there are remnant gods, guards on the make, and other dangers around every corner. It's evocatively drawn as a locale for the quartet to finally reach.

There is some roughness in the writing, particularly in the pacing. The first three quarters of the book work rather well, the plot and characters move along decently, if sometimes in a bit of a gear shift issue. But the last portion of the book, and the final revelations and twists all come suddenly, without warning, and the finale after that feels rushed and hurried and perhaps a bit of left field given what we have seen, and known, about the characters. And it feels a little forced of a joining to connect this with all of the protagonists. Dropping more breadcrumbs earlier to reinforce and buttress this would have been extremely welcome and would have done the book a much better service. As it is, it feels like a shocking reveal, and not one that is really supported. 

The queer representation in the book, and there definitely is some to be had, feels a bit thinly signaled rather than a heartfelt inclusion. As mentioned above, however, disability representation definitely is a highlight of this book. 

So while this is the first book in a series, and even given the strengths of the book, I am not entirely certain I am sold on this world enough to continue with the series. I am frustratingly on the fence about whether, especially given the out of left field final part, that I want to continue in this series or not

--

Highlights:

• Interesting worldbuilding
• Strong quartet of POV characters 

Reference: Hannah Kaner, Godkiller, [Harper Voyager, 2023]

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

Microreview [Book]: The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis

A grim but effective tale of interplanetary conflict and societal loyalties

Content note: Sexual Slavery, references to rape and sexual abuse

The First Sister opens on a solar system at war between the Icarii, humans who live on Mercury and Venus and have harnessed advanced technology based on a mineral that's only found there, and the Geans, who claim Earth and Mars and rely on scavenged tech and a radicalised religious population to maintain their own strength. With poverty and inequality rife in the societies of both sides, two very different individuals are thrown into the war for their own survival, and both have their already fragile loyalties tested as they start to uncover the reality behind the structures that govern their cultures.

The first of these characters is the titular First Sister, who serves on a ship as part of the Gean's religious order, and is effectively a comfort woman for the soldiers who use her to confess their sins and are then entitled to her body. The Sisters undergo an ambiguous procedure which removes the memory of their names, and prevents them from being able to speak; even the title "First Sister" is a transient one, a position which she has won by ingratiating herself with the captain of her ship; if she loses the position, the protagonist would go back to being completely nameless. Because of her rank,  First Sister has made herself exclusively available to the Captain, winning herself a reprieve from sexual assault from the entire crew, but at the opening of the book her former Captain leaves, breaking his promise to take her home with him, and she is forced to try and build a relationship with the unorthodox new captain, Saito Ren. It should be noted that while the threat of rape hangs over First Sister due to her position, and she euphemistically mentions a couple of past assaults, there are no depictions of rape or anything more than brief unwanted physical contact during the story's present.  There also aren't any instances where "safe" characters suddenly turn on her for shock value. Lewis does an effective job building up the horror of the Sisterhood and what they are expected to do without having to resort to the shock value of actually depicting rape, and I'm grateful to the book for treading that line so effectively.

Providing the view from the Icarii side is Lito Sol Lucius, a man from a poor family on the Venusian city of Cytherea who has risen to become a duelist, training at an elite academy to become one of the Icarii's Special Forces. All Icarii soldiers are given neural implants and in the case of the duelists, they are paired with another soldier, one becoming a "rapier" and the other a "dagger", both playing slightly different roles in their missions with the rapier given tactical command. Lito has recently lost the dagger he was paired with, Hiro Val Akira, after a mission on the contested asteroid Ceres; now it turns out that Hiro is not dead but that they may have defected from the Icarii, and Lito is given a new partner and charged with tracking them down. Interspersed with Lito and the First Sister's chapters are "recordings" which it quickly becomes apparent are from Hiro's point of view, as they recollect the events that led to their disappearance, as well as their own family history as child of the dynasty which created the implants and much of the other technology that makes Icarii society function.

The First Sister sets up a grim world, where at least for the first few chapters its hard for us to think beyond the characters' survival. This is particularly true for First Sister, whose distress at being abandoned and put at risk of losing her tenuous sense of security is incredibly hard to read. However, as the characters start to get a little more comfortable in their circumstances and find the space to start questioning broader elements of their situations, things start to get juicy very quickly. The relationship between First Sister and Saito Ren, while uncomfortable in some of its romantic elements (this isn't a romance plotline, just to be clear, and those feelings seem to be largely one-sided), sets up some really interesting questions about Ren's history and current views; equally intriguing are the glimpses we get of the Sisterhood, and the motivations of the Aunt on the ship who attempts to use First Sister to gain information on the captain. As Lito is less confined, it is through him that we see some of the wider world of The First Sister, including Ceres - which has recently changed hands from Icarii to Gean control - and the Asters, a culture of humans who have undergone extensive genetic modification to live in the less habitable parts of space, and are now considered a separate species and constantly discriminated against in Icarii society. Both characters' positioning is effective in showing the war crimes and oppresiveness of their respective societies, from the horrors of the Icarii neural implant process, the threats made against Lito's families, and the treatment of the Asters, to the normalisation of sexual slavery in Gean religion and the secretive, misogynistic nature of the power structures behind it.

After an uncertain start, I was intrigued enough by the character-driven mysteries of The First Sister that it kept me reading very effectively. Being the first book in a series, the climax of this novel answers some questions, but it leaves the character arcs hanging to some extent, particularly when it comes to a reveal around one specific character which upends a lot of what we thought about them throughout the book. In a way, both First Sister and Lito achieve some of their initial goals, only to have the realities of the world they live in make those goals far more complicated than they first thought. It's an odd climax in some ways - that character reveal mentioned above didn't do much for me at all - but satisfying enough for a series opener even while I might have preferred some more closure for the amount of emotional turmoil some aspects of this story put me through. That's probably me expecting too much from grimdark adventures though - and if you go into this expecting that to be the case, I think you'll enjoy it just fine.

Having noted above that I think The First Sister deals sensitively with the sexual violence inherent in its premise, I was much more disappointed with its depiction of disability, which comes across as much less thought through. One of the defining characteristics of the Sisters is that they can't speak, due to the mysterious operation conducted on them when they enter the sisterhood. They have a sign language, but knowledge of this is restricted to the sisters themselves and their Aunts, and writing is considered taboo, meaning that there is no way for First Sister and her kin to communicate with the soldiers around her. This inability to communicate freely with the sisters she doesn't think she can trust and the Aunt who is actively putting her into a dangerous situation is an effective part of the book - but it's done in a way that minimises the role of sign languages as complete, useful languages in their own right. There's nothing to suggest that the sign language that the Sisters use is incomplete or limited in vocabulary, but even in the opening chapter First Sister laments that it's their "only" language. More frustratingly, a late plot point involves some sisters regaining the ability to talk, and these characters immediately express relief and jump to using spoken communication even though they already had the ability to sign and mutually understand each other. What starts out as a rather on-the-nose symbol of the Sisters' powerlessness becomes tied up in an assumption that sign languages are an inherently lesser form of communication, and that's an inaccurate and deeply unfortunate portrayal given the number of people who use sign languages either exclusively or alongside verbal communication and most certainly aren't "voiceless" in any metaphorical sense.

That aside, The First Sister is a book that's highly effective in telling the story it wants to tell - and it's a story that I found myself drawn into despite not initially being convinced by its grimness. While I'm reserving my full judgement to see how things play out in later books, this is a story that's got a lot of interesting places it could go and, linguistic ableism aside, I'm intrigued to see what First Sister, Lito and their friends get up to next. 

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 Feels a lot of care went into sensitively writing the sexual slavery aspects

Penalties: -1 An ending reveal that didn't really do it for me; -1 Throws sign languages under the bus for the sake of its metaphor around "voicelessness"

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

POSTED BY: Adri, Nerds of a Feather co-editor, 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: Lewis, Linden A. The First Sister [Hodder and Staughton/Skybound Books, 2020]

Microreview [Book]: The Tyrant Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

After a grim start, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant finally restores some confidence to its troubled hero and her Empire-destroying schemes

Content Note: This review contains major spoilers for the end of The Traitor Baru Cormorant, the first book in the series, and anyone picking that book up should be aware that it contains heavy themes of homophobia and queer misery. The Tyrant Baru Cormorant contains a plague as a major plot point, and also contains other elements of torture, body horror and gore that are discussed below.

Baru Cormorant is back for round three! In The Tyrant Baru Cormorant (which, in-keeping with the rest of this series' inexplicable name shortenings, is being published as "The Tyrant" in the UK) everyone's favourite provincial savant returns for another round of high-stakes political drama against the empire of Falcrest: the empire which colonised her island, killed one of her fathers and tried to cut her off from her own culture as a child, and also the empire which now counts her as among its most elite operatives. The first book in the series captured my heart and then broke it into a million pieces, and while I don't think I'm the same reader as I was five years ago, I still consider new releases in this series to be a significant event, and I'm especially glad we haven't had to wait too long between the previous book and this one.

When we left Baru at the end of The Monster Baru Cormorant, she had been captured by the Cancrioth, the secretive cancer-worshipping society which had been secretly influencing the Oriati Mbo confederacy and which could provide a political opening for Falcrest to conquer that society. It's safe to say that Baru wasn't in a great place for any of that book, as she steps up into her new position in the Empire while coming to terms with the death of her lover Tain Hu and the blame she carries for it, having watched the execution and refused to stop it and allow the Empire to use Hu as a hostage against her. The fight that led to Hu's capture and the end of the rebellion she led also gave Baru a major head injury which has led to lasting hemineglect. These consequences reverberate throughout Monster, and the while the ending of the book offers some interesting context as to how the hemineglect, in particular, has influenced her actions, it leaves any emotional healing from these events largely unrealised. Thus, it's a still rather static Baru who returns for Tyrant's first act: Falcrest's political situation has changed around her, but not much has changed from the opening of the previous book for her.

The first third of Tyrant deals directly with the fallout of her capture by the Cancrioth, and the introduction of their different leaders (all of whom carry a different hereditary cancer which apparently bestows ancestral memory as well as... y'know, cancer) is combined with a ton of body horror and outright torture. Baru survives their tender loving ministrations, only to become caught back up in the different factions of Falcrest and Aurdwynn (the country from which Tain Hu hails, and where Baru started her illustrious career) who have been hunting her down. The switch from the Cancrioth's visceral biological horrors to Falcrests ultra-sterile unpleasantness is effective at underscoring their respective awfulness and how tenuous Baru's position is between them, but it's a lot to get through, especially as there's no clear escape route or game plan for what might happen once Baru is out of immediate danger.

What a relief, then, that Dickinson has this all in hand. Once Tyrant gets off the Cancrioth ship, Baru's story gets a lot zippier, with certain spoilery but very precious events helping her regain faith in her abilities, enabling her plans and her scheming to return in force. For me, this was an enormously refreshing change:  while the grief and stress of Baru's recent past never leaves her, her breakthrough lets her reconnect with some of the more engaging aspects of her personality (including the youthful arrogance!) and start rebuilding relationships with those around her, establishing trust with some rather unexpected players to start moving things along. In renewing this confidence, Dickinson makes it a lot easier to get behind the twisty and mysterious schemes that drive Tyrant forward - and that's trust we very much need, as the plot navigates the complex political situation which the first two books have set up. On that front, it also helps that Aurdwynn and Taranoke are now firmly back into the picture alongside the Oriati Mbo, though unfortunately, the sections involving the Mbo still feel like the weakest parts of this story. It's just hard to invest in the characters here, particularly when the main action of this thread takes place in the form of flashbacks to the characters' past, compared to other, more immediately pressing, plot strands. There are other diversions too, notably to the small island nation of Kypranaoke, a former Falcrest colony now left to its own devices with a deeply dysfunctional post-colonisation political system and an experimental infection of a new deadly disease called the Kettling. A lot of the time, though, Tyrant is a homecoming for many of its characters, particularly Baru herself, and it feels the stronger for it.

The other sea change here, which began in Monster but is even more notable now, is Baru's increasing acceptance of her own queerness and her ability to be open with a wider range of characters without fear of retribution from the enforced "hygiene" of Falcrest itself. Although Baru does pursue sexual relationships in Monster after the death of Tain Hu, the discussion of these relationships and her categorisation of them starts to change significantly here, as she starts to recognise which connections are offering her positive connection, which are not, and which might but come with emotional and moral baggage that's higher than she's willing to pay. The introduction of certain characters with some loud, teasing but supportive opinions on Baru's entanglements is also a refreshing change (and I wish I could tell you who they are, but suffice it to say you will probably be delighted). While Tyrant recognises that Baru is still the product of conditioning, and her tendency to self-sabotage is far from gone, there's still welcome undertones of hope and levity piercing through the misery. There's still plenty of setbacks and horror, and some of those hopeful moments exist in the narrative only to make subsequent punches land a bit harder, but having ups with the downs nevertheless makes a huge difference in the reading experience, allowing us to hope alongside Baru that a victory against this all-powerful, overwhelming foe just might be possible.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant was a brutal gem of a book, one which pulled out all the stops (particularly the one labelled "queer misery") to tell its story of a young woman trying to go up against the empire which has destroyed her homeland, outlawed her sexuality and culture, and is now destroying the land of the woman she loves. Monster, its sequel, picks up where the first book leaves off, but in widening the scope of Traitor's story it becomes a rather different experience, one without much space to advance Baru's emotional state on the path towards healing. Tyrant begins as more of the same, but once it comes around to making good on its young hero's growth, it won back any trust I might have lost over the previous volume-and-a-bit. I understand there is one more volume to go before Baru's journey is done, and although Tyrant ends on a positive enough note for the characters that it doesn't strictly feel like it needs one, if it comes to it then I am ready to take down the empire with this terrible young woman, once and for all.

The Math

Baseline Score: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 A long awaited payoff in terms of character healing and growth; +1 New and returning settings and characters provide a strong, hopeful focus

Penalties: -1 The Oriati Mbo storyline still doesn't spark along with the rest; -1 The first third of the book is exhaustingly bleak and brutal

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

POSTED BY: Adri, Nerds of a Feather co-editor, 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: Dickinson, Seth. The Tyrant Baru Cormorant [Tor, 2020]

6 books with Anna Stephens

Anna Stephens is the author of the Godblind trilogy: Godblind, Darksoul, and Bloodchild, which are published through HarperVoyager in the UK and Commonwealth. Her new series, The Songs of the Drowned, begins with The Stone Knife, publishing worldwide on 12 November 2020.

A literature graduate, Anna loves all things SFF, from DnD to Doctor Who to classic Hammer and Universal horror films.

As a practitioner of 14th century Italian longsword, and a second Dan black belt in Shotokan Karate, she’s no stranger to the feeling of being hit in the face, which is more help than you would expect when writing fight scenes. You can find her at  http://anna-stephens.com or on Twitter at @AnnaSmithWrites

Today she tells us about her Six Books:

1. What book are you currently reading?
Hi Paul! I am currently reading an ARC of Giles Kristian's Camelot, the sequel to the outstanding Lancelot. I've only just begun it but it promises to be as lyrical, beautiful and bloody as Lancelot. This time we're following Galahad's adventures. I'm very much enjoying it.

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?
Having beta-read both The Hollow Empire by Sam Hawke and The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, I'm practically frothing at the mouth for them to both be released so that I can yell at other people about them! Aside from those, I can't wait to get my hands on Dog Rose Dirt, Jen Williams' debut thriller, as she's an auto-buy for me and I love everything she does. And then, of course, there was Scott Lynch's announcement late last year that he'd handed in Gentlemen Bastards #4. So many, in other words!

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

Ooh, I do love a good reread. As we're in the middle of the least zombie apocalypse ever, it would need to be something light, so I'm probably going to jump back into Discworld at some point – in fact, I'll probably reread the Watch series, as they're my ultimate favourites.

4. How about a book you’ve changed your mind about – either positively or negatively? 

A book I've changed my mind about? Erm… that's actually really tough. I think I'd go with Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey. Or the first trilogy of the Dragonriders of Pern, in fact. They were pretty much my gateway books into full-on fantasy when I was a kid – think I read the first one when I about 10 – and I absolutely loved them. Must have read them 20 times each, always from the library. And I reread them recently, just for fun, and … they're good in a nostalgic sort of way, but the lack of female agency, or the women as subordinates even when they ride the golden dragons that are the only ones capable of reproducing… made me uncomfortable. There's that very complicated issue around sex and the riders' consent – it's even made obvious in Dragonflight where F'lar comments to himself that Lessa never wants sex unless the dragons are having sex – so in effect, Lessa never wants sex at all, but her dragon's desire overcomes her and she and F'lar have sex when their dragons do, on account of the mind-meld. She doesn't want F'lar, therefore she doesn't consent.

Not only that, but only men can ride dragons of other colours, so when blue and green dragons have sex, does that mean their riders are forced into a homosexual encounter with each other?

While I didn’t pick up on those nuances as a child, they're certainly front and centre in my mind when I think of those books now.

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

I think The Deed of Paksennarion probably affected how I write for many, many years. Absolute classic high fantasy, though with a female asexual protagonist, which must've been pretty revolutionary for when it was published – 1988. But it didn’t necessarily affect my writing in a good way. A lot of people know the genesis of my debut novel, Godblind, which took around 13 years from first draft to publication, and a lot of those years it spent as a high fantasy type book. That was what I was reading, that was what was available to me at the time, as far as I knew, so that's how I wrote. I thought that was the type of story I needed to write to get published, and don’t get me wrong, I still love Paks, but it had a writing style that, even though the protagonist was a female paladin, was fundamentally different to where I've ended up, and I do think as a result of books in that vein, I didn't allow my writing to evolve as naturally as it could/should/would have if my reading diet had been more varied.

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

Well, my latest published book is Bloodchild, the concluding volume of the Godblind trilogy. It's awesome because it has more blood than you could swim through, more battles than all the Crossfit in the world could prepare you for, and more gods than … okay, it's got four gods. And none of them are happy gods. And to quote Grandpa, it also contains: Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles... okay, maybe not the giants. I know: inconceivable!

HOWEVER, if you want to know about my upcoming book, then that's a very different barrel of monkeys. The Stone Knife is published worldwide on 12 November 2020 and is the first book of the Songs of the Drowned. It's set in the land of Ixatl, where monsters, gods, magic and music combine. Courtesans, spies, warriors, killers, plotters, shamans, spirits and slaves fight on both sides of an Empire hungry for conquest and the people resisting their spread. It's got all that good Anna Stephens stuff, including warfare, sekrit plans, a desperate defence and a little bit of kissing, plus magic and monsters in a non-traditional fantasy environment.

Thank you, Anna!

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

Microreview [Book]: The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood

So much for fantasy temples covered in snow: The Unspoken Name is a queer, world-hopping grimdark delight.

Cover art by Billelis

Starting off 2020 with a bang, The Unspoken Name is an epic fantasy debut from A.K. Larkwood which centres queer relationships in a grim but compelling world. Though I'm not a big reader of the Grimdarks, I'd been intrigued by this one, since hearing about it, and I embarked on its journey with an open mind - and, of course, the promise of Orc warrior lesbians was far too intriguing to pass up.

Csorwe has been raised in a remote temple to the Unspoken One, a god which requires a sacrificial "bride" every fourteen years, raised from birth. As the chosen sacrifice, Csorwe has never really questioned her role in life until it comes close to the time of her ceremony - and its then, when a mysterious stranger from another land called Belthandros Sethennai shows up, asking questions of the senior priestesses about a particular relic that's been lost to time. Not just a relic but a reliquary - a box belonging to an ancient being which will give the bearer immense magical powers if found. Weeks before her scheduled sacrifice, Csorwe suddenly realises there's much more potential to her life then she's ever been allowed to imagine, and when Sethennai turns up at the moment she is entering the catacombs to face her doom, offering a position with him if she decides to escape, she takes the obvious choice to join his cause.

Based on that set-up, you're probably not expecting me to continue by saying that Csorwe and Sethennai use a ship to enter a portal and traverse a between-space called the Maze, re-emerging in another world. So much for fantasy temples covered in snow; this world-hopping turns out to define much of The Unspoken Name, embedded into the fabric of the world and not treated as a surprise or novelty beyond the excitement of a new method of travel for sheltered characters like Csorwe. It turns out that before our duo can recover the reliquary, they first need to take back Tlanthothe, the city (and/or world) that Sethennai used to rule. The opening quarter deals with this reclamation, taking us swiftly through various traumatic scenes and level-up montages in Csorwe's upbringing as she evolves, in an appropriately safe but edgy third location, from the determined but sheltered cult sacrifice into a bright, if worryingly unquestioning, right hand to an increasingly mysterious master. After training in swords, languages and other less savoury skills with Sethennai and a rotating group of tutors, Csorwe is ready to play her part in the recovery operation, although the infiltration she's required to undertake is a dangerous one, involving a brutal warlord and an even more terrifying giant snake. Ultimately - as you'd expect, as we're not yet a third of the way in - Csorwe proves her worth, though not without suffering some traumatic injuries, and confirms her position with Sethennai. Once all of this is set up, Csorwe's story gets a little less tortuously grim, though no less full of tough decisions and brutal moments, and this is also the point where I really started enjoying the twists of her episodic journey.

That's likely due to the narrative evolution around this quarter mark, when the third main culture in the book is introduced - the Qarsazhi empire, which protects its worlds and territories through a strict but powerful system of training mages. On visiting one of the "precursor" worlds in search of the reliquary, Csorwe and her on-and-off rival Talasseres come across a group of Qarsazhi conducting a survey on the dying planet, including Shuthmili, a young adept hoping to advance in service before long, current remote posting notwithstanding. Once Csorwe and Tal start investigating, they discover - to nobody's surprise - that Csorwe's old sect is also heavily involved in seeking out the same artefact, and the subsequent stand-off between themselves, the Qarsazhi, and rogue librarian Oranna, leads Csorwe into making a decision between maintaining total loyalty to Sethennai and his mission, and rescuing Shuthmili and making up for her failures at a later date. Naturally, the previously obedient Csorwe makes the narratively interesting choice of helping Shuthmili, bringing the two women into each others' orbits and starting a series of encounters, rescues, betrayals and reversals with their growing relationship, and its tension with Csorwe's hitherto unquestioned loyalty, at the heart of it all.

It's hard to go further into the plot of The Unspoken Name without giving some of its reveals away, but the theme underlying all of this is that of loyalty, when and how it can be earned, and how to be true to yourself in the face of much greater powers who only see you as a tool to be used. That choice is particularly obvious for both Csorwe and Shuthmili, who find themselves in situations where those in power are strongly pushing them towards a particular agenda, and learning to question that agenda turns out to be more complex than simply trusting people who allow you to escape it. It's a narrative that acknowledges how difficult these choices can be, and how hard it is to do anything other than go along with the least worst option (and, to be fair to Sethennai, despite his use of Csorwe and especially Tal he generally is more benign than most of the other power players in The Unspoken Name), and while this leads to an exhausting number of from-frying-pan-to-fire-then-back-to-frying-pan style reversals, the fundamental investment we develop in Csorwe, Shuthmili, and (though your mileage may vary) trash child Talassares, who goes through the most in The Unspoken Name, the majority of which is self-inflicted.

The action here is fast paced and unrelenting, and the narrative style switches effortlessly from formal dialogue, Csorwe's more or less polite internal narrative, well-described and brutal fight scenes and the delightfully irreverant sweary sass from characters like Tal. The language use extends to the different naming conventions for the three cultures depicted, each of which have distinct linguistic traditions and systems which, while not heavily developed, are distinct and fun. Of course, it's helpful to have a pronunciation guide (Csorwe like the "ks" in "books" plus "oorway" in "doorway") to demystify some of the more unusual consonants and the emphasis in particularly long names, but each one ends up rolling off the tongue once the pronunciation guide is deployed - Csorwe, for example, has the "cs" sound at the end of "books", and rhymes with "doorway" - and I ended up whispering a lot of them to myself to listen to the way that the sounds were being deployed.

The differences in the language are matched by physiological differences in the characters, which generally match up to known fantasy races but aren't labelled as such - so Csorwe and her kin are large and grey-skinned with tusks (i.e. orcs) and Sethennai and Talassares are dark-skinned with long, "leaf shaped" ears that move with their emotions (elves). The Qarsazhi are harder to pin down, but are described by the other races as short and angular (and, notably, no tusks). The narrative treats these differences matter-of-factly, addressing Csorwe's tusk growth and describing ear movements without making it into something that the characters define themselves by. It's a nice touch that sidesteps any weird fantasy racial essentialism, as well as avoiding any cross-species implications in any of the potential romantic pairings. The people of this world don't really think of themselves as different races, just as looking different based on where they come from, and given that we're talking about portal-hopping between worlds here, that all makes quite a bit more sense than the average high fantasy world.

All in all, The Unspoken Name is a great debut, one which overcame my worries about its grimdark content and offered a world with plenty of complexity and interest - and the hope for better things to come, for characters who definitely deserve them. If you're after a book that takes care to subvert and redefine the tropes of their genre, and offers a brilliant adventure into the bargain, A.K. Larkwood has your back - may it only be the beginning of some brilliant reading in 2020.

The Math

Baseline: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 Lesbian orcs with moral dilemmas about hot ladies!

Penalties: -1 A bit of a montage-heavy first quarter to get the action where it needs to be

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

POSTED BY: Adri, Nerds of a Feather co-editor, 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: Larkwood, A.K.. The Unspoken Name (Tor Books, 2020)

Microreview [book]: The Lady of the Lake by Andrzej Sapkowski

All great things must come to an end.

I've agonized over how to write this review, of the final chapter in a fantasy series that I can say without hesitation is the best I've ever read. To be frank, I'm not even sure I could adequately summarize the plot--not without giving something away that's best left to the joy of discovery. But here goes nothing.

The Lady of the Lake is the fifth and final volume in The Witcher Cycle, a series first published in Polish and then translated into Spanish, French, Russian, etc. Though an international sensation, English readers are getting it late. The only reason we are getting it at all is because CD Project Red adapted the series into a successful game franchise.* As they say, though, better late than never.

The book begins with Geralt on the trail of his erstwhile protege Ciri, the prophesied "destroyer of worlds." She is also being pursued by agents of the Nilfgaardian Empire, who seek to marry her off to the Emperor; renegade sorcerer Vilgefortz and his henchman, Bonhart, who seek to harness her power for their own nefarious ends; and the Lodge of Sorceresses, who seek to restore a balance of power between the Empire and the Northern kingdoms (presently in the midst of a cataclysmic war). Ciri enters the Tower of the Swallow and promptly disappears...

...and ends up in an Elven dimension that exists in parallel not only to the Witcher's world, but also to our own. The elves have their own designs on Ciri, namely, to give birth to the child that will restore elven greatness. She escapes, with the help of interdimensional telepathic unicorns, who help Ciri discover that her true gift is, essentially, the power to melt spacetime.

Yes, you read all that correctly.

Once back in the real world (not ours, but the Witcher's), the main actors in this drama begin to converge on Stygga Castle, where Vilgefortz holds both Ciri and Yennefer captive. As this unfolds, the Imperial and Northern armies meet in a battle so intense and bloody that it makes the Blackwater look like a back alley slap fight. I'd say more, but you really should just read the damned thing.

The Lady of the Lake is an immensely gratifying yet deeply unnerving conclusion to the series. There are moments when it is touching, romantic, funny and just plain fun. At others, it is unbearably sad and utterly terrifying. It is a deeply political book, as I've discussed earlier. Sapkowski deconstructs the archetypes of good and evil that Tolkein modeled for the genre, but without resort to the tired "everyone is terrible" canard. Racism plays a central role in the narrative, as does misogyny. In both cases, it feels like Sapkowski is way ahead of the curve for 2017; then you remember that these books were written 15 years ago.

Another appealing element of the book, and the series, is the moral ambiguity of its powerholders. Nilfgaard is an oppressive, autocratic and megalomaniacal power; yet the Northern kingdoms--which would be coded as "Western" (and thus "good") in traditional fantasy, are monstrously violent and cruel places, where nonhumans are forced to live in ghettoes where they are defenseless against pogroms and other, more mundane indignities. Meanwhile, the Elven Scoia'tael, who resist by force of arms, are straight-up terrorists who seemingly take joy from violence against defenseless civilians. Does this dynamic sound familiar? It sure does to me.

Sapkowski clearly draws from the darker side of Polish and European history, using his fantasy setting to explore various aspects of human behavior (sociological, psychological, etc.) in a strikingly sophisticated manner. Like I said, this is a smart book.

The Lady of the Lake is not, however, the kind of monotonically grim fantasy that has proliferated over the past decade. There is goodness in the world, as well as in all but the very worst actors in this drama. And people surprise you--just when you think you've got things figured out, someone does something unexpected. It may be an unexpected kindness from a character who has hitherto appeared cold and calculating; or someone Geralt or Ciri came to trust demonstrates why trust, in this world, should be conferred selectively.

The overarching theory, then, isn't that the world that is inherently dark and foreboding, and human nature irredeemable in the face of naked self-interest. Rather, it is of corruption by ignorance, jealousy and the pursuit of power, and redemption through personal bonds of friendship, love and loyalty. These are timeless concepts, and by no means original to the series; yet they are striking nonetheless, by virtue of their flawless execution, and the degree to which we come to care about what happens to Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer and the others.

The Lady of the Lake is also stylistically daring. As in The Tower of the Swallow, narratives are often fragmented across several timelines and character perspectives. However, it works better this time. The epic Battle of Brenna shifts between the perspectives of various combatants, and the doctor running a field hospital in its midst. Throughout Sapkowski intersperses vignettes, often centered on peripheral characters, which themselves may link back to events occurring elsewhere. Keeping everything straight can be a challenge, but when the book concludes, the payoff is considerable.

The book ends on a curious note, which I will not mention. But suffice to say it raises as many questions as it provides answers. I have my theories, but will have to read the cycle again in order to see how they are borne out.

I could go on, but in the interests of brevity, let me just say this: The Lady of the Lake is, without any doubt, the best and most profound fantasy novel I have ever read. It is hard to put down, yet also a challenging and deeply rewarding book. And it is genuinely moving. I have never read a fantasy series like this, and suspect I never will again.

*Note: the games have a different plot from the books. It has been suggested that they are a sequel to or alternate version of the Saga, though Sapkowski says this is not possible.


The Math

Baseline Assessment: 10/10.

Bonuses: None. You can't top perfection.

Penalties: None.

Nerd Coefficient: 10/10. "Mind-blowing/life-changing."

***

POSTED BY: The G--purveyor of nerdliness, genre fanatic and Nerds of a Feather founder/administrator, since 2012.

Reference: Sapkowski, Andrzej. The Lady of the Lake [Orbit/Gollancz, 2017]

Microreview [book]: Wrath, by John Gwynne

A satisfying denouement to a tetralogy teetering on the edge of drowning in grimdark savagery

The reviewer isn't kidding about 'all manner of betrayals'!

Gwynne, John. Wrath. Orbit, 2016.

You can buy this book here.

A fundamental principle of fantasy (all?) literature is that a sufficiently melodramatic, cathartic victory/ending can only be achieved through the sacrifice of (usually) second-tier characters. These are the ones you can remember, whose names and backstories are vivid in your minds, but whose survival isn’t absolutely essential to the everything-and-everyone-tied-together happy ending the book or series has been moving towards since page one. A series like Harry Potter, hurtling towards happiness, could never dare off one of the three principals, forcing Rowling to select her final victims from the B-list: Snape, one of the Weasley twins, etc. Killing anyone more central to the narrative would jeopardize the catharsis. And I don’t mean to single out Rowling/Harry Potter: this is a near-universal feature of fantasy literature. A few B-listers have to die nobly so that the A-listers can live happily ever after.

Enter John Gwynne, who has taken this principle and grimdarked it. The essential calculus hasn’t changed—the principals will still survive and earn their happy ending—but the sheer quantity of second-tier characters required to throw themselves into harm’s way boggles the mind. Readers of the first three books of this tetralogy will be quite familiar with Gwynne’s penchant for throwing beloved but still slightly peripheral characters into the meat grinder, but he has savagely upped the ante here. I thought at one point of the memorable exchange from Casablanca: “What is [this book] like?” – “Oh, just like [the other three], only more so.” Remember Rowling’s judicious choice of a single quasi-central figure, one of the Weasley twins, as scapegoat? Gwynne puts almost the entire cast of B-listers on the sacrificial altar. I haven’t spoiled the story if I say: expect the very-most central characters to survive (obviously—no writer dare do otherwise) and practically no one else!

Multiply this scene of grief at a dead B-lister by a billion, and you will understand Wrath

This savagery may or may not register in the reader’s mind as a bad thing (it struck me as gratuitously excessive, but others might respond more favorably). But one feature of Gwynne’s approach does seem unambiguously problematic: his apparently quite dark view of mercy. Several times in the series, but especially in this fourth and final volume, “bad guys” spared by well-meaning heroes take their unexpected reprieve to (often literally) stab those same heroes in the back at the first opportunity. It’s as though Gwynne believes a) bad guys are incapable of change, or even of admitting their guilt, and (perhaps as a result) b) mercy is always a terrible mistake.

Take Nathair, who has sensed the error of his ways. Gwynne seems to be building to a tearful confession, leaving open the possibility of a way back to the light even for a treacherous viper like Nathair, only to slam that door shut and have the king double down on his evil deeds. Truly we are living in the age of the double-down! But the worst example of the heavy cost of mercy must be Rafe, who once again seemed potentially redeemable (indeed, quite a close approximation of the Harry-Draco dynamic is at play with Corban-Rafe), only to amass quite a body-count after the good guys (foolishly, it would seem) let him go. Naturally, some of the evildoers in the world, if granted a new lease on life, will misuse their second chance, to be sure, but since Gwynne’s only positive examples of the potential of bad guys to change were Veradis (the honorable if naïve warrior) and Alcyon (the honorable giant forced into evil due to magic and the fact his wife and son were held hostage), neither of whom, of course, is actually bad at all, his message is clear: genuine bad guys can’t learn from their mistakes, and will betray their merciful benefactors 100% of the time.

Ironically, this dark-as-grimdark-can-be attrition of B-listers and total denunciation of the idea, for bad guys, of moral rehabilitation after doing something terrible has restored my idealistic faith in humanity. I’m left strangely optimistic, muttering “Surely we humans can’t be that bad?”

The Math

Objective Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for keeping victory for Corban at all almost inconceivable until the very last minute, +1 for managing a fairly emotionally satisfying denouement

Penalties: -1 for the somewhat gratuitous/monotonous near-total annihilation of the second-tier characters, -1 for reinforcing the pessimistic idea that those who have once done wrong have essentially no chance of reform (and instead will stab a bunch of beloved B-listers in the back)

Nerd coefficient: 7/10 “An enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws”

Read more on our nerdy scoring system here.

This message brought to you by Zhaoyun, still an unabashed optimist despite a steady diet of the most savage grimdark out there, and reviewer for Nerds of a Feather since 2013.

Introducing...DYSTOPIAN VISIONS

Dystopianism is back in vogue. 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale have both recently topped bestseller lists, with other classics making appearances as well. The reason for this sudden surge of interest should be no mystery; science fiction is, after all, a reflection of our hopes and fears for the future, and fear undoubtedly rules the present.

Yet dystopia—or, more accurately, dystopianism—never really went away. Indeed, in the 96 years since Yevgeny Zamyatin published We, authors working inside and out of genre have offered a broad spectrum of dystopian visions. Many are quite distant from the statist nightmares imagined by Zamyatin, Huxley, Orwell, Bradbury and Atwood. Postapocalyptic fiction, for example, presents readers with a stateless dystopia, in which the collapse of the modern state redefines the human life as nasty, brutish and short. And gritty or grimdark fantasy is arguably another form of dystopianism, where societies are marked by the arbitrary use of violence and a near constant state of war. Meanwhile, the classic statist dystopia has ruled the burgeoning YA space for nearly a decade—first with the breakout success of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, and followed by the popular Divergent and Maze Runner franchises.


Dystopianism, Broadly Defined

This broad definition may surprise some readers, or strike them as unreflective of established convention, which holds that dystopian fiction relates narrowly to life under oppressive states. This convention exists, however, for strictly historical reasons.

Dystopianism, in essence, emerged as an inversion of utopianism, a fictional style with roots in philosophy (think Plato) that grew in popularity alongside the Romantic movement of the late 19th century. At that time, growth in literacy, global connectedness and faith in the notion of scientific/technological progress were fueling interest in a broad range of idealistic movements, from the individualized (e.g. liberalism and democracy) to the communal (e.g. nationalism and socialism).

Unsurprisngly, most romantic works of utopian fiction are political treatises barely disguised by their science fictional clothing. Take News from Nowhere by William Morris (1890), in which the Victorian protagonist wakes to find himself in a post-scarcity future marked by socioeconomic egalitarianism, volunteerism and communal rather than state authority. The central idea, then, is to use science fictional extrapolation as a mechanism through which to explore what society could be like if only certain (great) ideas would be implemented.

Zamyatin, who authored the first modern dystopia, simply took this formula and reversed the polarity—telling the story of atomized individuals trapped in a Marxist-Leninist nightmare desperately seeking to assert even the most rudimentary form of individualism. Huxley followed with Brave New World, where eugenics, corporate “Fordism” (i.e. labor mechanization) and psychosocial manipulation achieve the same effect. Orwell’s 1984, the most widely read of the three foundational texts, combines elements of both earlier works. And all three reflect the deep anxiety, embedded in the 20th century zeitgeist, of a mechanized terror that reduces individuals to cogs in the machine.

Later dystopias play a similar role, albeit reflecting somewhat different conceptions of the oppressive state. Fahrenheit 451, published at the height of McCarthyism, takes place against a backdrop of anti-intellectualism and the criminalization of knowledge; and The Handmaid’s Tale, published at the precise moment when fundamentalist Christianity became a force in U.S. electoral politics, imagines class and gender oppression in a science fictional theocracy. Like their forebears, these books follow the established protocol of juxtaposing the individual against oppressive state and society.

But is statism really intrinsic to the concept of "dystopia?" I would argue that no—it’s not. Rather, this is defining a genre by its tropes, which Ian Sales has rightfully critiqued as a rationale for defining genre boundaries. Instead, I’d argue that dystopianism is defined by the extrapolation of our sociopolitical nightmares onto invented worlds, whether they by futuristic or fantastic. Dystopianism, furthermore, exists for the express purpose of theorizing about the present. Thus dystopianism can and should encompass other forms of extrapolation beyond those portrayed in the classic dystopias.


Stateless Dystopia

While one group of 20th century writers envisioned futures defined by terrifying, statist modes of oppression, another began questioning what would come after nuclear war, pandemic disease, ecological extinction event or anthropomorphic environmental disaster. These works are commonly labeled postapocalyptic, in reference to their “creation event,” but nearly all center on forms of precarity engendered by a breakdown of political and social institutions (rather than their repurposing for oppressive means by a modern state apparatus). In other words, stateless dystopia.

Postapocalyptic fiction is not always straightforwardly dystopian. The subset of “cosy” postapocalyptic fiction, best exemplified by Earth Abides, is distinctly utopian—cheerfully (some might say naively) imagining better worlds built off the ashes of this one. Others, like Octavia Butlers Parable of the Sower and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station 11, juxtapose the extreme precarity and threat of living in stateless spaces with the indomitability of the human spirit and its creativity in adapting to circumstances. And other works, like Alas Babylon and On the Beach, have too short a time horizon to really explore what comes after.

Most works of postapocalyptic fiction, however, present the reader with straightforwardly bad places where bad things happen as a matter of course, and as a consequence of the collapse of both political and social institutions. Like The Road, in which a boy and his father navigate an inherently violent and threatening post-disaster landscape; or Marcel Theroux's Far North, where the prevalence of such landscapes enables the would-be architects of a more traditionally Orwellian nightmare to begin construction of such a state out of the chaos. The absence of the state is what defines these envisioned futures as dystopian.


Fantasy Dystopias

While dystopianism is most commonly associated with science fiction, there is a distinctly dystopian streak evident in fantasy—especially in fantasy’s recent, gritty turn. Glen Cook’s pathbreaking Chronicles of the Black Company centers on a mercenary company warring on the side of oppressive tyranny against a fanatical religious movement. A Song of Ice and Fire presents a world in which violence is arbitrary, cruel and ever-present. And Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen is replete with dystopian themes of misery, corrupt, falling societies and cultures, and endemic warfare.

Dystopian themes are also evident in epic fantasy that isn’t normally classified as gritty or grimdark. Take Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series, which is set in a fairly classic statist dystopia, or N.K. Jemisin’s Dreamblood series, with its society focused on harvesting dreams, the most powerful of which are found at the moment of death. Those who are deemed too corrupt or elderly to contribute to society are killed by the Gatherers, their dreamblood extracted in the process..   

And one could equally argue that the bulk of traditional epic fantasies, in which stable polities are threatened with the unending terror of conquest and subjugation by malevolence, are animated by fear of dystopia! However, unlike Mistborn, few actually examine what life is like under said malevolence. Yet dystopia looms nonetheless.


Dystopianism in Young Adult Fiction

While dystopianism is evident in these corners of adult-focused genre, it practically rules the burgeouning YA space. This began in 2008, when Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy emerged to fill the popular void left by Harry Potter. Though derivative (of Battle Royale especially), Hunger Games became a bona fide sensation, leading to a high profile film series and numerous imitators—many of which, like Divergent or Maze Runner, are now multimillion dollar franchises themselves. And postapocalyptic YA, most of which fits into our category of stateless dystopia, is nearly as popular among YA readers.


Dystopian Visions

This series, conceived of as a sequel to Cyberpunk Revisited, seeks to explore questions of what dystopianism is and what purpose(s) it serves. What are the tropes and conventions of modern dystopian fiction? How have dystopian visions evolved over time, both in terms of approach and theme? And what do dystopian visions about the points in time and space in which they are written?

Equally, we will ask questions about why we like to read about dystopias. Is it possible that we even find them comforting, and if so, why?

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, we will consider dystopianisms’s complex relationship to its forebear, utopianism. We will explore works where dystopianism serves to negatively define utopia, as well as those where dystopia and utopia are presented side-by-side. Just how essential or intrinsic is the concept of utopia to that of dystopia?

We will explore these and other questions through a series of essays and dossier-style reviews, including of works not commonly associated with dystopianism, but which present dystopian themes. Our dossiers will have the following subheadings:

Filetype: whether the work under review is a book, film, game, etc.

File Under: whether the work presents a statist, stateless, fantasy or hybrid-form dystopia.

Executive Summary: summary of the plot. 

Dystopian Visions: discussion of dystopian themes/content present in the work. 

 

Utopian Undercurrents: whether and to what degree the work's dystopianism underlies a utopian understanding of politics, society, etc. 

Level of Hell: a quantitative rating of how terrible the presented dystopia is, from first to ninth—with an explanation of the rating.

Legacy: the importance of the work in question within its field.

 

In Retrospect: an editorial commentary on how good/not good the work is, from the vantage point of 2017.

Interspersed with these dossier reviews, we and a selection of guest writers will explore how to contextualize dystopia and dystopianism within literature and other media, as well as the moments in time and space when it has surged forward into popular consciousness.

The 1980s represent one such period. The Empire in Star Wars, one notes, is essentially a statist dystopia, while George Lucas paid more direct homage to his literary forebears in THX1138. For that matter, nearly every action/sci-fi flick from the '80s takes place within, or makes reference to, dystopian futures. So do the most memorable science fictional comics of the day: Judge Dredd, Akira, Days of Future Past, V for Vendetta, etc. And cyberpunk is arguably dystopian as well.

Similarly, we will try to understand what social and cultural factors may have fueled the emergence of YA dystopias during the 2000s, or how current world geopolitics might alter our view of dystopianism in entertainment media. Conversely, we will ask whether interest in dystopia necessarily reflects underlying concerns with the direction of the world, or whether one may talk of dystopia in purely aesthetic terms.

In the end, our goal is to come to some sort of understanding--messy as it may be--about what dystopianism is and why we are attracted to it. And, of course, we hope to have fun in the process.

Dystopian Visions will run through March and April, 2017, with stories posted every Monday and Wednesday.