Book Review: Blood of the Bull by Jo Graham

The third novel in the series takes Giulia and Rodrigo through a very rough patch in their relationship. Oh, and there’s a French Invasion too.

Jo Graham’s Memoirs of the Borgia Sybil series continues in this third book in the series. For those to catch up, Giulia Farnese, in this world next door, is not just the mistress of Rodrigo Borgia (aka Pope Alexander VI, the “Borgia Pope”), she has a connection to the spirit world that is exploited and used in book 1, A Blackened Mirror, and also in book 2, The Borgia Dove, where she is our viewpoint character to the infamous Papal Election of 1492. Now, not long has passed, it's near 1494 in fact, and Renaissance Italy is in turmoil. Not just because the French are invading, but the relationship between Giulia and Rodrigo has turned sour. Giulia finds out that the Bull (the symbol of the Borgias) is a literal metaphor, and the betrayal of what she thought was an exclusive relationship sets the pair at odds. Combine that with the French invasion, and you have the throughline for the story.

And therein, The Blood of the Bull, tells its tale. I am going to come to this story through a historical lens. This novel, like the second, is somewhat less focused on the supernatural elements of Giulia and her life and much more interested in the interpersonal dynamics of the pair. It takes a while for any real supernatural elements to come out of the woodwork. In the main, most of this novel, even more than the first two, is a richly done historical fiction novel. If the first novel was a coming of age story, and the second something of a mystery novel, this is more of a social conflict novel between Giulia and Rodrigo, with the French army as a leavening agent.

So, once again, we get Graham’s view of the Renaissance and its history. It is a considerably brighter view than some¹.As such, until Giulia leaves Rome after tempers flare between her and Rodrigo, we get the see the rich life of being the Pope’s mistress and how both Giulia and Rodrigo have to navigate it (we are, like the first two novels, always in Giulia’s point of view in the book). In our historical records, Giulia Farnese was one of the most powerful women in Rome with her relationship to the Pope, but not just for that. Graham makes it clear such a powerful woman has allies, clients, networks and in the course of a dangerous French invasion, Giulia needs all of them and they need here, and we get very much a social web. In a real way, Giulia is not just a partner to Rodrigo but an heir, a student, a pupil of him as well. And possibly the father of her child. The historical record is uncertain, but baby Laura, in the world of the novels is most definitely Rodrigo’s daughter. 

Having Giulia leave Rome when she discovers Rodrigo’s infidelity is an invention, as far as is well known in the historical records, she does not go off with Lucrezia and her new husband. This does give us a look at Italy outside of Rome for a while, especially with that looming threat of the French becoming a very real and potent danger as they move south. The threat of a seemingly unstoppable force, coming to erase all that she has come to treasure, is a real emotional button in the book that Graham presses well. 

Eventually the narrative joins the timeline we know again as Giulia goes to the estate of Capodimonte because her brother is dying. This happened in our timeline, but this story has Giulia go from Lucrezia’s estate to there, rather than from Rome, as what we know happened in history. We see Giulia at her most vulnerable and isolated here, feeling duty to her dying brother, and the strain of being apart from Rodrigo, and of course, the bloody French. The book keeps us in line with historical events when Giulia, heading back to Rome at last, is captured by a French officer, Yves d’Allegre, who ransoms her back to the Pope. Since we are only in Giulia’s point of view, we do not see the mysterious machinations directly that allowed Rome, and Pope Alexander VI’s papacy, not to be toppled by King Charles and his army. Graham does add a helping of her supernatural elements here to explain the motives and actions of some of the participants in this drama, and gives Giulia agency to oppose them.

The novel ends there, more or less, with Rome and the Papacy safe, Giulia and Rodrigo reunited, but the French are poised to rain down on Naples next. Interesting times are indeed what is in store for the next adventures of the Borgia Sybil. As always Graham is interested in the historical events and the allo-supernatural elements that help cause them to happen as they really did. Does this make her novels a magical secret history? Maybe! There is a little what-if speculation toward the end as Rodrigo’s fate is uncertain, and both Giulia and Rodrigo (but especially the magically talented Giulia) wonders if Rodrigo might have to be a sacrifice, a martyr, in the end. This ties nicely into the title Blood of the Bull. 

So who is this book for? Should you read this? Readers of the first two books is a rather flip answer, and that has the advantage of being true. I suppose you could start the series here, if you were really interested in this period of Italian history or wanted to get in on this series and did not want to read books one and two. But really this is a big narrative and a series that together forms a tapestry of a life (the choice of title Memoirs of the Borgia Sybil is a telling one).

But who is this series for, then? In general, if you want historical fiction with some supernatural elements that don’t change the history, and a strong sense and grounding in its point of view with a strong female protagonist (and other women as well). If you aren’t absolutely and resolutely anti-Borgia (and to be clear there is a case to have that point of view), then yes, this series may be your cup of tea. Graham is a hell of a writer and she is writing what she loves passionately about. It comes through with the intimacy she describes art in the papal apartments, the depth of feeling in her letters as she struggles with Rodrigos’ infidelity, with the blood and terror of the French invasion³. It’s here, should you want it.

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Highlights:

• Strong historical fictional grounding
• Excellent use of female characters
• Amazing immersive look at Renaissance Italy
• Yet another spectacular cover for the series

Reference: Graham, Jo The Blood of the Bull, [Candlemark and Gleam 2025]

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

¹ This is going to be a footnote of some length but it is a diversion from talking about the main subject of the novel itself and is not essential to that part of the book review, but it is an essential bit nevertheless. So this is more of a Pratchettian footnote than, say, a Vancean one. Graham’s view of the Renaissance, and perhaps the Borgias in particular, is far more positive and bright than, say, the recent Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer, and reading this book after reading Palmer’s book was an interesting experience. I also in recent history have read Will and Ariel Durant’s Story of Civilization volume on these times. So I have gotten several runs through of the events of these times and perspectives of these times. Palmer’s thesis is the clearest because she says it on the tin “The Myth of a Golden Age”. She makes it clear time and again that in research and perspective, which is formidable, that the Renaissance was no golden age at all and in fact was not the greatest time and place to live in. From invasions to plagues to the vicissitudes of life in 15th century Italy, it was no golden age at all--even if its remnants and products make it seem so.

The whole project of the Renaissance, too and its history and it’s historification as a golden age is a matter of manipulating history. The Durants take a middle course, since they never go to primary sources. They are a product of their time and place, reading texts written mostly contemporary with themselves, so they have a more positive view of the events, and see the end of the Renaissance and the decline of Italy after the French Invasion and subsequent wars (spoiler, the French Invasion is just the beginning) as a tragedy that extinguished a turbulent but fecund period. Graham’s view is far far more positive, and takes lots of pains to show the light, the art, the vision that the humanist faction under Rodrigo (and to be fair, Giulia) want to bring. She sees those forces as fighting as war of light against dark (which melds into her grand supernatural conflict). 

So who is right? All of them! None of them! (as Palmer points out, history is an ever refining project, and our own views are going to be looked at with shaken heads a century or two from now). 

² In a conversation between myself and Graham, she compared Giulia and Rodrigo to Mystique and Magneto. And I definitely can see it, Mystique learning a lot at Magneto’s knee in the way of mutant and worldwide power politics, learning intrigue and manipulation and social graces and skills but applying them ultimately in her own way. And of course having a sometimes thorny relationship with her mentor as a lover. We didn’t see much in the way of the thorns in book 2, Graham reserved them for book 3. 

³ Maybe someone like H. Beam Piper or Poul Anderson never lived long enough, but surely, one could do a space opera version of the papal election of 1492 and the subsequent French invasion and make it a high SF drama. Such rich and interesting characters, times, and conflicts. It would be hellacious to research (reading these books and the aforementioned works by Palmer and the Durants might get you some of the way there) . Doing it as a fantasy novel could also work but I kind of like a space opera treatment better. 

Review: The Borgia Dove by Jo Graham

The second in a historical fantasy series centering about Giulia Farnese, mistress to Cardinal Rodrigo of the Borgia family. Yes, that Borgia family.

The first book in Jo Graham’s series, A Blackened Mirror, introduced us to the upbringing and early life of Giulia from a historical fantasy perspective. While the actual woman in history is her basis, Graham leavened her upbringing by making her a virginal (and kept deliberately so) seer, and used in magical rites amongst the scheme of factions seeking control of the Papacy in late 15th century Italy. That book ended with Giulia firmly as the concubine of the powerful and alluring Rodrigo Borgia, a man whose ambitions are to become the next Pope.

The Borgia Dove continues this story.

The year is 1492. Columbus has just started to sail the ocean blue, but has not yet reached the Americas, but he will, in a couple of months. What is also going to happen in even shorter order is Pope Innocent III is going to die. Rodrigo, now in his early 60’s, sees this as his last and best hope to become Pope. Giulia, as his mistress, wants to help him, not only because he is her lover, but the humanist side of the Church is far more appealing to her than the more traditional and conservative factions led by Rodrigo’s enemy Cardinal Della Rovere. But no longer a virgin, Giulia no longer has magic powers, and so to help Rodrigo, must cultivate other forms of power to help him succeed in the Conclave, and survive the deadly politics of 15th century Rome.

And so a story is told.

You probably have heard of the Borgias before, and may have seen, for example, the Showtime series The Borgias, with Jeremy Irons as the titular character. Giulia Farnese is an important secondary character in that series, even as it focuses on the Borgias more directly. Here, by making Giulia the primary focus, we get a look at events that are covered in the premiere episode of that series, but with Giulia’s perspective.

With Giulia as the focus, we do get Rodrigo as a major secondary character, as well as other Borgias and the other major characters in late 15th century Rome. Yes, the infamous Lucrezia Borgia is here, but she’s a 12 year old girl. She’s curious, bright, intelligent, and devoted to her father’s success. She is, at this stage in her life, nothing like what her infamy brought her. Also note the aforementioned Showtime series definitely aged her up. She also is, in this novel, most definitely Giulia’s protégé. Giulia may only be eighteen herself (again, the show aged her up), but she provides a female role model for Lucrezia. And their interactions are among the most delightful in the book.

Also, let’s talk about the fantastic elements, since the book does provide more than a patina of historical fantasy that Graham started in the first book. For while she may not think she is a magical “Dove” anymore, Giulia soon learns that while she thought she was finished with magic once she became Rodrigo’s lover, magic, and the higher powers, are not finished with her. Both those who would support her, and those who would seek to tear her down.

It’s a very sensual and sensuous book, and readers of Graham before are not going to be surprised by this. Not just sexual and carnal pleasures, mind you, but the entire world is brought with all the senses in mind. We get to feel, to smell, to taste, to see and to touch the late 15th century Rome that Giulia inhabits. The charm of having breakfast with a friend, spreading soft cheese over bread. The deadly darkness of the streets of Rome at night. The elegant seductiveness of a dance and a party. And much more. Graham’s writing brings us into Giulia’s world, life, passions and desires in a fully immersive way.

There is a lot of talk in SFF circles these days about romantasy: fantasy with a strong romance focus and theme. Although this novel does not claim that title, I think that this novel definitely would qualify for those looking for such work. Giulia is plainly in a romantic relationship with Rodrigo and considers him the love of her life, quite loyally so. Time and again, people outside her think she is in it for the money alone (the simony of the Borgias is portrayed as being part and parcel of the times and is not judged too negatively thereby), and Giulia insists, to others and to herself that she is not. And indeed, we see opportunities where Giulia could, if her heart was truly for gold and not Rodrigo, where she could “feather her own nest” and she does not take them.

Yes, some readers may find it distasteful that Giulia is indeed a third of Rodrigo’s age, and indeed, that does get brought up in the book as well. Graham shows this as a meeting of minds as well as hearts and souls. Together, on all three strands, she depicts Giulia and Rodrigo coming together, the Dove and the Bull (The Bull is a symbol of House Borgia). It may be a May-December romance, but the author makes it believable and more importantly, sympathetic to the reader.

And Giulia is a person a lot of readers can relate with. She’s curious, intelligent, loves to read, and seeks out books. Not just magical books, as part of the fantastic elements of this novel, but just books in general, in a world that Gutenberg has not yet set aflame with his invention. Giulia loves literacy, thought and that way of transmitting knowledge and story and that love comes across the page to us. One could easily imagine sitting to a lunch with Giulia and discussing Plutarch, Dante, and more. The novel is also full of allusions and references to books and writers for the savvy reader to discover.

Graham has done an excellent job here in making The Borgia Dove a standalone novel even as it builds on the life of Giulia and her upbringing from the first novel. While I would never want to turn you away from reading the first book, if you wanted to start the series here (perhaps you are a fan of Jeremy Irons’ portrayal or the whole very cut and thrust life of the Borgias), or just have limited time, I think you completely and utterly could begin here. Unlike the first book, which takes place over a number of years as Giulia grows up, learns who and what she is, and gets plunged into matters, the focus of this book, time-wise, is much narrower. Much of the book takes place during the week or so of that Papal Enclave that, spoilers for 500 years ago, will make Rodrigo into Pope Alexander VI. But what Giulia’s story brings to a story already told is her, female perspective, and the secret magical history of those who would oppose and cast down Rodrigo, and what Giulia must do, and is willing to do, in order to preserve her lover’s life, power and position.

Given the complex richness of Giulia’s life, and of course now the whole Borgia project, I look forward to what Graham will do in the third volume. I think it will be a challenge, since as hazy as history goes for most people, the Borgias are a name that still involve a lot of negativity and while the first two books have focused specifically on Giulia and kept people like the young Lucrezia in minor roles, going forward with the series means Graham will have an uphill climb in further changing people’s perceptions of Rodrigo, Lucrezia and the rest. I look forward to seeing how she takes on this challenge.

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Highlights:

• 15th Century Rome and Papal Politics strongly on display
• Giulia Farnese is a captivating character to capture your heart and mind
• Sensuous and immersive writing to bring you into Giulia’s world.

Reference: Graham, Jo, The Borgia Dove, [Candlemark and Gleam, 2024]


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

Microreview: Fortune's Favor by Jo Graham

Fortune's Favor continues Jo Graham's mythologically infused space opera series and 'verse

Caralys has a problem. She's been attached to House Melian by contract as an escort (gaura) for a number of years and has carved out a life with its head, the head of the city of Beira, Helios.. But now, when Helios' child, Theo, is captured in an act of piracy by Calpurnian raiders intent on exchanging him for money, riches, and oh yes, recruits for the Calpurnian Navy, desperate times are here on Menachemi. The planet has no ships to fight this threat, the other cities are of no help. Helios is busy with very important Festival preparations.  What Caralys needs is an unorthodox solution...

And therein lies the tale of Fortune's Favor, the third space opera novel in the Calpurnian Wars saga from Jo Graham.

The first Calpurnian Wars novels introduced us to Graham's far future space opera (with perhaps flavors of Space Fantasy), set in a series of unique worlds and cultures rich in myth, legend and belief. In Sounding the Dark, we were introduced to Bister, a smuggler who is tasked with finding a legendary spaceship to help stop a Calpurnian onslaught on the planet Eresh.. Bister is a fixer, she gets things done. By chance, or one might say, by fortune, she happens to be on the planet at the time of Theo's capture.

Also visiting Menachemi is a scout ship from the planet Morrigan. Morrigan is from the second novel, Warlady.  Morrigan is many things, including being the planet of electromancers. Jauffre Castal-Edo, like all electromancers, is a secret and special resource of Morrigan, and are widely not understood or trusted to be out on their own. But times are changing and Boral, son of Jauffre, is on a scoutship of Morrigan that just happens to be  having shore leave at Beira at the time of events...

Fortune's Favor introduces both Bister and  Boral,, together with Caralys as potential solutions to the problem of kidnapped Theo.  In a real sense, then, Graham, now in her third novel in this verse, felt that this is the time to cross the streams and introduce two of the strands of her universe to each other, in the new setting of Menachemi.

Menachemi is part and parcel of Graham's space opera verse.  The fractured City State setup of the cities of this world is a vivid canvas for Graham's penchant and skill for rich cultural details and complex societies that reminded me of Bronze Age Phoenician city states. There is no planetary government, and not a lot of government in general even within the city of Beira. Whereas Morrigan was very much a hardscrabble world with a lot of social levelling, and Eresh was a breakaway colony world, with Menachemi, we get a rich world, a series of cities along a coast that outwardly looks like it has the Good Life.

But not quite. The fractuous and disunited inhabitants of Menachemi and their city states can't agree on anything, find political control anathema. The head of Beira is not called a President, or a King, but a *Guardian*, and his power and control have severe limits. There are winners and losers in this society. This shocks Boral, who has never seen out and out poverty, before (and for that matter, extreme wealth--he gets to experience both in the novel).  Graham leavens this with a strong focus on religion, tradition and belief in the city, the Festival that Helios is preparing for, as an example of "Space Polytheism" that is a feature of her verse. While we've seen religion before in this series, this novel amps up that a notch and seeing how that religiosity affects an entire society.  

But even here, while Beira and Menachemi seems to be an interesting Space Polytheism, there is the matter of the breakaway Merrow. The Merrow live on the other side of the mountains from the rich cities of the coast, in a rather inhospitable desert. The Merrow reject not only the temporal authority of the cities and those who live there, but also all of the deities worshipped by the cities. They are strict monotheists, considering their "Third Lord" to be the only real God, and all the others to be delusions or worse. The people of the cities consider the Merrow to be fanatics of the desert, and the Merrow consider the cities corrupting centers of sin. 

With all of this worldbuilding, the threat of a Calpurnian ship, and a rich set of characters both old and new, in many ways this novel does not quite have the room to breathe that it really deserves. There is a lot here and a lot to unpack, think about and uncover, but given the size of the book, the plotting itself feels sometimes a little too short shrift for its own good. In creating this rich city state with an interesting background, culture, and characters, the actual throughline of the plot sometimes feels like it doesn't have so much of a rich complexity that I've seen in Graham's other novels.

There is one thing that does bother me about the world and setup.  So, the key problem that Beira faces is that they have no defenses against a Calpurnian cruiser that has shown up, with the son of the Guardian as a captive, and demanding money and raw recruits. The Calpurnian ship has a fair number of missiles, and can level the city, which just amps up the stakes. While I think I appreciate the social commentary here (these libertarian esque rich city states haven't spend any money on defense), it did feel a little weird that the planet has nothing to do except try and hire a pirate ship that luckily has wandered by, as well as the efforts to get Theo off of the ship. I would have thought that they would have at least something. Even Eresh, in Sounding Dark, had at least a token and inadequate defense. For Beira, for the planet to have nothing, to have had nothing, feels like it is a commentary and allusion to the Italian City States of Medieval Italy...but even when there wasn't an army of condottieri to hire to protect oneself, the cities weren't completely helpless to any army that came by.  

Overall, however, I enjoyed the novels, even given my questions and concerns Fortune's Favor continues to develop and deepen the space opera world Graham introduced to us in Sounding Dark and The Warlady, tying together those disparate threads into a new and vividly imagined world,  Combine this with characters from the first two novels in the series, and new ones, and Graham shows how she's grown her world organically and compellingly in this latest volume with a compelling story grounded in the very real and present desires and motivations of her creations.

Highlights:

• Phoenician/Bronze Age style culture meets Space Opera
• Compelling, personal and strongly oriented story
• Deepening of mythology, history and background of her verse

Graham, Jo, Fortune's Favor [Candlemark and Gleam, 2023]

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

Review: A Blackened Mirror by Jo Graham

A Blackened Mirror is a fascinating and deep turn into secret Historical Fiction from Jo Graham.

 Giulia Farnese has a problem, and it is a rather large one. She is bright, intelligent, curious, but her dowry is not large and she is growing up in a situation that seems to have destined for a life of obscurity and quiet desperation. Until a chance encounter brings her into the circles of a powerful family in Rome, a marriage, and eventually meeting one of the most infamous men in history.  To say nothing of the demon Asmodeus...

This is the story of Jo Graham’s turn to secret Historical fiction, A Blackened Mirror.

Secret histories are elusive, slippery things. Most especially ones that involve magic.  How do you show the events we know from history (or at least can be researched) and yet find the room to put not only events we haven’t seen but add a supernatural element, plausibly, to the mix. What Graham does in A Blackened Mirror is to use the beliefs and ideas of the time, belief in communion with demons (and angels) as sources of information and power. Giulia turns out, in Graham’s secret historical world, to be a Dove, an innocent virgin who has always been able to see, but is turned to the purpose of being the mouthpiece for a demon. The fact that she is ostensibly married to a lunk who has been very carefully instructed not to deflower her so that she can remain that innocent virgin is a continual source of conflict and frustration for her.

Giulia’s existence as a mouthpiece for a demon, untouched and unwanted by her husband, kept in a house in Rome basically just for this role alone, is an intolerable one to her and is the focus of this very character-driven work. Giulia is also bright enough to realize that this role for her is a limited one. She can’t be kept as their ‘Dove’ forever, untouched by her husband, used merely for the demonic ritual. Eventually she will outlive her usefulness, and she will be left without resources, support, children. Her brother Alessandro too far away to help, no other allies or help. 

That is something else that the novel gets very right. While this is a tale from a woman’s perspective, and shows the power and ability of the main character, it is firmly and completely grounded in the time and it shows the realpolitik  and calculations that a woman needs to make in this time and place to survive. It is a very patriarchal society, and finding power and security in such a world is a very difficult thing to achieve. Giulia’s story, really, internally, is a sense of balance for her. She needs to find a place to stand, a life to lead, to find herself some sense of stability and security. Life is tough, life is hard and Giulia understands that. Throughout the events of A Blackened Mirror, finding that backing, that security.  But at the same time, Giulia Farnese has the competing urge within her for the life that she *wants*. She wants a life and an opportunity to learn, to grow, to fulfill her potential. Throughout the novel, Graham makes her heroine intellectually curious, a reader in an age where few women are taught reading, someone excited by what would call the Italian Renaissance. But to be a woman who has access to that intellectual richness is a far more perilous path for Giulia, for it is a role and place in society that is far less secure, and one might even say, far less respectable were she even to achieve that role. 

Even among the major plotlines of the novel, the political motivations and moves that Giulia, as the Dove, gets caught up in, the major conflict of the novel is this character one. The comparison in my mind is Alma Alexander’s retelling of the Theodora story in her novel Empress. Callidora, lowly born, rises to power and eventually as wife to the future Emperor. But at every step in that novel, there is the conflict of trying to find a life of security versus what her heart, her mind, her desire pulls her toward. How that conflict is resolved is central to her story, and so it is in this novel as well.  

Going back to the theme of Secret Histories again, this is a secret history, not an alternate history, and so readers who are familiar with Giulia’s life are going to know how this story is going to run. It is NOT a secret or a spoiler in this novel to say, then, that Giulia is destined to become the mistress of the fearsome Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia. Perhaps if the name Rodrigo Borgia is not familiar to you immediately (especially if you never watched the TV series The Borgias), then the name of his daughter, Lucrezia Borgia, will ring a bell with you.  Lucrezia is an important character in this novel, to be sure. However, Lucrezia is nine years old.  She’s a somewhat precocious nine year old, but she is not the stereotype of the man-killing femme fatale that she is often tarred with in popular culture. I fully expect, however, given the nuance that Graham gives Giulia, Rodrigo and the other characters here, that in future novels (and yes, this is the first in a series) that she will develop interestingly. As well, of course and more important, Giulia. She IS one of the most important figures of her time, and even by the end of this novel, her story is only getting started.

To go more generally on the novel, the worldbuilding in the story is deep and rich and immersive. Graham gives us a very intimate view of life in Italy in the late 15th century. Giulia’s point of view, on her home estate and in Rome, is intimate, nuanced and compelling. The Rome of this era is very different than the Rome of the Ceasars, or will soon be in any event, with the Medieval Era of Rome fading, and the Roman Renaissance just about to kick off. The power politics between the Roman families and factions feels particularly well rendered. The Papal seat is the big prize that all the families are maneuvering over, but there is plenty of nuances and opportunities for these families to get advantage over each other (which of course, feeds right into why Giulia was brought here!)

There is a strong focus on the numinous  in the novel as well. There are the strong Christian elements, given Rome, the Vatican and the focus on their power politics already mentioned, and much of the theology is straight up Catholic doctrine in that regard. There are characters of all sorts of religiosity in the book, with differing levels and types of belief. But it is not strictly Christian theology and religiosity in the book, for Giulia feels very drawn to Prosperina. Aka Persephone. That identification with Persephone and the Persephone is a strand that follow Giulia throughout the book, and it shows how the Hellensitic knowledge and beliefs and idea would and did influence the Italian Renaissance.

A Blackened Mirror shows the strength and range of the author, and I look forward to more of La Bella Farnese’s story in subsequent volumes

The Math

Baseline Assessment:8/10

 Bonuses: +1  for a strong central character and rich and deep nuance in her story

+1 for interesting and crunchy theological worldbuilding

 Penalties: -1 the single POV shows strength, but the lack of additional points of view do limit the book slightly

 Nerd Coefficient: 9/10

 Reference: Graham, Jo A Blackened Mirror [Candlemark and Gleam, 2023]

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

Microreview: Warlady by Jo Graham

Jo Graham’s Warlady, second in her Calpurnian Wars series, deftly moves the action to the planet of Morrigan, where politics, intrigue and ancient secrets threaten not only the future of Sandrine, bodyguard to the titular Warlady, but the fate of the entire planet as well.

[Jo Graham’s Warlady deftly moves the action in her series to the planet of Morrigan,  where politics, intrigue, the threat of war, and ancient secrets threaten not only the future of Satyrine, bodyguard to the titular Warlady, but the fate of the entire planet as well. Graham expertly weaves the personal with the political, making the fate and stakes of Satyrine’s old relationship with the electromancer Jauffre as important and grounded for the reader as the fate of their entire world.]

The avaricious and expansionist Calpurnians, last seen in Jo Graham’s Sounding Dark, are a looming threat to another of their interstellar neighbors. This time it is the small planet of Morrigan. Like the republic of Eresh, Morrigan has an ace up its sleeve, if it can only turn it to bear--the artificial intelligence based upon,, or perhaps it is the holy spirit of a long ago hero of Morrigan. That entity has guided the war leaders of Morrigan, and such advice would be invaluable for an upcoming conflict.

But when the titular Warlady dies, almost certainly assassinated, the political convulsions and the gap in leadership may yet leave Morrigan dangerously open to the predations of the rapacious Calpurnians. Can Sandrine, bodyguard to the dead Warlady,  help keep her planet free? And what will the costs be? This is the story of Jo Graham’s Warlady, second in her Calpurnian Wars series.

If Sounding Dark, first in the series, relied heavily on Sumerian motifs and legends to weave its story of a mysterious ancient ship as the possible salvation of the planet Eresh, Warlady goes for a different motif entirely. With a planet named Morrigan, and a leader of the people called a Warlord (or in this cycle, a Warlady), I was expecting something more along the lines of Celtic mythology in comparison to the Sumerian. My expectations were not met, as Graham goes in a couple of different directions instead. 

First off, let’s talk about the Electromancers and Dreamers, especially since Jauffre, the former lover of Sandrine, is one of the three main characters of the piece and is an Electronmancer. Just as Sounding Dark blended notes of fantasy and myth into the space opera, the Electronmancers and Dreamers add a science fantasy component to the space opera by positing people who have the bloodlines and abilities to manifest electricity, or to walk and manipulate dreams. Morrigan, though, especially distrusts the power of Electronmancers, and what they can do.

In a real sense, seeing the past, present and the potential future of the Electronmancers through Jaffure’s story,  the property that comes to mind is Dragon Age, and in particular the second game in the series, Dragon Age II. In that game, the bounds and strictures on Mages, while we saw it in the first game, really come to a head and to violent revolt. Mages are a dangerous force, unpredictable, controlled for their own good and the good of society, but valuable resources all the same. The Electronmancers in this book fit a very similar niche, and have similar desires for freedom and autonomy. 

Graham goes for the personal, though. Rather than having a wide ranging revolt and revolution in the midst of what else is going on, Jauffre’s desires for a better life for those of his blood come through in the former lovers reunited strand of the novel with Sandrine. We get the sense right away that the two have a past, but it takes a bit to tell the entire story of how they originally met and just what that entailed, because it does nicely set up the two working together again when the Calpurnians come knocking.

As far as the Dreamers, the other “magic users”, we get a lot less detail and less development. True, the third of our main characters, Leonie, is one, and is also Hierophant, and a possible successor to the Warlady, but her story, her development and her strand of the story frankly felt a little shallow than the attention that Graham lavishes so luxuriously on Sandrine and Jauffre. It is a pity, because Graham plays with the role of the Hierophant and also the election of the Warlady in terms that reminded me a bit of the College of Cardinals and the election of a Pope. There is a lot of potential here, and we do get to see Leonie try and dance on a knife’s edge as she realizes the implications of who might be elected the next Warlady and what that means, but it does feel a little underdone compared to the mainline of the plot. But Leonie’s dreaming power is definitely less engaged with than the electromancers and I would have liked to have learned more. Too, Leonie’s behind the scenes actions, which don’t quite make the page or get attention as much as Sandrine and Jauffre’s actions, turn out to be crucial to solving the original problem, but it feels more than a bit off camera. 

In the end, Leonie is a bit of a third wheel to SAndrine and Jauffre but now let us focus on Sandrine. Given the flashback we get from when she meets Jauffre, Sandrine is an ambitious and determined young woman who grows into the right arm, the aide and bodyguard, to the titular Warlady.  She makes a strong two-handed team with Jauffre both in the past and in the present, and the strength and depth of their former relationship, coming back up again, complete with a deliberate use of tropes, shows how much Graham knows what she is playing with here, and is being deliberately playful in their story.  In the end I found myself reading for their book for their relationship as much as the main plot of who was to be the next Warlady, who assassinated the prior one, and what the perfidious Calpurnians were up to.

Unlike the previous novel and Eresh and its space station, Graham spreads her wings a little bit with Morrigan as a setting. This was previewed in the world guide at the end of Sounding Dark, that Morrigan is a tidally locked planet. The light side is too hot for life, so the terminator line and the dark side are where Morriganians live. I am not sure that planetary geophysics would make the dark side in the end any more viable as a place to live on a tidally locked planet than the light side (see Charlie Jane Anders’ The City in the Middle of the Night for a different treatment of a tidally locked planet). The impression that Graham gives is as the Morrigans as a relatively small colony (especially compared to the vast Calpurnians) using technology as best they can on a marginal world. 

This gets to the last bit of the book I want to discuss and that is Khreesos the deified eidolon who might be divine, an AI, a memory of the last leader, or all of the above. He was an early Warlord who helped ensure Morrigan independence against an early Calpurnian attempt at conquest, that much everyone agrees on. But what he is beyond that, what the Presence inside of the ancient machinery the Warlord (or Warlady) connects to, is a matter that is not clear--and the richly different interpretations of who and what he is to the people of Morrigan show a nuanced understanding that a people, a culture, can have very different views on what is ostensibly the same founding myth or belief. Even as the answer to that question matters for the plot, Graham is careful with the revelations to leave room for the numinous, for doubt, for belief.   This is Graham at her best, I think, exploring the numinous, the divine, the metaphysical within a future technological world, and finding room for both there. 

Overall, Warlady shows the strengths of the author’s writing, and continues to build and deepen the Calpurnian Wars universe. Graham has a vision for where this is going, as the appendix to this novel is a Morriganian guide to Menaechmi, which is the setting of the projected next book in the series. The culture shifts and differences among the worlds are clear and wide and I look forward to seeing more of Graham’s verse.

---

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for a rich exploration of faith, belief and deep culture in Spaaaace.

+1 for a strong two hander of Sandrine and Jauffre as characters

Penalties: -1 Other aspects of the plot and character building to the top two seem a little sketched in and not as fully fleshed out.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Reference: Graham, Jo Warlady [Candlemark and Gleam, 2022]

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

Microreview [book]: Sounding Dark by Jo Graham

A diverse set of heroes fighting against an interstellar tyranny combine with inventive and richly mythic worldbuilding

Steel Captain Adelita Massacre has a problem. As one of the captains in the small fleet of the half-pirate, half-freeport world of Eresh, it is her duty to protect her people against the looming Calpurnian threat that might roll like a tide over them at any time. Eresh is a small world, with a tiny fleet, and their freedom is precarious. And so when the Captain investigates the remnants of an attack on the Eresh fleet, she is certain this is the opening gambit in a full scale attack on her world and those she has been charged to protect.

Bister also has a problem. She is the sole survivor after that space battle: but a survivor who lasted far beyond the capacity of her emergency space suit. Even weirder, she is not a Calpurnian or from the Eresh forces at all, but a former Eresh prisoner on board one of the Calpurnian ships, the only one the Eresh  managed to destroy in the conflict. Her inexplicable survival may be tied to her devotion to The Lady of the Void. The Lady of the Void is not commonly revered these days, even on Eresh. But if the Lady had saved Bister...why? And what does she want?

The fate of Adelita, Bister, and the inhabitants of Eresh and beyond may lie in finding and harnessing a legendary ghost ship to help fight the Calpurnians: the titular Sounding Dark.

Sounding Dark starts off first and foremost with an interesting set of characters. Bister, the plot driver for many of the novel's events, is a character who thinks she knows herself, but the unexpected survival puts her on a path that she is winningly both confident and forthright about... and still, humanly vulnerable and unsure what her position and her role really are, or should be. She is also the “well connected” character who forges bonds and connections across the spectrum of Eresh society and gives the reader hooks to understand those she interacts with. She is undoubtedly the heart of the novel and the primary point of view.

Captain Adelita Massacre, as the face of the expedition by Eresh, is the bold and strong starship captain that you wish, even two decades after Captain Janeway, was more common in space opera. I particularly liked her connection to her fellow Captain Tal Robber, who winds up going through some troubles of his own as the Calpurnians move in. As the novel progresses. Tal’s role in the narrative shrinks a bit, and I think that is a bit of a missed opportunity on the part of the novel, but what we see gives a good contrast to the events going on during the search for Sounding Dark. 

And even within the names of those characters, Graham unfolds rich and inventive worldbuilding. Eresh last names relate back to the crimes that got their ancestors deported from Calpurnia in the first place, helping to give Eresh a bit of an Australian feel... if Australia had managed to break away from the British Empire and was under threat of reconquest at any time, but in the meantime Australia was making a living as a trading entrepot. Then there is nearby planet Inanna, where the population has been deemed ‘Tainted’ by the Calpurnians and in theory, are not only restricted in their technology and development, but not allowed to leave (although Bister proves that people can and do escape). My mental attempts as I read the book to pigeonhole it in terms of other works constantly brought up imperfect fits. Sure you could make the Calpurnians into Lois McMaster Bujold’s overpowerful and overweening Cetagandans, but Eresh and Inanna don’t match to Barrayar in any meaningful way. Is Eresh resonant with, say, C.J Cherryh’s Downbelow Station? I think that might be firmer ground, but the political frames don’t quite match--this ‘Downbelow Station’ is *already* free, however precariously. But I do think that readers who like Cherryh’s work will find favor with Graham’s. 

But the major worldbuilding talking point in this book is a spiritual one. What is our relation to the numinous? How do cultures engage with the ineffable? These are questions that human societies have faced since there were human societies. Graham leverages this connection to the numinous to make it a central part of the interstellar civilizations in her novel in a way that much space opera and science fiction in general has struggled to try and deal with. For a long time, and in a large swath of science fiction, a relatively secular future has been the default, if not outright rejection of religion as a force in people’s lives. And even in those SFF worlds where religion and a connection to the numinous was acknowledged, there was often an awkwardness in talking about it and engaging with it as an everyday thing, a natural part of people’s lives. 

Not so in the world of Sounding Dark. There are multiple paths to the numinous within Sounding Dark, and it is a now underexplored one - reverence to the Lady of the Void - that is a key thread of character growth as well as the flow of the plot itself. The glossary at the back fleshes out and illuminates some of how and why this interstellar civilization developed in the way it did. Although I do appreciate it being here at all, and it answered questions I had while reading the novel, I do wish it was a little more enfolded in the narrative itself, because it is such a crucial factor in understanding and seeing how the plot unfolds and how it affects the characters, particularly Bister.

In sum, Jo Graham’s space opera is a richly imagined narrative with a spectrum of relatable heroes who face overwhelming odds with drive, determination, grit, and most powerfully of all, hope. Sounding Dark uses these heroes to buttress a story on multiple levels: a fight against an interstellar tyranny, a search for the meaning of an unexpected survival against all reason, and the story of a lost, ancient connection to a Mystery reforged. With its inventive use of Sumerian motifs in its intriguing worldbuilding, Sounding Dark soars to reach a liminal place on the boundaries of science fiction and myth.

I understand that Graham intends more novels, not with these characters, but elsewhere within the “Nine Worlds”. I am intrigued to see further stories set in this universe.

The Math

Baseline Assessment:7/10

Bonuses: +1 for strong and inventive use of the numinous in the worldbuilding and the makeup of the characters, a real highlight of the novel.

Penalties: -1 Some real roughness with the plotting of a couple of narrative threads

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10 

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

Reference: Graham, Jo. Sounding Dark [Candlemark and Gleam, 2021]