24 Books I'm Looking Forward to in 2021

I'd like to take a moment to talk a little bit about some books I'm looking forward to maybe reading in 2021. This is a much higher level look at the year than what we do in the New Books Spotlight each month. It's an opportunity to begin the year with our excited faces firmly on and in place about so much of the goodness that is coming our way.

As with any list, this is incomplete. Any number of stellar novels and collections have not been announced yet and will slot into place at some point this year. Some books on this list scheduled for later in the year may be pushed back into 2022 for any number of reasons. Some books are left off this list because they are the third or fourth book in a series I've never read. Some books are left off because they are not to my taste and thus, I'm not actually looking forward to them. Some books are left off this list because I haven't heard of them yet, even though they've been announced. Some books are left off this list because, sadly, I completely forgot about it even though I've tried to do as much research as possible. Finally, some books are left off this list because I had to draw the line somewhere and 24 seemed like it might be enough for one man's survey.

After all, we do still have the New Books Spotlight to look forward to each month. I'm sure in many cases there will be some overlap, but discussing and arguing is half the fun, isn't it?

1. Remote Control, by Nnedi Okorafor (Jan, Tor.com Publishing): I've been anticipating Remote Control for long enough that I've almost forgotten the reason why, except that anything written by Nnedi Okorafor should be considered essential reading. But then, the idea of "the adopted daughter of Death" is incredibly compelling on its own. I can't wait to read how Okorafor handles it.

2. The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey (Feb, Tor): It's interesting that most of the comparisons for The Echo Wife have been television shows: Killing Eve, Orphan Black, Westworld, Big Little Lies. I'm familiar enough with the concepts of those shows, but I don't have the working knowledge of having watched any of them for the comps to do much to help. What does help is that the more I've read from Gailey the more I want to read. Most recently, Magic for Liars was exceptional (a non magical adult at a magic school investigating a crime) and the idea about clones cleaning up after the murder of the original's spouse (by them? By someone else?) is a heck of an idea in Gailey's hands.

3. Calculated Risks, by Seanan McGuire (Feb, DAW): Out of all the places I might have expected one of McGuire's Incryptid novels to end, another dimension is not one of them. But, that's exactly where the previous book, Imaginary Numbers, ended up with Sarah Zellaby and others (limited spoilers here) stuck in another freaking dimension. I'm not saying the Incryptid novels were fully grounded, but they made the supernatural part of the natural world. This pushes the bounds of that idea, but I'm here for anywhere Seanan McGuire wants to take me. Like last year, I have made the choice to not include every Seanan McGuire novel on a list of twenty four, but there's a forthcoming October Daye (When Sorrows Came), a Wayward Children novella (Across the Green Grass Fields), and the Ghost Roads novel I'll write about in just a bit.

4. Out Past the Stars, by K.B. Wagers (Feb, Orbit): Hail Bristol has been through quite a bit, but one way or the other this will all end. Out Past the Stars is the concluding volume of the Farian War trilogy and the sixth book of the story began with Behind the Throne. Hail's story is not an easy one, being pulled from her life in exile to claim the throne of her family's empire after the rest of her family is murdered. Collectively, this is one wild ride. Often intense, but always compelling. I've enjoyed almost every moment I've spent with Hail (Down Among the Dead was a fairly tough read and Hail was in a very bad place - not *The* Bad Place, that's a different story, but a bad place indeed). I am thrilled to see what Wagers has in store for us (and for Hail). It's sure to be wonderful, though not completely pleasant.

5. Soulstar, by C.L. Polk (Feb, Tor.com Publishing): Stormsong was so much better than I could have hoped it would be. I adored that novel and I am all the more excited for Soulstar than I would have been before Stormsong. This is an absolutely lovely series. It appears Polk is switching up protagonists again with Soulstar, so I'll be interested to see how I engage with Robin Thorpe compared to Grace Hensley.

6. A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine (Mar, Tor): I am reading A Desolation Called Peace at the same time I'm writing this article. Not at the exact same time, that would be a bit awkward and I'm not nearly as good at multitasking as I think I am.

7. Victories Greater Than Death, by Charlie Jane Anders (Apr, Tor Teen): I was sold from this: "A thrilling adventure set against an intergalactic war with international bestselling author Charlie Jane Anders at the helm in her YA debut—think Star Wars meets Doctor Who". The two previous novels from Anders have been excellent and her most recent, The City in the Middle of the Night was a major step up and a novel that should be talked about for years. I am here for whatever Anders does next, and this one sounds like a blast.

8. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers (Apr, Harper Voyager): Frankly, it's a new Wayfarers novel from Becky Chambers and that's generally good enough for me. Each of the three previous novels in the series were absolute delights of positive science fiction (starting with A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet) and that's something to appreciate and anticipate.

9. Hummingbird Salamander, by Jeff VanderMeer (Apr, FSG): Perhaps moreso than any other writer, I have no idea what I am getting into when I start a Jeff VanderMeer novel. Some of them hit perfectly with me (Finch, Annihilation), others are a greater challenge, but all of them are like nothing I've read before and attempting to figure out what is going on and how it all works together is part of the fun.

10. Angel of the Overpass, by Seanan McGuire (May, DAW): My second novel from Seanan McGuire on this list. It's difficult to limit myself to only two, so I like to have one of them be a bit different than her two mainline series (Incryptid and October Daye), though this does tie in to her Incryptid novels. Angel of the Overpass is the third Ghost Roads novel. This is the continuing story of Rose Marshall, long dead ghost, and her battle with Bobby Cross. I can't wait.

11. We Are Satellites, by Sarah Pinsker (May, Berkley): Pinsker's prescience with A Song for a New Day was disturbing, though the novel was exceptional. We Are Satellites looks at the future of technology, the impact on one family, and how society deals with the changes brought with an ever-present tech. It's a Sarah Pinsker novel, which means it's going to be thoughtful, smart, and likely to be one of my favorite books of the year.

12. Sorrowland, by Rivers Solomon (May, MCD): The two previous books from Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts and The Deep, were incredible and powerful and punched you right through the gut. Sorrowland is likely to be a breakout novel outside of science fiction and fantasy, though this works very much around the traditions of the field. The book description noting that "here, monsters are not just individuals, but entire nations" tells the reader that this is a novel to pay attention to. Solomon's track record says this will be excellent. The description suggests Sorrowland will also be important.

13. The Witness for the Dead, by Katherine Addison (May, Tor): The Goblin Emperor was a spectacular novel and, in some ways even more remarkable in that it was a single volume stand alone fantasy. There's not nearly as many of those as there should be. The Goblin Emperor is still a standalone, it's just not standing as alone as it was before because The Witness for the Dead is set in the same world, featuring at least one of the same characters (Maia is not the lead here) - but will still tell a distinct and mostly separate story. There were always more stories to tell in this world and I'm quite glad that Addison is returning to tell one of them.

14. The Return of the Sorceress, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Jun, Subterranean): Silvia Moreno-Garcia doesn't miss, so frankly all I need to know is that this is her new novella. The rest will take care of itself. Throw in a deposed "Supreme Mistress of the Guild of Sorcerers" and some classic sword and sorcery as told by Moreno-Garcia and I'm all in.

15. The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Jul, Tor): One of my favorite ongoing series right now is Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut series. The Spare Man looks to be somewhat different, it's a murder mystery on a cruise liner - but the cruise is between Earth and Mars. With Kowal's flair for storytelling, I have high expectations.

16. The Last Graduate, by Naomi Novik (Jul, Del Rey): We're a little behind in getting to the first Scholomance novel, A Deadly Education - but Novik's track record is stellar and her two previous novels (Uprooted and Spinning Silver) were a significant leveling up - so my plan for this year is to read A Deadly Education, love it as much as I expect to, and then move right into The Last Graduate.

17. A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers (Jul, Tor.com Publishing): This is the story of a monk and a robot. It's a new series from Becky Chambers and since this year has the bonus excitement of another Wayfarers novel it's going to be a good year. This is hopeful science fiction and that's exactly what I'm looking for.

18. She Who Became the Sun, by Shella Parker Chan (Jul, Tor): I'm into the idea of a retelling of the founding of the Ming Dynasty. I can't say that I know anything about the founding of the Ming Dynasty, but it's also not the same story that I've seen so many times and the base of a woman escaping death by taking on her dead's brother identity to eventually rise to greatness, well - that's a story I want to read.

19. Invisible Sun, by Charles Stross (Sep, Tor): It's been three years since the publication of Dark State, the second book in the Empire Games trilogy which itself was the follow up series to The Merchant Princes. I have a perpetual case of mixed feelings about the series (and an every-other volume theory of its relative quality), but I just love the ideas that Stross works without across this parallel-dimensional story. As far as I know (and as far as Stross has said publically), this is going to be it for the Merchant Princes universe and I really want to see how it ends.

20. The Wisdom of Crowds, by Joe Abercrombie (Sep, Orbit): I'm one book behind on my Abercrombie, but this new trilogy in the world of the First Law is as good as Abercrombie has ever been. A Little Hatred was one of the best fantasies of 2019 and as challenging of a world the First Law is, it's fascinating to see how Abercrombie is showing his world developing through changing technology. The fighting can still get down in the mud, but this isn't the same world as the Bloody Nine fought even though it's not too far away from it.

21. Jade Legacy, by Fonda Lee (Sep, Orbit): Without being trite about it, the Green Bone Saga is sort of what you might get if you took The Godfather, added magic and a whole lot of heart. Jade City and Jade War were two of the finest novels of their respective publication years and I have been eagerly awaiting Jade Legacy from the final page of Jade War. Now it's almost here and I am ready.

22. Leviathan Falls, by James S.A. Corey (Oct, Orbit): The time jump in The Expanse after book 6 was a bold storytelling choice, but it worked to reset the universe and give everything (and everyone) a chance to breathe. It also allowed James S.A. Corey to set the deck in a way that wouldn't have worked by pushing the timeline just a few months (or even a few years). James S.A. Corey is at the top of their game and with Leviathan Falls, we've come to the end of The Expanse. These nine volumes are collectively as good as it gets in space opera. 

23. Space Oddity, by Catherynne M. Valente (???, Saga): Speaking of Space Opera, I'm not quite sure if we'll see this in 2021 but Space Oddity is the sequel to Valente's sensational Space Opera. That was a Eurovision romp of galactic musical theater and I am here for another book. 

24. Losing Gravity, by Kameron Hurley (???, Saga): Kameron Hurley pitched Losing Gravity as "Killing Eve meets Die Hard, in space". I've long enjoyed Hurley's novels, but she leveled up quite a bit with The Stars Are Legion and then again in The Light Brigade. Hurley's fantasy has kicked ass, but her science fiction is next level.

So, that's it. 24 books I'm looking forward to in 2021. Except, of course, I'm really looking forward to all the books. I've had to fight myself to not make this the "36 Books I'm Looking Forward to in 2021" and if you're reading this as is, it means that I didn't make a last hour dash to expand the list in despair at leaving anything off.

There are so many exciting books coming out this year. I didn't mention Fugitive Telemetry (Martha Wells), Across the Green Grass Fields (Seanan McGuire), The Hidden Palace (Helene Wecker), Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir), Chaos on Catnet (Naomi Kritzer), On Fragile Waves (E. Lily Yu), and Machinehood (S.B. Divya) and any number of other novels that are likely to be my new favorites.

And all of that doesn't even take into consideration the question marks of whether we will see The Winds of Winter from George R.R. Martin this year. I'm pretty sure Alecto the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) will push to 2022. Leigh Bardugo is likely to have a follow up to Ninth House, but I'm not sure if there is a publication date. I'm also hesitant to put novels like Sleight of Shadows (Kat Howard) or The Thorn of Emberlain (Scott Lynch) on my list simply because I've included them years before and this time I'd like something more locked in than in previous years.

So many books. So little time.

I know I say this pretty much all the time, but this should be another awesome year for science fiction and fantasy. What are you looking forward to? 


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 4x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him.

Microreview [book]: Give Way to Night by Cass Morris

The follow-up to From Unseen Fire continues the story of the Vitellae family in an alternate Rome with magic.

In Cass Morris From Unseen Fire, we were introduced to Vitella Secunda (second daughter of the Vitellae family), Latona, her sisters, and the world of Aven. “Alternate Rome with Magic” is a shorthand for Aven that works to a point --history doesn’t quite match up perfectly, although it certainly rhymes with the Roman Republic we do know. With the death of the Dictator (a Sulla analogue), Aven is in a precarious political position. Sempronius Tarren, a composite of Gaius Julius Ceasar and Pompey, has ambitions of his own, and soon finds himself connected with Latona and her family as they all fight to keep Aven together, both in the city and abroad. That novel ended with Tarren and Latona having blunted the immediate threat, and Tarren headed off to Iberia to deal with an uprising, and Latona in Aven dealing with her burgeoning powers.

Give Way to Night continues all of these stories and splits the narrative between Iberia, where Tarren has gotten a command (and the Vitellae son, Gaius has been there since the first book), and Aven itself, focusing on Latona and her magic-less elder sister Aula, and her younger sister, Alhena. Like Latona, Alhena is a mage, too, although with very different, more prophetic gifts, which grow in potency and power as the novel unfolds.

The first book did a lot of the groundwork that this novel takes full advantage of. We learned about Aven and its late Republic Rome analogues (often really on the nose, even using the same terms for the political factions) and introducing us to the set of characters that take stage in this novel. With the slow build gone and things ramping up, this novel launches into a two headed narrative feet first (making this novel not a good way to start the series, it fully assumes you have read the first novel and while it touches on events of the first novel, that laid down worldbuilding and setup are indispensable) . The novel takes place in Aven (or more generally, Truscum (Italy) and in Iberia (Spain) in a pair of narratives with Latona and Sempronius as the major viewpoint characters, but with a spread of other points of view on both sides of the conflicts. Morris is definitely of the school that “POV solves everything” and carefully uses viewpoint to show all facets of what is going on, and develops a range of character personalities, problems, and voices thereby.  Things escalate quickly, and while there are chances and places for the reader and the characters to catch their breath now and again, this is very much a novel where the protagonists are backfooted by their foes over and over again. 

The forces of Chaos (in a Moorcockian sense) definitely press matters as much as they can. In that, we get battles, dark magic, battles, magical entanglements, political scheming, and personal struggles. I cheered when a character finally made a personal choice that I wondered when it was going to happen since the start of Unseen Fire, and in general, character growth is something the Vitellae women in particular get a fair amount of. The men in the novel are a little less well run down the tracks that way (although they do go through challenges). This is a novel which, like the first, centers on its female characters and develops and grows them throughout the novel. 

I have spoken in many reviews about the idea of an off-ramp for a first book, a way to stop the reading of a series in a neat way at the first book, but with the opening of going on to the second book there. This second book, however, takes no such pains to provide an off-ramp for the reader, and in point of fact ends in a rather startling, shocking and suspenseful cliffhanger for the fate of a major character. The plot lines of the novel do resolve well, but it is the personal plots and drives that do not tie off, casting off into the future of the third novel. In point of fact, aside from the cliffhanger, a number of characters come to rather pointed crossroads or changes that look to drive the third novel. This again is in keeping with the aforementioned character growth.

That is the ultimate strength of the first and now the second novel. It’s not an expy copy of Rome and the events of the rise of Gaius Julius Ceasar, and the author is not trying recapitulate those historical beats (even if you substitute Iberia for Gaul). These novels, Give Way to Night in particular as the series gets into high gear, is a much more personal and character driven set of narratives. Not only the protagonists, the Vitellae family, and Sempronius, but also the two sets of antagonists--the ultimate foe within Aven, and Ekialde, the chieftain of the Lusetani, who really sets himself as the antagonist against the forces of Aven in Iberia, they all have very personal drives, wishes, hopes and desires that don’t always orthogonally fit in with a black and white narrative. Neitin, Ekialde’s wife, clearly comes in here for Morris’ use of her point of view to provide a conflicted point of view on the “enemy camp” - she supports and loves her husband, but the methods he turns to in his quest to drive back the outsiders causes her to doubt and reconsider the wisdom of those methods. But again, its not just an intellectual exercise--its tied to her love for her son. And given what we learn about the force behind the antagonist in Aven, I could find sympathy even there, for reasons the characters within the novel might not understand, but I, as a reader, do. 

I had high hopes but also slight fears when I picked up Unseen Fire, and I did wonder about the roughness of a bit of the aspects of that novel and a couple of missed opportunities. This novel builds on the foundations of the first novel as things kick into high gear. It’s an improvement on all fronts, taking the sturdy but sometimes imperfect standard of the first novel and moving forward strongly on nearly all fronts. (Some of my criticisms of the first book DO apply but the verve of this book as opposed to the slow build of the first did make me think about those flaws much less). The brick city that Morris built in the first novel is starting to transform itself into marble, and I fully hope that the third book completes that transformation.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses : +1 for a character focused reading experience that is strong and plot driving

+1 for more excellent worldbuilding that makes for an epic historical fantastic reading experience that is rich and rewarding. 

Penalties: -1 some of the unexamined social ideas in the first novel are still left disappointingly untouched.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10 well worth your time and attention

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

Thursday Morning Superhero: New Year's Resolution Edition

 We all hope that 2021 is better than 2020 and I remain optimistic that it will be and have planned on another set of nerdy New Year's Resolutions.  Without further ado, here are my resolutions for 2021.

Support my LCS:
While I try to do this on a regular basis, I live pretty far from my local comic book store and often buy my books on ComiXology.  I love ComiXology, subscribe to its unlimited service, and highly recommend the platform.  Having said that, I know that COVID has been very hard on comic book stores and it is critical that we help support them throughout 2021. My LCS switched to an online pull-list and I my plan for 2021 is to add more books to it and to pick up other items when I pick up my comics.  I know that everyone can't do this for various reasons, I encourage those who can to continue to support your LCS.

Read more Manga:
I have dabbled in Manga previously and have enjoyed series like Death Note and Attack on Titan, but there is a wealth of amazing stories sitting on the shelf that I really should be reading.  My son recently started reading Fairy Tail and encouraged me to do the same.  I am enjoying this series and inspired to research other series that I should read next.  As someone who doesn't know a ton about Manga, it is definitely intimidating.  In 2021 I will do my best to research and read more Manga.

Work on my Game Pile of Shame:
Sadly this has grown from a boardgame pile of shame to a game pile of shame.  I am including video games that I have started, enjoyed, and not finished yet.  I'm looking at you Luigi's Mansion!  I am happy to report that I have already played most of the board games I got for X-mas and my son and I are really enjoying Marvel: Villainous.  If I can organize and put forward a plan I know my family will help me with this endeavor. 

I am sure that there are other items I could add to my list, but with everything that is going on in the world I wanted to keep things simple and focus on things that would bring me joy.  Here is to wishing you a happy 2021!

POSTED BY MIKE N. aka Victor Domashev -- comic guy, proudly raising nerdy kids, and Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012.

Nerds on Tour: Your Name (2016 film)

Dossier: YOUR NAME

Location: Japan

Package Type: Film

Itinerary: Mitsuha is a teenage girl who lives in a small, rural Japanese town called Itomori, and belongs to a family whose duty it is to maintain the town shrine. She chafes against her  responsibilities at the shrine, which are dictated by tradition, and her future prospects, which seem circumscribed by her town and her gender. Her father, for instance, disliked the duties of the shrine, and simply left the family and all of his responsibilities after Mitsuha's mother died. Far from being chastised for this, he's now the mayor of Itomori. Mitsuha wishes not only that she could live in a big, vibrant city, but also that she could be a boy, unfettered by traditional expectations for how a girl "should" behave. 

 

Enter Taki, a teenage boy living in Tokyo, trying to balance school and a part-time job at a restaurant. Enter body-switch movie territory. 

 

Inexplicably, Mitsuha and Taki begin switching bodies, and making a mess of each other's lives. They eventually work out a communication system using their phones, leaving notes for each other and keeping the other appraised of what happened while each was inhabiting the other. After the crash landing each experiences after first swapping bodies, they begin "fixing" each other's lives, where Mitsuha (as Taki) sets up a date with Okudera, the waitress Taki secretly likes, and Taki (as Mitshua) stands up to some of the kids in school who have been bullying her.

 

This is all pretty basic body-switch movie stuff, but when Taki realizes on his date with Okudera that he actually cares more for Mitsuha and should try to contact her, the film takes a stunning left turn that catapults it far outside of any type of body-switch trope territory and turns the narrative on its head. To say more would be to rob a future viewer of the experience of this film.

Travel Log: I first saw Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru about 20 years ago. Your Name is the first film I've seen since then that has excited me in the same way through its use of narrative structure. This is high praise, indeed. It doesn't rely on a twist ending -- those are fun and exciting when done well, sure, and a film like Inception is imaginative and labyrinthine, but Your Name does something unique, and pulls off a trick I have never before seen in a movie. It convinces you that you're watching one thing, and then reveals halfway through, in stunning fashion, that you've been watching something different the whole time. Re-watching the film, you see the sign posts and clues, and I for one, simply marveled at the storytelling and visual cues used to pull off the narrative. 

 

But putting aside the narrative tightrope that Your Name navigates so successfully, the film offers other joys. I am a big fan of Studio Ghibli, and count Kurosawa as one of my favorite directors, if not my very favorite. But these films offer a specific perspective on Japan. The films of Miyazaki often exist in the realm of historical fantasy, exploring a uniquely Japanese sense of spirituality and harmony. Even films like The Wind Rises, which dispenses with the fantasy, is still set in the Japan of the 1930s. Kurosawa set many of his films long before that, dealing with samurai and Shakespearean transpositions to feudal Japan. Yet his contemporary films, films such as High and Low and Stray Dog, were made in the 1940s and 50s. 

 

So as an American, I found the depiction of today's Japan in Your Name compelling and evocative. The Itomori of 2016 is a close parallel of the small towns I've seen in Ghibli films from My Neighbor Totoro (set sometime in the 1950s) to When Marnie was There (a more contemporary setting, but with time-switching fantasy at its narrative core). Seeing those traditional settings and patterns through the lens of an up-to-the-minute now, and through Mitsuha's frustrations with how stuck in the past everything seems, had a lot of emotional resonance for me. And then to see the marvel of Taki's present-day Tokyo, and to experience it through Mitsuha's eyes, made watching Your Name a rich, evocative experience in its juxtapositions of an animated Japan I've seen for many, many years, and a new one that I had not seen.    

Analytics

The Adventure: 5/5
The Scenery: 5/5.
NerdTrip Rating: 10/10 

 

Posted by Vance K -- cult film reviewer and co-editor of nerds of a feather, flock together since 2012, Ghibli stan since the long-long ago of the 1900s, who is writing this while wearing a Totoro shirt. 

Microreview [book]: A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

The Scholomance's potential is squandered in the dead angles of its worldbuilding.

Sometimes, books are very easy to talk about, and reviews write themselves: things are great (or maybe not great, but still notable), and I am very excited to point them out! Other books are not easy to talk about, and when that happens it's usually a failure to connect: a book that was probably fine, but which left me without much that I'm desperate to convey about it, and looking for the right words to describe the experience is a more active challenge. And then... then you get books like A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik's latest offering. This book is hard to talk about because, wow, where do I start.

Well, let's start with the basics. A Deadly Education is set in a magic school with the horror dialled up to eleven: set in the Scholomance, a school which annually scoops up a mostly-preselected group of magical teens from around the world and dumps them in an educational facility mostly located in a void dimension (which, in turn, is located in the UK, because where else would a magic boarding school be??). There appears to be a fully fledged, functioning society beyond the walls of this magic school, but we only catch glimpses of it through flashback, because for four years the students of the scholomance are locked in without adults, holidays or even any school supplies that aren't either brought in through freshers or provided at the whims of the school's magical replenishment. This is because in this version of our world, magical kids are walking magnets for various magical monstrosities which view them as soft, tasty targets to devour. The school is supposed to protect them from this fate, but monsters are nothing if not persistent, and every year only a fraction of the top class gets the opportunity to graduate, and an even smaller percentage makes it through graduation, because graduation (you guessed it) involves even more monsters.

The reader is guided through this nightmare scenario - in a lot of descriptive first person prose - by El Higgins, a Junior year student (sure, this international magical boarding school in the UK has an internal structure based on the US high school system, why wouldn't it) who is fighting an uphill battle not just to stay alive against the monsters, but to do it alone, while trying to control a magical aptitude that wants to push her towards being mana-sucking evil sorceress with an arsenal of destructive spells. El hasn't made any friends during her stay at the Scholomance so far, but she's biding her time for a big magical gesture that will make everyone around her pay attention and ask her to join their team for graduation, maybe even getting her into a wealthy, protected magical enclave in the process. Complicating this plan for survival is Orion Lake, her year's big superstar, whose own affinity means that he's saved an impressive proportion of his own year from being snacked on by monsters before graduation. That's great news for everyone who hasn't been a monster snack, but bad news for the class about to graduate, who are facing an unusually busy and hungry graduation "ceremony" when they leave the school.

El is a rather dense and self-sabotaging protagonist, so when Orion starts showing an interest in her - first as a suspect in another student's murder, but then as, shock horror, an actual friend - she decides this is terrible, actually, and spends a lot of time trying to shake him off. But it's too late: Orion's interest in her gets El noticed by the wider student body (especially the students of the elite New York enclave to which Orion belongs) and also pushes her to start thinking about choosing her own friends, notably artificer Aadhya and dark-mage-gone-clean Liu. Readers who are wondering if maybe this is the book where Novik will push these interesting female relationships into the foreground over having the day saved by heterosexual attraction: sorry, nope. El's chosen friendships do play an important role, but they're ultimately second fiddle to her relationship with Orion and the plots surrounding that, and it's El and Orion - from among the main cast, at least - who end up saving the day.

This book has been strongly criticised for its handling of race, and particularly one thoughtless (by the author's own admission) and racist passage involving Black hair. Beyond this, there's been a range of reactions, both positive and negative, from reviewers of colour reacting to the broader setting and how the international setting of the Scholomance is handled. As a white reviewer, it's not my place at all to pass judgement on the points raised, but there's no escaping the fact that El's world is a mix of the kind of diversity you get on Captain Planet or the Star Trek bridge, with students from every continent and culture apparently converging in this corner of Void!Britain and slotting into a mostly homogenised school culture. Language is a big part of spellcasting, and most students, El included, have a curriculum focused on learning as many languages as possible in order to cast spells in them. There's also a very obvious but unremarked upon prevalence of white characters in the key positions of power (the New York and London enclaves) that El finds herself butting heads with. El herself is mixed race, but was raised by a white British mother and rejected by her Indian relatives due to her magical affinity. There's nothing inherently problematic about that - characters of colour shouldn't have to justify themselves with some threshold of cultural performance to exist, and there are plenty of mixed race and diaspora people who grow up without strong cultural connections to some or all of their heritage. But it's impossible to ignore the fact that real world prejudices and inequalities do appear all around this worldbuilding, even if the setting is supposed to be divorced from that context. 

As a reader, my reaction to those prejudices being replicated in an ostensibly representative text is to look to whether I trust the author to be doing something intentional and therefore potentially worthwhile: is this book trying to say something, or am I just experiencing the author's dead angles replicated on the page? Passages like the description of locs, or another moment where El identifies a language worksheet as being "modern" Arabic because it has cartoon depictions of terrorist acts on it, make it really hard to interpret A Deadly Education as doing anything but the former. And, sure, there's a lot of books and authors out there doing worse things, and caring a lot less - and in many ways, it's A Deadly Education's commitment to trying to imagine a genuinely diverse, international magic school that makes its dead angles so obvious - but that doesn't make the failings here less disappointing, especially as this is a book that had resources for sensitivity reading.

Frankly, this kind of thing leaves me tired. The Scholomance is an interesting take on a trope that still has great potential, but I don't want to read about societies of international sorcerers, and their special magic schools in a story that expects white wizards of the US and UK to be the centre of power within that international system. It doesn't help that, despite enjoying her previous work, there are other elements in the kinds of stories Novik seems to want to write that are exhausting to me too: I am tired of having interesting relationships between women dangled in front of me and then pushed aside for heterosexual pairings that are at best "meh" and at worst super creepy, and I'm tired of stories that subvert their subgenres on the surface while still being tied to the same patriarchal nonsense as their predecessors. A Deadly Education is, in many ways, an enjoyable book: a bit grim, a little slow to start, and very invested in its explanations, but ultimately a lot of fun. But as a multiple award winner and nominee, I think Novik's work asks to be held to higher standards than that, and this is a book that falls short in a number of unfortunate ways.

The Math

Baseline Score: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 El is an entertaining, if dense, narrator to follow around the Scholomance, and her relationships with Aadyha and Liu are fun to watch

Penalties: -2 racist slip-ups and apparent unconscious biases make it hard to trust where this is going; -1 I simply did not ask for another Naomi Novik book where the main character gets into a heterosexual romance with the embodiment of the patriarchy

Nerd Coefficient: 5/10

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: Novik, Naomi. A Deadly Education (Del Rey, 2020)

Top 9 Books of the Year

Some people do a top ten list, others do a top eleven (insert your outdated Spinal Tap joke here), some may go shorter, though I don't understand those people. My list is 9 books long. Why? Partly to be a little bit different and partly because I want the tenth spot on my list to be reserved for that really great book which I simply did not get the chance to read during 2020. That really great book may also be something I have only heard whispers about and I may not discover for several more years. Whatever that tenth great book is, I’m holding a spot for it on my list.

Also, there is no doubt that this list, like every other list out there is built entirely on the combination of the books I've actually read with my own prejudices, taste, preferences, and the choices I made when selecting books to read across the breadth of 2020. That's really what we're saying when we say we've put together a list of the "Best Books of the Year". It's the best we've read, the best we can remember, the best based on what we appreciate in speculative fiction. One of the other best books I've read this year is Louise Erdrich's latest novel The Night Watchman, but this is a speculative fiction blog focusing on more nerdy endeavors, so for the sake of theme I'll limit this list to science fiction, fantasy, and everything in between and around the edges.

Most years I think I stay fairly well on top of the genre and will read most of the significant novels of the year. I'll miss some, of course, but granting my abovementioned prejudices, taste, preferences, and choices - on the whole, I know the shape of the year and there's usually only a handful of books that I wanted to read that I didn't get to before it comes time to make this list. 

This is obvious, but 2020 has not been a typical year in any stretch of the imagination and for numerous reasons I've missed out on a whole lot of really exciting novels which I do still absolutely plan to read next year - but I can only consider those books which I've actually read. Keeping reading after the list for a brief discussion of the stuff I missed out on. Remember that open tenth spot? 

This Top Nine List is more or less in order. The top two slots are a complete lock, but ask me tomorrow and some titles may shift around a bit. The order you see below is not the order in which I started this article. Whichever order the list is in, these are the nine novels published in 2020 which I feel were the strongest titles of the year.

1. The City We Became: I find it difficult to write about The City We Became without talking about N.K. Jemisin's previous novels even though they have absolutely nothing to do with The City We Became, but that's because the explosive excellence of her Broken Earth trilogy set a level of expectation that I was legitimately anxious that The City We Became would not be able to live up to. It was an impossible task that was only relieved by this novel being just about as different from those historic novels as can be - but the thing is that N.K. Jemisin is writing at the top of her game and while my apprehensions were founded because how the hell do you follow The Broken Earth, the answer is - with this. 

The City We Became is the personification of New York City writ large, a city being born into something greater and distinct beyond just being a significant city(which is a concept I absolutely adore) and Jemisin turns the whole thing into a cosmic battle that is absolutely intense and raw and everything I didn't know that I wanted from a novel. This was an absolutely incredible experience. Adri reviewed The City We Became earlier in the year and thought highly of it, but I absolutely loved it. I don't think that's because I had a childhood on Staten Island and Adri did not, but you never know. Also, having a childhood on Staten Island would not make me the hero of this book so perhaps I won't lean too much onto that connection.

 

2. Harrow the Ninth: Gideon the Ninth was an impossible debut, bold and astounding and groundbreaking and, as Adri put it in her review, "the queer NecRomantic murder mystery you've been missing all your life". It was just about as spectacular a debut as a writer could have and Tamsyn Muir could have ridden the coattails of that novel and given readers more of the same. Even granting the ending, Gideon's voice was so singular and so iconic that to move away from it would be unthinkable. And yet, Harrow the Ninth does exactly that and throws everything you think you know from Gideon the Ninth in question. Frankly, its maddening. It is also flawlessly accomplished. 

The scope of what Tamsyn Muir attempts and achieves in Harrow the Ninth is staggering, which is why I'd like to quote Adri's review of Harrow to conclude. Muir spends at least half of Harrow on a knife edge and a single slip would invite disappointing failure. Muir's hand is steady.

"And that's the real big question, with a book this dense and complex and self-contradictory: is Muir going to pull it off? In a word: fuck yes. It's that payoff to a deeply ambitious structure that really puts Harrow over the top, even when compared to its juicy but more classically-plotted predecessor; it takes serious talent to turn part of your sequel into a nonsensical retcon of the events of the previous book without completely losing your audience, let alone to turn that retcon into a vital strand of the plot and a vehicle for character growth in its own right. Even when it's refusing to take itself and its own genre seriously on the surface, every twist in Harrow's tale draws the audience deeper into its terrifying, ridiculous, mystical world and the people within it. This is a rare series that lives up to its hype and then some, and Harrow the Ninth one of the best books I've ever read."

3. Savage Legion: I've written at various lengths about Matt Wallace's Sin du Jour series of gonzo-culinary urban fantasy novellas (here's my review of the final volume, Taste of Wrath, with links to the previous six). While I'm going to talk about Savage Legion a bit here, I can't help but to make my strongest recommendation to go find a copy Envy of Angels, starting reading, and thank me later. But we're not here to talk about Sin du Jour (well, you're not. I'm always here to talk about Sin du Jour). We're here to talk about Savage Legion - Matt Wallace's epic fantasy debut, a twist in the concept of what Epic Fantasy (capital letters) does and can do within the framework of the sub genre. We're here to talk about why it's so friggin good. 

Paul Weimer wrote about Savage Legion back in June (which feels like two lifetimes ago) and does a great job covering the scope of what Wallace is working with here. Weimer writes, "the novel is a much more complicated and inventive novel than the title, cover and promotional matter led me and might lead you to believe. There are potent themes here that Wallace is exploring, the writer’s ambition to write a story that talks about some fundamental and difficult subjects, even in a secondary world setting far removed from our own, is done with verve, nuance and burgeoning skill. The role and power of the poor in society. Oppression, control of news and information, and endless war. The horror of war, environmental degradation, resource extraction and the uses of power. It’s a heady cocktail that Wallace plays with. It’s even more impressive with the savage and bloody battle scenes, the slice of life character moments, and the nuanced relationships that develop between various characters in the novel. While I am annoyed and call out again the novel is not what it seems to be, the action sequences are top notch, pulse pounding, and excellently done, a real highlight of the book."

 

While I acknowledge Paul's point that the promotion of the book focused on Evie's storyline of forcibly joining the legion and the novel is so much more, but I do not share his annoyance with that fact because I've never expected Matt Wallace to just tell a simple story of pulse pounding action. Matt Wallace doesn't write simple. Of course, far be it for me to complain about someone else taking issue with a book's promotion given my own history.  The point, of course, is not about the promotion of Savage Legion, successful as it may have been in drawing Paul and I towards the novel. 

The point is that everything about Savage Legion kicks ass. Yes, the action scenes which are specifically written to kick ass do, in fact, kick ass. Wallace writes action like nobody's business. But it is Wallace's deft treatment and handling of the socio-political in this novel which really sings. Everything is vibrant and rich and immediate. It's not that you can't look away, it's that you don't want to. Savage Legion is a fucking accomplishment.

 

4. Unconquerable Sun: These days Kate Elliott is most known for her epic fantasy novels - Crossroads, Spiritwalker, Crown of Stars, Black Wolves, and Court of Fives. Unconquerable Sun is a return to her science fiction roots - though like a good space opera it does read in some ways like epic fantasy in space (which, I think, it is an entirely separate essay and conversation). Given the high concept of "gender-bent Alexander the Great in spaaaace", that works remarkably well. High concepts and elevator pitches are nice and fun, but at least for me it's all about the execution and my trust in the writer. I have nothing but trust in Kate Elliott and she has earned every bit of it. Unconquerable Sun nails the whole thing. 

Other than having once seen Oliver Stone's Alexander movie starring Colin Farrel and having forgotten just about everything in that movie, I don't know the story of Alexander the Great. It's just a name, a half forgotten legend. It doesn't matter. Kate Elliott may be using that as the framework, but it shouldn't be considered a barrier to entry. Unconquerable Sun is a science fiction epic, a story of family and high political plotting and drama. It's a novel of ambition, both Sun's and of the author's. Kate Elliott doesn't reach for the stars, she lives there and Unconquerable Sun shines as brightly as can be. 

If you don't believe (which you should), perhaps check out Paul's review of the novel. He mentions one bit of Elliott's worldbuilding which might be my favorite bit of this wonderful novel, "her use of the idea of Channel Idol. How does one try and come up with an interstellar idea of Arete (excellence) in a way to mirror Alexander’s rise to power, fame and reputation? Easy. Create an interstellar network of news and entertainment called Idol. Add in a Eurovision like contest called Idol Faire." It's a side bit of shade and color to the novel, but it is so well constructed it feels as natural as it anything else.

 

5. The Ministry for the Future: This is the first novel on the list that I've previously written about, so I'm going to crib from myself while talking about it. 

"It may be a stretch to call The Ministry for the Future the last major novel of Kim Stanley Robinson, though I listened to an interview with Robinson where he did suggest this may be exactly that because he was changing his novel writing focus after the intensive work to put together this novel and the last several. If so, The Ministry for the Future is one heck of a way to close out this chapter of his career.

Though it begins with absolute horror, The Ministry for the Future is ultimate a hopeful novel. Robinson looks hard at our present and pushes towards the global, societal, ecological, and economical catastrophes that are looming and makes them happen. Then, he offers hope for how humanity could (and arguably must) transform our cultures to tackle the very real climate breakdowns that are occurring. This isn't much of a spoiler to say that it would require a fundamental change to human culture and that there will be some nations (the United States, say) who lag behind in effective response.

The Ministry for the Future is an impressive work of imagination and prognostication. It offers a road map that we are unlikely to take until things are too late, but then that is not much different from the path taken in the novel."

 

One point which I'd like to rehash a bit is the idea that The Ministry for the Future is a significant work of imagination and a major and important novel. As big as Kim Stanley Robinson is within the field of science fiction, I believe his work has ranging impact in the wider world. While I'm not sure the extent of Robinson's impact, he is very effective in shining a light on the consequences of our collective actions and to propose a way forward.  He's also a heck of a storyteller. If you don't believe me, maybe Barack Obama's opinion carries a little more weight.

 

6. A Pale Light in the Black: In just four years K.B. Wagers has become one of my favorite science fiction storytellers. They have published five books in the Indranan and Farian War series (so far!) and I was surprised that A Pale Light in the Black came out before The Farian War was complete, but any (brief) hesitation I might have about starting a new series from a favorite author was gone on the first page. Oh. Right. I'm in good hands and on comfortable ground. 

 

More than anything else, A Pale Light in the Black is fun. There is heady, serious science fiction that wants to teach you a lesson while telling a story (this is not a knock, look back at my thoughts on The Ministry for the Future) and that science fiction is great (told you). There is also room for the science fiction that takes your hand and pulls you along on a romp of a ride, thrilling you at every turn. Some do it with epic space battles an others do it with a fabulous cast of characters you want to be friends with and follow along on any of their adventures, whether it is drinking with your crew in the bar or participating an an intra-service military skills competition. A Pale Light in the Black is the second kind and is a pure friggin delight to read from start to finish. 

By now I've pretty much ceded the reviewing of K.B. Wagers' novels to Paul. He's done a bang up job and, frankly, he's far more prolific and consistent of a review than I can hope to be right now. As such, this would be an excellent time to check out his review of A Pale Light in the Black. 

What I think I appreciate most about A Pale Light in the Black is *who* the book is focused on. The Near Earth Orbital Guard. NEO-G. It's the Coast Guard in space, which is just about perfect. They, like the actual U.S. Coast Guard perform an incredibly important mission and are highly skilled professionals who save lives. They, like the actual U.S. Coast Guard are often looked down upon as being a lesser branch of the military (which is wrong and incorrect, they have a particular mission and perform it with excellence, but the idea remains - I also wrote that previous sentence the week the new Space Force were announced to be Guardians, so we'll see how that condescension shakes out). So when it comes to the Boarding Games, the aforementioned military competition, the NEO-G team has a lot of somethings to prove. 

I've also gotten this far without mentioning Jenks, the most delightful damn character I've read this year, which is why we've got Paul taking point on the reviews.

 

7. Stormsong: Witchmark was one of the quietly buzziest debuts of 2018, which sounds absurd on the face of it but (at least from my perspective) the story of Witchmark built and built until it was one of the most significant novels of the year. In the end, Witchmark was a World Fantasy Award winner and a Nebula Award finalist, among others. I described Witchmark as "a lovely novel and excellent debut" and I stand by that. It was excellent, but it is also a novel that has been slightly diminished in my estimation by the passage of time. I admit, I may be one of the only readers to have had that reaction given how beloved a novel it was and the award recognition it received. 

 

Then came Stormsong, a novel which exceeded any expectation I had. Everything Witchmark did well (which was a lot) Stormsong did better. Plus, it added a more than heavy dose of political intrigue to go with the top notch interpersonal relationships C.L. Polk crushed in Witchmark. But what Polk does so exceptionally in Stormsong is the melding of the political with the personal - which, I suppose is what politics can be, the personal writ large. 

Stormsong is exceptional storytelling. The smoothness and the naturalness of Polk's storytelling in Stormsong is an absolute wonder.

 

8. Architects of Memory: Each year has several prominent debut novels and, generally, two or three or them are likely to make my list of favorites. Architects of Memory was one of my more anticipated debuts and I'm quite happy that it live up to the anticipation. I may not have been able to read all of the books (debuts or otherwise) I wanted to this year, but the ones I did were quite good. I'm not the only one who thinks so. Sean Dowie wrote about Architects of Memory back in October and had this to say:

"The most singular talent of Architects of Memory is finding a new bent on a space opera story—a genre that’s been well-trodden so thoroughly and covered in footprints that it can seem impossible to find a patch of your own. And while Karen Osborne does steps on patches that have been stepped on by seemingly every sci-fi author, there are idiosyncrasies to characters and twists regarding alien life that more than make it fresh. While characterization isn’t at the top of the novel’s mind, it does do a much-more-than-serviceable job of establishing believable motivations and ample depth to keep you caring.

But the greatest joy of Architects of Memory lies in its plot and the themes they develop. Whether it tackles individuality and collectivity, the belligerent survival instincts of humanity, or relationships in secrecy, it lays the foundation for those themes and builds upon them, never leaving them underdeveloped along the way. The most intriguing theme is how memory is so tied up with our sense of self. We’re a collection of the knowledge we accrue and the relationships we build, but without memory, those things slip through our fingers like sand. Love can change from everlasting to a brief sensation. Familial bonds that we preoccupy ourselves with if the world around us is rotten becomes lost if our memory – our personal storage locker that tethers all our meaning – is gone.  

Space operas can sometimes be so unwilling to take risks and stray from conventions that they’re forgettable. Stories that have edifying substance don’t matter if they immediately leave our memory. The best way to counteract that is to have original characters, and hard-hitting themes despite how well-trodden some story beats are. Architects of Memory does that. Its craft, emotional intelligence, and smooth writing style work to create a gem that will be at the top of my mind for a long time."

9. The Relentless Moon: One thing I appreciate about Mary Robinette Kowal's science fiction is that it is ultimately optimistic. If I may be excused the pun, and even if not, I might suggest that her science fiction is relentlessly optimistic. Sure, the Lady Astronaut series began with a meteorite crashing into and devastating the Earth, but each of the novels have been about problem solving and a belief that the seemingly insurmountable is something that - with enough science, ingenuity, and hard work - can actually be overcome. To quote myself, The Relentless Moon is "about striving towards excellence and truly building a better tomorrow even in the face of a devastating future."

With The Relentless Moon, Kowal moves past the focus of Elma York of the first two Lady Astronaut novels, away from the race first into space and then Mars. Kowal brings the focus to the Moon (it's in the title, after all). The focus is on the moon, but also on the challenges of Earth. Not everyone is satisfied (let alone happy) about the existence of the space program and the diverted resources that could be better used to recover from the meteorite. That's the deepest core of the novel. 

 

To further quote myself, 

 

"There's a lot going on in The Relentless Moon and Kowal keeps everything moving and flowing together with remarkable deftness and an underlying compassion that smooths the edges off even the harshest aspects of the novel - including Nicole's eating disorder, racial issues, domestic terrorism, and a desperate fight for survival on the Moon. Everything is handled with sensitivity, though Kowal does not shy away from the emotion of the worst moments - it's more that Kowal is such a smooth writer that the reader is in safe hands. The novel leans into the pain, but with a light touch.

The Relentless Moon is more than the pain, of course. I am very much not the first to appreciate the generally healthy marriages in the Lady Astronaut novels, but reading about a relationship where both partners support each other and recognize the sacrifices they make to achieve goals and just build each other up is absolutely refreshing. Equally refreshing, especially perhaps when reading this novel during a pandemic, is that science is celebrated and problems are typically solved by smart people working very hard to come up with a solution. To paraphrase both Mark Watney (The Martian) and Vanilla Ice: if they have a problem, yo they'll solve it by sciencing the shit out of it. That's delightful. It's also important. There is violence in The Relentless Moon, but it is mostly off stage. The struggle is that of science, engineering, imagination, and decency. This novel, like the two Lady Astronaut novels before it, is about striving towards excellence and truly building a better tomorrow even in the face of a devastating future. The Relentless Moon is hopeful science fiction, and that's something worth celebrating - especially when it's this good."

 

As I mentioned in the introduction, for as many books as I read in a year, there is always something amazing that I missed and that I just didn't have time to get to. Or, as plugged in as I try to be, that I just haven't heard of (or heard enough about). As much as I wanted to, I did not read Black Sun (Rebecca Roanhorse), The Burning God (R.F. Kuang), Ring Shout (P. Djeli Clark), Network Effect (Martha Wells), Elatsoe (Darcie Little Badger), The Once and Future Witches (Alix E. Harrow), Piranesi (Susanna Clarke), Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia), Machine (Elizabeth Bear), Axiom's End (Lindsay Ellis), A Deadly Education (Naomi Novik), The Angel of Crows (Katherine Addison), among others. The list of highly recommend and presumably stellar novels that I just didn't get to read this year is long and distinguished. That's the reason for the tenth spot on the list.

 

POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 4x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him.

Microreview [book]: The Frozen Crown by Greta Kelly

A fish-out-of-water tale of a Crown Princess in a foreign court, beset by enemies occupying her land, and making plans for her future in her temporary home, whether she wants it or not

Askia, a fugitive princess far more capable with a sword than with a kind word, has a problem. The grasping, spreading Roven Empire has used soldiers and a grasping relative to take over her hands, her kingdom. Her only refuge is the only equal to the Roven Empire, the Empire of Vishir. But her past there is going to catch up to her, and even in the second power of the world, she cannot necessarily escape the Roven Empire, even as she strives for a way to oppose them to find a way to free her home.

To say nothing of a dread personal secret that nearly got her killed once before--Askia, you see, is a witch. And especially where she is going, there are many who look at fear to witches, fear that causes them to bloody action against them. It is a secret that Askia needs to keep, but the nature of her own magic makes it impossible for her to ignore it. 

All of this is the matter of Greta Kelly’s The Frozen Crown.

While the novel starts us off with Askia on the run, on the edge of her former realm, the book hustles her to the site of the heart of the book in short order. It’s a good opening, showing the desperation and plight of the antagonist, and those around her. It's a good opening for establishing her bonafides, her character, and her aforementioned magical secret. It also shows the precariousness of her position and what she is willing to do to survive. 

The real action and meat is when we get the fish out of water trip to the royal court of Vishir. While Askia IS half-Vishirian, and has spent time there in her youth, the consequences and history of which unwind and are revealed in the narrative, being thrown into a royal court where the rules and structure and setup and scaffolding of power are unknown helps reinforce the discomforting narrative. This is a novel that is all about discomfort, about being in a place unfamiliar, seemingly with enemies or at least neutrals all around, and a real lack of traction for her desires. And yet for all of that impotence, Askia strives her way forward by being who she is. Making Askia a hard character more comfortable with sword or her untrained magical ability than with court intrigues is a choice that always leaves the reader a little ahead of the character, since the author telegraphs some moves very cleverly that Askia herself is caught flat footed on.

This plotting, where the reader can be ahead of the main character is tricky to pull off. It’s not that Askia is incapable or weak, quite to the contrary. But to use a roleplaying game analogy, this is a character built for combat, and a potential for magic, and is thrust into a social, political situation that she doesn't have the basic skills for. She tries to learn and not sink, but its definitely far, far out of her comfort zone.

Beyond the twisting and intricate plotting, which really makes or breaks the book for a reader, and beyond Askia as a strong character, the novel carefully and engagingly builds up its world. Given Askia’s semi-outsider status, the classic technique of Askia not knowing the terrain and the populace is a well worn road that the author leverages rather well. Vishir contrasts with Askia’s own Seravesh, and as perceived, the Roven Empire. In some ways, this is really the epitome and classic “deadly decadent court”, complete with a monarch not fully in control, multiple centers of power, intrigue, and agendas. It will not surprise the reader that the Roven Empire has an ambassador to the Vishir court, and his interactions with Askia are appropriately full of menace and danger.

Of course having a foreign princess  wishing allies against the other major power in the world is a larger splash than Askia expects. (Again, a running theme of this book and this review--Askia has an inexperience (it’s not precisely naivete) with these matters that gets her into trouble, and helps drive the plot. It’s a train of worldbuilding and character that leads to tasty and interesting plot and engine. Things open up when Askia finds that there are other magicians in the Viskir Court, and her interaction with them provides opportunities for her to grow. At the same time, the fanatics with whom she has a past make their presence known, and the cycle feeds the worldbuilding and plot back into the character growth once more. This makes for a smoothly running narrative. 

In addition to the smoothly running narrative, the author has a good sense of character and the internal thoughts of Askia. With the third person point of view focused on Askia, we are tied closely to her as a character and the author leverages that connection not only to give us a view on the world and explain the world but to bind us to Askia as a character. She is remarkable in being differently sided than a more typical protagonist might be, soft where others might be hard, and very hard where others might be soft. 

It’s all very good...but sometimes I wish it was a bit more surprising. I am of two minds about this. In some ways it feels just a tiny bit shopworn, the beats, revelations and developments feel telegraphed and a bit overly familiar (this may also be a consequence of the amount of epic fantasy that I consume, or the breadth of that reading).  On the other hand, its very well written for what it is, and while it is familiar in many ways, it is well done and the book works for me as a comfort read. (Although very different in significant respects, Sarah Kosloff’s quartet also works in this regard--and people who like the one are going to like the other) and a reading experience for exploring the world and character that while I never had my jaw dropped, I got invested into the world and characters. The novel is the first in a duology, and it does end in a cliffhanger. You will most definitely not get a complete story here. However, despite its familiarity, the execution, right up to the cliffhanger, is engaging and makes the novel work.

The Math

Baseline Score: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 Strong writing and engaging as a comfort read

Penalties: -1 Sometimes the book runs on far far too familiar tracks and does not take enough chances with the narrative, worldbuilding or character

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10  an enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws

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

Reference: Kelly, Greta. The Frozen Crown [Harper Voyager, 2021]