Outlaw Mage - K.S. Villoso

Outlaw Mage is the start of a new series for Villoso, whose Annals of the Bitch Queen series was a delightful, bloody, character-driven read that dovetailed complex human relationships with a desire to explore the ideas and issues that make people, well, people. And, you know, also stab people a lot. On balance, I think this new book has similar strengths; the character work is top-notch, the world-building is at once intricate and organic, so it never feels like you're being infodumped, and the story certainly kept me turning pages long after I should've been in bed. There are, I think, fewer stabbings. On the other hand, there's quite a few messy magical demises in there, so it probably balances out. So that's the capsule review. Magic, cynical, smart protagonist who is slightly too jaded for her own good, an immigrant story, a family story, a story of expectations and reality, a story of fighting against a system from inside and outside it, a story with more than a few explosions. It's a great time, and you should read it. 

Now, a little more in depth stuff. Full disclosure, I backed this one on Kickstarter, so I was primed to enjoy it, given Villoso's record. And, well, I did. So lets talk a bit about why.

First, I like Rosha. The protagonist of the book, she's a woman with talent. Magical talent to be precise. The sort of talent that lets you teleport around the place, or turn your enemies inside out. She's fiercely intelligent, and deeply uncompromising. She is also, at least in my view, someone who has a lot of wards up against a system that is designed to hurt her. She struggles, sometimes, to relate to people. In many ways, she wants to be left alone. But oh, is she proud. A woman who knows she's the best in her class, at the pre-eminent magical academy. Surrounded by sycophants, try-hards and political scions, all of whom will end up better positioned than she does, because of where she came from. Because Rosha is from a little-loved late-acquired portion of a fantasy Empire, a place nobody thinks about much, a place where the people are othered, not worth the time of those folks who go to, say, elite magic schools. But Rosha is definat and competent and knows what she's about.  I love that for her, about her. And seeing her struggle, to try and make something of herself out of the expectations other s have set for her, and that she set for herself, that's a joy, too.; As is the life and energy and passion you can see in her when she's talking about her family, with her family. As an aside, it's lovely to just see a family like this. They're a sprawling net of squabbling, loving, hurtful, silly, murderous, wonderful people, and honestly I'd go to dinner with all of them. The dynamics there are perfect, the prodigal daughter with one foot out the door and one foot teetering over the edge of the frame, one way or the other, trying to find acceptance and herself in equal measure. Honestly, I'm doing Rosha a disservice, because there'#s so much going on beneath the surface of her story, as the book slowly unpacks he rmotivations, her past, and that of those around her. But I'm struggling to convey to you what a complex, thoughtful, fiercely angry, even more fiercely talented protagonist she is, how shaped by her past, and how huiman she is because of that, and the pain and love that those experiences encapsulate.

Also, she is, I must confess, sometimes a bit of an acid-tongued take-no-shit kind of person, and I do appreciate that.

Then there's the world. This is a world with, I'm not going to say problems, but problems. It's a world whose story is, at least currently, centred on an Empire with a capital E. An expansionist, hungry Empire. One that considers itself to be the centre of everything, that reaches out to the people and cultures around it on a self-imposed mission to civilise. Well, in between mining and logging and, you know, resource extraction from those Other places. Villoso builds up the splendor and decay of that empire wonderfully. From institutions riven through with factional infighting, to functionaries trying to get on top of things, but still trapped by their entrenched cultural biases, to a visceral, virulent, quietly hideous disdain for those who come in from the outside, couched in a language of grudging, back-handed acceptance. This is imperialism writ large, and small, a pervasive influence that you can feel coming off the page and seeping into your bones. Then there's the distant wilds, the places where an airship run by magic rolls by once a month or so, and everyone is out on the edges of what is called civilisation, trying to make a life for themselves and stay out of the way of everything that abides in liminal spaces, as well as the ever approaching boots of the local Authority. And as you're washing through the clear streams and rude log cabins and neighbours with a pie on the window sill and just a little casual racism in their heart of hearts, you're off to the towering ivory spires of an elite institution, which happens to train people to use magic, while also helping them learn how to run an empire. As long as they don't forget their place, their constraints, the system that put them there and could remove them if it felt the impersonal need to do so - or a personal one, come to that. The empire is a facade of institutions wrapped around power and wealth and a set of lies it tries to tell itself in the dark of night about who it is, and, wow does that all feel very familiar to me in terms of lived experience. This is how things used to be, not that long ago, out here off the page - and you can feel the same energy here, building a world that's rich and exploitative and violent in the abstract and the practical, even as it manages to be the biggest, nearly the only game in town. This is a world that feels real, and Villoso is unafraid to explore what that means.

The story...well, I don't want to spoil it, honestly. Because there's moment sin there that made me laugh out loud. And twists that made me blink, and mentally rearrange my idea of what was going on. And quiet moments of honesty and intimacy and pain that come off the page at you like knives and kisses in a roll of words. Suffice to say, it's a story that has a lot to say, and tells itself well. You should read it, because it's one of the best things I've read this year, and I want everyone else to get the chance to feel how this made me feel. Do it.

Translation State - Ann Leckie

Translation State is a new standalone from Ann Leckie, set in her Imperial Radch universe, which many readers may be familiar with from her earlier work. But if not, don't worry - this one works perfectly well as a standalone. It's one part mystery, one part legal thriller, with a dash of fast-paced action swirled in for flavour. And, not to give the game away, it work very, very well. Leckie is one of the best contemporary writers of thoughtful, high concept science fiction, and it shows in this story which is both gentle and angry and clever all at once.

The story revolves around a tripod of characters. Enae, who is out on her own for the first time after a lifetime of living in the shadow of a grandmother who was less than a positive role model Reet, living on a space station, doing unpleasant jobs for little in the way of recognition, an adopted son who struggles with his place in the world and his identity - especially since the latter seems to come with an urge to literally take people apart. Which is, obviously, frowned upon. And then there's Qven. Qven was created by and to serve as a translator for the alien Presgr. Qven has always been told what their role is to be, but Qven is also starting to wonder if that path is something to actually pursue. 

One of Leckie's strengths is that she can give her characters a voice. All three people are just that. People. And they sound and feel different on the page because of the lived experiences that we hear about and are shown. Enae's fear of living a little bigger, of breaking out of the confines of a life that enveloped like a hermit crab's shell, is palpable. As is the pressure Reet feels building up inside himself, the vivid horrors of his dreams and needs. And Qven, Qven is strange and wonderful and horrifying and joyful, and trying to find and become who they want to be and not who they're expected to be. And each of these people have a voice that resonates with who they are, and we can feel their passion and weakness and delight and smaller terrors and flashes of joy coming right off the page to hit us right in the gut. I...ironically, I don't want ot talk about them too much, because each of them grows so much from who they are into someone new through the story. And it's that journey which matters.  I will say that Leckie does a great job at making the strange and horrific and wonderful feel prosaic t the characters embedded in it, whilst still letting us have a sense of strangeness and discovery even as we come to accept these things alongside the characters. Honestly, I don't think anyone writing today captures that sense of different but people as well as Leckie has done here. We can get into these characters heads, into their lives, and be somewhere completely familiarly strange. From the first page I was catching up on social context, cues, who meant what to who and what events actually meant...but it all fit together and it all made sense to the people on the page, even while I was unpicking who they were. Suffice to say, Leckie has brought us some fantastic people on the page, who it was a pleasure to follow along with, even when what they were up to was....rather odd.

Speaking of rather odd. The universe is sprawling, filled with, ha, different places. Or, to be more specific, places that feel different. The cloistered halls of Enae's existence, filled with the artifacts of a grandparent who lived seemingly forever, have a sense of age and claustrophobia and potential denied. While the claustrophobia of Reet cleaning station maintenance tunnels is more literal, the grime more practical, the cramped space for hope remains the same, even as they both find burgeoning change is making all the difference. There's little touches in both places, from the detail on folding sideboards to the curious community meetings of Reet's station that help them feel like places, help them feel lived in. And then there's Qven. Always Qven. Qven's world is as physically bounded as Enae's is by psychic boundaries. Qven's world is as constrained in its day to day activities as Reet's is by huis position and opportunities. Qven is wrapped in a straitjacket made to measure by the society that has embraced them, and they get to live comfortably in it, as long as they follow the rulkes, do what they're told, step through the motions. It's a world where eating fellow members of your cohort isn't the strangest thing going on, and Qven is locked down, locked in, and struggling against shackles they don't evne know are there. And here we see an environment which feels plausible, just normal enough to be inside our experience, and strange, strange enough that every so often I had to go back and check I'd actually read what I had. There's hints here of something broader and stranger and more alien and what we have, a soupcon of weird, is wonderfully drawn. And as all these worlds and conceptual spaces converge, they make a big old setting gumbo that's filled with fascinating flavour.

As much as I don't want to say too much, you know I don't want to , don't dare to, spoil the story for you all. It begins cosily enough though, showing us our new friends, letting us see them in their own heads, how they seem themselves, how they live their lives. It watches them as they try to reach out, to put their arms up and soar. This is a story with mysteries abounding, about life and identity and who and what people are. And it's a story about people looking for inclusion, trying to find a place where they feel at home, and find a place where they can be themselves and find out who they are. It's a story with extremists and a story with explosions, and a story with authorities that try and be Authorities, and about overreach and the dangers of definition by category and the joy of self-categorisation. It's a thriller, its a courtroom drama, it's a sci-fi adventure story, its a mystery, and above all, it's an absolute triumph of high-concept sci-fi married to the personal, the immediate, the real, backed by real emotion and real truths. This is Leckie on top form, and it's well worth the read.