A Sword of Bronze and Ashes - Anna Smith Spark

Anna Smith Spark is, in certain circles, a legend. The "Queen of Grimdark" brought us the dark, metal, unspeakably violent and yet beautifully written Empires of Dust series. It was raw and human and bloody and wonderful, and I think I spoke about each book in the series in increasingly glowing terms. 

And now, a new novel, A Sword of Bronze and Ashes. Something different, a folk horror fairytale. Still with the same poetry, the same multi-layered prose coursing the wine-dark sea of liquid prose. Still with the same sense of humanity, both at our best and, oh my, at our worst. But also with a focus somewhere different. This is a book about family, about one woman and her journey into the future to deal with the consequences of the past, and her daughters, and how they have to grapple with a legacy which could define them if they let it. And it's wrapped up in a story, a journey that reads like a dream spiked with flashes of nightmare, our cast moving between spaces, between the grounded world around them, the soaring towers of years past, and the bare copper knives of the not-quite yet, all at once. The prose is liquid, tumbling rocky thoughts over in your mind, the story prying them loose, to see what lies beneath. And that's without getting into what it does to the cast.

Kanda is, for want of a better word, our protagonist. A woman who, three children later, quietly whiles away her time on a farm, looking after animals, baling hay, and generally living a quiet life. What Kanda did before she looked after animals and children is another matter. Unfortunately for her, or at least for her quiet life, her past is about to catch up to her in a big way. Because the world Kanda inhabits is as much myth and story as it is known to us. While she pulls in corn and feeds livestock, she speaks with the dead who line the doorways of buildings, keeping them safe from harm. And wards against things roaming in the night, skipping between realities like we would use a revolving door. 

Because the darkest dreams of humanity are out here, and very real, in this world where myth and story are another context entwined within reality. Kanda's world is a saga, a song,  because it can't be anything else. Kanda is brutally prosaic, a woman who is sometimes drunk, also sometimes hungover, often tired, with an intimate understanding of violence. But in the past, she has been a dream of something more, something which soared, even while the dream in which it lived began to collapse under its own weight. As to what and who else Kanda is, that you'll have to see for yourself. But she is solid in her roles, all of them. A fierce and weighty presence whose sheer determination makes the page and the story and the words wrap around her. The dream she was and the person she is may not be the same, but Kanda is utterly real, to us, as well as to everyone on the page. It's fantastic incidentally, to see her portrayal in the now of the book, a tired woman with three children and a husband, forced back into metaphorical harness by her desire to protect them and keep them safe; and they're there with her and she with them, and the family dynamic has all the bickering and affection and poison and joy of, well, a family. It's something we often sacrifice for tales of battle-maidens in shiny armour, and seeing this, a family story, makes my heart sing a little.

Because this is a family story. Kanda's daughters are varying degrees of young; and it's wonderful that they're all so different. In the way they talk, in the way they react, in what they believe. But in their strengths, in the mistakes they make and the ways they try to fix them, in the passions they feel and the responsibilities they feel they can bear, they're able to find a way to bind themselves together.

And the story. Well, you know I don't spoil those. But it's a very concrete as well as a metaphorical journey. Diving into the past to see how Kanda got where she is now, to build a context for why things are happening. And walking with her through the now, inch by inch as she pulls her family toward, if not safety, a conclusion, a sense of catharsis. It's a story that comes with tension so thick you can less cut it with a knife than actively chew on it - as well as your nails - waiting ot see how thing splay out. And it has the sumptuous, glittering romance of a chivalric folktale, and the mud and blood and disaster of one too. This is a story that pulls no punches, and in fact probably has a stiletto secreted in one hand and a broadsword nonchalantly twirling from the other. It's a story you'll be up at 4AM trying to finish.

So is it good? Hell yes. Should you read it? Hell yes. This is another winner for Anna Smith Spark, and a story you owe it to yourself to read as soon as possible.

Back next week!

 We're on holiday this week, so no review today. Review next week, when we're back!

Gods of the Wyrdwood

Gods of the Wyrdwood is the start of a new series from R.J. Barker, whose previous series I've enjoyed immensely. Fortunately, I can safely say that this is a strong start to a series: a new world, with new  characters, but the same strong writing, the same emotional depth, the same strange and wonderful on every page. If you're looking for something new, something that will make you think, and make you feel, something which isn't quite like anything else out there...then this is the book for you.

Part of the reason for that is the worldbuilding. Barker has always excelled at creating worlds that feel real, feel lived in. They also tend to be strange, beautiful, and brutal, and this one is no exception. Because this is a world that lives or dies depending on power. A world whose very orientation on its axis is driven by magic. A world where the ability to command the elements is a function of a symbiosis between a person and, well, something else entirely. And also a world of wood. Much of the story revolves around The Forester, someone who can walk through the various levels of forest, perhaps even the titular Wyrdwood. Where a tree might be large enough to walk around, and where cuts from its branches might be able to be animated with a thought.  The forest sits close by our protagonist, and the small world he allows himself, and stretches seemingly endless into the night. Stepping within is an act of courage, going too deep is an act of madness. Because what the forest is most of all is uncaring - but like the sea, uncaring doesn't mean not deadly, Each step is a risk. And within the forest, what seems like it's uncaring may suddenly come alive with malice or, perhaps worse, some kind of unknowable, but probably unpleasant (for you) agenda. But Barker really shines in shaping that forest, in making it feel like a place where things live, where everything has its niche, even if we don't understand it. And the trees and the various horrors they contain have a deeply grounded sense of place, a feeling of the concrete. And they're not alone in that. Outside the trees are the human world rolls on regardless. In the deeper distance, a continent-wide war is a conflagration devouring lives by the bucketload. The cities are ruled by an aristocracy filled with long-lived magic users, most of whom are some version of vicious, cruel or uncaring. They're made of soaring spires which seem to have been built by an unknown builder for unknown reasons, with an unknown lifespan and a propensity for...imaginative...geometry. The world beyond the forest is no less real, but may be more actively cruel. And it's a world driven by religion, by prophets, by big and small gods, as people in power try to grab on to just a little more. 

And into that space steps the Forester, someone who was once a Chosen One. Someone meant to break the world. Someone trained to kill, to shatter, to make great changes. A once in a century event. And then...there was another one. Suddenly a special child ran into the night, no longer special. And a long timer later, we find them at the edge of the forest, living a solitary life, shearing for wool, farming, and keeping their head down. Trying not to feel too much, to stay out of trouble, to be a mouse in the walls and just be left alone. The Forester is someone who has hurt and been hurt, fought and been beaten down. They have a façade of self-interest, a need to remain cut off from connection. Or perhaps just a desire. How true their image of themselves as an isolated island is, well that's something you'll have to delve into the story for., I will say that the characterisation here is top notch, not just for our protagonist, but for the rest of the ensemble. The villagers who regard him with a mixture of suspicion and disdain. The mages who look for nothing other than a means to keep themselves alive, to survive and benefit from the deaths of others. The monks haranguing their parishioners, and the quieter rumblings of different gods in a world struggling with a clash between ancient theism and armed monotheists. There's a diversity of viewpoint, and an honesty in it that makes the story work, makes the characters feel like they're really there, people and not words on a page. You can laugh and cry and feel with them, empathise, sympathise, scream and cry along with them. They feel real.

As for the story. Well, as ever, no spoilers on this one. But it's got the bones of a redemption arc. It's got a found family at its heart. And it has a positivity, a hope in what people are, despite everything, in it soul. It's got a whole bunch of politics. Some genuinely horrifying and epic magic. It has the kind of battles that make you hold your breath, and the kind of brutal immediacy that will make you feel like you're bleeding. It has a truth to it, this story, a story of someone who just wants to be left alone, and the story of people who are willing to hold true to who they are in the face of a society with different expectations, a strength to say yes to truth and friendship and humanity, and no to murder, blood and fire, even in the face of a world that wants to hammer them into the ground. It's a story I couldn't put down. And that's the highest recommendation I can give - go and read this book right now.