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.

The Devil's Gun - Cat Rambo

The Devil's Gun is the sequel to Cat Rambo's You Sexy Thing, which I would characterise as a space opera in which an ex-admiral turned restauranteur has to save themselves and their found family from an ominous nemesis and their own feelings. Occasionally, they blow stuff up!

The Devil's Gun serves up a lot of the same dishes as its predecessor, but with some interesting new flavours. The crew, fresh from their defeat of Tubal Last - space pirate and general do-babder - are trying to settle into themselves after a fairly hectic period. They've had losses that they need to deal with. They've brought new members into their little family, including a sentient, star-hopping bio-ship with a bit of an attitude. They've lost people. too, and need to grieve. And even as they're doing that, new stormclouds are gathering, threatening to tear away at all they've built. 

The team on the Thing are on a mission, a mission to find an old love, an old friend. And while they're doing that, they're still trying to rebuild themselves, physically and mentally. Most of the book feels like a character piece, in a good way. An ensemble cast, whose views we get to see, whose weaknesses and fears are laid bare on the page, even while their actions set up their strengths. Some of them, like Atlanta, one time Imperial heir, now occasional mushroom-chopper are feeling insecure and looking for purpose. Some of them, like the Thing itself, are reaching out, trying to define their boundaries. Understand their feelings, and what provokes them, what makes them happy, and why, sometimes, you might need to do the harder thing. And some of them are deep in their grief. You can feel that roiling off them, a miasma that infects everything they do, and tries to define what they are. In some ways, large parts of the story are meditations on that grief; the way that loss shapes people, the way it makes them do things they wouldn't normally do, for better or worse. The way that living it can be horrible and hurtful and healthy, and clutching it too tight can be poison. 

Which all sounds very dramatic, and in some ways it is. But the crew of the Thing spend a large amount of the story working alongside each other, a story in a bottle over a flame, slowly simmering away. There are, for those of you who were wondering, more twists, more betrayals, and more revelations in the world of Niko and her gang. Some of them are potentially galaxy-spanning in their impacts. Others are quieter - the click of a kitchen knife chopping vegetables, the fierce strength of someone digging in raw soil for their purpose.

I won't spoil here beyond saying that the Thing will run into enemies and friends old and new. Some of them are charming and rougish and e a delight to read; others are petty tyrants, with a sense of turgid malice about them that makes you grit your teeth, and feel catharsis when comeuppance occurs. This is The Devil's Gun, another story about the family that is the crew of the Thing. It's their stories, the complex notes of tragedy and joy over the base of action, adventure, and really wild things, those stories that make the meal. It's a slow burn, building context and emotional investment layer by layer, page by page, but the final product deserves, well, whatever a Michelin star is for stories. If you're new to the series, it's probably worth going back before you go forward, the story works better that way, has more weight, more depth to it. But if you're fresh off the first book and looking for more, don't worry.

The Devil's Gun does not disappoint.

The Hunters - David Wragg

Alright, The Hunters. I've had a good time with Dave Wragg's books in the past, so I went in hopeful, but without much idea of what I was getting into. And you know what? What I got was a smart, funny, heartfelt story of a family trying to navigate around each other and the way they saw each other. I saw a woman with a chequered past trying to make something better, and a young woman looking for something better than that, pushing back. I saw some absolutely delightful chase scenes in a fantasy-western motif. I saw a few stark moments that felt like magic and made me go "Huh!". I got some twists and turns in the story that kept me on my toes, and I got some unpleasant villains to rail against and some delightful heroes to cheer along.

This is a good book, is what I'm saying to you here.

Perhaps the book is called The Hunters because everyone in it seems to be looking for something. The central duo are Ree and Javani. Now Javani. Javani is a smart girl, a simmering bowl of resentment of where she is now, in a mining town in the armpit of nowhere. Someone trying to make something of herself and work out what that something is, while trying to define her own identity. She's fast and thoughtful, someone always trying to put a plan together, someone pushing back against a world which seems destined to give her nothing but a provincial quiet life. And one of the main architects is the other half of that duo, her aunt, Ree. Javani is looking for identity and purpose, for parentage and truth, and working out who she wants to be. Ree. Ree knows who she is. Sometimes it seems like she wishes she didn't. Quite what's led her out into a dead-end farmstead in the middle of nowhere is something of a mystery. But you can feel the edges to Ree, the ones rounded away, a sharp blade kept sheathed, both metaphorically and physically. What Ree is looking for is that quiet life Javani rails so hard against - that life of safety, a space to let the girl come into her own. A space where Ree can perhaps walk away from the past, and what it did to her, and what she did, too. Their interactions are fierce and awkward, poignant and perilous in equal measure, and the energy of the space between them sparks with every word struck. It's a good time, this. 

On the lighter side, of sorts, are the siblings, Anashe and Aki. Them? They're hunting for information, and they're hunting for history. They're looking to know about their family, about those who died, and why, and what they were like, before the two were born. And that trail has led them to a farmstead in the middle of nowhere. They have a different vibe to Ree and Javani. Aki, in particular, is an effervescent, endlessly positive delight, who assists that disposition by running a full speed motormouth, with a lexicon that would make a thesaurus blush. He's just fun to read. Anashe is the quieter, more contemplative, with a ground down patience for her brother and a vituperative tongue that she wields like a lash (mostly at Aki, which he mostly ignores). They're ruthless enough, and determined, and passionate, and trying to be better. There's a poignant undercurrent to their rare, quieter moments, as they work out what they're doing, and why.

And then, well, there's the others. Lazant and Kahlida are also hunting something. Something more, or less abstract perhaps. Power. Influence. A place of safety, security. The approval of a parent. But they're willing to wade in blood to get it, to grind their way through dust and lightning, blasting powder and blades, to grasp what they feel is theirs. Relentless, entitled, bloody and, at the core, contemptuous of these little towns and their little lives, they're a duo who you can feel festering behind golden smiles on every page where they appear.

This is a story about stories, too. About the stories we tell each other and ourselves. How Ree looks at herself. What she tells Javani about her past. What Javani tells herself about her future. What Aki and Anashe think they know and want to know about their family and why. And what the world tells itself about itself, a mining town slowly being absorbed by a guild with tentacles deep in more urban places, where they don't care about the miners, just the bottom line. Like the people, the place is a liminal space, a place on the edge of things. Straddling the wilderness and what insists on calling itself civilisation. What it's been is a place of safety, but what it might be is somewhere between a thriving town, and a desolate wasteland. I loved the way the quiet desperation of a marginal mining town was evoked, the core economic certainties behind the crossbows and charms, the gold behind the blood and steel.

And it's this blend of a vividly realised world, a world of grit and blood and love and tears, vengeance and joy, along with the strong characterisation, the tightly written, complex, human relationships, filled with simmering tensions, explosions (literal as well as metaphorical), the quiet moments, the drawn breath in the dark. That there's chases and swordfights and banter and, yes, more than one big explosion, is helpful, of course. But it's these things, these human moments that make this a book you want to read, and read again right after you're done. 

Anyway. Bloody good book. Give it a whirl.

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.