Noah Fram

Sambuciña “Buc” Alhurra, a former pickpocket and private detective who now sits on the board of the powerful Kanados Trading Company, has discovered that playing host to a piece of a sleeping god is an effective way to kick a drug habit, but it comes with some annoying side effects. Specifically, she is convinced that her best friend and star-crossed love interest, Eldritch “Eld” Nelson Rawlings, hates her now, and she is constantly arguing with said god-bit that she does not, in fact, want to be entirely possessed. Buc is especially reticent to entirely give in to her Sin, as the slivers of this particular god call themselves, because she is still committed to destroying all the gods, including Sin. And just to make things more complicated, the chair of the Kanados board is plotting to exile her, someone is trying to murder the ruler of Servenzan Empire, the gangs of the empire’s capitol city have started an all-out war and at some point, Buc will have to learn how to dance. Welcome to The Justice in Revenge.

Author Ryan Van Loan’s debut novel, The Sin in the Steel, was reminiscent of Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastards series, and his sophomore book hews closer than ever to that template: There are rival urban gangs being co-opted by a shadowy figure, a classic brains-and-muscle pairing in which the muscle is smarter than one would assume and even a city built on trade and canals. However, Van Loan puts his own stamp on this familiar territory, ably incorporating the romantic tension between Buc and Eld and fusing the setting with steampunk tendencies that feel necessary to the story, rather than merely tacked on for flavor. Buc’s interactions with her Sin (which is an evocative thing to name a god, or even part of one), with Eld and with the few people she dares call her friends are uniquely entertaining, and although they occasionally veer into cliché (in particular, Van Loan’s descriptions of Buc’s attempts at romance trend this way), they nevertheless remain convincing. Both Buc and Eld are well-written protagonists with complex morals and motivations. Van Loan excels at writing unexpectedly dark stories with quick, high-energy prose, propelling the reader through this fairly convoluted plot with a twisted kind of brio.

This speed contributes directly to what is, initially, The Justice in Revenge’s most infuriating aspect: Van Loan hides information from the reader by, well, just skipping things and filling them in later. Most of the time. Some gaps are never filled, so readers who want their novels to leave no questions unanswered should beware. But these spaces are never accidental, and the loose ends still dangling on the last page are clearly intended to be there. Van Loan carries off this stylistic choice with conviction, even starting the story in the middle of a plot that is not really explained for several chapters. It is a welcome reprieve from excessive exposition, as well as an incredibly effective hook. However, this lack of exposition means that The Justice in Revenge relies even more heavily on the reader’s familiarity with its predecessor than most fantasy sequels already do.

The Justice in Revenge may not be especially innovative, and it requires a lot of attention to read without getting horribly lost in Servenza’s labyrinthine subplots. But it is a lot of fun.

Lieutenant Touraine is a conscript. Kidnapped as a small child from her homeland—once the Shāzan Empire, now the colony of Qazāl—she was forced into service in the Colonial Brigade of Balladaire, serving alongside others who, like her, were seized from their native desert lands.

They've recently been deployed to El-Wast, the capital of Qazāl and Touraine’s own hometown. Her immediate superior is a noble-born sadist who denigrates her and her companions any chance he gets. Her commanding officer is a woman both respected and feared for her single-minded devotion to the throne and pragmatic brutality. Her best friend yearns for revolution, her lover for safety, and Touraine herself for success, for a chance to prove her worth and the worth of her fellow fighters to their Balladairan overlords. When Touraine foils an assassination attempt against Luca Ancier, the princess of Balladaire, Touraine is hurled headlong into a whirlwind of intrigue, romance and rebellion. She encounters revenants from her past, as well as types of magic that the nobles of Balladaire have denied but that Touraine and her comrades know to be horrifyingly real.

Throughout The Unbroken, the first book in C.L. Clark's Magic of the Lost series, Clark introduces characters as if they're old friends, trusting the reader to infer the connections between Touraine and her fellow soldiers. Although this feels jarring at first—for the first several chapters, the reader almost constantly feels as though they have missed something—it quickly becomes one of The Unbroken’s greatest strengths. As the book submerges the reader in this way, it gives the story a unique urgency and drive, and it persuades the reader that if you just keep going, the answers will reveal themselves. Combined with Clark’s undeniable skill as both a writer and a world builder, this plunge into plot renders The Unbroken a remarkably active read. It requires attention from the reader in ways few speculative works do.

The Unbroken also follows in the grand tradition of speculative fiction that comments directly on the real world. Clark presents a searing and unflinching view of European colonization in North Africa, and of Africans' struggle against it, and she refuses to soften any of the harshness or resolve any of the complications inherent in those events.

In Clark’s world of Balladaire and Shālan, no benevolence goes untarnished and no grand ideal is left uncompromised. Even her villains are driven less by sadism or a desire for chaos than by simple selfishness, greed and the thoughtless cruelty of a bigot convinced their bigotry is, in fact, truth. And yet, for all the disturbingly plausible grime, gore and occasional horror that coat every surface of this tale, The Unbroken is not a dark fantasy. There is a current of optimism that flows throughout: optimism for Touraine and Luca, optimism for Shālan and Balladaire, and perhaps optimism for the real regions Clark has translated onto the page. It's a hope that all these people and places will somehow remain, in spite of the destruction that flawed, selfish, well-meaning people wreak on each other, unbroken.

Starting a book series is among the trickiest things for a writer to do. After all, stories that unfold over multiple volumes often need quite a bit of exposition, so first books run the risk of spending too much time laying the groundwork and losing the reader halfway through. Then there’s the problem of the ending: Is it better to end with a cliffhanger halfway through a high-stakes scene or in the proverbial calm before the storm? Amid all this, writers must craft a compelling narrative out of a partial story. Writing is hard enough without these added difficulties.

The Frozen Crown, Greta Kelly’s debut and the first installation of her Warrior Witch duology, builds an evocative setting, a tantalizing magical system and a compelling and complex set of protagonists so well that it feels like a full story with some missing pages. Were it a standalone novel, I would have thrown it across my apartment for its unanswered questions. But as the first of a set, such a visceral response is a testament to its success. Kelly’s world is hard to resist (and well worth the investment), and the sequel demands to be read, both to finish a gripping story of politics, revenge and illicit magic and for my own peace of mind.

Princess Askia Poristkaya e-Nimri of Seravesh, to use her full title, is on the run. Her country has been overrun by the expansionist Emperor Radovan of Roven and his fire witch, Branko, as they carve their way down from the north. So Askia has turned southward, hoping to leverage her familial ties to the court of Roven’s rival empire, Vishir, to secure an army with which she can reclaim her home and birthright.

But Askia’s task is complicated by a dangerous secret: She is a death witch, one who can see, hear and commune with ghosts, and both Roven and Vishir contain many who would hunt, hurt or kill her if they knew. Furthermore, her standing in the Vishiri court is tenuous, and Radovan’s plots follow wherever she goes.

Kelly’s setting evokes the geography of the Caucasus: Roven’s climate, naming conventions and culture are inspired by the Slavic kingdoms of modern-day Russia, while Vishir is something of a conglomerate of several civilizations from Persia and the Middle East. However, this is no historical fantasy in the vein of Guy Gavriel Kay. Instead, these inspirations are clearly intended to provide a broad structure rather than information regarding the plot itself. Its details are more of a piece with K.S. Villoso’s Chronicles of the Bitch Queen, from the queen seeking allies in a foreign and often hostile land to a society that exists in an uneasy and strained truce with magic.

The story is told in a direct, sometimes terse first-person narration, which fits Askia’s blunt personality. There are moments when this writing style feels unpolished, and though it serves the characters well, it may end up clashing with the ambition of Kelly’s thematic vision. The Frozen Crown tackles so many problems, from sexism and the pitfalls of ambition to the nature of good and evil themselves, that it runs an unusual risk. While it feels and reads like a fantasy epic, it could easily veer into the darker territory occupied by the likes of Joe Abercrombie and Alex Marshall, simply because there may be too many conflicts for these characters to resolve in only two books. However, The Frozen Crown is dynamic and promising enough for both it and its forthcoming sequel to be worth the read, regardless of how the story ends.

Talyien, Queen of Jin-Sayeng, has been betrayed. She is in hiding, sheltered by a slumlord in Anzhao City while she recovers from her confrontation with the sorcerer Prince Yuebek and a disastrous reunion with her estranged husband, Rayyel. Her own guards have mostly abandoned her, leaving her protected only by Nor, her guard captain; Agos, her childhood friend; and Khine, a onetime physician and con artist from the city’s seedy depths. And yet, it seems Talyien still has further to fall: Her erstwhile host turns her over to the city’s corrupt governor. Her escape, aided by a shadowy faction from her home country, leads ever deeper into a morass of plots, secrets and magic that tests the strength of her friendships, distorts her late father’s legacy, and threatens the fabric of reality itself.

The Ikessar Falcon, K.S. Villoso’s sequel to The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, is fast-paced to say the least. It transitions from the dark political fantasy of the first book to an apocalyptic epic reminiscent of Terry Brooks’ The Elfstones of Shannara at breakneck speed. There are almost too many plot twists and new developments to track, which would be confounding were it not for the strength of Villoso’s portrayal of Talyien. The queen is clearly in the same boat as the reader as she struggles to keep up with the sheer pace at which her world is being turned inside out. Perhaps the most compelling subplot is Talyien coming to terms with the nature of leadership and what it means to rule. The Ikessar Falcon also includes some fascinating developments in Talyien’s relationships, especially those with Rayyel, Agos and Khine. Villoso’s clear talent for characterization is as evident as ever.

However, the most striking differences between The Wolf of Oren-Yaro and The Ikessar Falcon are the rapid expansion in the setting and the abrupt shift in the role of magic. While the first book emphasized the political intrigue and cultural complexity of both Jin-Sayeng and Zirinar-Orxiaro, the second book recasts magic as the driving force behind all the machinations. In addition, while The Wolf of Oren-Yaro took place over a few days and was set almost entirely in the urban confines of Anzhao City, The Ikessar Falcon compresses weeks of travel across oceans and continents into gaps between chapters. Although the characters are as compelling as ever, these shifts move Villoso’s series closer to the typical epic fantasy, and results in a much broader writing style than the tightly constructed, setting-specific voice of the first book.

The Ikessar Falcon retains the excellent characterization and intrigue of The Wolf of Oren-Yaro while expanding both its world and the plot at a head-spinning rate. It does everything the middle book of a trilogy should with an uncommon degree of authorial skill, and is a thoroughly entertaining read in its own right.

Sambuciña Ahurra, aka Buc, has few possessions: several knives, which she keeps hidden about her person; the dexterity of a 16-year-old former street urchin, sneak thief and pickpocket; an insatiable and compulsive appetite for books; and a mind so sharp she must dull it with depressant drugs to communicate with other people. Her partner, Eldritch Nelson Rawlings—he goes by Eld, understandably—rescued her from the streets and taught her to read two years ago, and has been following where she leads ever since. In all that time, Buc has never made a mistake. That is, until a miscalculation leads to their arrest by Imperial officers. Within a day, the pair of them have been blackmailed into sailing across an ocean to investigate disappearing sugar shipments, launching them into a hurricane of secretive sorcerers, mythical pirates, gods both dead and living, wild hogs and something called Archaeology, whatever that means.

For all its trappings of detective work and mystery, Ryan Van Loan’s The Sin in the Steel is more Locke Lamora (on the high seas) than Sherlock Holmes. Its frantic pace and continuous action capture the reader, but behind its frenzy lurks a truly fascinating world. The economy of Servenza, the archipelagic empire Buc and Eld call home, with its reliance on sugar, tea and the psychoactive herb kan recalls the colonial European powers of the 18th century. Magic is rare but hardly secret; it is very literally a gift from the gods, and its nature varies with the divine source. The resulting limitations, and the grisly details of its use, allow it to easily coexist with a fascinating mix of flintlock-era gunpowder and borderline-futuristic transportation.

But while such a backdrop is necessary to support the story, the plot might founder were it not for its ceaseless motion and the way the mysteries pile up faster than they can be answered. As a stand-alone story, The Sin in the Steel asks the reader to fill in a great many gaps, especially since it leaves almost every thread outside Buc and Eld’s search for the missing sugar itself untied. In some ways, it’s a novel that requires its readers to moonlight as writers. The frustration of questions left unanswered is, in truth, a playground for the creative, inquisitive reader. Van Loan asks his audience to channel their inner Sambuciña, and richly rewards those who follow through.

The Sin in the Steel is not for those who want to be presented with a prepackaged world; some assembly is required. But that assembly is part of the joy of books like this. The leftover mysteries are carefully crafted to capture the imagination, and the hectic unravelling of schemes and unearthing of secrets are well worth the effort needed to keep pace.

The land of Jin-Sayeng has been torn apart by civil war, its longtime rulers, the Ikessar Dragonlords, deposed by the Oren-Yaro clan after they lost their vaunted dragons. The planned marriage between Talyien, the new queen of Jin-Sayeng and daughter of the late Oren-Yaro warlord, and Rayyel, last scion of the Ikessars, has disintegrated. So when Talyien receives a message from her estranged husband, offering her a chance at reconciliation, she leaves her fractured country in secret for a meeting in the neighboring empire of Zirinar-Orxiaro. There she finds herself ensnared in a web of plots and deceits, forced to survive assassination attempts, forbidden magics, slavers and lecherous mob bosses while struggling to discover who is responsible for the chaos and what they have planned for her and the country she wants to save.

K.S. Villoso’s The Wolf of Oren-Yaro is a fascinating read, driven by a well-drawn cast of characters in a beautifully imagined world. None of the main characters is lacking in complexity, and Villoso gives each of them rational motivations. There are no truly evil figures in this novel, only people who are willing to justify varying amounts of immorality and harm to achieve their purposes. Those who come closest to a traditional antagonist’s role are merely those whose goals are selfish or banal, whose regard for other people is low. Although both Jin-Sayeng and Zirinar-Orxiaro are built on a magical bedrock, the realistic characters within them lend The Wolf of Oren-Yaro a bite that even the darkest of grimdark fantasy often lacks.

Villoso palpably renders the moral grime and corruption that pervades almost every scenario Talyien encounters. And she distinguishes Talyien’s few safe havens with a remarkable subtlety. At no point does Villoso’s own voice disappear; rather, she merely wields it differently to imply different atmospheres. The superb world building combined with the well-built dramatic structure of the novel draws the reader on in a way that solely ramping up the tension would not. The Wolf of Oren-Yaro tops it all off with a battery of cliffhangers involving Talyien’s past and the nature of magic itself that bodes well for the rest of the series.