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Mandy and G.D. Burkhead (26 KP) rated Poison Study (Study, #1) in Books
May 20, 2018
Shelf Life – The Chronicles of Ixia merits closer study
Contains spoilers, click to show
This review is for the entire Chronicles of Ixia series.
The first trilogy, comprised of Poison Study, Fire Study, and Magic Study, follows Yelena Zaltana. The second series, also called the Glass series, follows her friend Opal Cowan in Storm Glass, Sea Glass, and Spy Glass. The final trilogy, Shadow Study, Night Study, and Dawn Study, is where things get a bit odd. Maria V. Snyder had thrown in a few short stories/novellas throughout from different characters’ points of view. Perhaps she got bored of just sticking to one POV, or maybe fans wanted more from the other characters, so the third trilogy is from Yelena’s POV in first person and the POV’s of multiple characters (mainly Valek, Leif, and Janco, with a few others popping in from time to time) in third person.
I’m not sure which editor thought it would be a good idea to have POV switch from first person to third person in the same novel, but—yikes—is it jarring. Even with the wonky POV stuff in the third trilogy, these books are amazing and absolutely worth your time to read. Snyder’s world-building is compelling, detailed, and original. The books take place mostly between two pre-industrial countries: Ixia and Sitia. Ixia is a post-revolution country ruled by Commander Ambrose. His personal body guard and assassin is Valek. In the first novel Yelena is in prison for murder and is offered the choice to be the Commander’s food taster in exchange for her life. She agrees, and throughout the first book she and Valek begin to fall in love.
Ixia reminded me a lot of Communist Russia or China. In its attempts to throw away the corrupt government and society that came before, it has also thrown out all culture in the process. The country has been re-divided into districts with numbers instead of names, everyone is forced to wear a uniform, all art and extravagance has been destroyed, people have to have passes to travel between districts, and magic is forbidden. Anyone born with it is killed (or so the reader is led to believe). But Maria V. Snyder does a wonderful job of showing the good with the bad in this totalitarian dictatorship. Everyone has a job and nobody goes hungry, women are now equal to men, and violence and sexual assault are intolerable. This is why Yelena ends up in prison in the first place: she murdered the man that raped her. Now, this is probably my first major gripe with the series. We learn that Commander Ambrose loathes sexual assault and will execute anyone found guilty of it, but apparently killing a rapist in self-defense is also an executable offense. And all of that being said, Ambrose still has his own personal assassin. It all feels a bit contradictory, but again, that’s what I like about this series: it does an excellent job of peeling back the layers of her fictional societies and pointing out that governments and people in power tend to be hypocritical.
Now, the series name (or rather one of them) is Chronicles of Ixia, but honestly, it should have been called Chronicles of Sitia, because that is where most of the story takes place and is by far the more interesting and vibrant country. Sitia is part jungle, part desert, and full of magic. The peoples are divided into multiple clans or tribes that are all unique and compelling. In the second book, Yelena flees to Sitia after the Commander learns she has magic, and there she finds the family she was kidnapped from as a small child. They are part of the Zaltana clan, a group of people that live high in the trees in the jungle. Whenever I read about them, I would have to remind myself that they were not wood elves or dryads, because while there is magic in these books, there are no fantastical creatures: all characters are human or animal.
Another fascinating tribe is the Sandseeds, a group of nomads in the desert known for two major things: breeding super smart horses and having Storyweavers. The Storyweavers are people who have the magical ability to see the future and guide others, but who have to do it really cryptically because reasons (I appreciate that this gets pointed out by an annoyed Yelena multiple times). And of course, the Sandseed horses are fantastic; they choose their rider and able to mentally communicate with magical people. They even have their own horse names for people that they like.
Besides the different clans throughout Sitia, there is also the capitol, the Citadel, which is home to the magic school and the Sitian Council. While very different from Ixia, Sitia is by no means perfect. Its Council epitomizes everything annoying and dysfunctional about a bureaucracy. While the council members are elected and come from every clan in Sitia, they are at best useless and at worst actively impede the main characters.
The magic school is interesting, though the story doesn’t actually spend much time there. I like how magic was done in this series: it usually runs in families, most people with it have control over one or two things (ie. fire, mind-control, telepathy, etc.), but those who have the ability to master more can become Master Magicians after enduring a daunting trial. Magic is bound in people’s blood, so blood magic is a thing and is obviously bad, and magic (and a person’s soul) can be stolen using an intricate and gruesome blood ritual that involves prolonged torture, rape, and then murder.
The power blanket is another interesting concept used in this series. Essentially is resides over the entire world and is the essence of magic, so magicians can pull from it to augment their own magic. However, if they pull too much and lose control, they can flame out, killing themselves and temporarily damaging the blanket in the process. I thought this was a good literary tool to prevent magical characters from being too OP (at least most of the time).
I especially like the romantic relationships in this series. Valek and Yelena are of course the main couple. In the first book they fall in love, in the second book they get separated, and throughout the series they regularly cross paths and save one another. Yelena and Valek are heartmates, and as the series progresses they both have to mature and learn how to trust one another. My biggest complaint about the romance is that all sex scenes are just fade to black, which I personally find a bit boring.
The other major romantic relationship is between Opal and Devlen. This one was a bit awkward. Opal actually goes through a couple of guys first: a stormdancer named Kade and another glassmaker named Ulrick. And I really liked that the author included this. Many people have multiple partners before finding their soulmate, and a woman who does is not a slut. Her relationship with Devlen, however . . . Well, she’s a more forgiving person than me.
You see, it turns out that Devlen is the man who kidnapped Opal a few years earlier and tortured her because he was trying to steal her magic. But he didn’t actually enjoy torturing her and never raped her, which I guess makes it better? Well, he manages to switch bodies with Ulrick and, as Ulrick, tricks Opal into dating him, then, when he’s discovered, kidnaps and tortures her (again) to gain more power. But then she steals his magic, he spends some time in prison, and the combination of the two miraculously turn him into a good guy, claiming that magic is what made him evil in the first place.
I’m going to be honest, I didn’t completely buy his redemption arc even at the end of the third book in the Glass series, but by the ninth book they’re still together and he’s on the good guys’ side, so I guess it was real. And I have definitely watched/read much worse evil asshole to boyfriend stories. At least Devlen genuinely feels guilty for the horrible things he did in the past and attempts to make up for them, and in her defense, Opal has to do a lot of soul-searching before she can find it in her to forgive and trust him, and even more before she can develop romantic feelings for him (that aren’t based on deception, anyway). Also, Ulrick becomes a huge jerk because of his newfound magical abilities, tries to kill Opal, and later gets assassinated by Valek. I appreciate what Maria V. Snyder is trying to do here, which is to teach through her storytelling how good people can become evil, and evil people can redeem themselves and be good. Their romance was uncomfortable to read, but it was supposed to be uncomfortable, because that’s how all parties involved felt.
Now, let’s talk about Commander Ambrose. Towards the end of the first book, Yelena discovers that Ambrose is a female to male trans person. This is revealed to be why Ambrose hates magicians so much: he is afraid that one of them will read his mind and then reveal his secret (which is how Yelena discovers it). After I read the first book, I was really pleased that Snyder did such a good job of depicting a trans person, as that’s really only a small part of his character, and those who know (mainly Valek and Yelena) don’t make a big deal out of it.
And then . . . I really wish that the author would have just left the issue of the Commander being trans alone. Yelena discovers it in the first book, she keeps it to herself because it’s nobody else’s business, the end. But by creating this weird intricate background to explain why Ambrose is trans, Snyder just kind of shoots herself in the foot.
Throughout the rest of the series, I kept hoping for some other LGBTQ+ characters to show up to redeem the blunder with Ambrose. I actually believed that Ari and Janco were a gay couple for the longest time, what with their banter and often being referred to as partners. However, if this was the author’s intention, it was never really explicitly stated, and the partner thing just seems to refer to them being partners in combat and nothing else.
The first trilogy, comprised of Poison Study, Fire Study, and Magic Study, follows Yelena Zaltana. The second series, also called the Glass series, follows her friend Opal Cowan in Storm Glass, Sea Glass, and Spy Glass. The final trilogy, Shadow Study, Night Study, and Dawn Study, is where things get a bit odd. Maria V. Snyder had thrown in a few short stories/novellas throughout from different characters’ points of view. Perhaps she got bored of just sticking to one POV, or maybe fans wanted more from the other characters, so the third trilogy is from Yelena’s POV in first person and the POV’s of multiple characters (mainly Valek, Leif, and Janco, with a few others popping in from time to time) in third person.
I’m not sure which editor thought it would be a good idea to have POV switch from first person to third person in the same novel, but—yikes—is it jarring. Even with the wonky POV stuff in the third trilogy, these books are amazing and absolutely worth your time to read. Snyder’s world-building is compelling, detailed, and original. The books take place mostly between two pre-industrial countries: Ixia and Sitia. Ixia is a post-revolution country ruled by Commander Ambrose. His personal body guard and assassin is Valek. In the first novel Yelena is in prison for murder and is offered the choice to be the Commander’s food taster in exchange for her life. She agrees, and throughout the first book she and Valek begin to fall in love.
Ixia reminded me a lot of Communist Russia or China. In its attempts to throw away the corrupt government and society that came before, it has also thrown out all culture in the process. The country has been re-divided into districts with numbers instead of names, everyone is forced to wear a uniform, all art and extravagance has been destroyed, people have to have passes to travel between districts, and magic is forbidden. Anyone born with it is killed (or so the reader is led to believe). But Maria V. Snyder does a wonderful job of showing the good with the bad in this totalitarian dictatorship. Everyone has a job and nobody goes hungry, women are now equal to men, and violence and sexual assault are intolerable. This is why Yelena ends up in prison in the first place: she murdered the man that raped her. Now, this is probably my first major gripe with the series. We learn that Commander Ambrose loathes sexual assault and will execute anyone found guilty of it, but apparently killing a rapist in self-defense is also an executable offense. And all of that being said, Ambrose still has his own personal assassin. It all feels a bit contradictory, but again, that’s what I like about this series: it does an excellent job of peeling back the layers of her fictional societies and pointing out that governments and people in power tend to be hypocritical.
Now, the series name (or rather one of them) is Chronicles of Ixia, but honestly, it should have been called Chronicles of Sitia, because that is where most of the story takes place and is by far the more interesting and vibrant country. Sitia is part jungle, part desert, and full of magic. The peoples are divided into multiple clans or tribes that are all unique and compelling. In the second book, Yelena flees to Sitia after the Commander learns she has magic, and there she finds the family she was kidnapped from as a small child. They are part of the Zaltana clan, a group of people that live high in the trees in the jungle. Whenever I read about them, I would have to remind myself that they were not wood elves or dryads, because while there is magic in these books, there are no fantastical creatures: all characters are human or animal.
Another fascinating tribe is the Sandseeds, a group of nomads in the desert known for two major things: breeding super smart horses and having Storyweavers. The Storyweavers are people who have the magical ability to see the future and guide others, but who have to do it really cryptically because reasons (I appreciate that this gets pointed out by an annoyed Yelena multiple times). And of course, the Sandseed horses are fantastic; they choose their rider and able to mentally communicate with magical people. They even have their own horse names for people that they like.
Besides the different clans throughout Sitia, there is also the capitol, the Citadel, which is home to the magic school and the Sitian Council. While very different from Ixia, Sitia is by no means perfect. Its Council epitomizes everything annoying and dysfunctional about a bureaucracy. While the council members are elected and come from every clan in Sitia, they are at best useless and at worst actively impede the main characters.
The magic school is interesting, though the story doesn’t actually spend much time there. I like how magic was done in this series: it usually runs in families, most people with it have control over one or two things (ie. fire, mind-control, telepathy, etc.), but those who have the ability to master more can become Master Magicians after enduring a daunting trial. Magic is bound in people’s blood, so blood magic is a thing and is obviously bad, and magic (and a person’s soul) can be stolen using an intricate and gruesome blood ritual that involves prolonged torture, rape, and then murder.
The power blanket is another interesting concept used in this series. Essentially is resides over the entire world and is the essence of magic, so magicians can pull from it to augment their own magic. However, if they pull too much and lose control, they can flame out, killing themselves and temporarily damaging the blanket in the process. I thought this was a good literary tool to prevent magical characters from being too OP (at least most of the time).
I especially like the romantic relationships in this series. Valek and Yelena are of course the main couple. In the first book they fall in love, in the second book they get separated, and throughout the series they regularly cross paths and save one another. Yelena and Valek are heartmates, and as the series progresses they both have to mature and learn how to trust one another. My biggest complaint about the romance is that all sex scenes are just fade to black, which I personally find a bit boring.
The other major romantic relationship is between Opal and Devlen. This one was a bit awkward. Opal actually goes through a couple of guys first: a stormdancer named Kade and another glassmaker named Ulrick. And I really liked that the author included this. Many people have multiple partners before finding their soulmate, and a woman who does is not a slut. Her relationship with Devlen, however . . . Well, she’s a more forgiving person than me.
You see, it turns out that Devlen is the man who kidnapped Opal a few years earlier and tortured her because he was trying to steal her magic. But he didn’t actually enjoy torturing her and never raped her, which I guess makes it better? Well, he manages to switch bodies with Ulrick and, as Ulrick, tricks Opal into dating him, then, when he’s discovered, kidnaps and tortures her (again) to gain more power. But then she steals his magic, he spends some time in prison, and the combination of the two miraculously turn him into a good guy, claiming that magic is what made him evil in the first place.
I’m going to be honest, I didn’t completely buy his redemption arc even at the end of the third book in the Glass series, but by the ninth book they’re still together and he’s on the good guys’ side, so I guess it was real. And I have definitely watched/read much worse evil asshole to boyfriend stories. At least Devlen genuinely feels guilty for the horrible things he did in the past and attempts to make up for them, and in her defense, Opal has to do a lot of soul-searching before she can find it in her to forgive and trust him, and even more before she can develop romantic feelings for him (that aren’t based on deception, anyway). Also, Ulrick becomes a huge jerk because of his newfound magical abilities, tries to kill Opal, and later gets assassinated by Valek. I appreciate what Maria V. Snyder is trying to do here, which is to teach through her storytelling how good people can become evil, and evil people can redeem themselves and be good. Their romance was uncomfortable to read, but it was supposed to be uncomfortable, because that’s how all parties involved felt.
Now, let’s talk about Commander Ambrose. Towards the end of the first book, Yelena discovers that Ambrose is a female to male trans person. This is revealed to be why Ambrose hates magicians so much: he is afraid that one of them will read his mind and then reveal his secret (which is how Yelena discovers it). After I read the first book, I was really pleased that Snyder did such a good job of depicting a trans person, as that’s really only a small part of his character, and those who know (mainly Valek and Yelena) don’t make a big deal out of it.
And then . . . I really wish that the author would have just left the issue of the Commander being trans alone. Yelena discovers it in the first book, she keeps it to herself because it’s nobody else’s business, the end. But by creating this weird intricate background to explain why Ambrose is trans, Snyder just kind of shoots herself in the foot.
Throughout the rest of the series, I kept hoping for some other LGBTQ+ characters to show up to redeem the blunder with Ambrose. I actually believed that Ari and Janco were a gay couple for the longest time, what with their banter and often being referred to as partners. However, if this was the author’s intention, it was never really explicitly stated, and the partner thing just seems to refer to them being partners in combat and nothing else.
Mandy and G.D. Burkhead (26 KP) rated The Grey Bastards in Books
May 20, 2018
Shelf Life – The Grey Bastards Exemplifies Grimdark Fantasy at Its Damn Finest
Contains spoilers, click to show
The Grey Bastards is a fun, foul-mouthed read. If you’re turned off by bad language, steamy sex, or a good plot with plenty of action and twists, then this book isn’t for you. The Grey Bastards falls into the fantasy sub-genre known as grimdark. Where high fantasy has your Tolkien beautiful and noble elves, dwarves, humans, and wizards with epic battles between good and evil, grimdark takes all of that and covers it in shit, pus, and blood. Notice how in high fantasy nobody ever takes a piss or fucks? In grimdark, everyone does.
But don’t be fooled into thinking this book will be any less intelligent, epic, or heartfelt for it. The Grey Bastards is all of that and more. The novel follows Jackal, a half-breed orc living in the Lot Lands, the barren desert wasteland of Hispartha. He is a Grey Bastard, one of many half-orc hoofs, each protecting its own small town in the Lots. Members of a hoof are elite warriors that ride out on their Barbarians—giant warthogs—and slaughter invading bands of orcs.
Hispartha is a vibrant world, with a mix of fantastical species (orcs, half-orcs, elves, humans, halflings, and centaurs) with unique cultures and religions. Hispartha itself takes influences from Reconquista Spain, which is especially noticeable in the nomenclature, geography, and architecture.
The primarily atheistic half-orcs recently won their freedom from slavery at the hands of humans. Humans treat the half-orcs like second-class citizens, but tolerate them because of their strength, using them as a shield from the orcs. The elves are beautiful, reclusive, and probably the most cliché; there is one important elf character, but for the most part, we don’t get a good look into their culture in the first book. The centaurs worship Romanesque deities and go on crazed, Bacchanalian killing sprees during the blood moon.
Besides the half-orcs, the halflings are perhaps the most interesting. I still have a hard time visualizing them, trying to figure out if they are thin, pixie-like creatures or more stocky like dwarves. Their small stature and black skin makes me think of pygmies. They worship a god they expect will reincarnate someday, (view spoiler)
One thing that has always annoyed me about fantasy is that many authors feel that the characters of their world, being pre-industrial and thus “medieval,” must all be white, straight, Christian (or proto-Christian), cisgender males. If a woman appears at all is to act as the damsel, prize, or, if she’s lucky, a mystical enchantress to guide the heroes or provide a maguffin. It has come to the point in which this has become a tired and accepted baseline for fantasy. I don’t necessarily think that these fantasy authors are intentionally trying to be uninclusive, so much as they just seem to forget that other groups of people can exist in fantasy thanks to its fathers, Tolkien and Lewis.
But enough with my rant, the purpose of which is to highlight why I am often drawn to grimdark fantasy: at the very least I know that women, people of color, lgbt people, and other religions will be present, even if they are often victimized. This is because grimdark fantasy honestly depicts the horrors of rape, war, murder, slavery, and racism (or rather, speciesism in most cases) and has heroes and villains that are morally grey.
However, many authors describe these atrocities and then leave it at that, assuming that simply depicting them is enough to make a book mature and meaningful. They often fail to make any sort of statement on evil, and thus can seem to be, at best, blindly accepting it and, at worst, glorifying it (this often happens in the cases of magnificent bastard characters, who are absolute monsters but are so charming you almost respect or like them).
Jonathan French, however, does not fall short of the mark as many authors do, and for two main reasons: humor and humanity.
Let’s start with the humor. This book is hilarious. I mean in the I literally laughed out loud while reading it way. Sure, the jokes are often crass, but I have a dirty mind, so inappropriate humor is my favorite kind. The dialogue is especially top-notch, and the interactions between Jackal and his friends Fetching and Oats feel genuine, full of in-jokes, insults, and sexually-charged humor, all of which are exactly how I interact with my own close friends. And every major character in this book is so damn witty that I’m honestly jealous of them. If I could be quick enough to make even one of their zingers at the right time in a conversation, I would feel proud of myself for the rest of the day.
Humor is necessary to prevent any grimdark fantasy from becoming too over-the-top or depressing. And honestly, humor is needed most when the world is a dark and frightening place. But too much humor could accidentally downplay the point of grimdark: the brutally honest depiction of the atrocities that people are capable of.
And this is where it is important to have an element of humanity. By this I mean that the “good guys” must make some action or statement on those atrocities. Too often I read or watch hardened badass characters with no emotion who can watch a person get tortured and killed without flinching (maybe even do it themselves) and who never stop to question the nature of their society (even as part of their character growth), and I have difficulty finding them at all relatable or even the least bit interesting.
Now, often for this type of character, he or she is dead inside as a coping mechanism and part of their character arc is learning to allow themselves to feel their repressed emotions: heartbreak, anger, fear, etc. This can be done very well (see The Hunger Games for a great example—dystopian scifi and grimdark fantasy have very similar undertones). But most times it just ends up falling flat.
But Jackal already starts out with more personality than most grimdark protagonists. He is a humorous and light-hearted person. Sure, he lives in a desert wasteland, his race is entirely created by rape, he’s treated as a second-class citizen, and his life and the lives of those around him are in constant danger of rape and/or murder by invading orcs or blood-crazed centaurs. But despite all of that, he still has a sense of humor, people he loves, a community, ambitions, moral code, and all of the other things that these protagonists are often lacking.
Don’t get me wrong, he can be an asshole, and he’s often acts rashly before he thinks. But the scene that really stuck with me the most was [when Jackal and the wizard Crafty come across an unconscious elf sex-slave. I was expecting him to say something along the lines of “There’s nothing we can do for her, we have to save ourselves” or “This isn’t any of our business” or “It would be best to just put her out of her mercy.” These are the typical lines that a grimdark protagonist might utter while their companion—accused of being a bleeding heart—frees the slave. But this was not the case. Jackal and Crafty both immediately set out to free the girl and steal her away from her owner, despite the danger to themselves. And when he comes across an entire castle-full of these women, Jackal again sets about freeing them without a moment’s hesitation. (hide spoiler)]
And it’s no surprise that Jackal has a serious problem with rape. As I’ve mentioned before, half-orcs are entirely the product of roving bands of orcs raping human, elven, or even half-orc women. [When Jackal learns that Starling, the elf slave he rescued, is pregnant with a half-orc baby, he is not only furious with the orcs that gang-raped her, but also disturbed by the fact that elven society shuns any of their women who have been raped, and that these victims often end up taking their own lives rather than give birth to an impure half-elf. (hide spoiler)]
Furthermore, Jackal, unlike many people in Hispartha, does not buy into misogyny or sexism. His best friend Fetching is the first female half-orc to have joined a group of riders. Not only does Jackal respect Fetching, he understands the emotional turmoil that she is dealing with being the first female rider and how she overcompensates as a result to earn the respect of the other men.
While there is quite a bit of speciesism (pretty much none of the species get along with one another), the inhabitants of Hispartha come in every skin color and nobody gives a damn. Furthermore, sexuality is primarily treated as each person’s individual preference and nobody else’s business. While characters may make jokes about acting “backy” (gay), these are made in good humor between friends, and nobody gets particularly offended by them. Fetching is herself openly bisexual (though she seems to suppress her heterosexual desires more than her homosexual ones out of that same need to be “one of the boys”), and Oats and Jackal are one of my favorite bromantic pairings.
Grimdark fantasy can often be depressing to read. But Jonathan French does an excellent job of infusing hope into his narrative. The story actually has a happier ending than I was expecting. [I was especially pleased when Jackal chooses Fetching to be the new leader of the hoof (she is voted in unanimously by the other riders). I find it incredibly annoying in books and movies when revolutionaries/usurpers decide to appoint themselves leaders, as the former does not qualify you for the latter. Part of Jackal’s arc is realizing that he is not meant to lead the hoof like he’d once desired. (hide spoiler)]
For the sequel, The True Bastards, I’m hoping to see [if a cure can be found for the thrice-blood child now infected with plague, how Fetching is doing leading the hoof, and what the mysterious Starling is up to (I don’t buy for a second that she’s killed herself). And of course, I fully expect that Jackal is going to have to fulfill his empty promise to the halfling’s resurrected god, Belico.
But don’t be fooled into thinking this book will be any less intelligent, epic, or heartfelt for it. The Grey Bastards is all of that and more. The novel follows Jackal, a half-breed orc living in the Lot Lands, the barren desert wasteland of Hispartha. He is a Grey Bastard, one of many half-orc hoofs, each protecting its own small town in the Lots. Members of a hoof are elite warriors that ride out on their Barbarians—giant warthogs—and slaughter invading bands of orcs.
Hispartha is a vibrant world, with a mix of fantastical species (orcs, half-orcs, elves, humans, halflings, and centaurs) with unique cultures and religions. Hispartha itself takes influences from Reconquista Spain, which is especially noticeable in the nomenclature, geography, and architecture.
The primarily atheistic half-orcs recently won their freedom from slavery at the hands of humans. Humans treat the half-orcs like second-class citizens, but tolerate them because of their strength, using them as a shield from the orcs. The elves are beautiful, reclusive, and probably the most cliché; there is one important elf character, but for the most part, we don’t get a good look into their culture in the first book. The centaurs worship Romanesque deities and go on crazed, Bacchanalian killing sprees during the blood moon.
Besides the half-orcs, the halflings are perhaps the most interesting. I still have a hard time visualizing them, trying to figure out if they are thin, pixie-like creatures or more stocky like dwarves. Their small stature and black skin makes me think of pygmies. They worship a god they expect will reincarnate someday, (view spoiler)
One thing that has always annoyed me about fantasy is that many authors feel that the characters of their world, being pre-industrial and thus “medieval,” must all be white, straight, Christian (or proto-Christian), cisgender males. If a woman appears at all is to act as the damsel, prize, or, if she’s lucky, a mystical enchantress to guide the heroes or provide a maguffin. It has come to the point in which this has become a tired and accepted baseline for fantasy. I don’t necessarily think that these fantasy authors are intentionally trying to be uninclusive, so much as they just seem to forget that other groups of people can exist in fantasy thanks to its fathers, Tolkien and Lewis.
But enough with my rant, the purpose of which is to highlight why I am often drawn to grimdark fantasy: at the very least I know that women, people of color, lgbt people, and other religions will be present, even if they are often victimized. This is because grimdark fantasy honestly depicts the horrors of rape, war, murder, slavery, and racism (or rather, speciesism in most cases) and has heroes and villains that are morally grey.
However, many authors describe these atrocities and then leave it at that, assuming that simply depicting them is enough to make a book mature and meaningful. They often fail to make any sort of statement on evil, and thus can seem to be, at best, blindly accepting it and, at worst, glorifying it (this often happens in the cases of magnificent bastard characters, who are absolute monsters but are so charming you almost respect or like them).
Jonathan French, however, does not fall short of the mark as many authors do, and for two main reasons: humor and humanity.
Let’s start with the humor. This book is hilarious. I mean in the I literally laughed out loud while reading it way. Sure, the jokes are often crass, but I have a dirty mind, so inappropriate humor is my favorite kind. The dialogue is especially top-notch, and the interactions between Jackal and his friends Fetching and Oats feel genuine, full of in-jokes, insults, and sexually-charged humor, all of which are exactly how I interact with my own close friends. And every major character in this book is so damn witty that I’m honestly jealous of them. If I could be quick enough to make even one of their zingers at the right time in a conversation, I would feel proud of myself for the rest of the day.
Humor is necessary to prevent any grimdark fantasy from becoming too over-the-top or depressing. And honestly, humor is needed most when the world is a dark and frightening place. But too much humor could accidentally downplay the point of grimdark: the brutally honest depiction of the atrocities that people are capable of.
And this is where it is important to have an element of humanity. By this I mean that the “good guys” must make some action or statement on those atrocities. Too often I read or watch hardened badass characters with no emotion who can watch a person get tortured and killed without flinching (maybe even do it themselves) and who never stop to question the nature of their society (even as part of their character growth), and I have difficulty finding them at all relatable or even the least bit interesting.
Now, often for this type of character, he or she is dead inside as a coping mechanism and part of their character arc is learning to allow themselves to feel their repressed emotions: heartbreak, anger, fear, etc. This can be done very well (see The Hunger Games for a great example—dystopian scifi and grimdark fantasy have very similar undertones). But most times it just ends up falling flat.
But Jackal already starts out with more personality than most grimdark protagonists. He is a humorous and light-hearted person. Sure, he lives in a desert wasteland, his race is entirely created by rape, he’s treated as a second-class citizen, and his life and the lives of those around him are in constant danger of rape and/or murder by invading orcs or blood-crazed centaurs. But despite all of that, he still has a sense of humor, people he loves, a community, ambitions, moral code, and all of the other things that these protagonists are often lacking.
Don’t get me wrong, he can be an asshole, and he’s often acts rashly before he thinks. But the scene that really stuck with me the most was [when Jackal and the wizard Crafty come across an unconscious elf sex-slave. I was expecting him to say something along the lines of “There’s nothing we can do for her, we have to save ourselves” or “This isn’t any of our business” or “It would be best to just put her out of her mercy.” These are the typical lines that a grimdark protagonist might utter while their companion—accused of being a bleeding heart—frees the slave. But this was not the case. Jackal and Crafty both immediately set out to free the girl and steal her away from her owner, despite the danger to themselves. And when he comes across an entire castle-full of these women, Jackal again sets about freeing them without a moment’s hesitation. (hide spoiler)]
And it’s no surprise that Jackal has a serious problem with rape. As I’ve mentioned before, half-orcs are entirely the product of roving bands of orcs raping human, elven, or even half-orc women. [When Jackal learns that Starling, the elf slave he rescued, is pregnant with a half-orc baby, he is not only furious with the orcs that gang-raped her, but also disturbed by the fact that elven society shuns any of their women who have been raped, and that these victims often end up taking their own lives rather than give birth to an impure half-elf. (hide spoiler)]
Furthermore, Jackal, unlike many people in Hispartha, does not buy into misogyny or sexism. His best friend Fetching is the first female half-orc to have joined a group of riders. Not only does Jackal respect Fetching, he understands the emotional turmoil that she is dealing with being the first female rider and how she overcompensates as a result to earn the respect of the other men.
While there is quite a bit of speciesism (pretty much none of the species get along with one another), the inhabitants of Hispartha come in every skin color and nobody gives a damn. Furthermore, sexuality is primarily treated as each person’s individual preference and nobody else’s business. While characters may make jokes about acting “backy” (gay), these are made in good humor between friends, and nobody gets particularly offended by them. Fetching is herself openly bisexual (though she seems to suppress her heterosexual desires more than her homosexual ones out of that same need to be “one of the boys”), and Oats and Jackal are one of my favorite bromantic pairings.
Grimdark fantasy can often be depressing to read. But Jonathan French does an excellent job of infusing hope into his narrative. The story actually has a happier ending than I was expecting. [I was especially pleased when Jackal chooses Fetching to be the new leader of the hoof (she is voted in unanimously by the other riders). I find it incredibly annoying in books and movies when revolutionaries/usurpers decide to appoint themselves leaders, as the former does not qualify you for the latter. Part of Jackal’s arc is realizing that he is not meant to lead the hoof like he’d once desired. (hide spoiler)]
For the sequel, The True Bastards, I’m hoping to see [if a cure can be found for the thrice-blood child now infected with plague, how Fetching is doing leading the hoof, and what the mysterious Starling is up to (I don’t buy for a second that she’s killed herself). And of course, I fully expect that Jackal is going to have to fulfill his empty promise to the halfling’s resurrected god, Belico.