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davramlocke 's review for:
Blade's Edge
by Virginia McClain
I was excited when the lists for the 2019 SPFBO were announced. I saw Blade’s Edge’s cover and the striking East-Asian themes spoke to the Japan-loving nerd that is always hovering near the edge of my professional demeanor. Then the book was stripped away from FBC with absolutely no explanation, and I was crushed. This was of course before I knew that the SPFBO 2019 finals would be packed with Japanese-themed fantasy. Having read all three of these ambitious novels, I can say that I am happy not to have made the decision to push one of them to the finals because they are all deserving and it would have been tough to choose.
Oddly enough, all three of these books are wildly different, despite their shared setting. Blade’s Edge is potentially the most “Japanese” of the bunch in that it is set in a very Japanese-like land that is also quite grounded in reality. Having Japanese literature as my second great love behind fantasy means that I read a hell of a lot of Japanese translated fiction, and to my semi-trained eye, Blade’s Edge felt the most authentic compared to the standard fiction from Japan that I’ve read. This is impressive given that McClain is not herself a Japanese author, but it is clear that she has a great love for Japanese history and culture, and it really shows in her treatment of this pseudo-Japanese setting.
That said, the adherence to a historically-based Japan also means that McClain’s writing feels hampered. It almost feels more like historical fantasy than secondary world fantasy, despite her Gensokai being a fictional place. This is not strictly a problem, and there is a place for historical fantasy, but the push to prove this a secondary world feels inauthentic at times.
The setting isn’t the heart of my problem with Blade’s Edge though. There is something missing in this novel, the kind of indefinable something that I likely won’t elucidate with this review. The story has merit. It tells of two girls, inseparable early in life but driven apart by circumstance. They each must strive in their own new worlds against a patriarchal, nobility-driven society that wants to see them and their inherent magical powers tamped down like a snuffed flame. They both manage to find sympathetic ears and eventually are reunited in dramatic and climactic ways. In theory, this sounds exciting and like fertile soil for good plot. Unfortunately, there never is any real excitement in the novel, despite some fight scenes that are mostly glossed over with people simply doing amazing things without much preamble. Topping it off is a climax that feels completely contrived and actually left me severely disappointed in how little sense it made compared to the rest of the story - a scene that speaks only to character emotion in a novel that is entirely about real consequences.
But perhaps the lackluster plot would have moved me more had I actually cared about the characters in McClain’s SPFBO entry. It’s really surprising to me that I connected so little to either Mishi or Taka. My absolute favorite character type is the powerful female protagonist who spends most of a novel finding her power and then uses it to great effect. This is 100% what I want from almost anything I read. Blade’s Edge has it, but the characters affected me to such a minor degree that this thing that I love ended up having almost no impact. Again, this is a hard critique to put one’s finger on - what was it exactly that failed to inspire me about either character? I don’t know. I only know that neither of these young ladies felt particularly vibrant to me, and by the end of the novel I wanted someone else to root for.
Blade’s Edge is the very definition of a competent novel. It’s well written, nearly error-free, and it flows nicely. What it lacks are the indefinable touches of magic that a winner of this type of contest absolutely needs, and what any novel that seeks to strike a chord in its reader needs. Perhaps this book touched some in that way, but despite it being heavily stacked to do so with me, a lover of Japanese fiction and strong female protagonists, it failed to resonate in almost any way with me. It’s a decent book, no question, but in the end I found it disappointing.
Oddly enough, all three of these books are wildly different, despite their shared setting. Blade’s Edge is potentially the most “Japanese” of the bunch in that it is set in a very Japanese-like land that is also quite grounded in reality. Having Japanese literature as my second great love behind fantasy means that I read a hell of a lot of Japanese translated fiction, and to my semi-trained eye, Blade’s Edge felt the most authentic compared to the standard fiction from Japan that I’ve read. This is impressive given that McClain is not herself a Japanese author, but it is clear that she has a great love for Japanese history and culture, and it really shows in her treatment of this pseudo-Japanese setting.
That said, the adherence to a historically-based Japan also means that McClain’s writing feels hampered. It almost feels more like historical fantasy than secondary world fantasy, despite her Gensokai being a fictional place. This is not strictly a problem, and there is a place for historical fantasy, but the push to prove this a secondary world feels inauthentic at times.
The setting isn’t the heart of my problem with Blade’s Edge though. There is something missing in this novel, the kind of indefinable something that I likely won’t elucidate with this review. The story has merit. It tells of two girls, inseparable early in life but driven apart by circumstance. They each must strive in their own new worlds against a patriarchal, nobility-driven society that wants to see them and their inherent magical powers tamped down like a snuffed flame. They both manage to find sympathetic ears and eventually are reunited in dramatic and climactic ways. In theory, this sounds exciting and like fertile soil for good plot. Unfortunately, there never is any real excitement in the novel, despite some fight scenes that are mostly glossed over with people simply doing amazing things without much preamble. Topping it off is a climax that feels completely contrived and actually left me severely disappointed in how little sense it made compared to the rest of the story - a scene that speaks only to character emotion in a novel that is entirely about real consequences.
But perhaps the lackluster plot would have moved me more had I actually cared about the characters in McClain’s SPFBO entry. It’s really surprising to me that I connected so little to either Mishi or Taka. My absolute favorite character type is the powerful female protagonist who spends most of a novel finding her power and then uses it to great effect. This is 100% what I want from almost anything I read. Blade’s Edge has it, but the characters affected me to such a minor degree that this thing that I love ended up having almost no impact. Again, this is a hard critique to put one’s finger on - what was it exactly that failed to inspire me about either character? I don’t know. I only know that neither of these young ladies felt particularly vibrant to me, and by the end of the novel I wanted someone else to root for.
Blade’s Edge is the very definition of a competent novel. It’s well written, nearly error-free, and it flows nicely. What it lacks are the indefinable touches of magic that a winner of this type of contest absolutely needs, and what any novel that seeks to strike a chord in its reader needs. Perhaps this book touched some in that way, but despite it being heavily stacked to do so with me, a lover of Japanese fiction and strong female protagonists, it failed to resonate in almost any way with me. It’s a decent book, no question, but in the end I found it disappointing.