booksthatburn's Reviews (1.46k)

SO MANY BEGINNINGS reimagines the story of LITTLE WOMEN with the March family as newly freed Black people in the Freedpeople's Colony of Roanoke Island. It fundamentally transforms the original story with the change in context and characterization. I love the decision to keep the same nicknames for the sisters but different full names. That small change makes it clear early on that this is its own story, that these are different March sisters and from now on I need not belabor further distinctions and divergences.

There's so much love between the March sisters and their parents. Their father is away for most of the story, but he is constantly in their thoughts and in correspondence with them through letters to their mother. 

The story begins with the March family emancipated and living in the Freedpeople's Colony. Much time is devoted to showing their lives there, a mix of precarious circumstances and deliberate choices to fortify what they have and make things better for those around them. Meg is a teacher, and she teaches Amy at home when she's done with her students in the colony's school. Jo (Joanna) composes words and thoughts constantly and is persuaded by her sisters to begin putting them to paper so they can be shared with others. Beth (Bethlehem) is a seamstress, taking apart the clothes which were left behind and using them to create new garments for her family. Amy (Amethyst) is full of energy and constantly dancing. Her mother and sisters try to shield her from adult concerns as much as they can so that she can have a childhood in ways they were never able to. 

The audiobook narrator is a delight, bringing them all to life. The narrative seems to focus a bit more on Beth and Jo than on Meg and Amy in the first portion, then after the time jump most of the story is about Jo and Amy, with some scenes featuring the others. I love how Beth and Jo are handled, which might have tinted my recollection of the balance between the characters. They all have plenty of time in focus and no one feels neglected by the narrative. I'm especially pleased with Jo and Lorie, as Jo describes herself in ways consistent with an aspec character even though that label would have been anachronistic (and therefore doesn't appear). Instead she does the more useful thing of describing the tension she experiences in how other people think she should feel about Lorie. Their bond is unshakeable and doesn't need to fit anyone else's ideas of how they should be with one another, and the narrative supports that instead of trying to bend them to society's expectations. It's a small but important thing which feels emblematic of how the whole story approaches these characters. It's in everything from seeking answers about Beth's illness, to Jo using her words to educate others about the colony rather than letting white journalists control the narrative without even interviewing a single Black resident.

SERVANT MAGE has the density of an epic fantasy in a novella-sized package, told from the perspective of a character who would usually be incidental to this kind of story.

Fellian is an interesting and well-defined character, I like her a lot, and she's what got me through this book. She's a commoner chosen for a specific but not unique skill, being used by people with a particular political angle and strategic goal that has very little to do with her everyday life. Where this fell apart for me is that it tries to fit a novel and a half of worldbuilding into a novella, gradually turning into a confusing blur of names and motivations that left me unsure of the point until the very end. In the final third of the book, Fellian is still asking questions about who people are and why things matter, and at one point is rebuked for doing so. It’s especially frustrating because this means the author knows it’s unclear, teases with the possibility of an answer and then declines to offer it when it would be most useful.

Even though there were a lot of details, most of them weren't useful in terms of understanding the secondary characters and their motivations. They seemed to fit character archetypes pretty generically and I kept mixing up who was who. 

I think it's supposed to be a slow burn reveal that actually

both sides of this conflict suck and the Monarchists aren't as great as they seemed at first, but since the very first thing they do is kidnap Fellian and enlist her help under false pretenses which rob her of any meaningful agency for long stretches, I didn't spend any time thinking they were good. It ends up being a struggle between the group that will straight up murder a baby and the group that thinks it's fine to just cut one a little bit if it's for the greater good. By the end, it was impossible to think of either side as good, which is definitely the point of the book,

but it felt like 20% kidnapping, 40% adventure, 35% confusing piles of unnecessary detail, with the final 5% as a manifesto about ordinary people making a difference for themselves while the bigger powers tear each other apart.

Xiang feels ignored by her mother, treated as a thing to be kept safe rather than a person who can want things and pursue them competently. She's been surrounded by people paid to teach her and keep her safe, part of a village where she's free to roam to hills and read, but is kept away from anything more adventurous. Her prized possession is a pendant from her presumed-dead father. When her mother agrees to let her try to learn one aspect of the business, it appears as though her mother might finally take her seriously. Instead her mother keeps trying to arrange a marriage for Xiang, a prospect which feels stifling. She meets Anh, a sailor, and feels close to her almost immediately, but takes longer to realize just how different their perspectives are, due to their vastly different life experiences. When she runs away and joins Anh's crew she finds a place where she is valued for what she does and for how she fits into a larger whole. 

The worldbuilding leans into a heady mix of clothing, food, and legends of the Dragon Queen's exploits from decades ago. Once she's on the ship, Xiang works to learn as much as she can and revels in the feeling of getting stronger from daily work. There's an emphasis on found family, and in untangling the difference between where you come from and where you feel at home. 

I enjoyed this both on its own and as a retelling of Treasure Island. You don't need to be familiar with the original, as this takes the bones of that other story and clads them in something wonderful and new. The ending is tense and dramatic, I like how it wraps things up.

 *I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 

UNTETHERED SKY is a story of one-sided devotion between a rukher and the roc who can never love her back, training to hunt manticores. The relationship Ester builds with Zahra, her roc, drives much of the narrative. It's all from Ester's perspective, as Zahra is a large bird who is unable to put words to whatever her thoughts might be on the matter. There's a contemplative air to the story, as Ester is telling this story from some unknown point in the future, looking back on her life in stages. I love stories of training, where someone is navigating the small moments of mastering a skill and figuring out how to get even better. Ester is close companions with one of the other rukhers, bonding over the process of training and care of the rocs which are the center of their lives. She becomes aware of the place rukhing has in the lives of other people, their nature as important tools for a very specific job. The worldbuilding is focused on the details of rukhing and the care of rocs, the similarities to falconry and very important differences with a creature far larger than her handler. 

I enjoyed this and I love the ending. The details of the manticore hunt are gripping and I didn't want the story to be over but I'm very happy with how it fits the overall narrative.

I prefer my magic systems a bit more defined and my sci-fi to have lots of hand-waving, this felt like the inverse of both and just didn't work for me. The world-building is fairly detailed in terms of the systems and bureaucracy around the characters, in a style which draws connections to their history (our present) as touchstones. There are a lot of visual details of actions and descriptions which give a sense of setting and specific body language, leaving room for the reader to infer emotions of secondary characters (and occasionally the main character). It's a combination of narrative styles that I've encountered before and which rarely work for me, it didn't fit in this case, so I'm stopping.

PALADIN'S HOPE features Galen, one of the paladins of the (now dead) Saint of Steel. He appears in the first two books in the series but now gets a story of his own. The main story is entirely new, as Earstripe the guard-gnole requests that Galen and the lich-doctor, Piper, help him find out the cause of several mysterious and violent deaths (which are both introduced and resolved). Very late in the book I figured out that this wraps up some things left hanging from other White Rat books, not just the first two Saint of Steel books (though it does that as well). The epilogue, in particular, exists to show the state of Galen and Piper's relationship some time after the main story, and to continue the underlying thread of the death of the Saint of Steel. It leaves the book on a bit of a cliffhanger, but one related to the general course of the series and not to the central plot of the book. 

Galen and Piper are both new narrators, though Galen is consistent with his previous appearances as a secondary character. The main story would make sense for someone who started here without reading the rest of the series or any other White Rat books, but the epilogue in particular will make much more sense for someone who has read the first two books. There's a pretty cool character detail to delight anyone who read THE WONDER ENGINE, and the return of a couple of characters who first appeared in SWORDHEART, but these connections aren't necessary for understanding most of the book. It is the strongest entry in the ongoing thread of greater understanding between gnoles and humans, or at least between some specific gnoles and a few humans. Until now it seems like gnoles have been doing most of the understanding, so it's nice to see things start to shift. 

The worldbuilding focuses on gnole/human interactions and the details of the place where they find themselves. It's a character-focused story, but the setting is specific and growing more detailed with each new entry in the White Rat books.

Galen is a brooding paladin, but a very different flavor of one from either Stephen or Istvhan. He has nightmares which can trigger the battle-tide if he's touched in his sleep. The warning that Galen should not be touched in his slumber has been consistent in the series so far, and now we get his side of that burden. Piper works with the dead, a profession which most people find distasteful. The pace of their relationship has an entirely different flavor from the first two books. It takes place over a fairly short period of time, with the main action confined to a day or two. The restricted but fascinating setting acts as a crucible where Galen, Piper, and Earstripe spend a lot of time together under very stressful circumstances. They don't have quite as much trouble figuring out whether that the other person is interested (at least not for long), but are trying to figure out whether this is a fling or if it can be something more long-term once they're not in mortal danger.

I enjoyed the different pace of this one and am excited for more entries in the series.

Clara is on the trail of her abducted sisters, and Istvhan is tracking a very strange pattern of headless corpses. They meet abruptly when Clara helps Istvhan navigate a cross-cultural social situation with the potential to go very badly for everyone involved. It turns out they need to go in roughly the same direction, and Clara joins Istvhan's traveling party while she tries to get word of her sisters. Most of the story revolves around the various obstacles in their journey, and the growing rapport between the two of them. The interactions are complicated at times as they're not sure how interested the other person is or how far they can be trusted. Clara, especially, has a lot of reason not to trust anyone with her secrets as they're not hers alone.

Istvhan was a secondary character in PALADIN'S GRACE, and his mission is related to the murderous and undead-adjacent "smooth men" Stephen encountered briefly there. This serves to wrap up that storyline, possibly completely, but it remains to be seen whether there will be further related incidents in later books. I enjoyed the brief anecdote from Istvhan as to more developments in Stephen and Grace's relationship. There's a new storyline related to Clara and her kidnapped sisters of St. Ursa, as well as the romance between Istvhan and Clara. This isn't the last book in the series, but because it appears that each book with have a different protagonist, it's pretty wide open as to what might be open enough to be picked up later. The one thing I can say for certain is there are five more paladins of the Saint of Steel who can be protagonists, and that the White Rat will continue to be relevant. Beyond that, these books are gradually filling in a whole world, and it's open enough that it doesn't feel like anything in particular was left for later, other than the march of time and that people will continue to need help that can be given by broken paladins of a dead god with their shiny swords.

Istvhan feels like he did in the first book, albeit having been filtered through Grace and Stephen's perceptions of him. Clara is an entirely new protagonist. Istvhan and Clara both have secrets they're keeping, and good reasons to be concerned that the other person might not want to stick around once they know. The romance is a slow burn, as even after they start to be physically intimate they don't know if the other person will stay interested once they know more of what's going on. 

This would make sense to someone who started here without reading any other books in the world of the White Rat, let alone in The Saint of Steel series particularly, but the loose collection of the White Rat are building a world with each new story, and a few side details will be more impactful for someone who has already read PALADIN'S GRACE, in particular. Sometimes these little details double as updates about characters met elsewhere, other times they just contribute to the reader's growing knowledge of their shared setting. However, the main story and most of the side threads will be understandable and have much of their poignancy for someone who picks this up without knowledge of the other books. 

I love the gladiator sequence towards the end. It's a tangle of plans, interruptions, and hoping things go well long enough for them to pull off something just shy of a miracle under terrible conditions. 

Finishing off the Protector of the Small quartet, LADY KNIGHT is an excellent end to a good series. It's the story of Kel's first big assignment as a knight: running Haven, a refugee camp near the border with Scanra. In her Ordeal of knighthood she was given a task by the Chamber, and chafes at the feeling that running the camp is holding her back from going after the man killing children and turning them into strange metal monsters. There are new storylines related to her time running Haven, and her care of Tobe, a boy with horse magic. I don't think anything is both introduced and resolved here, since the biggest rescue relates to the task the Chamber set her in SQUIRE. Technically a great many characters' storylines are "resolved" through death, but those who are met and then later killed are nearly as many as those whose first mention on the page is when Kel finds their bodies. 

As the final book in the quartet it leaves open the idea that Kel and her comrades will have further deeds when this is done, and it settles what she'll do after Haven. It resolves the magical threat posed by the killing machines, and gives an idea of what her friends will do next. It teases a few things that could happen later for secondary characters, but these won't necessarily show up in future Tortall stories.

Kel is still the narrator, with the exception of a brief section from someone else's perspective. She definitely sounds older than the first two books, and her characterization in LADY KNIGHT is consistent with the end of SQUIRE. Other than the fact that Kel was set a task before the book begins, this is self contained enough that it could mostly make sense if someone read it without any of the other books. It covers only a few months, rather than years, and focuses on events within a small area once it gets going. The ending will definitely be more satisfying for someone who at least read SQUIRE, but there's still a lot to love for any readers who try starting here (especially if they're familiar with Tortall as a setting from other series).

Kel has grown up a lot but is very aware of how much she still has to learn. She has a lot of strong relationships which get a chance to pay off here. She's not hanging out with people as much, since her duties and her organization of the refugees take the narrative place that training filled in the earlier books. However, Neal, Dom, and Owen have a strong presence, and I'm fairly confident that this has more of Merric than the rest of the series combined. The animals play an even bigger role this time, made possible by some help from Daine.

The worldbuilding focuses on the logistics of running Haven, as Kel begins having to to many things herself and gradually gets infrastructural support and clerks to make some aspects easier. There's some detail about the war, but as the fourth book of a quartet set in a world already filled with stories, it doesn't pause to explain quite as many things as the earlier books did. There's still enough to make the relevant things make sense, and it works overall.

The plot is the most focused of the quartet. Kel has two main things she needs to accomplish, and she works on running Haven until she gets the information she needs to act on the directions from the Chamber. I enjoyed the process of turning Haven into a defensible position filled with confident civilians who know how to defend themselves. The story conveys the shape of Kel's days without dragging, never letting go of the need to stop the source of the killing machines as soon as she can.

I don’t like the tone and the focus on binary gender. It’s cool that the gods and goddesses are reborn in different genders, but I’m not excited about the world.

This picks up with no overlap from the end of the first book. The shift from a first-person perspective only in the first one to a combination of two narrators (one in first person and one in third person) makes the events at the palace feel disconnected. The first book ended in a cliffhanger where it was uncertain whether Ning would live or die, but then when this book begins she's just fine, with very little fanfare. I also remembered very little of the plot from the first book, partly because only a few important things actually happened. The story so far feels like it has very little to do with A MAGIC STEEPED IN POISON, and it's not one I'm interested in.