This is probably more like a 2.5 because the writing is really good, classical and melodic, but I really just didn't like much else about the book. I had high expectations and it let me down at nearly every turn.

Read for the SPFBO 2019. Rating and review to come.

wtf. ahhhhhh

When I read the synopsis of Into the Labyrinth, I was prepared to read a simple children's book in the vein of the early Harry Potter books or The Chronicles of Narnia. Having such legendary material to match up against is tough. Thankfully, Bierce manages to distinguish himself with Into the Labyrinth, and while it does tick off many of the common checkboxes of a middle-grade novel, I think it's quite good. Bierce's magic system, in particular, is almost at odds with the simplicity of the story - it is as complicated in writing as any math textbook I ever cracked. For me, this did not take away from the book, though I can see it being complex for younger readers. Then again, kids are smarter now than I'll ever be.

There were some things that didn't work for me in the book. The characters aren't very well developed for one. This is a difficult thing to nail in younger-reading fantasy, but the main character in particular is hard to root for due to his unfailing self-deprecation (even if that self-deprecation is a major plot point). However, the systems in place, as well as the mythology surrounding it, make it a worthwhile read.

I DNF'd this book at the 65% mark. I was enjoying it for the most part, despite some issues, and then the author decided to depict child cannibalism, for no plot reasons that I can even fathom, and I was so disgusted that I couldn't even think about reading the book anymore. It made me visibly angry, which one could say is commendable in fiction if it serves a purpose. This did not. There is a line, and while it might be subtle in some cases, this one act vaulted over that line and condemned an otherwise fine book.

I was pleased to see Beggar's Rebellion pop up in my batch of books for this year's SPFBO. The premise seemed intriguing, and the cover showed a clear dedication to finding quality art. It did not take long for Jacobs' easy prose and intriguing plotlines to scoop me up, and by the end of the book it was shockingly clear which book in my batch would be advancing to the next round of the contest.

Setting: Beggar's Rebellion shows us a setting that is becoming more common as the fantasy genre stretches its legs a bit - a colonized nation under the yoke of an Imperial power. The Councilate, the ruling body in the city of Ayugen, can be likened to the overreaching fingers of 18th century England. Their interest in Ayugen is a substance called yura, a plant that allows people to tap into latent powers that can range from unassisted flight to the slowing of time itself. This is not at odds with the current grabs for oil around our real world as yura is a substance that everyone needs but that is in limited quantity. The Councilate finds loads of the stuff, which grows on cavern walls like a moss, in the mines around Ayugen. This happens to be the home of Tai Kulga. Tai is famous as a former rebel, one who fought against the Councilate years before but lost and now lives as a street tough.

The backdrop that Jacobs sets us in is atypical of much of the fantasy we read. There are no dragons here, no monsters in the forest or creatures in the deep. This place feels unsettlingly real at times, and might even feel historic if it weren't for the superheroes bouncing around. Make no mistake, this is fantasy. It is built as such, and the powers that people display are only explained as a type of magic. The system is not that far from the metal-consumption of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series, but there is a more egalitarian feel to Jacobs' sorcery because it seems that anyone can do it. To add to this dynamic are voices that every living person hears in their heads, and which provides one of the central mysteries of the book.

Plot: We first meet Ellumia Aygla, Beggar's Rebellion's other protagonist, aboard a ship where she plies her accounting trade for the captains and merchants aboard the vessel. Events force her from the ship in the city of Ayugen where she meets Tai. Ella's goal in life is to learn, and it is the effects of yura on the body that she most wishes to learn about. The rumor that there is a young man who can channel his power without the effects of yura leads her to Tai. They form a quick friendship, and it isn't long before Ella is brought into what looks to be another rebellion. Conditions in Ayugen are not friendly for the natives, with Councilate lawmen cracking down and imprisoning them for very little reason. The prison camps bear a horrifying similarity to the concentration camps in our own history, and Jacobs does a pinpoint job of nailing down the simmering anger and helplessness felt by every citizen native to Ayugen. That the Councilate has built up what they refer to as New Ayugen, a place where they flaunt the riches granted them from the harvest of yura, only adds fuel to the fire.

Jacobs plotting is precise and paced almost flawlessly. This will not be the first time I, or anyone else, compares him to the famed Brandon Sanderson, genre superstar and big blockbusting seller of books about wizards, because Jacobs seems to have every chapter thought out, every detail refined to happen at the right time in the right place. The story has its beginning, middle, and end, and manages to create this arc while also leaving the doors blaringly open for the sequels.

Characters: Comparisons to Sanderson do not end here, but they do change. Tai and Ella are both really great characters, well-rounded, believable, and whose motivations and actions make sense. Tai is angry, and rightly so, and his actions often mirror this even as his innate kindness and love for his adopted family usually override his passions. Ella, my personal favorite character and one of my favorites in all of fantasy, has a similar compassion, but hails from the very oppressors that she fights against. What I most love about Ella is her clarity of vision. She knows she lives and benefits from the injustices in her system, and also sees in an almost prescient way just how rebelling against that system will only replace it with something similar and arguably better or worse. She wants to change the Councilate from the inside, a task far more gargantuan than simply fighting physically against it. She is also smart enough to do it, and if intelligence is a weapon, she is the most dangerous woman in Ayugen.


I think Jacobs writes better characters than Sanderson, and it has to do with the humanity that shines from his protagonists. These are flawed individuals whose flaws might not be that apparent. They are people who grow in the novel, a growth that is quite literally personified in their acquisition of power. The imaginary friend theme that Levi Jacobs writes about, and I apologize if that sounds childish but it is an apt analogy that doesn't go into spoilers of the story, is a smart way of creating an inner dialogue that doesn't seem forced, and so we are privy to the arguments his characters have with themselves. There is an intimacy to this that isn't captured as well by simply relating inner monologues, which happens far too often in fiction.

Parting Words: By the three-quarter mark of reading Beggar's Rebellion, I was already recommending it to other readers. I was trying to explain to people in my real-life what self-publishing even entailed, and that they could start a free trial of Kindle Unlimited to read this book. The series is called the Resonant Saga, and I feel that it is an apt name because this book resonated with me in a way that not many do. The themes of poverty and oppression are not uncommon in fantasy, but the way in which Jacobs presents them feels authentic in a time where we see much of what we only expect to witness in fantasy bleed into our reality. There is a catharsis in Jacobs' characters finding their own power and means of rebellion, especially when many of us feel so powerless to make the changes we want in the world. My favorite type of fantasy is that which can show us a different way, and often a better way. I loved The Lord of the Rings so much not because Gandalf could throw fire at wolves but because Sam and Frodo were the most unlikely of hobbits to be tackling Dark Lords. It is the ability to watch Davids topple Goliaths that I love to read about, and fantasy is the best at presenting that outcome.

There was no question which of my books would advance to the semi-finals of Fantasy Book Critic's SPFBO 2019 judging. I want to see it advance further and reach the eyes of fantasy lovers everywhere. I think Levi Jacobs could be a big, and perhaps an important, voice in this genre.

The story of Commonwealth is simply the tale of two interwoven families; a narrative common to many of us even if every clan is unique. But somehow Ann Patchett manages to spark interest in familial history in a way that your mother and grandmother have always failed to do.

I love inter-generational literature. Int-Lit. I have never heard it described in its own category, but this is what I call it. It refers to a specific brand of often-contemporary writing that moves through eras, introducing a reader to parents of children that will later become central characters. Some of this century’s best fiction has been Int-Lit. Zadie Smith’s White Teeth is an example, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake another. Wuthering Heights could be considered the classic model, though it is somewhat muddied by Heathcliff’s insistence on being part of both generations. Patchett cozies up nicely to these genealogical writers and in ways surpasses them. Her attempt at telling the story of the Cousins and Keating families succeeds with grace and power and might be one of her best novels yet. I say this as someone who liked State of Wonder and completely fell for Bel Canto.

The story begins with a magical party reminiscent of the day Jesus fed a crowd from a single loaf of bread and cup of wine. Gin and orange juice seem to flow from invisible taps located in the house of Fix Keating, whose daughter Franny has just turned a year old. Bert Cousins shows up, someone Fix barely knows, and despite Bert’s own growing family back home, he manages to begin falling in love with Fix’s wife, Beverly. In one chapter, Patchett sets up the entire book’s course, and it is a chapter worthy of study in any writing workshop. The tale eventually drifts from Fix, Beverly, Bert, and Theresa, hooking onto their six intermingled children, but like any true familial tale, the parents are never truly absent even when they’re gone.

We follow the kids; Franny and Caroline on the Fix side of things; Jeanette, Calvin, Holly, and Albie on Bert’s side, for the rest of the book. The focus is primarily on Franny, particularly in the book’s one attempt at clever storytelling, but we meet and come to know every one of the kids. Patchett effortlessly jumps around in time to Franny’s late twenties and then into her early fifties, all the while weaving in flashbacks about the kids’ childhoods with the ease of an Olympic swimmer taking a warm-up lap. This is not an easy thing to do for a writer; flashbacks often feel forced or snuck in to the text in unwieldy ways. Patchett is a master, all the while writing in a third-person viewpoint that manages to skip around to multiple characters, sometimes in the same scene, in as deft a way as I have read.

There is something magical about Commonwealth, something honest and raw and authentic that we don’t often get in fiction these days. It never tries to overwhelm any emotion. It doesn’t surprise with cheap parlor tricks, and there are no mysteries to solve. It tells a story that spans the course of fifty years or so with excellent writing and beautiful storytelling. There is one potential “gimmick” that lies with the title itself, but even that is a measure to add depth to an already bottomless well. Patchett is one of our best right now, but if her writing continues to evolve so beautifully, I feel like she could become the best.

It is rare for me to find a book, fantasy or otherwise, that I so immediately connect with and enjoy. It happened with my first Haruki Murakami novel, with Senlin Ascends of course, and to my surprise with Pierce Brown's Red Rising trilogy. If I judged books solely on their cover, I might have guessed that it would happen with Nevernight - it's so beautiful that I could easily see framing it and putting it in my office. I knew almost nothing about the book going in, had never read Kristoff, and in fact had been put off from a few folks who didn't care for his overwrought prose.

Turns out, I like overwrought prose, but there is a huge caveat - it must be done well, and it must be done appropriately. I think Jay Kristoff nails it with Nevernight, and I am ready to declare Mia Corvere Queen of the World.

If I had to pitch Nevernight, I would tells readers two things. One, imagine a story wherein Arya Stark, of Game of Thrones fame, heads off to her secret school to become an assassin, but instead of glossing over most of that time in a montage, readers were privy to nearly every detail of her time training. Then imagine that instead of training at the House of Black and White, Arya went to an Italian version of Hogwart's. That, in short, is Nevernight. Combined with the aforementioned progatonist, Mia Corvere, whose focus on revenge borders on the religious, and it makes for a compelling read.

The world where Mia operates is the fantasy equivalent of Renaissance Italy, which is obvious from the start due to Kristoff's naming conventions and opera-like introduction. The city of Nevernight exists in almost perpetual daylight in a world where three suns rule the sky and the sole moon rarely makes an appearance. I expected this constant light to play more of a role, truthfully, and I suspect such ultraviolet radiation might be more of an issue than Kristoff allows, but it's fantasy, right? For all we know, the suns of Kristoff's imagination exude no UV rays. The Corvere family is Nevernight nobility, at least until Mia's father rebels against the Empire and is hanged before her eyes. She narrowly escapes death herself and finds a man named Mercurio who starts her on the path to revenge. Like Arya Stark, Mia Corvere has a list of names that can only be satisfied with blood.

Blood, in fact, is a large theme in Nevernight. "When all is blood, blood is all," is a phrase oft repeated, and everything from the color palettes described to character motivations is tinted by the color red. Shadows are Nevernight's other component. "The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow." Mia Corvere is Lady Niah's chosen, Niah being the solo moon deity that must constantly fight her brighter ex-husband. Mia can command the shadows around her, allowing her to disappear when she wills it. Layer these themes of blood and shadow and Kristoff paints a dark portrait, but one sumptuous with layers and some of the best purple prose in fantasy.

The only thing I didn't love about Nevernight, and the one thing that almost ruined it, is Kristoff's use of footnotes. I imagine this is a contentious point, and one editors likely mulled over for a while. It also asks questions about exposition and the "showing versus telling" argument that we have all heard. Kristoff peppers his text with footnotes, as though we were reading some historical text about a long-dead civilization and needed constant explanations about the references therein. The footnotes are also often the narrator's way of offering their opinion or an excuse to crack a joke. Often these jokes work, and there is a personality to the footnotes that delineates them from the actual body of the book. However, they severely break up the flow of the narrative. It's frustrating because I can appreciate the attempt here not to inundate the story with paragraphs of world-building. This can be cumbersome, and some of the best fantasy manages to sneak in its world-building without simply telling the reader what might have happened or why a system is the way it is. Kristoff chooses to build most of his lore into these footnotes, and in this way he wriggles out of the need for in-paragraph exposition. I'm not sure it works, and I was thankful that by the midway point of the book it starts to happen less and less, particularly as the book's plot begins to ramp up to frantic levels.

If those footnotes hadn't scratched the surface of this beautiful book, I might have been ready to declare its perfection. From the front cover to the last words, I enjoyed Nevernight like it was a vintage red wine, except that I am clueless about wine and know leagues more about good writing so that analogy fails a bit but I needed to say something red and that fit. It is dark, in the extreme, and that some people have dubbed this book as young adult is profane and laughable. Mia might be young, but there is nothing innocent or naive about what Kristoff has portrayed. This is as grimdark as it gets, but with less of the crude nature often found in such works and more elegance than much in the genre. I am as excited as I get about reading through the rest of Kristoff's Nevernight trilogy, and Mia has been granted her place on my personal fantasy character Mount Rushmore. Long may she reign.