elzbethmrgn's Reviews (667)

Historical fantasy set in Prague? Shut up and take my money.

The blurb says Witcher cross VE Schwab fans, but I'm not sold on that. Witcher, because of the Eastern European setting/names for demons. VE Schwab - I'm guessing is for A Darker Shade of Magic, but I got more Rivers of London vibes (without the humour).

This is an urban fantasy set in 1868 Prague. Our hero Domek is a lamplighter, but lamplighters protect the night streets from demons - mainly pijavice (literally translated as leech, they're vampires). In a normal work shift, Domek stumbles across The Mystery. Of course, our heroine (and love interest) is a pijavica, and also stumbles across The Mystery. If you've ever read a book, I think you can see where the story is going. Just like a good, cosy detective story, all loose ends are tidy and every one (who survives) gets a happily ever after (for now).

Anyway: an enjoyable read, a great debut, a love letter to Prague, and a standalone historical urban fantasy. 

I can't believe I didn't find this as a young adult obsessed with dystopias, but in 1993 YA wasn't a genre and this certainly wasn't marketed at me. It didn't hit as hard as I expected, and I think that's a combination of growing up on this type of story (if you read Australian YA in the 90s, you know), but also, it's...happening. It's entirely conceivable. It could be inevitable. The story starts in 2024, and that's eighteen months from when I first read it. Maybe that's the scary part for readers.

The parts I found more interesting to sink my brain-teeth into were Lauren-as-Prophet. Lauren tells the story through journal entries and extracts from the religious text she's building around her created religion, Earthseed. Both Lauren and Butler are former Baptists, and the exploration of an (intentionally) simplistic reaction and adaptation of Christianity into something that meets Lauren's needs and hopes. The goal of Earthseed is to fulfill the destiny of leaving Earth and heading for the stars; reflecting Laurens goal of abandoning her community - she believes both community and Earth itself can't be sustained in the long-term.

Mostly, I enjoyed the journeys - the physical journey Lauren takes, the followers she collects along the way, the character growth and revelation. Like most dystopia, Lauren keeps her hope in a time of despair and becomes a leader because of it. 

Butler noped out of completing the intended series of Earthseed, because it was too depressing to research and write, but the sequel, Parable of the Talents, is on my TBR.

For all that this story started well, creepy and gripping, with religious lockdown of women (hence comparisons with The Handmaid's Tale), the second half fell into well-worn tropes and predictable plot twists.  Which might be cool - I don't read much horror so I don't know how much is expected in the genre versus how much is overused. 

I found the character development uneven, the leaps of logic unexplained, the dialogue a weird mixture of formal (One character literally apologises for using a "colloquialism" which felt very out of place in an otherwise normal chat with a stranger). The religion-based lockdown on women's behaviour and movement only applied when the author wanted it to? 

On the other hand, I still finished it, I still wanted to know what happened, I still wanted the bad guy to get their comeuppance and the good guy to win. I think it's a good, scary debut.

This is firmly horror, to the point that my brain was giving me utterly pedestrian dreams such as going to the shops, and doing my favourite work tasks.

I felt very clever at picking up on the thread here of finding home as an adult, of returning 'home' (even if when that home is a place that no longer exists) and creating 'home'. Of taking events that happen to you when you're young and letting them be part of you, but not all of you. Of the consequences of surviving. And then Kay explains all this in the afterword, and I felt less insightful.

All the Seas picks up four years after A Brightness Long Ago, whose main thread is an event that happened in the past and how that shaped the narrator of that story. That narrator is in this tale too, as well as many people you've already met from Brightness and also Children of Earth and Sky, set twenty years after All the Seas. They wind together, as you'd expect from Kay.

I don't know that this is as strong as others I've read by Kay, but is that just because it's my first reading? I find they need at least a re-read to solidify what they have to share with me. It's absolutely solid Kay, in that you're getting a large cast, a sweeping tale, events that change lives in unexpected ways, and of course no neat ending. It'll stand alone, but I think you'll get more out of it having read Brightness first.

Full disclosure: I've known the author for a bajillion internet years (this is an actual measurement of time) and she sent me an ARC.

I can't even tell you how fun this was - cosy tropes encased in beautiful language and FEELS, because obviously. Mage from the slums who can do 'impossible' things, because he hasn't been taught they're impossible. Should-be debutante who instead hangs out with the lower classes and gets her eyes opened to social and class injustice. A fight against prejudice and authoritarianism.

BUT ALSO, inter- and extra-planar shenanigans, a cracking pace, a delicious romance (FEELS), and a sidekick I did not see coming.