Every so often there’s a topic that catches what I call my “background interest.” These are the topics that I enjoy reading about but don’t obsess over. North Korea is one such topic—I definitely want to keep reading and learning about the country, the regime, the people, but I’m pursuing it gradually. Five years ago I read In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park’s story of escaping North Korea. Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee – A Look Inside North Korea is a good complement. Both memoirs feature the intense, harrowing escape from North Korea to South Korea via China. Yet because Park and Jang Jin-sung had different lives in North Korea, they had unique experiences during this journey that shaped how they look at it.

Jang grew up in a rural town but ended up in Pyongyang. As a child he trained to be a pianist and a composer, but he eventually discovered a talent for poetry that allowed him to move laterally into writing. Jang eventually ends up in North Korea’s propaganda department. Every day, he and his coworkers would read South Korean newspapers, literature, and art, immersing themselves in the democratic culture of their southern neighbour. The purpose of this was not merely to produce propaganda for distribution in South Korea—Jang and his coworkers were also producing content under South Korean pseudonyms to leak to their fellow citizens. This created the impression that South Koreans supported the North Korean regime more than they do.

Jang’s work eventually drew the attention of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il himself. He becomes one of the Admitted, nearly untouchable even by the regular authorities. Yet as Jang rises through these informal ranks, the more he sees of the corruption and poverty in his homeland makes him question the way things are. Eventually, a lost forbidden book galvanizes Jang and a friend, Young-min, to make the dangerous attempt to escape North Korea and defect.

If you are expecting this book to be dramatic, sad, tense—yes, of course it is all of those things. No story of escaping North Korea is likely to be an overly happy one. Jang literally leaves behind his entire family with no hope of seeing them again. All the atrocities you might expect lurk here: secret police with arrests and executions; re-education camps; mass starvation and malnourishment and incredible poverty. We rightly condemn North Korea for these things … I do think it’s interesting that China abuses human rights as well, yet we are slower to condemn it because doing so runs against a lot of our governments’ economic interests.

But what makes Dear Leader distinct as a memoir is Jang’s experience as one of the Admitted. He has an intimate understanding of North Korea’s leadership that many other defectors never learned about until after they escaped. While I knew that North Korea uses propaganda, of course, Jang’s account provides so many details about how extensive an operation it is. It’s so tempting, when we talk about repressive regimes like North Korea, to make facile comparisons to literary creations like Oceania of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I say that these comparisons are usually facile because fictional totalitarian states never need to actually function, whereas North Korea does (albeit, perhaps, with a fragility propped up by foreign aid). Yet Orwell knew his stuff when it came to understanding how language and propaganda function in such environments, and Jang’s accounts read like something from Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Now, of course, with this subject in mind the next question becomes: is this propaganda of a different sort? To some extent, sure, probably. I’m increasingly skeptical of memoirs of all sorts but especially from people who escape from environments like this—I know Park has been criticized for inconsistencies in her story, and I encountered similar issues with Tara Westover’s Educated. So it’s sensible to approach these stories with healthy skepticism—I believe Jang is telling the truth, but like any autobiography it’s going to be his truth.

Sometimes Jang shares moments that he isn’t proud of. He recounts how the stress of merely trying to survive as fugitives in China affected his friendship with Young-min. I think you could read this book as Jang being a selfish person—he escapes North Korea only because it’s that or interrogation and labour camps; people in China who help him disappear and he spends very little time reflecting on this at the end of the book. However, such a reading ignores or at the very least flattens the trauma that these experiences must bring. I’m not just talking about the escape and survival afterwards—even just growing up under this regime, the brainwashing one endures, must be traumatic.

So even though I read these books with an eye towards their unreliability, I also extend a fair amount of compassion towards their authors’ accounts. I am an incredibly privileged person who will almost certainly never endure the kind of hardship and strife that any North Korean citizen, let alone defector, experiences. Indeed, my smallness in this regard is reinforced by an observation of Jang’s:

It’s humbling: Jang isn’t really an exception himself! He’s exceptional in the sense that he has had the opportunity and skill to write a book sharing his experience. But as far as escaping North Korea goes … there’s so many more people out there with their experiences.

Another thing to know about this book is that Jang’s style is very poetic. This is not surprising considering how much of his job was poetry. While I remained engrossed with the book in general, I found that the style clashed with the translation.

It might sound like I didn’t like this book very much or that I won’t recommend it, and that isn’t the case at all. It’s just that my praise feels rather hollow and predictable. If you want to know more about North Korea, about its inner workings, about the difficulties of escape, then this book is exactly what you want to read. If North Korea isn’t an interest of yours, then this book will be full of details that you don’t need to know.

I will keep reading about North Korea, both accounts from defectors as well as from non–North Koreans who have studied and learned about the country. One day, if I live long enough and am lucky, I might see re-unification happen. I can’t pretend I know what that means in the same way that Koreans do. But until then, I will keep trying to learn more.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Major spoilers in this review, because it’s more of an autopsy. I think After the Fall was dead on arrival for me.

The cover copy promises a kind of love triangle in which Raychel is sleeping with 2 brothers, Matt and Andrew. Now, I know that authors usually don’t write the cover copy, so I won’t blame Kate Hart for this. But I feel misled. Raychel is sleeping with Matt in the sense that sometimes they share a bed. She does have sex with Andrew, like once. So the book positions itself to be this dramatic love triangle, but it’s more like a mopefest in which Raychel is sad because she’s not happy, Matt is sad because he’s not boning Raychel the way he wants to, and Andrew is … actually, Andrew’s deal is less scrutable because we don’t get his perspective very often and he really only seems to exist as a foil to Matt and an alternative partner for Raychel.

If you can’t tell, I’m salty about a lot of stuff in this book, mostly because it set me up for such high hopes. And I’m not just talking about the cover copy.

Matt and Raychel are kind of best friends. From Matt’s perspective, he’s pretty sure on that. When we see Raychel’s perspective, I think she sees herself more like family. She likes both Matt and his brother Andrew (platonically), and in typical high school fashion, she’s oblivious to Matt’s romantic/sexual attraction to her. Raychel has sworn off high school guys; she’s sophisticated and only dates college guys. She and Matt also come from very different backgrounds: her mom is single and working class; his parents are university-educated, one a legal professor and the other a practising doctor. So while Raychel is worried about scrimping enough money to go to college out of state, Matt is more concerned about student council activities to pad his already impressive resumé. Andrew, we are told, is a stoner one grade junior who likes to be less responsible than Matt. As I previously mentioned, the book iterates through the 3 characters’ first person narration, but we mostly switch between Raychel and Matt and hear less often from Andrew.

Matt is overprotective of Raychel and somewhat overbearing. He’s always trying to tell her to buck up and look on the bright side as her mother’s money problems mount. Hart really wants us to understand that he’s a nice guy who’s just very wrapped up in his white, male, upper–middle class privilege. Raychel, on the other hand, who is also white but neither male nor upper–middle class, gets annoyed by Matt on an almost daily basis yet also seems happy to hang out with him and seek comfort from him.

To Hart’s credit—and this is probably why I’m not giving the book 1 star—I do see both points of view. I know what it’s like to watch your friend struggle with life and feel like you should be in a position to help them yet really have nothing to offer except encouragement. I also know what it’s like to feel like a friend isn’t understanding your situation because they don’t share the experience you’re living through. So I hope I’m not coming down inordinately on either of our protagonists, because I think they are equally terrible people.

The other respect in which After the Fall almost but doesn’t quite get it right would be with regards to its handling of rape. In two instances, a classmate named Carson forces Raychel to give him a blowjob. Raychel eventually tells a few people, most notably Matt’s lawyer mother, who lectures her on the nature of consent/assault, reassuring Raychel that this is not her fault, while also admitting Carson will never face ramifications in court if Raychel reported it. I applaud Hart for the way she sets up this subplot. I think Carson’s perspective—his complete obliviousness that he did anything wrong—is unfortunately all too realistic. Similarly, the way Raychel pulls away from people, even from Matt and Andrew, makes a lot of sense too. That’s the “almost” for me. The “doesn’t quite” would be the resolution, the way Raychel strikes back with a childish prank whose consequences are that Carson will have to take a women’s studies course in college next year, oh no!

There are also some conversations in English class about The Handmaid’s Tale and bodily autonomy that are meant to parallel what Raychel’s dealing with and highlight Matt’s masculine cluelessness. But I was uncomfortable, as a trans woman, with the way Hart handles these conversations. They feel boiled down in a gender essentialist way (and to be fair, the source material has similar issues). In the book’s rush to point out the power imbalance between cis men and cis women in our society, it either deliberately ignores or just forgets trans and non-binary folx, further pushing us to the margins in these important conversations.

This is something I’m encountering more and more in YA literature that tries to bring up sensitive topics through a feminist lens. The intent is there, and it is good. But the execution can over-simplify issues that ultimately take years for people to understand. I don’t know what the solution is; I’m not expecting a YA novel to somehow condense bell hooks and Judith Butler and all sorts of feminist theory into a single story that a teenage reader can easily digest. But I would like to see feminist YA fiction that acknowledges the diversity and intersectionality of women’s struggles, that doesn’t forget about other marginalized genders. (The book does feature two racialized women as side characters, one of whom we learn is in love with a Black man despite her Indian parents’ disapproval … again, this is another area in which After the Fall appears to be trying but never engages deeply enough with the issue to move beyond tokenism.)

And then there’s the twist.

I admit, I didn’t expect the eponymous fall to be, you know, a literal fall. So points to Hart for the surprise; you got me. I also think that the reactions of the various characters to Andrew’s death make a lot of sense—in particular, the way Matt’s mother ostracizes Raychel and also has trouble processing her grief in relation to Matt’s survival. Even Matt’s constant self-punishment and guilt is believable. I don’t think I would be able to forgive myself if I were even tangentially responsible for such an accident.

I also appreciate that Hart doesn’t have Raychel and Matt get together in the end. There is no happily ever after here, just ever after—they are the ones who survived, so they have to keep going. It is bleak and not super hopeful, I know, but it is the most appropriate ending for the kind of book After the Fall is.

Where the ending loses me is that it doesn’t actually result in change from any of the characters. Raychel continues to drink, party, and otherwise numb the pain of her problems. Matt continues to obsess over college admissions. No one really wants to talk about their feelings (although at least they’re all going to therapy now). 

Like I said, I didn’t expect or particularly want a happy ending, but I wanted more closure than I got here.

Finally, I just don’t appreciate that Andrew’s entire character was essentially one big plot device. As I mentioned near the beginning of the review, we don’t learn as much about him as Raychel and Matt. He exists to be someone Raychel can get close to in a way that Matt especially disapproves of. He’s a nice guy despite being irresponsible, we learn. And then Hart kills him off to make a point about grief and loneliness and privilege. RIP Andrew, you did not deserve your fate.

There is a good book somewhere inside this messy one. Although the frequent perspective changes sometimes threw me, overall I appreciated Hart’s narrative style. But there is just too much going on, too many issues dancing for my attention, too many serious ideas (and even characters) slipping from foreground into background such that they almost feel like a plot device. (I haven’t even mentioned the child abuse on the part of Raychel’s mom that’s entirely sidelined with a single conversation.) After the Fall wants to make us feel deeply for what these teenagers are going through. I felt. But I didn’t grow.

 Quiet was yet another one of those books lingering on my to-read list. I had watched Susan Cain’s TED talk at some point, and this book kept crossing my feeds, yet I never got around to it. I think, on some level, part of me was worried it would disappoint me. But when my bestie told me she had just read it, I knew the time had come. So, to the library I went!

I am an introvert. I’ve known this long before we took our first racist Myers-Briggs–esque test in high school. I don’t really enjoy being around other people, especially not groups of people, for a long period of time. They drain my battery; alone time recharges it. Sometimes people who don’t know me very well express surprise when they learn this: “but you’re a school teacher!” they exclaim, incredulous that someone so used to talking to an entire classroom of people could be introverted. Those people should read this book to understand how hard I’ve worked to live up to the Extrovert Ideal that Cain describes here.

No, actually, that’s a lie. I haven’t worked very hard at all. I turn it on for the work day, then I go home and crash. Even before the world came to a halt, I didn’t do much socializing outside of work, because I was too exhausted. I had the occasional meet-up with a friend, phone calls with my bestie in Montréal, and Sunday nights with my ride-or-die here in Thunder Bay. The idea of anything else was daunting. This has changed slightly since my transition—complicated, however, by the coincidence of that with everything shutting down, lol—and as things open up, I’m looking forward to having newfound … confidence (I hope) in my social interactions. Yet my transition hasn’t changed my introversion. Those interactions will still drain me.

However, I’m always cautious when talking about my introversion with people. As with many binaries, we like to construct false dichotomies instead of acknowledging that these attributes lie on a spectrum. Cain’s exploration of the introvert/extrovert spectrum is nuanced and very compelling to me. Unlike the self-help books that often focus on turning introverts into extroverts, or that insist introverts and extroverts naturally complement one another but are inherently too different (like men and women), Quiet explores multiple avenues of research related to this topic. Some of them have followed people from birth to try to untangle the roles of nature versus nurture in our introversion. Others examine the idea of “high sensitivity,” a trait apparently correlated with introverts but not exclusive to them. When I read the section where Cain focuses on this, I immediately thought of my bestie. Cain’s description of what it means to be highly-sensitive to stimulus fit me to a T, but it also fit her. “You’re one of those rare highly-sensitive extroverts,” I said as we discussed the book. She confirmed that I know her well: that’s exactly what she saw of herself when she read this book.

Cain’s association with the legal profession and Wall Street also moves her to examine how introverts fit into business. She includes several studies related to introversion as a leadership quality, with the interesting finding that introverts make good leaders when employees show lots of initiative, and they are not as successful as extroverted leaders when employees require more handholding or direction. However, she is quick not to boil these studies down to simplistic advice like the self-help books I denigrated above often do. Cain reminds us that psychological studies are tricky to evaluate. Several of the researchers she quotes in the book stress that our evolving understanding of the complex interplay between nature and nurture means we can’t boil traits like introversion or extroversion down to a set of genes or make pronouncements about how these characteristics will help us fare in society. Nevertheless, the connections that Cain makes across disciplines is compelling.

My main takeaway from this book comes in 2 parts. First, I felt some sadness. Much of Quiet is a chronicle of the grasp that the Extrovert Ideal has on North American culture. Cain laments how introverts feel out of place at Harvard Business School, and how Asian and Asian American students often struggle after graduation to advance in business positions that require you to be louder and flashier than your competitors rather than smarter or more attuned to fine details. After all, as the subtitle of this book indicates, Cain wants us to consider how the quality of being introverted is underappreciated in our society. Sometimes I think she goes too far in linking this thesis with aggrandizement of capitalism and the American Dream—one of her arguments is that most great inventors and CEOs, like Steve Wozniak and Bill Gates, are famously introverted, and that introversion naturally inclines one to leaps of creativity that one might not experience while collaborating in a bigger group. There are moments when she seems to approach a more radical reading of her thesis—i.e., that not only should we challenge the Extrovert Ideal but also recognize its routes in white supremacy—yet she never quite dares to go that far. So in that respect, this book was a little disappointing.

My second takeaway though, was simply that I felt seen. So much of what Cain describes in this book is me. If I were married to a Greg, I would feel like an Emily, not wanting dinner parties every weekend—I cringed when I heard Greg wanted that! Any time Cain described extroverted behaviours, I was like, “Yeah, that is not me.” I’m not over here trying to claim I’m the world’s most introverted introvert—believe me, I have my moments of being outgoing—but this book only reinforced where I am on that spectrum.

For introverts, I think this book will help in a similar way. It will solidify your understanding of yourself, and hopefully not make you feel so alone. For extroverts like my bestie, I hope you understand more about how extroverts and introverts relate and get along. It’s not a coincidence, I think, that I’m best friends with an extrovert—I calm her down and give her space to open up, and she pulls me along and encourages me to move out of my comfort zone, exactly like Cain highlights in one part of the book. (Interestingly, my ride-or-die is introverted like me.) For ambiverts or other people who aren’t sure where they would put themselves on this spectrum, I hope Quiet arms you with more knowledge about yourself and our society.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

When I finished Ninefox Gambit, I was left with so many questions. But they probably weren’t the questions you’d think I would have, if you know this novel’s reputation.

Captain Kel Cheris has been Noticed™, and that’s never good. Political machinations have found her brevetted to general and saddled with a ghost-like companion named Shuos Jedao. He was a renown general a few centuries ago, until he apparently went mad and massacred his own troops. The Kel are known for their rigorous—even suicidal—loyalty; the Shuos are known for their connivance and betrayal. Somehow, together, Kel Cheris and Shuos Jedao must protect the hexarchate from heretics who have taken over the Fortress of Scattered Needles. If they don’t succeed, the heresy will literally spread throughout the hexarchate. The hexarchate’s technology functions on consensus belief—if people break away from the dominant belief system, centred on an intricate and inflexible calendar, then its technology and its pre-eminence will be finished. However, Jedao has ulterior motives even Cheris can’t divine. She better do so quickly before those motives, along with the unknown variables of the facts on the ground, kill her, everyone around her, and destabilize the only government and life she has ever known.

Ok, so, questions. If you have read this book or other reviews of it, you might expect me to ask for more details about how the calendrical technology of the hexarchate works. This seems to be a sticking point for most reviewers. Whether or not they praise the stubborn dearth of exposition, they always talk about wanting to know more. And, sure, I mean that I would be cool. But would you understand it?

Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude. But the majority of technology we see in science fiction is inexplicable to a modern reader—that is what makes it science fiction rather than science fact. Sure, you can insist that your science fiction technology be credibly extrapolated from present-day science (“hard science fiction”), but most science fiction, even the stuff we call hard SF, fails to do that rigorously. Lee’s writing is arguably the hardest of SF considering that all of the tech here is based on number theory—but it is so advanced it is indistinguishable from magic. And that’s true for a lot of science fiction that verges on science fantasy, especially when you start throwing around nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. I’ll return to this thought.

But first, questions. No, my questions were for Lee himself. I turned the final page, put down the book, tried to process it, and I found myself full of questions about how Lee’s experiences might have informed this book. Was the use of consensus reality influenced, at least in part, by Lee’s Korean background and the dichotomy between North and South Korea, wherein the former is quite literally a modern-day example of consensus reality in practice? How did Lee’s experiences as a trans man influence the transformations undergone by Cheris as a result of her uneasy partnership with Jedao? How did they inform the development of this faction-based society in general, which seems to have fairly fluid notions of gender and sexuality but also doesn’t (at least in the realm of society that we see in this book) particularly prioritize them?

I don’t know, maybe it’s the New Historicist in me that has me pursuing such angles. In any event, I scoured the Internet in search of answers. I didn’t find any answers specifically to my question, but I learned a lot about Lee. In this profile in Locus, Lee rightfully criticizes people who read Asian motifs into his work simply because of his Korean heritage:

That’s such a valid point. White readers like myself can exoticize racialized writers. We can read into their work themes and connections that aren’t there because it allows us to feel more secure in our critique: oh, look at us, aren’t we so knowledgeable of other cultures? It is well-meaning but still reductive (not to mention racist). Of course, there are many situations where such connections do exist and deserve to be acknowledged. But we shouldn’t assume those connections exist just because of the writer’s background.

(Besides, on the specific subject of Lee’s use of consensus reality—umm, have y’all seen the United States these days? A sizable proportion have swallowed anti-vax nonsense and are protesting against a theory they don’t even understand. They elected Donald Trump as president. Consensus reality, thy name is America.)

So if I turn my mind from New Historicism to reader response, what do I see in Ninefox Gambit? Well, Lee and I are both mathematicians by training. I have a passing familiarity with number theory; I did some research during my summers as an undergrad that involved simplicial complexes and some wonderful, NP-hard stuff called spreading and covering numbers. (There’s a paper out there somewhere with my dead name on it if that topic sounds like your cup of tea, but we mostly came up with negative results.) In that respect I kind of identified with Cheris: her mind was so mathematically inclined that everyone pushed her towards joining the Nirai faction, which is the hexarchate’s applied technology branch. Cheris insisted on joining the militaristic, conformist Kel instead. I can relate in the sense that I dodged the people who urged me to go into grad school and research, for I knew my passion was in teaching. Sometimes I do miss higher-level math, but I know I wouldn’t have found happiness there. And when it comes to Lee, I can relate to this fascination with the way mathematics and storytelling connect, both literally and structurally. I too am a writer; I am an English teacher as well as a math teacher. To me, the idea of a mathematician writing novels makes total sense, and a consensus reality system based on enforced calendrical beliefs only intrigues rather than stymies me.

Ok, Kara, you sigh, but what did you think of the plot? You know, the story?

Oh, right, I’m writing a book review. Sorry! Where was I?

Ninefox Gambit is a hell of a story. Like, push aside all this discussion of mathematics and exposition and focus on the action. Lee wastes little time throwing Cheris into the deep end, and there is plenty of everything you want from an action story: sacrifice, conflict both internal and external, people questioning their most basic beliefs. The hexarchate is bad, y’all. It’s terrifyingly rigid, and while we don’t really learn much about the lives of ordinary, faction-less citizens like Cheris’ family, we learn enough that I know I wouldn’t want to live under hexarchate rule. It’s kind of a “are we the baddies?” situation, where you wonder if maybe the heretics are on to something….

You will have to wait for my review of book 2 (and I will read book 2 soon) to hear my specific thoughts on the ending of this one, because I don’t want to spoil it. But what happens with Cheris and Jedao … wow. It’s not that I didn’t see it coming (really, the foreshadowing is written in big, neon equations—did you not solve for the end?). No, I saw it coming. But the execution made me feel like the book ends with “Sympathy for the Devil” coming on the loudspeaker as the credits start rolling and the lights come up in the theatres. It made me think of the finale of the underrated, cancelled-too-soon Dark Matter. It made me think of all the right things to make me excited to read book 2, perfectly balancing the desire for a cliffhanger that sets up the sequel while still delivering a clear resolution to this story.

And this, I think, is what I hope you focus on when you read the reviews, mine included, and decide if Ninefox Gambit is for you. Don’t worry about the math, the lack of exposition, the strange society into which you’re catapulted. Do you like explosions? Do you like enemies you can sympathize with and allies you can hate? Do you think revenge is a dished best served centuries cold? Then this book is for you. Let your eyes glaze over when you need to, but when those guns start shooting or people start dying from a weapon of mass destruction, pull your awareness back to the page and absorb the story that Lee tells. Because ultimately, this is not a book about calculations or calendars. It’s about who should have the power to decide who lives or dies. And like any good hero’s journey, from literal superhero fiction to epic fantasy and SF, Ninefox Gambit warns us that the protagonist we so desperately want to look up to may not, in fact, be much of a hero at all.

So I guess I liked it.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Every so often I just love to put myself through the experience that is reading the sequel to a book I read nearly 6 years ago! That is the case with The Crown’s Fate, which picks off where The Crown’s Game left off. Somehow, that first book and the description of this one were enough to keep it on my to-read list after a massive purge I did shortly after joining the StoryGraph. Then I found this book through my library’s ebook collection, and I was good to go.

There can only be one … Imperial Enchanter, that is. In Evelyn Skye’s reimagining of the Decembrist revolution, Vika triumphed over Nikolai in the deadly Crown’s Game to become the Imperial Enchanter. She discovers that she is quite literally bound to follow the wishes of the tsarevich and his sister. But Nikolai didn’t quite die (they never do, do they?), and his vengeful mother helps resurrect him at the price of some of the goodness in his soul. Confused, embittered, betrayed, Nikolai vows to use his newfound knowledge of his paternity to take the throne of Russia from Pasha. Vika, still in love but also bound to that throne, must find a way to satisfy her masters while, ideally, saving Nikolai from himself.

Skye’s decision to make Nikolai into an antagonist is an inspired one. I wasn’t sure where the story would go at first—with Nikolai trapped in a dreamlike “ante-death” and Vika bound to Pasha and Yuliana, would they team up to rebel against the tsardom? That seemed like how it was going at first, and I would have been on board. But pitting them against each other again, while perhaps uninspired as a reprisal of the first book, was also very satisfying. Nikolai is a potent antagonist because his anger comes from a legitimate, believable source. Pasha did betray him. Nikolai’s mother is in some ways the true villain behind the scenes, and it’s interesting what happens to her. But all in all, I appreciated how Skye makes Nikolai’s heel turn feel very believable.

I also appreciate how Vika, while clearly still in love with him and drawn to him, does not fall for his nonsense. He invites her to join him multiple times, encourages her, tells her they can rule Russia together—and she’s like, “Boy, no.” Good for you, Vika! She isn’t doing it out of her loyalty to the crown—she’s doing it for Nikolai’s sake, and the knife’s edge she must balance on to maintain all of her loyalties is the best part of this novel.

There are some parts of the book that aren’t as gratifying. In general, most of the other characters aren’t fleshed out. Similarly, Skye could have done so much more regarding the burgeoning of magic that accompanies the Russian people’s recovering belief in it. We see hints of Baba Yaga, of giant catfish kings, but this is background and then only recapitulated again towards the ending. Overall, I love how Skye re-imagines nineteenth-century Russia with magic in mind. But there was so much more room for depth to this world.

In the end, The Crown’s Fate was captivating enough, intense enough, that I devoured it quickly. I don’t regret holding on to it on my to-read list; if you read the first book, this sequel is worth it for sure. And the different setting, the interesting ideas—all of it was a lot of fun.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

You know Kara likes stories of heists and swindles, con artists and the like, yes? Oh yes. For some reason this got lost when I moved and only resurfaced recently, so I’m finally getting to read Empire of Deception, all about Chicago swindler Leo Koretz. According to Dean Jobb, Koretz is impressive enough that we should be talking about Koretz schemes instead of Ponzi schemes, and after reading this book, it’s not difficult to see why. In a decade of glam, glitter, and corruption, Koretz managed to take a lot of money (mostly from rich people, yay) and failed to pay it back before going out spectacularly, although he wasn’t particularly good at being on the run.

Jobb tells the story in three acts: Act 1 is Koretz’s life up to and including the Panamanian development pyramid scheme that resulted in him going on the run; Act 2 is Koretz’s life as a fugitive while the Chicago police investigate; Act 3 is the capture, trial, and sentencing of Koretz. But this isn’t just Koretz’s story. Jobb also tells us about Robert Crowe, at the time Cook County’s state attorney, who pursues and prosecutes Koretz with political ambitions on the line. In this way, Jobb makes Empire of Deception about more than one man’s criminal enterprise: it is a story about 1920s Chicago, about the interwar interregnum and Prohibition, about what happens when you want to believe you can get rich because the American dream burns so brightly from every shop window and every street corner.

Here we are, literally a century later, and wow do things like a lot different…. Yet the more things change, the more they stay the same. The trial of Elizabeth Holmes, who bilked investors out of money for a vaporous product with her Theranos medical technology, starts next month. John Carreyou’s Bad Blood feels very similar to Empire of Deception: in both cases, you have an intelligent person who starts off legitimately wanting to make money and then realizes that it’s a lot easier if you just keep asking people to invest in your idea and then not actually do anything.

Jobb and Carreyou both delve into the psychology of the con artist here. Jobb makes the interesting assertion that, towards the end, Koretz was beginning to believe his own scheme—he was so good at convincing people they were investing in property and oil development in Panama that he was beginning to believe it himself! This might sound incredible to some people, but I believe it because psychologists have consistently demonstrated the power of groupthink to cause us to believe in something we know is untrue. In the same way, Carreyou explores how Holmes almost certainly believed her own hype: she believed that one day Theranos would revolutionize the world, because enough people had given her money that she couldn’t not fail. In succumbing to their own schemes, these swindlers had a difficult time disentangling themselves when the scheme began to collapse. Hence why Koretz barely managed to try to return some of the money before fleeing Chicago for Nova Scotia.

Equally fascinating as the psychology of the swindler is the psychology of the mark. Here’s the thing: as I was reading about how Koretz sold people on his scheme by telling them not to invest, I started wanting to invest. Like, the more Jobb was telling me how charismatic he was, the more I was told that Koretz was bad news, I was into it. And I’m 100 years distant from the guy, and I know that it’s a scam, yet I still wanted to buy in. That is the power of manipulating our fragile human psyches: even when you know how the con artists do it, you’re still vulnerable because the evolutionary levers that they pull are still there. You can watch for it and guard against it, but you can never eliminate your vulnerabilities entirely, because to do so would basically make you a psychopath. This is so fascinating to me as someone who, for a time in her young adulthood, was very interested in rationalism versus humanism. Now any time someone claims to be “rational” I quickly back away, because yes, we can all strive to be better at decision-making, but at the end of the day my lizard brain only lets me stray so far from my cognitive biases.

Koretz’s time as a fugitive in Nova Scotia was also wild. He bought a hunting lodge, made it over, hired a staff, posed as a high-flying writer and literary critic … man, the stuff you could get away with in 1920s Atlantic Canada. Those were the days! Jobb tells the story in a compelling, narrative way. At times this threw me—he would describe such details that I’m like, “Uh, how do you know this his glasses were fogging up?” and I dislike when my non-fiction becomes too embellished that way. However, Jobb’s afterword insists that all such details were gleaned from various contemporary newspaper reports. In that case, I guess all I can do is appreciate the incredible amount of research and time that went into piecing together Koretz’s story in such detail.

Narration style aside, Empire of Deception is a great example of the non-fiction I love to sink into on a hot summer weekend. It’s full of context and analysis about the time period in which it’s set, and it explores why events happened the way they did. For example, you really get a sense of how much Koretz’s family, particularly his wife and kid, suffered as a result of his crimes—not only did their social standing fall, but they were under suspicion even after returning the money and gems he gave them. I don’t read a ton of true crime—like I said, it’s heists and scams for me—but when I do, I like focusing not just on the human elements in the crime itself but the way society at the time of the crime allowed it to happen and made the fallout even worse.

Empire of Deception is worth a read if, like me, you are fascinated by con artists and the people who give them money. Leo Koretz is a name to know.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

While I wouldn’t say I was hyped for The Echo Wife, you might call me intrigued. A story about a woman whose husband cheats on her with her own clone? I don’t think I’ve read that before, and it’s exactly the kind of scenario I would expect human cloning to lead to. It took me a while to get into the book (just Gailey’s writing style), but eventually I was hooked on the relationship developing between Evelyn and Martine. The ending is truly something else. I don’t know if Gailey is an evil genius or a disturbed evil genius, but they’re definitely evil and definitely a genius.

Evelyn is an award-winning researcher into human cloning. She has come this far with her husband, Nathan, but now they’re splitting up. When the book starts, Evelyn knows why this is happening—he has cloned her, using the tech they developed together, and named the clone Martine, and conditioned this clone to be more pliant, more “wifely” than Evelyn ever could be. But Gailey brings us to this revelation gradually, kind of the slow ride up the roller coaster before you reach the top, at which point they let rip with what I can only describe as a very twisted thriller.

Though cloning is essential to this book’s story, this isn’t really a book about cloning. The Echo Wife is about abuse, and in particular, Gailey focuses on the ways in which men often try to mould the women in their lives into specific roles. Cloning is just a useful science-fictional novum that helps Gailey explore this idea in a very literal way: if you’re not satisfied with your wife, why not make a better version of her? Wifey 2.0.

Before we talk about Nathan, however, let’s talk about Evelyn. Because it’s clear almost immediately that she has more trauma than just her marriage to Nathan to deal with. The book opens on a reception being held, one in which she has won an award. So she is laced up tight in a dress she can barely breathe in and attending an event she doesn’t want to be at because that is what one does if one wants more grant funding next year. At this event she encounters a former mentor, another woman, and Evelyn as the first person narrator confides in us that this woman taught Evelyn how to deal with the misogyny of grad school and postdocs in science. When I was reading this chapter, I admit to some impatience—bring on the clone, I thought!—but in hindsight, this chapter is important. Gailey is establishing from the beginning Evelyn’s awareness of how patriarchy affects her work life.

In the same way, flashbacks to Evelyn’s childhood show us how her abusive relationship with her father affected her development. He expected her to be unseen, out of the way, except when he chose to make time for her, and only then if she could conform to his definition of brilliance. The message Gailey gives us is clear: Evelyn is not new to abusive relationships. This has been a pattern her whole life, sadly something that is true for a lot of people (and women in particular).

So then we come to Nathan. The most interesting thing about him? He’s barely in the book. By this I mean that Nathan barely appears on page and talks to the characters. Evelyn tells us a lot about him, relates details about their past together. But we show up at Martine and Nathan’s house after Nathan is gone. Near the end of the story, when Evelyn explains the “arrangement” that they come to, she again keeps us at arm’s length. So Nathan is arguably not really a character in this book. He is a bogeyman in Evelyn’s psyche. I don’t mean to suggest that she is exaggerating his awfulness, but I want to highlight this because I think it is an important choice on Gailey’s part. There are really only 2 characters we spend much time with here, Evelyn and Martine, and Evelyn is the only one talking directly to us. Yes, it is possibly Evelyn and Martine are unreliable and making up the entire thing—but then, I would argue that undermines the entire plot, so I don’t see that as a particularly useful reading. This means we literally must believe women about their abusers instead of looking toward external sources for validation.

The other fascinating interplay in this book is obviously between Evelyn and Martine. They are clones, yet they aren’t identical. Evelyn has Opinions about Martine, of course, many of them initially negative because she resents the way Martine has so easily filled the void in Nathan’s life that Evelyn never quite filled. Yet she also pities Martine, because that is the only reason for Martine to exist. There’s a whole other story here, one from Martine’s point of view, that would be just as fascinating, I suspect. But part of what makes The Echo Wife so compelling is, as I discussed above, the way Gailey limits the scope of the narrative. We don’t get to see Martine’s confrontations with Nathan and the fallout—we just get to see Evelyn coming over after the fact. We don’t get to see Martine digging up the garden and discovering Nathan’s little secrets—again, we see Evelyn observing Martine after the fact.

So, on the one hand, you have this dark and disturbing thriller where Gailey uses cloning to highlight how men abuse women, and how sometimes they will literally replace us if they think they can get away with it and be happier as a result. On the other hand, that ending!

When I put this book down, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the ending—and that’s always a good sign. Overall, I think it’s because Gailey has succeeded at creating an unlikable female protagonist who is nonetheless sympathetic. That is to say, I really don’t like Evelyn—she clearly hasn’t dealt with her trauma in a healthy way, and it shows in how she treats other people. At the same time, I sympathize with her and Martine’s problems, and I want them to succeed rather than being caught and going to jail. Yet the solution that Evelyn comes up with … huh. It’s deliciously complex but also disturbing; she has essentially manipulated everyone else involved to arrive at the optimal solution for herself while convincing herself (genuinely, I think) that it’s best for the others too.

I also think it’s interesting that while Gailey acknowledges there are ethical dilemmas regarding human cloning, they also basically sidestep those dilemmas. There is one notable point where Martine holds a metaphorical mirror up to Evelyn and points out the problematic way Evelyn has rationalized what she does. Nevertheless, if you are looking for a book that really engages with the ethics of creating humans from whole cloth, this probably isn’t for you. Not because it doesn’t present the problems—Martine’s very existence is ethically problematic—but because it never quite holds Evelyn (or, actually, Nathan) to account for the positions they take.

I guess all I can say without going into spoilers is that this is a book about flawed people doing flawed things. Some of their issues are down to patriarchy, some are the result of trauma, and others are just bad decisions. At the end of the day, no one should be forced to stay in an abusive situation. No one deserves or should have the ability to adjust another person until they are their ideal version of a mate. The Echo Wife grapples with abusive relationships and what it means to love someone in a very unique and thoughtful way. There were moments that missed the mark for me, and our protagonist is a difficult person to like. Nevertheless, Gailey’s writing and storytelling left me very satisfied, and I’m glad I let the description of this book intrigue me into reading it so quickly. (Also glad my library had a copy!)

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Although I would have picked this up on my own once I heard about it, I sought out and read White Tears/Brown Scars as a part of an antiracist book club that I joined for the month of June. Comprising mostly educators in Ontario, the book club’s organizer picked this book because our profession is predominantly white women, so white tears are a problem. As a white women, I’m a part of that problem, even if I’m not the one crying. As the subtitle of this book implies, white tears are but one manifestation of white feminism. What Ruby Hamad is really here to do is school all of us in how white feminism can actually prop up the patriarchy, and indeed uphold whiteness, even as it seeks liberation for white women.

Hamad wrote this book after an article of hers in The Guardian received a lot of traction, both negative as well as positive. In among the latter were women of colour who told her that they felt less alone reading her article. So in addition to schooling white women with this book, Hamad is also here to help racialized women understand where the historical context of white tears and how the phenomenon as a power dynamic can manifest in surprising ways. Hence, much of the book, and in particular the first few chapters, really focuses on a history lesson. Hamad connects how the modern phenomenon of white tears is really just the most recent manifestation in a long line of ways in which white women—even white women who are feminist—have weaponized their race and gender to uphold whiteness.

Hamad explores the “false binary between white women and other women” in which femininity is defined in such a way that whiteness becomes a key part of womanhood. Literally as I write this review, Black women are being banned from Olympic competitions for a variety of reasons that have little to do with athletic integrity and everything to do with policing femininity. White cis women, Hamad shows us, can always count on being women, even when they experience misogyny as a result of patriarchy. In contrast, Black women and women of colour have historically not been perceived as people, let alone women; when we allow them to be people we often reduce them to stereotypes, as seen in our literature and pop culture. White women are allowed to have a full range of emotions—including tears—whereas women of colour must be careful with their emotional range, lest they fall into one of these stereotypes.

Something that really hit me as I read this book is how white tears relate to cultural appropriation. Hamad only mentions this phenomenon tangentially; she discusses how quick we are to put some women of colour (like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) on a pedestal, only to see them fall when it’s convenient. But this also made me think about how white women are the ones responsible for a lot of cultural appropriation. We stole yoga from India; we are the ones who robbed Black people of “on fleek,” “spill the tea,” “receipts,” and all many of vernacular that wasn’t ours to take but was taken anyway because white women think they deserve access to everything. And when someone—even politely—suggests that maybe it’s not ours to have, we whip out those tears right quick.

In this way, Hamad lays out how our white supremacist society polices racialized women, and how white women are complicit in that. When it comes to feminism, Hamad draws explicit connections between white suffragists and eugenics, as well as deliberate exclusion of Black women from the push for enfranchisement. In other words, the movement that so many people point to as the emergence of modern feminism was racist and exclusionary and really out only for white women. This won’t surprise any racialized women, of course, but my fellow white women might feel fragile hearing such a charge. Oh, no, surely feminism is in it for all women! Except, as Hamad and others like Ijeoma Oluo in Mediocre and Mikki Kendall in Hood Feminism have shown, it’s not. And White Tears/Brown Scars goes a long way towards explaining why that’s the case.

Probably one of the most salient and easiest examples to pull from the book would be how Hamad comments on the behaviour of Mary Beard, a white classics professor. After facing criticism for a racist tweet, Beard, instead of apologizing, doubled down on the idea that she was being “attacked” by online haters. Hamad says,

This is what Hamad wants you to take away from the book. Some white women know what they are doing—as Hamad says, how can they not when so many women of colour have pointed out this issue by now—but even when white tears come seemingly innocently, they aren’t. They are embedded in the whiteness of our society, in the way that white women are taught that they can position themselves as vulnerable—feminine being weaker, thanks patriarchy—to deflect from any harm they might be responsible for in a given situation. Not only does this trigger help from white men, but it gaslights the woman of colour (because it’s usually a woman of colour, although it might be a racialized man) whose correction or question provoked the tears. White tears are a symptom of strategic white womanhood, which in turn are learned behaviours that allow white supremacy and patriarchy to flourish.

Some of you might be wondering how I related to this book personally, as someone whose whiteness has always been a part of me but whose womanhood has become visible very recently. I did struggle, honestly, to conceptualize my position within this framework. Let me be unequivocal: I am a white woman. My transness doesn’t diminish that fact, and any oppression I experience as a trans woman doesn’t diminish the white privilege I have. On the other hand, like racialized women, I experience moments in our society where my being perceived as a woman becomes contextual and contingent. By this I mean that I don’t think I have the same privilege a white cis woman has to fall back into that “damsel in distress” role. However, I’m still really new to my transition to the point that the pandemic hit before I could really figure out this whole “womanhood” thing in public. So I have to say that I have very little data with which to help me understand these complex intersections of identities—I am very interested to see what happens as I get out into society that isn’t my workplace through a screen. Sigh. I guess this is just something I need to continue unpacking for now!

None of this is to excuse myself or push myself towards innocence from white tears or my complicity in upholding whiteness, of course. No matter my individual actions, structurally I have a position in society in which I contribute to and benefit from white supremacy. So it behoved me to read White Tears/Brown Scars, just as it behoves me to recommend it to you now, especially if you are a white woman like me. We need to push past our fragility and our discomfort at the fact that, hey, we aren’t perfect and are sometimes going to slip up and do things that harm racialized people. It’s not possible to be antiracist simply by declaring oneself so on social media. Antiracism is a lifestyle, and it’s one that is bound to be punctuated by mistakes that come as a result of our privilege and power. That doesn’t make it any less real or important, but it does mean we need to think deeply about our actions, especially when others call us out or in. And shelve those tears for later when you’re home with your ice cream.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Sometimes, Kara, you need to listen to yourself more. I really should have read my review of Ilium before diving into Olympos. Not only would it have refreshed me on the plot, but I actually mentioned the uncomfortable, rapey, male-gazeyness of Simmons’ writing in that review. This is what clinched my dislike of Olympos. As with Ilium, I almost gave up on it—but I soldiered on, and honestly? Not worth it.

Picking up where Ilium left off, Olympos has a lot of plot threads/characters to summarize, so bear with me. First we have Thomas Hockenberry, a “scholic” rebuilt from the writings and DNA of a 21st-century scholar to bear witness to the ersatz Trojan War playing out on a terraformed Mars. He has had a part in convincing the Trojans and Greeks to unite against the Olympian Gods, who are actually posthumans. Into this fray come the moravecs, part-human and part-machine, descendants of machines sent out to Jupiter prior to humanity’s leap into posthumanity. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the “old style” humans need to rediscover a lot of technology and skills fast, because their former servitor robots the voynix are really keen on killing all the humans. This includes Ada, now preggo with Harman’s baby, and Harman himself, who quickly becomes embroiled further with the mysterious beings known as Prospero and Ariel. In the background lurks Setebos, some kind of alien incorporated as a brain with a terrifying number of hands for limbs.

I’ll give this to Dan Simmons: Olympos offers a lot of explanations for the mysteries broached in Ilium. It’s just that most of them aren’t great. My praise for the first book centred on how Simmons explores the nature of literacy and the benefits and drawbacks it has bequeathed on humanity. Olympos largely jettisons these themes in favour of action; the themes mostly seem to trend towards “lots of tech good, but play nice with other branches of humanity” without much clarity there either.

Oh, and then of course, there’s all the sex stuff. What is it with cis white male science-fiction authors and an obsession with sexytimes? Asimov was conservative enough at least to merely be sexist in his descriptions of women. Simmons is closer to Larry Niven, whose obsession with “rishathra” torpedoed any enjoyment I could get from the Ringworld series. Everyone in this book is so horny. Add to that the descriptions of things, not even people, but things in terms of “the shape of a woman’s thighs,” and I was so close to noping out.

Then Simmons decides it would be a good idea to include rape as a plot point. Not just any rape either. No, in this case, Harman has to have sex with an unconscious woman who looks like someone he knew from the first book (Savi) because the DNA in his semen is the key to unlocking her from stasis.

I am not kidding. I nearly threw my book across the room. I persevered mostly so that I would never, ever be tempted to pick up this book again just to know how it ends. But I am telling you all now, any readers of this review, that if you are in the middle of this book and wondering if it is worth it, it is not.

I would like to spoil the ending for you, but I am going to be honest, a lot of the explanation just doesn’t make sense in a narrative sense. Like, the Big Idea does—and it’s cool, but I have seen it done better elsewhere, and Simmons just kind of drops it onto the table like a flopping, soon-to-be-dead fish so that he can spend more time telling us how fuckable Helen of Troy is. Nor does the ending really matter. Everything gets tied up just a little too neatly, as if Simmons wants us to gaze upon him admiringly and say, “Oooh, look at how clever you are for plotting all that!” And hey, maybe I would, if you hadn’t been rapey as fuck.

I am done with you, Dan Simmons. Good day.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Here we are, the sixth and final book of The Song of the Shattered Sands. A Desert Torn Asunder brings to a close the quest of Çeda to kill the Kings of Sharakhai, perhaps in unexpected ways. But the story has grown grander and more epic in scope since that first book, and there are other players on the field who deserve closure too. Bradley P. Beaulieu manages the not inconsiderable feat of creating a satisfying ending to an epic fantasy series, certainly more satisfying than some I have read over the past few years (Sara Douglass, looking at you). If you want my praise in one blurb, it is this: this book does not rush you towards its conclusion, nor does it grant any character an easy end to their struggle.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gollancz for this free e-ARC.

This review is going to be, in many ways, a review of the series as a whole now that we have closure. That being said, I’m going to keep it spoiler-free for A Desert Torn Asunder, so you should be fine as long as you don’t mind spoilers for the previous 5 books.

Look, I mentioned this in a previous review, and I’m sure I am not the only one to make this comparison, but this series is way better than A Song of Ice and Fire ever was. I’m using George R.R. Martin’s unfinished epic opus as a touchstone because of its cultural relevance—this series could easily be adapted by HBO or any number of competing studios to the same fidelity that they produced Game of Thrones but with the added benefit of, you know, a good ending. Oh, and tons less misogyny and gratuitous nudity and sexual violence! Not only is Beaulieu a better writer but he has delivered in a few years what Martin has failed to do in a couple of decades. Yes, I know that every writer is different, and I’m not here to dismiss any difficulties Martin might have with his writing—I’m just pointing out a simple fact.

I’m looking at this series from the position of someone who has been a fan of epic fantasy for almost her whole life. When I was young, my first genre love was mystery. I went from Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew up to the big leagues of Agatha Christie. Then in grades 6 and 7, I discovered science fiction and fantasy. Dune and LOTR were great, but it was The Belgariad by David (and Leigh) Eddings that truly stoked the fantasy fire in this reader’s heart. I devoured that series and its sequel series, and from there I tore through my library’s epic fantasy books. I remember reading the first three Song of Ice and Fire novels in Grade 7—waaaay too young for that content, oops—and then waiting, patiently, for the next book. Still waiting for book 6 at 31, George….

So, I’ve not just read epic fantasy; I have steeped myself in it. Yet as I grew older and learned more about the world around me, I began to understand how a lot of epic fantasy reflects our problematic worldviews. I saw how it is often mired in European ideas of feudalism and patriarchy and how the few attempts to subvert that are often clumsy or problematic in other senses. So it has been with great excitement that I have watched so many authors, particularly women of colour, reimagine what epic fantasy can be (N.K. Jemisin, I’m looking at you!). Anybody who writes today that epic fantasy is too whitewashed, too Eurocentric, etc., just isn’t paying attention to the brilliant renaissance of fresh voices and worlds being created right now.

Beaulieu’s series is a part of that. What I admire most is the way he marries the old and the new. There are tired tropes in this book: elder gods versus younger gods—including a literal deus ex machina at the end of A Desert Torn Asunder—and enchanted blades and ancient curses, etc. But Beaulieu infuses these ideas with different settings—in the middle of a desert—and diverse characters, most of whom are neither good nor evil but simply fallible humans on power trips. To that last point, I was very impressed with the characterization of Ihsan in this book. We’ve come a long way from the first book, when the Kings seemed like these remote and terrible figures, to now, where they are as beaten and broken as any of the other mortals trapped in this gods-caused struggle.

Indeed, in addition to the overall quality of this series as it pertains to the epic fantasy subgenre, I just want to praise the incredible characterization in this book. So many of the main characters are three-dimensional. I have been angry with pretty much all of them—Çeda included—at one point or another. Meryam’s evolution from possible hero to villain, and the way Beaulieu has unpacked the childhood traumas that her mind has fled into to rationalize her actions, has been so fascinating. I appreciate how, in this final book, each of the remaining main characters receives some kind of resolution to their story. Sometimes it is entirely what you would expect; other times, it’s different because of how their story has changed over these six books.

Do I agree with all of it? No. This series is far from perfect. As I have previously mentioned, I would like to see more explicit LGBTQ+ representation—Çeda’s dalliance with Sumeya is further minimized in this book in a way I didn’t appreciate, and the only other major gay characters I can think of were antagonists. So in that respect Beaulieu could have done better. Similarly, this series suffers from what any epic series does: way too many characters, way too many subplots, and the challenge of bringing it all together at the end. As I have already said, I think Beaulieu succeeds at this challenge. However, there’s definitely elements to A Desert Torn Asunder that feel very narratively convenient. Davud’s entire storyline is one of them, in my opinion, along with the deus ex machina I mentioned above. These are all “your mileage may vary” type things, of course, and someone else might have fewer nitpicks while another reader might think I’m going too easy on the series.

But I’m not here to put any fantasy series on a pedestal. I’m here, rather, for more diverse fantasy in the sense that we are seeing a lot of different and fresh takes on what it means to be “epic.” I have seen so much of that lately; here’s a short list if you want it: The Jasmine Throne, Ashes of the Sun, Blades of the Old Empire, the aforementioned N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season. I’m sure there are listicles and other recommendations out there if you need more of this in your life—I know I do.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.