Actually even more maddening to me than a lack of policy (eh, maybe not; maybe it’s a toss-up, I find both of these things frustrating) is the suggestion that you can foment and enact revolution without getting your hands dirty. The protagonists of these books sometimes have people around them who are too ruthless and maybe do a bombing, which is a good way to remind the reader that our heroes are moral people who would never harm women or children in their quest to overthrow the corrupt ruling state that throws people into a snake fire hellpit. And then the ultimate message is if you are sufficiently pure of heart, you can totally make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Hooray! Liberty and justice for all! This is no good for me because my aesthetic is much more:

(Not that anyone has inquired, but if EYE were goingto run a resistance organization, what I’d do is create two separate groups that would appear to be in opposition to each other but secretly they’d be working in concert, and one of the groups would be the nonviolent resistance guys with very clearly articulated policy proposals and a squeaky clean religious leader at its head and the other group would espouse the rhetoric of burning everything down, which they would back up by burning down high-profile targets sometimes, so the ruling class would be very afraid that if they didn’t implement the nonviolent guys’ policy proposals, they’d instead get burned down by the violent guys, so they’d be like, well we won’t talk to you violent jerks, but we’ll talk to these other guys who share some of your less radical goals and seem like they wouldn’t burn down a school, and that’s how I would get my own way in the end, if I were in charge of The Resistance. Which I wouldn’t be. Someone charismatic can be in charge, and I will be the shadowy advisor who comes up with practical ways to achieve their lofty idealistic goals.)

What’s that? Talk about the books, you say? Great, yes, let’s hop to it.

The premise of Fireborne is that the former governing body of Callipolis was these absolute tyrants who maintained their wicked rule through violent dragon enforcement, because they had psychic connections to these scary fire-breathing dragons. Then a man named Atreus came along and did a rebellion to institute a more equitable system, whereby everyone would get placed in a social stratum based on the results of a standardized test. Under this new system, even peasant orphans can be telepathic dragon cops. Hoo–ray? Our two protagonists, Lee and Annie, grew up in an orphanage together and are now two of the lead candidates competing to be Firstriders in the dragon corps. But Lee has a secret: He’s the scion of the old dragonlords, who watched his whole family die in Atreus’s coup d’etat all those years ago. Because you cannot actually make an goddamn omelet without breaking a few goddamn eggs.

What I like about this, as a premise, is that the old regime was very wicked, and at one and the same time, Lee is rightly ambivalent about the new regime. Is it better than the rule of the dragonlords? For sure. Does Lee have serious and lasting trauma from watching his whole family get slaughtered by the rebels who now govern his country? Hundo p. On the other side of things, we have Annie, short for Antigone (love it), who watched her own family die at the hands of Lee’s very father and his dragon. The old regime was very very bad!! It oppressed the peasantry!

But does Rosaria Munda stop upping the ante? SHE DOES NOT. There’s a point in Fireborne where a famine strikes the country and they have to institute rationing, enforced by *jazz hands* dragon riders! Which means: Annie! Which means she has to go into the selfsame peasant countryside areas where she herself was a child and sit upon the same exact type of scary dragon that terrorized her as a child, and she has to use her dragon to intimidate the populace into doing rationing correctly. Moral dilemma!

So then does Rosaria Munda cease upping the ante? My friends, she does not, because under no circumstances can you make a motherfucking omelet without killing a few people.

In Flamefall, the the survivors of the massacre of the dragonlords have taken over governance of a whole other place (New Pythos), where they are now being real jerks to the peasantry there. Griff is a dragonrider, but his dragon wears a muzzle, and he serves at the whim of dragonlords who might at any moment kill his family. That situation: p. bad. Back in the home country, the famine is ongoing, and people with lower medal rankings are receiving smaller rations than people with higher medal rankings (which includes Our Heroes). Meanwhile the regime is tightening its control over the press and even the theaters, and there aren’t enough bunkers for everyone in the event of dragon attack. That situation: p. bad, also.

Oh, and then there are some rebels in the home country, who are fighting for the vague equality I mentioned at the start of this post. Whilst their primary goal (equality) is laudable, they do other things that lead to mass civilian casualties and MORE FAMINE. That situation: this will astonish you, but p. bad too. Just as many governments are bad at governing, many freedom fighters are quite poor at fighting for freedom.

The shouting is cheerful, the [rebels] eager to set out into the night to leave gifts of bread on the steps of the unsuspecting poor…. But the problems with the scene niggle the back of my mind: The bread is made from stolen grain; the luck of those who will receive it stems from their streets being within a walk of the Misanthrope, from living in the neighborhood of someone who dared rob a city granary. The metals stratification isn’t fair, but neither is this haphazard redistribution–

Lee and Annie remain idealists in this book, as they were in the previous one, but they discover very clearly that high ideals are not a trustworthy protection against benefiting from unequal systems. Our new protagonist in Flamefall, Griff, knows this lesson keenly. The life that Atreus saved (?) Callipolis’s peasantry from, Griff is now living. He and his people have been subjugated by the exiled dragonlords and forced into service. Though Griff has a (muzzled) dragon, he lives in service of capricious masters who have abused and terrorized him. You get the sense that Atreus must once have felt the way Griff does now: angry and tired, and desperate to find any way to free his loved ones from the dragonlords’ yoke.

I wouldn’t exactly describe Flamefall as having twists, because like the stories of classical antiquity that it draws on, there’s a certain stony inevitability to everything that happens. Of course Atreus and his allies overthrew the dragonlords; of course Lee misses the family he loved; of course the starving and oppressed people of Callipolis rebel; of course, of course. And just as inevitably, a human cost attends any one of the raft of available bad choices. Still, Lee and Annie (and Griff, now) keep striving to find justice in a world hobbled by the systems put in place by the last bunch of omelet-makers, idealists and pragmatists and tyrants alike.

It feels funny to use the word reassuring about a series that deals with issues as dark as those discussed in the Aurelian series. Still, I did find it reassuring. It reassured me in the sense that there really aren’t easy answers to the question “How can we fix the world?” There are always compromises. There are always failures. People always get hurt. You have to know that, and you have to pick a side anyway.

Also, I screamed at the last chapter of this book. How can I possibly wait one whole year for the third one? I MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

The post Fireborne and Flamefall, Rosaria Munda appeared first on Reading the End.

A Chorus Rises is a companion novel in the best, best way. It opens not long after the climactic events in A Chorus Rises, focusing on mean girl Naema and her lasting trauma over having been turned to stone by Tavia’s sister Effie, a gorgon. In the aftermath of the events of A Song Below Water, it’s suddenly become fashionable to be a siren. Whereas in the olden days, Naema was part of a magical network that protected the secrecy of sirens’ identities (including Tavia’s), now she’s kind of an outcast. Everyone knows, or thinks they know, that Naema threatened Tavia’s secrecy. Naema’s been uninvited from the network of protectors. Even her friends are talking about Tavia’s strength and bravery, telling and retelling the story of how Tavia’s song saved all the children in Portland who had been frozen in stone.

There’s just one piece of the story that’s being left out: Naema’s story. Yes, Tavia’s song saved her and the other kids from being stone. Yes, she threatened Tavia and Effie (after years of protecting Tavia, a schoolmate she personally couldn’t stand). But in between those two events, Tavia turned her to stone. Every time Naema sees the positive press on Tavia, the movie that’s made about what happened in those days, it’s her attacker she’s seeing praised. But Naema sees more than that. She sees how eager the culture is to set the two of them, Tavia and Naema, against each other–not for who they are, two girls who don’t get along, but for what they represent: two Black girls, both magic, one good, one bad, because the culture doesn’t have enough love to give two different Black girls, which means of course that they never loved either of them in the first place.

I loved Naema’s ferocious self-assurance, and I love that she spends most of this book refusing to yield space even when the culture demands that she yield it. She understands the space she has occupied all her life, and she understands the space she’s entitled to occupy now. As much as this is a book about finding a place (in her family, especially, which is a gorgeous theme of the book and made me very emoshe as a person with a lot of cousins), it’s also a story about recovering from trauma. Being turned into stone was awful and terrifying, and Naema is mad as hell about it. She demands to be allowed the space to have been the person who experienced that trauma, the person who was victimized in Tavia and Effie’s journey, and the person who survived it.

Whereas A Song Below Water is a story about Tavia finding her voice, A Chorus Rises tells the story of Naema learning to listen. She is wrapped up in one central question throughout this book, a question nobody seems able to answer. What does it mean to be eloko? If she is special, if she is magic, then what makes her that way? What kinship does she have with the other eloko? (Does she have a kinship with them?) Naema doesn’t just have to learn to listen, but to whom. Because her confidence in herself has always been merited and rewarded, she’s gotten really good at tuning out the voices and opinions of other people. Now she has to learn to tune in, to hear the voices of those who have come before her, and to understand her true place in the world.

In my review of A Song Below Water, I mildly complained that Morrow didn’t give enough consideration to the full humanity of Mean Girl Naema. Turns out, she was only biding her time for this book. The simple story–and the one that Tavia believes to be true in her book–is that Naema is just an asshole, and Tavia’s a good girl trying her best. But what both of them realize in A Chorus Rises is that the story that’s simple when it’s just about two girls in school becomes toxic when it’s fed out to the rest of the world. The rest of the world has a different stake in setting two Black girls in opposition to each other, and the best thing about Naema is how clearly she understands this, and how adamantly she refuses to play into it. I loved her and I loved this book.

When I said at the start of this post that A Chorus Rises is a companion novel in the best way, this is what I mean: It’s not doing the work of a sequel, where you have to keep reading if you want more of Tavia’s story. It truly is Naema’s story, different in scope and stakes as well as point of view. But what it does do is expand the world in fascinating ways, giving the reader a new way to understand Tavia as well as offering us the space to love Naema.

The post Review: A Chorus Rises, Bethany Morrow appeared first on Reading the End.

Episode 144

Things We Discussed

The Battle of Algiers (movie)
Ici on noie les Algeriens (movie)

Cherae talks a bit about different dialects of Arabic, so to break down what they’re saying a little bit: Darija is Moroccan Arabic; Masri is Egyptian Arabic; Shami or Sami is Levantine Arabic (Syrian, as well as Lebanese). The question I ask about saying the G is because the Arabic letter J (?) is pronounced as a G in Egyptian Arabic. The thing Cherae says about negative sh is about the consonant construction “sh” that’s used to negate a statement.

The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
The Thousand Names, Django Wexler
Powder Mage series, Brian McClellan (first one is Promise of Blood)
Broken Empire trilogy, Mark Lawrence (first one is Prince of Thorns)
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
What Remains of Edith Finch
Machinarium
Shadow of Mordor
Stardew Valley
Winter’s Orbit, Everina Maxwell
The Monster Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson
A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine

You can find Cherae on their Twitter or subscribe to their newsletter here. The book again is The Unbroken, which you can get wherever books are sold!

You can get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. As a brand new feature, you can also follow me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Storygraph! If you like what we do, support us on Patreon. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).

Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour

Transcript

Gin Jenny: Welcome to the Reading the End Bookcast with the Demographically Similar Jennys. I’m Gin Jenny, and I’m here with author CL Clark, author of the new fantasy novel The Unbroken. Cherae, great to have you on the show.

CL Clark: Hi, thanks so much for having me.

GJ: I wanted to start by— Could you tell us a little bit about the book and about yourself?

CLC: Sure! I’m CL Clark, you guys can call me Cherae. I am a writer from Kansas City, Kansas, though I haven’t lived there in quite some time. I’ve been on the road for the last several years. I am the author of The Unbroken, which is a novel about Touraine, who is a conscripted soldier for the Balladairan Empire. And she’s very loyal to it, at least when we start the book. And it’s also about Luca, who is the Balladairan Empire’s princess, and her main goal is to get her throne back from her uncle. And so when they both end up in Qazal, all of their best laid plans get turned upside down.

GJ: Awesome. That’s a great description. Let me ask you a question that’s not about this book. When people say they’re from Kansas City, Kansas, versus when they say they’re from Kansas City, Missouri, can you explain what that distinction is? I know it’s a city in two states, but I don’t understand that specific thing.

CLC: Okay, so to be fair, usually—I don’t even know why I made that distinguishment now, but I usually just say Kansas City, because for me, they’re the same city. But there are distinct law differences. Like you can’t buy alcohol on Sunday in Kansas City, Kansas, but you can in Missouri, and so my friends would exploit that quite a lot. But they’re one greater metro area, really. And when I became like, a young adult with my own apartment, I technically lived just a block over the state line. And so I was technically in Kansas City, Missouri. And so, you know, it’s for me, it’s one large sort of super-city, I guess.

GJ: Okay, awesome. That is so enlightening. Thank you so much. The last thing is fascinating. Okay, so returning to The Unbroken, which I loved. What was the germ of the idea for this book? You’ve been calling it Touraine’s Arms on social media, which I feel like distills it down to its most fundamental assets. But where did you start with it? Was with the characters, the relationships, the setting?

CLC: Actually, when you mentioned Touraine’s arms with it, though, I did not literally think of her physical arms, one of the things I really wanted to do and explore was when female characters in fantasy are allowed to be violent. And so it really is about her arms, her weaponry, like how she gets to physically hurt people. And yeah, so I guess that’s not— I mean, there are a lot of things to say about that. But, um, so it was like, when women get to be violent, and how they’re allowed to feel about it, like, do they have to feel remorse? Must it always be in service of saving a child or themselves? Because so often it was, and if it wasn’t, then they were a bad guy. You didn’t see the same thing with the guy characters. So there was that, and there was also, I was also in this class, a couple classes, studying postcolonial literary theory, and reading books by colonial, postcolonial authors. And so it all just kind of slammed together into one book, specifically one scene, which was the soldier who had to execute people who were her own people. That was the beginning.

GJ: Yeah, that scene is, yeah, remarkably impactful. So what changed from your first idea that— As you’re writing, is there anything that really significantly changed as you were going through? Or is it pretty true to your original vision for it?

CLC: The book itself is pretty true to that original vision. But there is one major, major change that happened in the last draft in between my like despair at never getting an agent to finally getting an agent selling the book. And that is a character, there was one character who—I’m not going to say any names, but if you’ve read the book already, you can probably guess—there’s one character who was Touraine’s brother, and I changed that character. They are not her brother anymore. They are someone else. But I didn’t change anything else, the rivalry and the hatred and the anger, even the like, fistfights, they all stay the same. And it changed the book so dramatically. And I just fell in love with this character. And yeah, so that was the biggest change.

GJ: That’s really cool. Why did you make that decision?

CLC: I cannot tell you because that would tell you who this character is now. And I don’t want to do that on air. Okay. But I’m happy if somebody wants to, like, do it off books, and I will answer that question for people.

GJ: All right, that makes sense. So you talked about some of the ideas from the book, arising from you studying postcolonial literature. What can you tell me about your research? I’m always so fascinated by what authors do to prepare for writing, especially, fantasy novels, where of course, the research can go in a lot of different directions, because ultimately, you’re making it all up.

CLC: I did, I did make up a lot of things. But before I did that, I really wanted to better understand how colonialism has worked in practice in the real world. And since my area of study was French, French language, and French literature,  it was my first real inroad into this, because at first I was, you know, I was, like many Americans, I was in love with France and in love with Europe. And that love led me to digging deeper into the language and the culture. But that also meant I was digging deeper into the history, which means you’re seeing the underbelly of everything that made this perfect nation. And so actually one of the things I did was start learning Arabic as well, because I wanted to have access to some primary source documents from the colonial era. And even after, so I could see what people were talking about in their own language, not just North African writers writing in French. I watched, as well as reading books, I watched films by French and North African French artists, like Battle of Algiers is one pretty famous one, but also Ici on noie les Algériens, which is Here We Drown Algerians, and yeah, it’s a— So yeah, it was not really light reading by any means.

GJ: Yeah, no, sure. So I took a little Arabic in high school. My teacher was Tunisians so I have a Tunisian accent. What kind of Arabic are you learning?

CLC: So I had to learn Moroccan standard when I was studying, but they also taught it to us with one colloquial and tandem and but I had different teachers each time. So one teacher was Moroccan, but he taught me Egyptian because that was what the department said everybody had to do. But we had, we had like, Darija club. And so I would speak Darija with him outside of class. But then I had another teacher who would speak I we only really had Egyptian, we have Masri or Shami, so Syrian, dialects to choose from an actual class. And so we did Syrian dialect, Leventine dialect, in another class. And so it was back and forth. And actually, I, my partner and I, sometimes we speak Arabic, but she makes fun of me because I have a in general I have a Moroccan or Egyptian accent.

GJ: And you say the G?

CLC: Mmmm… Sometimes! Sometimes, okay, but I still I have my kafs from hanging out with my Moroccan professor a lot. And oh, gosh, what else? I keep all of my negative shushes. And they do not.

GJ: So yeah, I remember when I was taking Arabic because my mom studied Arabic as well. But she and she lived in Egypt for a year. So I would be pronouncing things the way I was pronouncing them. And she’d be like, No, no, no, it’s this way, the Egyptian way. So how did you decide what to put in the book from history and what to ditch? Like one thing that I found really interesting is that Balladaire, which is clearly inspired in part by France, is an atheist state rather than being Catholic as France was. So how did you make that kind of decision?

CLC: Well,one thing that I didn’t want to do was to make just straight analogs of these nations. I wanted on one hand, just to be able to write, you know, a fantasy world with different magic and stuff like that. And so if I were going to distinctly create a Catholicism and Islam or whatever, I’m not actually really writing fantasy, I’m just writing historical fiction. And that wasn’t where I wanted to go. But also, I’m not a historian, and I’m not North African. And so that’s not really, I don’t think, for that, really for me. Not unless I’m doing a substantial amount more research than I have done. And I’ve done research in general, but also specifically, and I just don’t, I would never call myself expert enough to write like a straight historical fiction about France and any North African country.

GJ: Oh, that makes total sense. Do you have any—are there books that you thought were particularly good? Like, if people were interested in learning more about the actual French colonization of North Africa? Are there books that you thought were particularly superb?

CLC: The films would be a good start.

GJ: Okay, awesome. Yeah. I’ll include those names in the show notes so people can look for them. So how did you come to the fantasy genre? Have you always been a fantasy reader? What are some books you started with?

CLC: Have I always been in the fantasy genre? Definitely, almost to the exclusion of science fiction for a very long time. Yeah. But I can’t remember what my first young fantasy book would have been. But the one that really changed the game for me was when I first read The Wheel of Time, the first Wheel of Time books, and because I had like a kids’ edition—

GJ: Oh my God, that’s adorable.

CLC: Yeah, it was like, I mean, I don’t know if it was intended to be for kids. But it came in like my school’s little book catalog. And it was like divided into two, so it was like, small hand size, smaller hands, I don’t know. And so that was kind of the beginning of the end. And then like, my parents noticed me or family members noticed me—like I was always a bookworm, but they started seeing that I was interested in this fantasy. And I will never forget, I had a family member, a couple aunts of mine who really loved Lord of the Rings. And basically, they found out I liked fantasy. The night that I was hanging out with them at their house, and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers had just come out. And so they kind of looked at me, and then they looked at each other. And they said, Okay, we’re going to the movies tonight. And they sat me in front of Lord of the Rings number one, bought us tickets for Lord of the Rings number two later that night. And then I got about like halfway to like Gandalf fighting the Balrog, and then they just sort of picked me up and whisked me away to the movie theater. And that was the end, and then like for Christmas that year, I got Lord of the Rings book, I got Lord of the Rings soundtracks. I got all the movies up to that point. It was—yeah, that was it.

GJ: That sounds like a near perfect movie viewing experience. It’s actually so validating to hear someone else say they saw the movies first. My sister was a big fan. My older sister was a big fan of the books. And I tried to read them numerous times before the movies came out. And I just couldn’t get past—like I know, everyone says Tom Bombadil, and I did struggle to get past Tom Bombadil. And then I really couldn’t get past the Council of Elrond. When Fellowship of the Ring came out, I just saw the movie. And then I skipped and read The Two Towers first, which worked really well.

CLC: Yeah, I don’t know if I would have made it if it hadn’t been for seeing the movies first. And then I mean, the third movie didn’t come out for so long that I had nothing else to do. I was, you know, I was a kid. So I just read through it, I guess.

GJ: And you said to the exclusion of science fiction— Are you reading more science fiction nowadays?

CLC: Yes, yes, I am. I’m, I’m sure I had like some bad experiences reading like classical science fiction. And at this point, I don’t blame myself. I’m like, Well, of course you did. But now things are a bit different. And so I think I think the first one that kind of really got me into science fiction— And so now I’ve gone back and been reading through things, but I think Ancillary Justice was, I don’t know, my science fiction gateway drug, maybe?

GJ: I read Ender’s Game when I was in middle school, and I really liked it. So as you can imagine, that’s been a whole journey since then, given that its author is just an absolutely terrible person.

CLC: Yeah, I did read Ender’s Game. And that was the only one

GJ: Yeah, it was the only one for me to– I’m not really sure why, I’m not really sure what bounced me out of reading more SF. And then for military fantasy, is that a subgenre that you’ve read a lot of? Because I have read a moderate amount.

CLC: I feel like I’ve read a lot. But part of that for me, it was just that I feel like so much of fantasy has been military fantasy. It’s always about somebody going off to fight this war and that war. But I do think that the subgenre is getting more specific. And I remember stumbling upon Django Wexler’s The Thousand Names. And it was, as I was rolling this seed of an idea, that scene of Touraine having to execute some people, and in my head at the time, it was her with a rifle. And she was part of a firing squad. And I couldn’t quite reconcile the idea of, you know, jumping forward in technology like that, in fantasy. And so seeing The Thousand Names was like, this light bulb going off, like, oh, it is fantasy. You can, you can do whatever you want.

GJ: Whatever you want. It’s great.

CLC: Yeah. And that proved that there was a market for it, as well as Brian McClellan’s Powder Mage series. And so I just sort of ran with it. I didn’t really look back, didn’t ask any questions, though, I probably will, I will go back and probably write something that’s just like, swords because I like them. But sorry, to go back to your actual question. I’m—the other sort of scholarly interest I have, it’s related to postcolonial stuff, but it’s also war literature, and war narratives, and how we talk about war, how we engage in it, how we memorialize and how we fantasize about it. And so, I probably still have some more military fantasy coming out in the future.

GJ: That’s awesome. Am I right— Did I read that you have a background as a personal trainer?

CLC: Yes.

GJ: Was that useful to you in writing a character like Touraine, whose living depends on her being in really good physical shape?

CLC: I don’t know that I use that, per se. I mean, like, I have a pretty solid idea of what humans are capable of training to do. And not just like what they could do in a fantasy book. But I didn’t—I don’t think I really used it so much. But it did impact how I conceived of her and how I conceived of characters’ physicality in general.

GJ: Yeah, for sure. So what is the best workout routine to attain arms like Touraine’s like if you were going to do something that didn’t require you to be taken from your home and raised by a punishingly racist imperial system of warfare,

CLC: I mean, I am primarily a body weight training emphasis. And so my go-to would always be different varieties of push-ups and pull-ups. But if you’ve got some dumbbells laying around your house, by all means, pop up some curls and stuff and load them up.

GJ: All right, this is great to know, I have very weak noodle arms.

CLC: I would definitely start with the push-ups then.

GJ: Okay, all right, noted. I definitely can’t do a push-up, but I guess I can work up to it. Um, so Luca and Touraine’s relationship is obviously really complicated. Luca’s trying to prove herself as a ruler so that she’ll have access to her rightful throne. And I’m curious about the writing process when you’re writing about a character who, who personally is sympathetic, but who structurally as part of the ruling class of this empire is capable of doing and is doing a great deal of damage,

CLC: It was a very interrogatory kind of process. Like, I would not even say that I made her all that sympathetic. Like, I think that there’s, there are some people who will see more, and some people who will see less, put it that way. But I really just wanted to show that she had these conflicting desires, and like many of us do, and that sometimes we don’t always want the good thing, more than we want the thing that is for us. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, the good thing is what helps people and what is for me, is just for me.

GJ: One thing that I thought was interesting about Luca is that she really hasn’t asked herself about the ethics of holding power at all. She’s thinking exclusively in terms of, well, I think I would be better than, say, my uncle. So she’s not really thinking about the fundamental ethics of running an empire. Do you think there’s an ethical way to hold power in a monarchy? You know, the easy questions on Wednesday evening.

CLC: Well, I’ll put it this way. I do not think there is an ethical way to have an empire at all.

GJ: Yeah, agreed. I think it’s inherently violent.

CLC: But I do like my little fantasy books where we can just, you know, la la la la la, princess is cute, kiss. But that’s also not what I’m writing here either.

GJ: Yeah. I mean, the relationship is at all stages very fraught. Are you—if I understand book schedules correctly, you must be at least well into writing Book Two.

CLC: Yes, I have, as of now, given a draft to my editor, and am thinking revision thoughts about it, as well as trying to figure out how we’re going to wrap this whole thing up.

GJ: Sure. Is there anything you can tell us about what’s ahead?

CLC: Well, we’re going to have a few different points of view, a few new characters coming in. I’m not entirely sure how many of them will make it, at least their point of views will make it into the actual final second book, but they are all characters you’ve met before, or at least heard about. And so I am excited to let people get to know these characters a bit more

GJ: Awesome. And how was the process of writing the second book, as compared to writing the first one,

CLC: It was very fast.

Gin Jenny 20:51

It seems incredibly hard.

CLC: In between my very, very first draft of The Unbroken, and this draft, I became an outliner. And so that was very, very helpful. And so I actually was able to outline and write through it for the first draft of book two—We have some titles, we just need to get them approved. I can’t wait. But I think it also just invited its own new challenges, you know, because I’m, like, like many authors say, when they’re writing their book twos, especially when they’re writing them on like genre schedule publishing, like a year later, and a year later, you start seeing people’s reactions. And sometimes, you know, that’s getting into your head and impacting things you thought you wanted, but don’t want and, and so on. So it’s definitely an exercise in finding your core desire for the story and being able to block out the noise and other people’s opinions for what story they want you to write. So in that way, it’s actually quite difficult.

GJ: Yeah, I’m sure. So you said you became an outliner? How did you become an outliner? What were you before?

CLC: Like a very just faint sketch of an outline, like, here’s some vague ideas. This is the beginning. And this is the end. And this is probably how they get there. Because you know, they need this scene and this scene. And so I went kind of like that, and that was not the worst idea. I think someone’s described, basically, what I did is like the headlights method, you can see as far as your car’s headlights, and it was fine. But I also had to do a lot of revision. And so like nine years later, here we are. And yeah, very different from the outline and the year.

GJ: Yeah, no, I’m sure. The headlight method, that’s really good. I haven’t heard that before. But that’s an extremely good analogy. Another thing I always like to hear about is the cover design process. Were you involved much in that and what was that process like on your end?

CLC: It was exhilarating. Because I found out very early on that I was going to get Tommy Arnold who I’ve been in love with his work for forever. Even before I knew it was him, like, he stopped the show for everybody with the Gideon covers. So when I found out the same guy was going to do the art for Touraine, I just lost my mind. But before that, I was talking with Brit, my editor, and she really understood the kind of story I was telling and the kind of writer I am and the kind of person I am, honestly. And she said that she wanted to take the idea of the man in the center of the cover on a throne or in his pile of bones chair whatever. Like think of The Prince of Thorns and King of Thorns and like that series, those covers, or think of The Powder Campaign, the Bryan McClellan books, think of those covers. And she’s like, I want to keep those elements but I want it to be a woman, and I was like, that’s exactly it. That’s what I want. And so we have Touraine, and we’ve got power, we’ve got biceps, destruction in the background, all those things that are usually guy things are now hers.

GJ: Yeah, it’s a beautiful cover. I think it’s really great. We’ve been in quarantine for a year now. Have you discovered any new quarantine skills? Or is there anything that’s gotten you through quarantine?

CLC: Um, do I have any new skills? No. But I wouldn’t have minded—I thought a lot that I wish I had my instruments. I play the cello, but my cello has been at my mom’s in Kansas City for the last few years while I travel. Well, you know, so I guess I could say I picked up running a couple years ago, but started doing it more, racking up my mileage this year, training on and off for races that are not happening, but still, you know, pretending. What else helped me get through? The Assassin’s Creed games. I spent the first half of quarantine playing Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. And now a year later, I started playing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. So that’s where I’m at with my quarantine life.

GJ: Those seem like amazing things. I just started gaming for the first time ever in quarantine.

CLC: Oh, welcome, welcome.

GJ: Thank you. Thank you. People are very welcoming. Overall, I feel like everyone’s like, Oh, good for you. It’s a good time to be a gamer.

CLC: What are you playing?

GJ: I like walking simulators. They’re not stressful, and I’m a very stressy gamer.

CLC: Oh, like what?

GJ: Oh, like, um, okay, what if I haven’t played that many games yet? So bear with me. Um, I think the first one I played was What Remains of Edith Finch.

CLC: Oh, okay.

GJ: And then what else have I done? Oh, like, Machinarium, and then there’s another one from—maybe, that’s maybe that’s not a walking simulator, in which case I apologize for forgetting the terminology. But yeah, Machinarium. And then I played a couple other games from that company, because they’re, they’re cute and not stressful.

CLC: I’m partial to—I mean, I don’t really know terminology either; like, I know basic stuff. But I just know, I like games that have stealth modes assassination. So the Assassin’s Creed games, obviously, are a go. And also the Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War series have a similar play style. I can either stab in the dark or range weapon, or melee, I have the option of deciding who I want to be that day. And either being a sneaky killer or just laying waste, and then it just depends on my mood. But I also, I don’t know, real gamers may not care for these things. But I like the settlement aspect of Valhalla right now. You get to kind of build your own settlement. It’s a little bit Age of Empires. It’s kind of funny, because my partner is also playing Stardew Valley at the same time. And so there are all these little parallels, like they go fishing, and I just have a fishing rod now so I can go fishing. And I have to go and collect these little iron pieces, and they have to go collect these little iron pieces. I do a lot more murder.

GJ: So there’s more that unites us than divides us. And then before I let you go, just wondering what you are reading right now?

CLC: What I am trying to read would probably be more accurate, because I’m actually just sort of surfing gently between books that I’m really excited about, but my brain space just, I’m struggling to sit down sometimes and just read. But I’ve got Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell. I have very high hopes. I am very excited for something nice and warm, especially given that my other read is The Monster Baru Cormorant. I’m rereading that.

GJ: Oh, yeah, I’ve heard it. I’ve heard it’s brutal.

CLC: Yeah, I love it. And then I also just got my copy of A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine, so some really good stuff on deck.

GJ: So Winter’s Orbit came out of fanfiction, sort of. Are you a fanfiction reader at all?

CLC: I have been, but I haven’t lately. I think actually, honestly, part of it was, and I’m sure other fanfiction readers will describe their adventures into it the same way. But, you know, I was a young queer reader, and I couldn’t find anything. I mean, there were some books but not like the plethora there is now. And now that there is just so much more, I’ve found myself reading these outside books instead. Now that I’ve been talking about it more with people, I’m thinking about, you know, finding some good stuff. So if people have recs, by all means, please, I’m ready. I actually found myself wishing— So this is a call maybe to your listeners for some good Eivor/Randvi fic, like, the gay one. Which is from Valhalla, the video game? So if anybody’s got any of that, I want it.

GJ: Oh, okay. I’m gonna ask my video gaming friends. This is all a mystery to me, but I’ll ask them. What did you read fanfiction in when you were younger?

CLC: It was not a specific property, but just like original fics that people were writing. Though I did used to belong to a writing role playing forum for the Wheel of Time series, which was my gateway drug.

GJ: Alright, awesome. Well, hopefully we’ll be able to get you some fantastic recs. It has been a nice solace during the pandemic to have fanfiction to return to I’m relatively new to it. I’ve only been reading it for, I don’t know, five or six years. It’s been really nice during the pandemic when my brain just doesn’t have room for anything else.

CLC: Yeah, I bet.

GJ: Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast It’s been really great. Where can people find you online if they want to say hey, or learn more about the book?

CLC: My Twitter is at C_L_Clark. And you can sign up for my newsletter at clclark.substack.com. And I think my website is attached to both of those things.

GJ: Okay. Perfect. And the book is The Unbroken and it’s out now and everyone should read it. It’s really great. I couldn’t put it down. I was really so excited to find out what was going to happen next. And I can’t wait to read the rest of the trilogy.

CLC: Thank you so much.

GJ: This has been the Reading the End Bookcast with the Demographically Similar Jennys. You can visit the blog at readingtheend.com; you can follow us on Twitter @readingtheend. We are both on Goodreads as Whiskey Jenny and Gin Jenny, and you can email us—we love it when you do—at readingtheend@gmail.com. If you like what we do, you can become a podcast patron at Patreon.com/ReadingtheEnd. And if you’re listening to us on iTunes, please leave us a review. It helps other people find the podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Episode 144 – Interview with CL Clark, Author of The Unbroken appeared first on Reading the End.

However, had I not given up magical thinking in 2019, I would have had to admit that it is not real when it was announced that Susanna Clarke had a new book coming out, because I admit that I have not kept the faith. In the last few years, I had said out loud to more than one person, “Susanna Clarke will only ever write one novel.” I had said, “But that’s okay! She has already given us perfection. I could not ask for more.” And that’s not the kind of attitude which (if magical thinking were real) gets you Piranesi in September 2020. What gets you Piranesi in September 2020 (if magical thinking were real) would be keeping the faith in spite of all the odds. Which I did not do. Which proves magical thinking doesn’t work.

Anyway, as you remember, Susanna Clarke wrote Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell way back in 2004, dayenu. And this year she wrote Piranesi, a pithy novel of a mere 272 pages about a man who lives alone (?) in an endless House comprising statues and floods and rotting things, and I really loved it.

The writing style of Piranesi isn’t tremendously similar to the writing style of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, because Susanna Clarke is a beautiful genius and I’ll fight you. What is similar is the fact that if you’re not enjoying the writing by about 10% of the way through the book, the book is probably not for you and you can move on to other pursuits. Piranesi (his name isn’t Piranesi) is extremely intelligent yet very innocent, and all you can think from very early on is “ack I want to protect this sweet marshmallow from his machinations, whatever they may be.”

This is fortunate, because Piranesi is a little slow to start, with a lot of descriptions of the House and the various floods, statuary, and bird life inside the House. I do not have a strong visual imagination, so this was very challenging for me — though not as challenging as it is for Piranesi, who is constantly mapping out the many rooms of the House and harvesting seaweed for food and taking tender care of the House’s dead. Also, I am frightened of floods. Also, his name isn’t Piranesi.

In all of this moody scene setting — which is by turns charming, sad, and funny — Clarke includes just enough discordant notes to make it clear that Piranesi, though recording with earnest accuracy his memories and impressions, is an unreliable narrator. For instance:

The Other believes that there is a Great and Secret Knowledge hidden somewhere in the World that will grant us enormous powers once we have discovered it. What this Knowledge consists of he is not entirely sure, but at various times he has suggested that it might include the following:

1. vanquishing Death and becoming immortal

2. learning by a process of telepathy what other people are thinking

3. transforming ourselves into eagles and flying through the Air

4. transforming ourselves into fish and swimming through the Tides

5. moving objects using only our thoughts

6. snuffing out and reigniting the Sun and Stars

7. dominating lesser intellects and bending them to our will

The Other and I are searching diligently for this Knowledge. We meet twice a week (on Tuesdays and Fridays)to discuss our work. The Other organises his time meticulously and never permits our meetings to last longer than one hour.

Piranesi is a sweet, good cinnamon roll who trusts his friend (slash, the only person in the House besides Piranesi who is currently alive), but I do not require his input to know that I don’t trust this The Other character. I am touching my collarbone thinking about a later scene where Piranesi acquires some doubts about the value of this Secret Knowledge and tries to very sweetly bow out of acquiring it because he doesn’t want to dominate lesser intellects, actually.

As the book wears on, it gets creepier. (You will remember this technique from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and all those stories the gentleman with the thistledown hair tells to Stephen re: his own history. Really, anything relating to the gentleman with thistledown hair.) It’s partly creepy because Piranesi is so good and sweet and you don’t want this poor guy to have to keep eating seaweed; and it’s partly creepy because the House is full of water so everything’s wet all the time and wet things are creepier, as we all know; and it’s partly creepy because whilst there are fifteen people in the history of the world that Piranesi knows of, evidence begins to mount that the House might contain a sixteenth person too. You, an enemy to the Other because he’s an obvious butthead, will not be able to stop thinking about the question IS THE SIXTEENTH PERSON GOING TO SAVE PIRANESI OR WHAT?

So yeah! I loved it! Predictably, I loved it! More than anything, it reminded me of Elizabeth Hand’s Wylding Hall, in which everything is damp and there are a lot of dead birds. While it wasn’t exactly the haunted house story I was envisioning (so much wetter! so much more otherworldly!), it was nevertheless fucking creepy, yet tremendously sweet and charming. I cannot believe that we received this gift from Susanna Clarke after so many years.

Also, Piranesi discovers documentary evidence of things, and y’all know how I feel about documentary evidence.

Note: I received an e-ARC of Piranesi from the publisher, for review consideration. This has not impacted the contents of my review.

The post Review: Piranesi, Susanna Clarke appeared first on Reading the End.

Episode 136

Find Andrea on Twitter, at her website, and on Facebook! The book is The Bone Shard Daughter, and it’s out now from Orbit. You may behold the ivory carvings cover here:

And here’s a list of books and other things we talked about!

Dragonriders of Pern series, Anne McCaffrey
The Harper Hall series (comprising DragonSong, DragonSinger, and DragonDrums), Anne McCaffrey
The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley
Royal Assassin, Robin Hobb
Heralds of Valdemar series, Mercedes Lackey
the Black Sails credits (watch Black Sails!!)
The Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis
Prydain novels, Lloyd Alexander
Broken Earth trilogy, NK Jemisin
Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik
Uprooted, Naomi Novik
The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, KS Villoso
Star Eater, Kerstin Hall

You can get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. As a brand new feature, you can also follow me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Storygraph! If you like what we do, support us on Patreon. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).

Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour

Transcript

Gin Jenny (00:38):

Uh all right, so welcome to the Reading the End Bookcast. I’m Gin Jenny and I am here with Andrea Stewart, the author of the new fantasy novel, The Bone Shard Daughter. Andrea, welcome!

Andrea Stewart (00:47):

Thank you so much for having me.

Gin Jenny (00:49):

How are you doing? This is such a weird year to be releasing a debut novel!

Andrea Stewart (00:53):

It really is. It was not something that I was expecting when we sold the book, but, you know, I mean, everything’s been pretty great as far as, you know, having a book coming out and being able to do all these online interviews and online events. So I’m just grateful that we at least have that technology.

Gin Jenny (01:18):

Well, why don’t we get started, if you could just tell us a little bit about the book?

Andrea Stewart (01:21):

Sure, so it’s an epic fantasy that’s in an Asian inspired setting, and it actually follows several characters. There’s a daughter trying to reclaim her rightful place as heir; There’s a smuggler who professes not to care, but can’t seem to stop doing good things; two women in an established relationship, struggling with the class differences between them; and there’s a stranger on a remote island trying to unravel the mystery of why she’s there. This is all against the backdrop of a brewing revolution.

Gin Jenny (01:47):

Oh man. That was so smooth. I’m really impressed.

Andrea Stewart (01:50):

I’ve been practicing.

Gin Jenny (01:52):

I know. I mean, it was great. It was so professional. So you’re juggling four main narrators, like you said. And then you have a couple of chapters from other points of view. Did you have a favorite character to write for?

Andrea Stewart (02:03):

That’s like asking me to choose a favorite child? So I think it really depends on kind of the mood that I was in. I mean, I really enjoyed writing Lin for her determination and for all the stuff that she is trying to figure out. And then sometimes, you know, I really enjoyed reading Jovis because he’s got more of a sense of humor. And then like the other characters too, it just kind of depends. So, can’t say I really have a favorite.

Gin Jenny (02:34):

There wasn’t anyone who was more challenging to write?

Andrea Stewart (02:36):

I think maybe Sand sometimes was a little bit more challenging just because she’s coming from this perspective of not really knowing why she’s in the place that she is and what exactly is her purpose for like, why she’s there. And that was a little challenging in the sense that I wanted to keep her engaging, yet also keep that mystery going.

Gin Jenny (03:01):

I was going to say, one thing that I found really fascinating about the book as I was going through it–and I tore through this, I read the whole thing, uh I started the night before yesterday, and then I read the whole thing yesterday–but I think that one thing that made it so engaging is that it turns out all the characters have a lot of pretty important stuff that they don’t know, whether it’s about themselves or about the world that they live in. Was it hard to kind of parcel out those reveals and not say too much too soon?

Andrea Stewart (03:26):

Yeah, definitely. I think that was one of the things that, you know, when I was putting in my outline like these are the things that they’re trying to figure out, and this is like when they learn those results and it is like difficult to do that in the way that, you know, that some readers are going to figure it out ahead of time, which is fine. But you also want for the readers that don’t figure it out ahead of time to not feel lost when you reveal that information. So, yeah, so that’s like a little bit of a balancing act.

Gin Jenny (03:57):

Well, I thought you did a good job. I say that– I as the name of my podcast implies, I read the end before I read the middle, which I don’t know if I know some authors don’t love that, but no, I mean, but it was really great to kind of find out some of those reveals when I was about halfway through the book, and then going back and reading the rest of it with the stuff in mind was really fascinating and exciting and suspenseful.

Andrea Stewart (04:18):

Well, that’s good to hear.

Gin Jenny (04:20):

What was the Genesis of your idea for the book? Did you start with the characters, some element of the magic system?

Andrea Stewart (04:24):

Actually the whole thing started with an element of the magic system with the bone shard magic. I was at the San Antonio WorldCon with my friends as a long time ago, and my friend Marina, she found a shard of bone in her lunch food.

Gin Jenny (04:40):

Andrea Stewart (04:40):

Um yeah, so it was like, oh, like, you know, what, if some shards of bone are used for magic? So that was kind of like where it all started. I kind of built things out from there as far as like, well, why is it shards of bone? What does that mean? I knew I wanted to have constructs in there. So it kind of grew from there. And then the characters kind of followed

Gin Jenny (05:07):

For listeners who haven’t read the book yet, can you say a little bit about how the bone shards get used? Because it is very creepy!

Andrea Stewart (05:13):

Oh yeah, sure. So the emperor actually collects a shard of bone from every citizen’s skull when they turn eight years old, and he uses these to power, his bone shard constructs, which are basically like these amalgamations of animals that he’s just kind of sewn together the parts of. And these shards are actually also used to write commands on. So he writes the commands for these constructs. They go inside the constructs, and the life force of those people actually power the constructs. So if your bone shard is in use, then your life is kind of just slowly being drained by that.

Gin Jenny (05:52):

I liked the use of almost like programming commands on the bone shards.

Andrea Stewart (05:55):

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about that when I was putting together the whole magic system, because I really like logic puzzles. A lot of like if then kind of statements.

Gin Jenny (06:05):

Sure! What kind of logic puzzles?

Andrea Stewart (06:07):

Um well, I used to work as a compliance officer for contracts and grants at a university. So I kind of did a lot of work with that kind of thing where, you know, we’d have all of these different regulatory documents and you’d have to kind of figure out well, can they spend money this way on the grant? And you’d have to go through these like hierarchies of documents and try to figure out like, was this an allowable expense or not? And you know, sometimes it was kind of, the answer was like, maybe, and then you’d have to refer to another document. So it’s kind of like that.

Gin Jenny (06:42):

Oh my God, that’s such a good genesis for truly some of the creepiest magic that I’ve encountered in a while.

Andrea Stewart (06:48):

Went from something very boring, does something a little bit more interesting!

Gin Jenny (06:53):

So what changed between your first draft of the manuscript and the book we have here?

Andrea Stewart (06:57):

There’s actually not like huge changes. I think there was a subplot that I realized was not working after I finished the first draft, so I had to toss that whole thing and replace it. Where I had like, Jovan infiltrating this palace and it was like, ah! It doesn’t really make sense. So that was like the big thing that changed. And then the rest of it, I think were just kind of like smaller nudges.

Gin Jenny (07:26):

Was there anything that you had to leave out in the end that you were sad to lose?

Andrea Stewart (07:29):

Well there was like a couple of funny lines I thought from the part where he infiltrates the palace, but that’s like, that’s about it. I was just thinking, you know, I save those for later.

Gin Jenny (07:40):

Sure. Can, can future Andrea incorporate them into the sequel?

Andrea Stewart (07:43):

Possibly. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Gin Jenny (07:46):

So I am always interested to hear about the editing process. What did you do a lot of, like, it sounds like you had a pretty clean first draft, so I mean, how was it working with the folks at Orbit to do the edits on it?

Andrea Stewart (07:55):

Great, actually! Yeah, I was very lucky in this one in that I had a pretty clean first draft. I did that. And then I worked with my agent on one round of revisions and then it went out on sub, and after it got picked up, yeah, we went through and did a round of edits, which were pretty light, which was nice. I don’t generally like work like that. Got very lucky on this one. So yeah, it was really great working with the folks at Orbit. Like I, I love their books, so it was wonderful.

Gin Jenny (08:30):

Oh, that’s so nice. Well, you talked in the acknowledgements about having a writing group or writing groups. Were they involved when you were kind of in the early stages of writing the book?

Andrea Stewart (08:39):

Actually, there was a writing group in Sacramento that I took, like the first part of the first chapter to back when I was kind of just thinking about, should this be a book? That was Stonehenge in Sacramento, and they meet at like a roundtable. So like, you know, everybody has some pizza, we have somebody else like read whatever it is that you brought, and you kind of can hear it from somebody else’s voice, which is interesting. And then everybody kind of comments on it. So that was the writing group that I brought like the first part of it to.

Gin Jenny (09:15):

You must have nerves of steel to sit through that. It sounds so stressful.

Andrea Stewart (09:18):

It is a little bit!

Gin Jenny (09:18):

But they were, I mean, they kind of understood what the premise was and enjoyed it? Because I was, I mean, I always am a little nervous about secondary world fantasy because I have, I don’t really make pictures in my head. So I sometimes have a hard time, like picturing what the world is like. I felt like this was so immediate and concrete. I just felt situated in it right away.

Andrea Stewart (09:37):

Oh, that’s good to hear. Yeah. I mean, that’s one of the things that I really try to work on with my writing is to make it immersive, to pick out the right details so the reader can kind of feel like they’re there, and also get information at the same time about the world.

Gin Jenny (09:52):

I also think you were very wise to incorporate the cutest little cuddly bastard. Do you say Mephi?

Andrea Stewart (09:59):

Yeah, it’s Mephi.

Gin Jenny (10:00):

Oh my gosh. The cutest little guy. How early did you come up with him? And also why don’t more fantasy books have cuddly little dudes?

Andrea Stewart (10:12):

Well I, that was one of the things that I wanted to put in from the beginning. So yeah, this was the seventh manuscript that I had tried to sell. I’ve been through quite a few. And when I got to this one, I was like, you know, let me just think about all the things that I really enjoy in fantasy novels and let me see about putting them into this one. So one of the things I really enjoy are magical animal companions. I knew that I wanted to have one. I knew like, you know, especially with Jovis where he’s kind of like a little bit grumpy, but also like thinks he’s quite funny, I knew I wanted to have somebody to kind of like play off of him. So, you know, Mephi’s like this mischievous little guy that kind of worms his way into Jovis’s heart.

Gin Jenny (11:00):

And mine! So what are some of your favorite magical creature companions in in stuff you’ve read or seen?

Andrea Stewart (11:05):

Oh gosh, like Dragonriders of Pern. There’s like the Harper’s Hall, um series in there with like Menally, where she’s got her fire lizards. I was way into that. There’s well, not necessarily magical, but there’s Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword and stuff where she’s got this beautiful horse who’s like super intelligent, and then she’s also got this, you know, amazing cat that follows her around. I’ve really loved that too. And then Robin Hobbs, like, you know, Night Eyes my God, I, yeah, I loved that series.

Gin Jenny (11:45):

Oh my gosh. I’ve still never read a word by Robin Hobb. It’s a vast gap in my SF knowledge.

Andrea Stewart (11:51):

Oh, it’s amazing. I loved it so much.

Gin Jenny (11:53):

What’s a good book of hers to start with? Because I know I need to like get into it and I just haven’t yet.

Andrea Stewart (11:58):

I really loved so there’s Assassin’s Apprentice, that’s the first one in the whole Fitz and the Fool series. And I love that series. It’s so great. I actually have not read the very last one in the most recent trilogy that she’s written in that series because I’m like sad for it to end, so I’m like holding off on that.

Gin Jenny (12:19):

Oh, I so understand. I read the I’m embarrassed to admit this. Do you remember those Mercedes Lackey, Heralds of Valdemar books and they had their magic horses?

Andrea Stewart (12:30):

I do.

Gin Jenny (12:33):

Yeah, I read those when I was in seventh and eighth grade. And I feel like those were the like most animal companion books that I’ve read. I feel like I haven’t read that many.

Andrea Stewart (12:41):

There’s quite a few out there and they’re marvelous.

Gin Jenny (12:44):

And this one I think a really strong entrant in this series. Can you, can you tell us anything about Mephi that we don’t know from the book? Cause he’s a little mysterious.

Andrea Stewart (12:52):

Well, I kind of want to just leave it at that right now, just because there, there is a lot more stuff that happens and you do learn more about him and where he comes from in book two.

Gin Jenny (13:05):

Okay, great. Is he going to stay fluffy? Cause I liked it that he was first mistaken for a kitten, but it seems like he’s getting less fluffy as he goes along.

Andrea Stewart (13:10):

He’s still going to be quite fluffy. I mean, he’s very, he’s very soft.

Gin Jenny (13:14):

This is so important. This is the important work that you’re doing. I think they need to make a little Mephi plushy.

Andrea Stewart (13:21):

Oh my God. I would love that.

Gin Jenny (13:23):

Internet, take note. Another huge piece of the story is about failing governments, which is kind of relatable in the U.S. Right now. So is there any, if you could talk a little bit about if there were real world histories that inspired you when you were writing the book and coming up with the world building?

Andrea Stewart (13:41):

Well, I think like, I was just thinking about, I mean our history, and then just history in general, how we kind of go in these cycles, and there’s always a good reason in a lot of ways for these changes of regimes, but they don’t always work out the way that we hope that they do.

Gin Jenny (14:02):

Almost never!

Andrea Stewart (14:02):

And I also wanted to kind of explore throughout the trilogy, that idea that you see in a lot of fantasy novels where, you know, the good person becomes king and everybody lives happily ever after. And you know, that’s not really the way that things kind of work out, like historically, either. I mean, once you have a change of regime, like people really expect change quite quickly, which is not always possible. And then, you know, there’s a lot of complications that you’re dealing with that not everybody may understand.

Andrea Stewart (14:37):

So it’s like kind of like some of the things I was thinking about when I was writing and planning this series. So you kind of just get a little bit in the first book where, you know, the, the emperor is definitely failing his people, and there’s a brewing revolution because people are very dissatisfied. Although the emperor thinks that he’s got a very good reason to be in power and that he is like protecting everybody, but you know, over time, things always change. So whether or not that’s actually still a thing that he’s doing is a bit of a mystery.

Gin Jenny (15:15):

Did you end up doing like research into world history for this book? Or what kind of research did you do when you were preparing and thinking about it?

Andrea Stewart (15:20):

I just did a lot of kind of general reading. I think I didn’t really do any like in-depth, like history kind of stuff, I think.

Gin Jenny (15:28):

So how did you go about doing the world building?

Andrea Stewart (15:30):

I kind of, so I read like a little bit about like some of the climates and everything that I wanted to put into the book. Like I knew I wanted it to be these islands. I knew I wanted it to be more of like a tropical climate. I mean, I’ve been to Thailand before, and I remember like, there’s, you know, the wet season and the dry season and that’s basically what I have going on here. And yeah, so I kind of did a lot of reading about like– oh, I did a lot of travel reading!

Gin Jenny (15:57):

I love that! That’s such a neat, I wouldn’t have thought of that, but that’s really neat.

Andrea Stewart (16:02):

Yeah. Because when you read the travel books too they do talk about the history of a place and they talk about, you know, the buildings that they have there and what these ruins mean, what they’re there for, like things like that. So I did a lot of kind of reading about that and a little bit of like the mythology of different places stuff like that.

Gin Jenny (16:20):

Cool! At what stage did they make you a map? Like, did you have a draft map that you were working from or did they, was it just completely…

Andrea Stewart (16:25):

Okay. This is like one of the things I’m always terrible about. I write the book first, and then I realize, I don’t know where anything is and like I’m contradicting myself. So then I have to take out a sheet of paper and I kind of just draw blobs on it, you know, do a north west east south. And like, ah, I think these things are all, this is where this is relative to this thing. And then they said, oh, do you want to do a map? It’s like, ah, okay!

Gin Jenny (16:55):

Like I said, I, I am not very good at secondary world fantasy, but I actually consulted this map several times while reading. It was very useful.

Andrea Stewart (17:02):

I consulted it while writing! Um but yeah. So then, then, then I made something a little bit more refined, and they took that and made it into a beautiful piece of artwork. So yeah, I’m very happy with it. I’m glad I have it now to refer to as I’m working on book two.

Gin Jenny (17:19):

How much input– I’m always so curious about this, how much input did you have into kind of the look of the map? Because I think in addition to being a useful geographical resource, I think it looks really beautiful and cool as well.

Andrea Stewart (17:30):

Oh, it’s gorgeous. Yeah. I mean, they asked me about like, if I had any ideas, as far as like, you know, what kind of time period and what influences and you know, it’s like, I kind of just wanted it to look like, like an ancient Chinese map and it came back looking beautiful. Yeah. They’re very, they’re very good about getting input.

Gin Jenny (17:52):

I especially like the– I’m sorry, I’m just looking at it right now. I especially like the compass rose, which has a little creatures on it.

Andrea Stewart (17:57):

Yes, so it’s got like the Phoenix for the Phoenix Empire and then it’s got a sea serpent on there too, which actually they become a little bit– I know I would just mention them in book one, but they make more of an appearance in book two.

Gin Jenny (18:11):

Which, phoenixes or sea serpents?

Andrea Stewart (18:14):

Sea serpents.

Gin Jenny (18:14):

Great. Great. I love a sea monster. Actually, very often on this podcast, we ask our guests to choose between sea or space. So which would you choose?

Andrea Stewart (18:23):

Oh goodness. I would probably choose the sea because it, yeah, it actually has a smell and it’s it’s closer and it’s not quite so scary.

Gin Jenny (18:34):

Oh, see, this is fascinating! Because I choose sea because I find it maybe infinitely scarier than space because although it’s right here, there’s so much we don’t know about it. It’s just a vast unknowable mystery down there.

Andrea Stewart (18:47):

Yeah. I mean, I’ve been scuba diving and I swim quite a lot, so it’s a little less scary to me, but space I’m like, ahhhhh!

Gin Jenny (18:55):

So you would not hop on a generation ship if offered the opportunity.

Andrea Stewart (19:01):

I totally would, but I would be terrified probably the entire time. So

Gin Jenny (19:07):

If they offered you a generation ship a seat right now, you would, you would take it?

Andrea Stewart (19:10):

Probably! I just, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m just too motivated by curiosity. I would have to.

Gin Jenny (19:18):

Oh man. I’m fascinated. Well, so I think that I probably would not take a seat on a generation ship at this moment, but I’m also a little scared to go scuba diving.

Andrea Stewart (19:29):

It’s actually really neat. It’s one of those things where when I jump into the water first, I’m always terrified because I don’t know what’s underneath me, but like once you start descending, then it’s like, oh, you can actually see everything around you. And it’s a little less scary, I think.

Gin Jenny (19:46):

Where have you done it? And how far do you descend?

Andrea Stewart (19:49):

I’ve done it at Monterrey and Hawaii, like Cancun. I can’t remember if I’ve done it anywhere else. Another place Porta Rialta. Yeah, but yeah, you go down usually about like 60 feet or so. If the water is clear, which, you know, usually you’re trying to choose places that have got relatively good visibility. You can see quite a bit, so it’s, it’s really neat. I, I really love it, but I haven’t been in awhile.

Gin Jenny (20:17):

Yeah. I think my dad’s been scuba diving. I’m a little nervous. I’m not specifically scared of fish or anything, but I’m not sure I want them looking right at me as equals.

Andrea Stewart (20:25):

Yeah. It gets a little bit worrisome when you see like the big groupers and everything that are just these massive fish.

Gin Jenny (20:33):

But they’re not interested in you. Right? They leave you alone.

Andrea Stewart (20:36):

Yeah. Yeah, they do. I mean, they’ve been known sometimes to be a little bit aggressive, but generally they’ll just leave you alone. I’m probably not making it any better.

Gin Jenny (20:48):

I mean, I think that I’m, I think my level of fear has stayed has stayed the same throughout this conversation. I’m so curious about the cover design process.

Andrea Stewart (20:58):

Oh yeah. They did, you know, send me the sketches and everything before the final version was done. I didn’t really have like any input as far as– I mean, cause I’m like, you know, I trust you guys, like whatever, whatever you think is going to be great, I’m sure it’s going to be great. So they sent me the sketch that the artist did and then kind of like her little inspirations as far as like what she had used to come up with it. And even the sketch I was like, that is incredible. And I love it. They

Gin Jenny (21:35):

Wait, so they sent you, they sent you a sketch and they also sent you her like, artist’s statement about it?

Andrea Stewart (21:39):

No, she sent sent her the inspirational, like photographs that she had used to kind of–like these ivory carvings basically. And then, you know, they sent me like updates as she was working on it, which was fascinating to see because, you know, I really like seeing the process behind artwork.

Gin Jenny (22:00):

Are you an artist at all?

Andrea Stewart (22:02):

I am actually. I used to do some illustration work like way back in the day, but yeah, there’s actually some stuff that’s going to come out that like, I’ve done a couple of paintings for the book, so that’s gonna come out a little later.

Gin Jenny (22:18):

Amazing. That’s amazing. That’s like magic to me. I have, I am the least artistic person imaginable. So when someone can, I mean, even when someone draws the most basic picture, like my sister draws the pencil sketch of our dog, I’m like, HOW THOUGH?

Andrea Stewart (22:33):

I had like a really kind of isolated childhood in some ways, like, you know, it was very nerdy. So it’s like, ah, just off in a corner or like reading or drawing. But yeah, so I was, I was really, really impressed with the cover. That was, it was one of those things where I felt like the artists had kind of like reached into my brain, because you know, how it’s got all those carvings and everything on the front? When I was a kid well, my parents still have this chest at the foot of their bed, and it’s got all these kinds of very kind of similar carvings on it, and I used to go in there and like play with it, like kind of like trace all the little carvings, like, oh, like, you know, little trees and buildings and people. So it was kind of neat to see that in a cover, where I was like, well, this just reminds me a lot of my childhood.

Gin Jenny (23:22):

Oh my gosh, that’s so neat. It reminded me of I don’t know if you’ve seen the show Black Sails, but the credits um–

Andrea Stewart (23:27):

You know, that’s, that’s funny. Yes. other people have mentioned that to me. I actually have not seen the show, but now I’ve seen the credits, so.

Gin Jenny (23:35):

Okay. So yeah. You know, so they have sort of similar carvings like this and it’s just, it’s very beautiful.

Andrea Stewart (23:42):

I’m very excited to see what they’re going to do with the second book.

Gin Jenny (23:45):

Oh my gosh. Me too. You said earlier that this is the seventh book you’ve written. Can I be extremely impudent and ask if this one is your favorite out of all the books you’ve written?

Andrea Stewart (23:54):

Yeah! I mean, usually the last one that I’ve written is always my favorite, and it actually got me a book deal.

Gin Jenny (24:02):

Do you have plans to go back and revisit earlier manuscripts once this trilogy is finished?

Andrea Stewart (24:08):

No!

Gin Jenny (24:09):

Oh, wow, a resounding no!

Andrea Stewart (24:12):

No, I mean, I feel like I learned something with every manuscript and I’ve gone back and I’ve looked at my old writing, and it’s just like, you know, I don’t want to, I wouldn’t want to put something out there that I don’t feel is the best that I can do. I mean, I’ll maybe cannibalize parts as far as like, oh, I liked this concept or something, or like, you know, I like the setting, but yeah, no, they’re dead.

Gin Jenny (24:40):

I was going to ask about without trying to make you tell me spoilers for book two, it seems really, really hard to write a trilogy where one book comes out before the other books are even finished. How do you rise to this challenge?

Andrea Stewart (24:52):

Oh goodness. Okay. So when the book went out on submission, I did have to write up like a little summary for what would happen in books two and three. So I knew what was going to happen. I had a plan. It is kind of funny though, where I’m working on revisions for book two right now, and I’ll see people pop up on Twitter and say, oh, like, I hope this little thing is in book two. And I’m like, oh, actually should maybe have some of that in there. So that’s been kind of funny because you know, I do want readers to be pleased with the second book. At the same time. I do have a plan for it. And I think, I think people are going to like it. We’ll see.

Gin Jenny (25:36):

But what if you think of something that you should have put in book one, but it’s too late?

Andrea Stewart (25:38):

Then I just have to put it in book two, I guess. I mean, the big thing is like right now just trying to figure out, like we talked about before, spacing out those reveals and what needs to be in book two and what needs to be saved for book three. And I think I’ve got that mostly. I think I’ve got that figured out. It’s just a matter right now of kind of going through my checklist of things that like ahhhh! I need to fix this. Yeah, totally.

Gin Jenny (26:06):

Yeah, totally. Do you have an outline–like how much of an outliner are you?

Andrea Stewart (26:09):

I’m definitely an outliner. I go through and I have a summary for each chapter and I just kind of follow that. Sometimes I don’t, and then I have to fix my outline, but I definitely outline before I start writing, because for me especially dealing with multiple perspectives, I really need to make sure that they all have their own arc, that they’re intersecting in the right ways at the right times. So, yeah. So that’s pretty important to me.

Gin Jenny (26:36):

Sure! Was it exciting to actually reach the point in writing where some of these characters meet each other? Because Jovis meets some of other characters, I guess, maybe midway through the book, but he doesn’t meet Lin until quite a bit later. And I was very excited.

Andrea Stewart (26:50):

Yeah! So that’s like part of the fun of writing book two for me, is actually having these characters interact and, you know, having these backgrounds clash and kind of figuring out like where they go from there and what their relationship with one another is going to be like. That’s that’s been really fun for me.

Gin Jenny (27:11):

Is there anything you can tell us about book two? Because I don’t wanna get into spoilers for this one, but Lin and Jovis are both– Well, actually everyone are in very, very different situations than when they began.

Andrea Stewart (27:22):

Yeah. So I can say like a little bit just, you know, there’s, there’s definitely more constructs, more creatures. You learn more about Mephi. You learn a little, a lot more about the Alonga and the history of the empire and how it became the way that it is, and also you learn a little bit more about the bone shard magic and how it came to be and some of the mystery surrounding it. So I think that’s kind of specific and also a little bit vague, but, you know!

Gin Jenny (28:00):

That’s great. We’re gonna, we’re going to find out more about, about little Mephi?

Andrea Stewart (28:05):

Yes. And there’s, there’s more islands that they visit and everything in book two as well. So you kind of get to meet some of the other people that live on the other islands and kind of get a sense for how they’re dealing with all the changes.

Gin Jenny (28:20):

Man, that sounds great. We’re going to do a spoiler for something that happens about a third of the way through the book. Are we going to find out why Deerhead sank?

Andrea Stewart (28:27):

You’re going to get some more hints.

Gin Jenny (28:32):

Okay. Um that was so– That was so distressing. That was really effectively frightening and terrible.

Andrea Stewart (28:38):

Yeah. I mean, there’s definitely more happening in book two in regards to that. And you know, they’re all obviously desperately trying to figure out what exactly is happening. Whether or not they do in book two, I don’t want to say. That’s something I think that should be discovered as you kind of go along through the story.

Gin Jenny (29:03):

Perfect. And then I was also curious, we talked a little bit about some of the animal companions and fiction that you’ve enjoyed, but have you always been a fantasy reader?

Andrea Stewart (29:11):

Yeah, I have been. Since I was a kid. Fantasy and sci-fi actually, but I used to go to the library every week. My parents would take me, and then when I got older, I would just ride my bicycle. So I started out with like, you know Chronicles of Narnia and then the Prydain novels by Lloyd Alexander, I loved those, and I kind of just started reading, you know, more adult stuff as I got a little bit older. Some stuff I think I read before I should have.

Gin Jenny (29:44):

What did you read before you should have? I definitely read Mercedes Lackey before I should have.

Andrea Stewart (29:48):

Oh gosh. I can’t even remember. There were some there was just some stuff that was, I think probably a little bit too violent for me at that age. And when you’re a kid, and you’re just looking for more materials to consume, it’s not like they have like a, a rating on them.

Gin Jenny (30:06):

Right! Which is fortunate because I was a very law abiding kid. So I would certainly have been like, oh, I can’t read the ones with the higher rating. That’s against the rules.

Gin Jenny (30:14):

So who are some of your favorite SF authors now?

Andrea Stewart (30:17):

Oh gosh, there are so many. So I really, really love N.K. Jemison. Her Broken Earth Trilogy just blew me away. It’s one of those things where I read it and I was like, oh God, I will never write anything this brilliant. And that’s amazing. There was that I really liked Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver and Uprooted. I loved those. They were so engaging, and I’ve been reading like some new stuff lately, which has been fun. I’ve been getting books like before they come out right now, which is like, oh my God, so exciting. So I got to read Wolf of Oren-Yaro before it came out.

Gin Jenny (30:56):

Oh, how is it? I’ve been wanting to read it.

Andrea Stewart (30:58):

I loved it. It’s told from a first person point of view, and the main character is so interesting and complex, and you know, you can understand exactly why she makes all the decisions, but she doesn’t at the same time sometimes you’re like, oh, but I wish you hadn’t! But then it like makes the story go.

Gin Jenny (31:19):

Sure. Yeah. That was, that was my experience of reading Harrow the Ninth, like exactly.

Andrea Stewart (31:25):

I mean, you have like these characters who are flawed, so obviously they are going to do flawed things.

Gin Jenny (31:32):

Oh man. Those are, those are good ones. Well, before I let you go, how are you managing coronavirus? Is anything exciting happening in your quarantine life? Have you learned how to do anything new?

Andrea Stewart (31:42):

I’m very typical, I guess, because I did a sourdough starter, so, and how

Gin Jenny (31:49):

And how did it go? Did you– I don’t actually understand what a sourdough starter is, a hundred percent.

Andrea Stewart (31:52):

So it’s just like, basically you grow your own, like yeasty starter.

Gin Jenny (31:58):

Okay, and then once you have it, do you like take a piece off or like, what do you…

Andrea Stewart (32:05):

Some of it’s like, just like it’s kind of like liquidy doughy and it’s like a batter almost. So you take it out and you use it to start like your sourdough loaf, and you have to kind of replenish your little sourdough starter. You actually have to feed it like once a week. It’s like a little pet.

Gin Jenny (32:24):

Oh. I thought it was, I was picturing, like, I thought it was like a liver where you could take a piece off and it would regenerate, but you have to like do stuff to it consistently.

Andrea Stewart (32:32):

You kind of have to, you have to give it flour and water, and that feeds it basically.

Gin Jenny (32:36):

Okay. So I had it totally wrong. I was picturing liver, but now I’m picturing more like a Tamagotchi.

Andrea Stewart (32:40):

Yeah, it’s like a Tamagotchi.

Gin Jenny (32:40):

Okay, great. Great, great, great, great. So have you made sourdough with it?

Andrea Stewart (32:46):

I have, yes. And I gave some of the starter to my mom too, so now my starter has offspring.

Gin Jenny (32:52):

Oh my gosh. Congratulations.

Andrea Stewart (32:54):

So, yeah, so that’s basically, I mean, I don’t think I’ve done anything else except write and stay isolated.

Gin Jenny (33:03):

Yeah, pretty much me too. I keep meaning to learn, to pick locks. That’s kind of the next thing on my docket.

Andrea Stewart (33:10):

Ooh. Yes. That sounds super interesting. Actually I know some people that have gotten into that.

Gin Jenny (33:15):

So someone on Twitter recommended a lock pick set for beginners, and it has like a transparent padlock that you can practice on. So you can kind of see what, what all the little triggers are. So that’s what I really want to do. But apart from that, I haven’t done anything. I made a risotto. That’s my accomplishment.

Andrea Stewart (33:34):

Oh, that’s nice. That’s a good accomplishment.

Gin Jenny (33:38):

I mean, I haven’t kept a sour dough starter alive, so!

Andrea Stewart (33:40):

I mean, it’s not that hard. It’s like a fish.

Gin Jenny (33:46):

Well, and oh, I did want to ask you actually, what are you reading right now?

Andrea Stewart (33:48):

I’m actually reading another book that has not come out yet. It’s called Star Eater by Kirstin Hall, and I think that comes out in early 2021. I think it comes out in January. It’s been kind of slow going just because, you know, I’ve been working on a bunch of other stuff, but it’s really interesting so far and I’m looking forward to finishing it.

Gin Jenny (34:09):

Yeah. I think my brain is broken. I’ve had a really hard time reading, which by the way, I really appreciate this book again because you know, I, I really tore through it and it was so nice to actually be able to like read and finish something.

Andrea Stewart (34:20):

Oh, I’m so glad. That’s like the best feedback that I can hear as an author, is that it was like, you know, a quick read.

Gin Jenny (34:28):

Well, especially my, my friend Alice and I kind of joke with each other that when books are a little longer, we’re very nervous to start them. But this, I mean, this is over 400 pages, but it felt like nothing. It went by in a flash.

Andrea Stewart (34:39):

That’s so good to hear.

Gin Jenny (34:40):

Well, Andrea, thank you so much. This has been lovely.

Andrea Stewart (34:43):

Thank you so much for having me. I mean, you know, debut, author, pandemic, I really appreciate anything that can get the word out. So

Gin Jenny (34:51):

Well, and absolutely, listeners, I loved this book. I have not been able to, like I said, I’ve not been able to read that much in quarantine, but I just tore through this one. Andrea, where can people find you online?

Andrea Stewart (35:00):

Twitter mostly! I’m at AndreaGStewart on Twitter. And then I have a website, AndreaGStewart.com. I’m on Instagram, but I’m still like figuring that out. Like Stories. What are these? This is how I know I’m getting older, but I’m still kind of getting used to the whole interface there. And then I’m on Facebook as well. I have like an author page that I never update, but I have a personal page there as well that is public. So.

Gin Jenny (35:29):

All right, perfect. Well again, thank you so much for joining me and listeners until next time, stay safe volunteer for your local Senate candidates and take care.

The post PODCAST – Episode 136 – An Interview with Andrea Stewart, Author of The Bone Shard Daughter appeared first on Reading the End.

After a few years of hearing about — but not being able to find at a library! — Bethany Morrow’s first book Mem, I was pumped as hell for her YA novel. And I was right to be: It’s excellent. Tavia and Effie’s friendship forms the heart of this book, and it’s a beautiful center for a wonderful book. Though the book includes some gestures toward present and past romance for the girls, their sisterhood remains the central relationship. Not for a single second do you doubt that these girls are going to protect each other and fight for each other, no matter what’s happening to them. Without spoilers, Tavia makes a sacrifice for Effie at the end of this book that brought genuine tears to my eyes. Though at first it seems like Tavia’s the sister the story’s really about, and Effie’s the sister who will stand by her to the end, you pretty quickly learn that Effie’s got her own stuff, and it’s no less painful and important than what’s going on with Tav.

Which is actually another really strong element of the book: Everyone Has Stuff! A Song Below Water hands out the full measure of humanity to just about every character, with the possible exception of Effie and Tavia’s classmate Naema; she’s a real piece of work. Notably, this isn’t limited to the kids! Though Effie’s mother is deceased and she doesn’t know her father (that’s a whole other thing), she has two in loco parentis who spend all their time not telling her anything about her dad or her heritage. Tavia’s dad takes every opportunity to remind her that he didn’t want a siren daughter, and her mom never steps in to defend her. But what’s lovely and unusual is that the book doesn’t write anyone off for their imperfections (except, again, maybe Naema, who’s a real asshole). Tavia and Effie are old enough girls to hold the cognitive dissonance of loving their parents while understanding that they’re flawed.

If there’s a true enemy in this book, it’s the American system of racism and other kinds of bigotry. Bethany Morrow can’t have known that the country would be in the grips of such significant social unrest when her book came out, but it’s a tragically apt environment for A Song Before Water. LL McKinney coined the phrase stand-in bigotry for speculative fiction stories that use the structures and vocabulary of real-world oppression, while applying them to fictional identities. McKinney makes the vital point that stand-in bigotry often uses real oppression as a prop while declining to interact with the real systems of prejudice that do terrible harm in our own world, as exemplified by the police brutality that has racked our nation over the past week and a half.

Morrow beautifully sidesteps this error. A Song Below Water is fundamentally about racism and sexism, which interact with and exist alongside the fictional prejudices she creates. Tavia and Effie are reminded again and again that they can only depend on each other, that Black girls stand for Black girls because nobody else will do it. Despite the fantastical elements of this book, A Song Below Water exists very much in our own world, with all of its painful flaws and structural inequalities. Morrow makes Tavia’s struggle with her siren identity a truly intersectional one, as she understands the risks she already runs as a visibly Black, visibly female person, and tries her best not to add another area of risk by admitting she’s a siren. It’s a heartbreaking struggle; every part of it keeps her from being fully who she is.

At its heart, A Song Below Water is the story of two girls trying to do right by each other and themselves. As you can probably tell, I loved it and I recommend it most highly.

Note: I received an e-ARC of A Song Below Water from the publisher, for review consideration. This has not affected the contents of my review.

The post Review: A Song Below Water, Bethany C. Morrow appeared first on Reading the End.

The first thing to mention is that while Realm of Ash is the second in the Books of Ambha series, it functions more as a companion novel than as a sequel. Arwa was the beloved baby sister of Mehr, our heroine from Empire of Sand, but she’s now an adult, widowed at twenty-one and traumatized from the massacre at Darez Fort and angry, angry, angry. For all the years of her life she has done her best to conform to what’s expected of her as an Ambhan noblewoman. She was the perfect daughter her parents wanted; the perfect wife for her late husband; now the perfect servant to the Empire. But none of that has truly given her the space to be who she is and express what she wants. Working with Zahir offers her some hope of agency, but at the cost of the facade of Ambhan normalcy that she has preserved all her life. All the time she works to save the Empire, it’s crumbling faster than she and Zahir can possibly shore it up; and nobody around them in the capital city can be trusted.

Tasha Suri comes out of fandom and it shows. Realm of Ash begins and ends with emotional stakes, such that I was immediately swept away by Arwa’s emotional journey. Even before it became clear that Arwa was on a quest to save the whole-ass empire, I was in on her, simply because of her rage and her desperation for her suffering to mean something. I liked Empire of Sand an awful lot, but Realm of Ash was maybe even more up my alley: Arwa wants to be good in a world that disallows the possibility of her goodness. Her person is the curse — at least, that’s what she’s always been told. No wonder she’s angry. You are angry for her, and there are few things more immediately resonant to me than an angry woman who wants like hell to figure out how to be moral.

Then of course there is Zahir. Like Empire of Sand, Realm of Ash functions in many ways like a romance, though Arwa’s own self-actualization is the most important plot element, the thing that begins the book and will mark its ending. The romance is pretty excellent, though. Zahir and Arwa have to build, and I know y’all know I’m about this, a grudging respect. Again as in Empire of Sand, this book is keenly aware of the power differential between its principals. Here’s what Zahir says when his sister implies to Arwa that she should be sexually available to Zahir:

“She cannot give what I won’t take then,” snapped Zahir. “You came here of your own free will, Lady Arwa, came to this service out of loyalty and love for the Empire, and I am grateful. But I know how free will can bend to necessity and survival. I know. And I do not ask for more….I called you my apprentice, my assistant, and that is all I want, and all I need from you.”

For the sensible friends who, like me, desire angry women and soft men, Realm of Ash is what you’re after. Zahir is a soft, careful, bookish, morally upright nerd who rightly thinks the world of Arwa, but also trusts her to know her own mind and make her own choices. Suri does a brilliant job of writing the development of this relationship into a true partnership, and it’s lovely to read.

The central theme of Realm of Ash is how to live ethically in an empire that sleeps on a bed of bones. Arwa and Zahir are constantly aware that the collapse of the Empire will mean the deaths of thousands of people. And Arwa has witnessed such deaths firsthand, at Darez Fort. She wants at all costs to prevent it from happening again. The Emperor’s warlike son Parviz wants to improve matters by cracking down on so-called heretics. Zahir has a plan that he thinks might maybe restore them to the status quo. These are the only ideas anybody seems to have. It is horrible because like, as Arwa has cause to learn, the status quo was horrible! But nobody else has any ideas, and a lot of people are going to die if the whole thing crumbles! Sooooooooooooooo…. ?

(As you may have discerned, I found this both timely and relatable.)

Realm of Ash is a tense, smart, beautifully insightful fantasy romance. If you are getting tired of quarantine and wishful of something brilliant to read, I can’t recommend better than Realm of Ash.

The post Review: Realm of Ash, Tasha Suri appeared first on Reading the End.

Riot Baby is a primal scream of a novella, ranging through America’s racist history into a near-future version of the country that continues the climate emergency and militarization of the police.

Our protagonists are siblings Ella and Kev, both of whom are gifted — Ella more noticeably than Kev — with what they call a Thing, a special power whose limits and boundaries they do not fully understand. Kev was born during the riots that followed the acquittal of the officers who brutally beat up Rodney King, and he grows up in — well — this world. In the exact way these things are prone to happening, Kev ends up at Rikers Island, while Ella travels the nation, both of them experiencing and bearing witness to Black pain under a regime of American white supremacy.

Riot Baby is dizzying in its scope, ranging at speed through centuries of American history, from lynchings under Jim Crow to the racist spectacle of the Angola Prison Rodeo. “They called it Angola. In case you forgot it all comes back to Africa.” At times it can get overwhelming, but that’s, of course, the idea: White oppression of black Americans is foundational to this country, written into our constitution, and black free will — whether in the form of rebellions against slavery or protests after police shootings — has always been met with violence. Ella and Kev are practiced in witnessing and experiencing that violence. It has shaped their lives from their very first days.

Onyebuchi’s writing in this book is stunning. His evocation of American history, in all its messiness and filth, will blow you away. I don’t know what else to say about this book except that it sets a new standard for the subgenre of urban fantasy.¹ The conclusion of Riot Baby is at once shocking and inevitable. Given what Ella and Kev have seen — which is our exact world, the one that every black American lives through — it’s impossible for them to land on anything but revolution.

Another note: I received this book as an ARC from the publisher for review consideration. This has not impacted the contents of my review.

The post Review: Riot Baby, Tochi Onyebuchi appeared first on Reading the End.

One day, at the absolute end of her rope, Casiopea opens up a locked chest in her grandfather’s bedroom, and out comes the spirit of Han-Kame, the Mayan god of death. He needs to regain his throne from his usurping twin brother Vucub-Kame, and he needs Casiopea’s help. As they travel around Mexico searching for the missing pieces of Han-Kame, Casiopea’s life force is gradually drained, while Han-Kame gradually becomes more and more human and less and less god.

Gods of Jade and Shadow draws from the Popul Vuh, but I can report from my own experience that you don’t need to be familiar with it to enjoy the story. At its heart, it’s a road trip story and McGuffin hunt of the highest order, and a story about stories without getting too terribly precious about it. I loved following Casiopea and Han-Kame around Mexico on trains and in fast cars, as each of them learns about being a human in a wide and varied world. Han-Kame, of course, has always been a god, and Casiopea has always been a drudge, with a life that offered her very little scope for self-discovery. It’s brilliant to witness her world opening up.

Casiopea overall is just a terrific character. One of my favorite things about this book is that although it’s a fantasy novel, and although it’s set in The Past (Jazz Age!), Casiopea is never under sexual threat. Her physical safety grants her the space to be her own person, a stubborn and intelligent woman who looks up at the stars and dreams of freedom. Most particularly, she refuses to be cast in the role of a drudge — she may have to act the part, but she’ll never internalize it, and this is what drives her cousin Martin wild. Though she agrees to help Han-Kame (she doesn’t have much choice, since he’s draining her life force as long as he’s not a full god), there’s little she wants in return — just her freedom.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Martin is called upon by Han-Kame’s twin brother to stop Han-Kame and Casiopea from realizing their goal. As they travel across the country in search of the missing pieces of Han-Kame’s body (his eye, his ear, a necklace, and his index finger) that will make him fully a god, Martin is trained and aided by Vucub-Kame to stop them. He’s a whiny sack of shit who’s been shitty to Casiopea since she came into his home, but he’s been promised great rewards if he succeeds, and utter doom if he should fail. So like, he’s motivated. And Casiopea and Han-Kame, though they are growing closer as Han-Kame becomes more of a man and less of a god, weaken each day their spirits are linked.

Much as I love a road trip (I really, really love a road trip), Gods of Jade and Shadow wouldn’t have worked without Moreno-Garcia’s brilliant evocation of Jazz Age Mexico. Everywhere Casiopea goes, she sees new things: flappers with bobbed hair, high-ceilinged hotels with room service, and flower shops with witches inside. Despite being on record as hating places (down with places!), I was all about this setting. It’s particularly good viewed through Casiopea’s eyes because — I don’t know how to say this exactly! — her wants are so modest. She wants soft sheets and a comfortable bed; she wants to see the world and be larger than herself. For her it’s not a question of gold and jewels, but a question of expansiveness: her adventure with Han-Kame is dangerous, yes, but it offers her a chance to live in the world, instead of being hidden away from it forever.

All in all, a gorgeous historical fantasy about gods, death, mercy, and freedom. Highly recommended.

The post Review: Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia appeared first on Reading the End.

Journalist Avi Hirsch is our way in to this story: An adrenaline junkie who’s done his best to settle down for his wife and kid, Avi is pursuing two seemingly unrelated stories, a bombing at a mall and another at a local black church. He learns that the man responsible has special powers, that there are more like him (though, mostly, not evil), and scariest of all, that Avi’s own daughter is one of them. The Nobody People spans the years after Avi’s discovery, as American society begins to learn of the existence of these so-called Resonants, and decides how they will respond. Along the way, Avi moves onto the sidelines of the story while other characters move to the front, notably a queer Muslim science genius Resonant, Fahima, and a graduate of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters the Bishop School called Carrie, whose ability is to turn invisible-ish.

The Nobody People is very much X-Men for a post-Trump era. Its turns to dystopia are hideously plausible, in part because they happen gradually. We open on a scene of violence in Appalachia, a family murdered because one of their sons used his power to open up a blockage in the mine. After Avi starts writing about the Resonant community for major publications, the backlash begins, spurred on by conservative talk show hosts and the existence of Resonants like the one who bombed the mall and the Baptist Church.

After that, the book is set up with small time jumps between sections (a year or two), which lets you discover the ways Resonants and humans alike have adjusted to their new normal. Early on, the only people clamoring for something to be done about the Resonants are cracks and conspiracy theorists. After a jump, the kids from the Bishop School have graduated and are living independently, forming Resonant conclaves within cities and walking among the normies (whom they call Damps) — though they remain fearful of government or vigilante interference in their lives, and there are whispers of Resonants being disappeared by men in white vans. Again and again, the characters and country adjust to a new normal, always hoping for / fearing the permanence of the status quo.

Even scarier than the country’s slide into exactly the kind of dystopia you’d expect is the fact that the characters don’t fail to see the dark futures they’re heading for. On the contrary, many of them can see it all too clearly, and they are working desperately to avert it. Only, in the Oedipus way that you’d expect, many of the steps they take to avert the grimmest futures only put them one step closer to disaster. Proehl does this very cleverly and (mostly) without editorializing, which highlights the impressive ambition and scale of this book.

All that said, and apart from a few pieces of white-guy-author-nonsense (lynching is a word with a really specific meaning and history! never ever ever ever ever have a narrator we’re supposed to like use the phrase young bucks to refer to young men!), I probably admired The Nobody People more than I loved it. This may just have been a function of its darkness; it’s hard in this darkest of timelines to read books in which nothing anybody does, no matter how good their intentions, no matter how awesome their brainpower, can save the day, or even come anywhere close to saving the day.

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