Tag: Unique magic system

Book review: The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

Rach @ Anxious Nachos3 Comments

Title: The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

Publisher: Orbit

Publication date: 8 September 2020

Genre: Adult | Fantasy

Page extent: 448 pages

Rating:

Goodreads blurb: In an empire controlled by bone shard magic, Lin, the former heir to the emperor will fight to reclaim her magic and her place on the throne. The Bone Shard Daughter marks the debut of a major new voice in epic fantasy.

The emperor’s reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard magic powering the animal-like constructs that maintain law and order. But now his rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire’s many islands.

Lin is the emperor’s daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic.

Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright – and save her people.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for providing me an advanced copy of The Bone Shard Daughter in exchange for an honest review.

Welcome to your new favourite fantasy world! The Bone Shard Daughter is a slowburn fantasy with such an interesting world (where islands move and sink!), a very fun magic system (using shards of people’s skulls!) and has a cast of brilliant characters (MEPHI, MY SWEET BABY ANGEL!)

From the blurb, I went into The Bone Shard Daughter expecting a story of power and privilege as daughter of the emperor Lin tried to take the throne from the father. And we do get that. But what was unexpected was this whole host of other POVs that made this world even better than I anticipated! It did through me off a bit at the start as I’d gone in with such different expectations to what we got, but I really loved these other characters by the end of the book. We follow five main POVs throughout:

  • Lin, the daughter of the emperor who recovered from a serious illness five years ago, but lost all the memories of her childhood. Her father now pits her against foster brother Bayan as the two compete to see who can learn most about bone shard magic and be named their father’s heir.
  • Jovis, a burly smuggler desperate to find his wife who disappeared seven years ago. Helping children escape the tithing festival, where they give away part of their skull bone to the emperor for his bone magic constructs, he runs into Mephi, a bedraggled looking kitten who just so turns out to be something else entirely.
  • Phalue, the daughter of a governor on one of the islands around the Empire, whose long term partner Ramani has wound up involved with the Shardless Few, a group who want to take down the Empire.
  • Ramani herself, who has to grapple with her love for a woman in a position in power who doesn’t seem to understand the depths of suffering in the lower classes.
  • And then there’s Sand, an outsider point of view at the far reaches of the Empire, who falls out of a mango tree and realises something odd about her island.

I had times when each of these POVs were my favourite, so it’s difficult to say who I liked best. Though I’m certainly not complaining, as big multi-POV fantasies like this one often suffer from a ‘this other character has a much more interesting POV and I don’t care about the rest at all.’ The Bone Shard Daughter was not like that. At the start, I found myself dying to know more about Lin, as she started her discovery and exploration of this very cool magic system that allowed bone shards to be created in constructs to protect the Empire. But then I was blown away and drawn into this mystery on Sand’s island, longing to know more about what the fuck was happening. Then Ramani and Phalue, this amazing f/f relationship who love each other but are struggling to resolve their morality and positions. But by the end, I think I was most in love with Jovis (which actually very much surprised me, because he starts out very rude and gruff and a unwilling to help, and almost left poor little Mephi in the sea). But by the end I cherished the strong love that had developed between Jovis and his magical animal companion Mephi, I adored the way his love for his wife drove his actions so much, the beauty of his emotion and heart break clear on every page. So there really wasn’t a single POV I wasn’t interested in and didn’t want to know more about!

The magic system is definitely one of the coolest in any book I’ve read this year. Parts of people’s SKULLS are used to power constructs to defend the empire? And citizens are forced to give their bones? But it means if your shard is in use, at some point you will grow suddenly weak and sick and no longer be able to function. This system made for such an interesting power dynamic, one that could really explore the experiences between the nobility and the working class. This was particularly apparent with Lin and Phalue, who had to challenge themselves and their role in power, and see how far they were willing to go to. For Lin especially, as a wielder of bone shard magic, the magic she must learn to use to win over her father, she was faced with the knowledge that by using these shards and using the working class as a stepping stone to power, she wasn’t really any different to her awful father. Her journey and development as she had to come to terms with this was one of my favourite parts of the book.

As much as I loved the magic system, the reason I didn’t give this a full five stars is also the magic system. There seemed to be some inconsistencies and I was rather confused about how this magic that took time and patience to wield could somehow be instantaneously used in the middle of battle? The battle scenes used this magic in a way that seemed to ignore time? As this was an ARC, I’m hoping this might be improved by the final book, but I was very confused about how a magic that requires time to actually work was suddenly either being used immediately in the heat of battle (and thus made no sense with the rest of the book), or the opponent’s simply sat around waiting for you to complete it before attacking (which makes equally little sense). It brought me right out of the story which was really disappointing because I’d been loving every minute until then.

But overall, I was really impressed with The Bone Shard Daughter! It has one of my favourite ensemble casts, each of their POVs were so interesting in their own ways, and this world, with islands that can move and sink and magic that is wielded with people’s skulls, made for a very exciting fantasy debut! And of course I will devour the sequel whenever it releases.

Book review: The Four Profound Weaves by R.B Lemberg

Rach @ Anxious Nachos10 Comments

Title: The Four Profound Weaves by R.B Lemberg

Publisher: Tachyon Publications

Publication date: 4 September 2020

Genre: Adult | Fantasy

Page extent: 192 pages

Rating:

Goodreads blurb: Wind: To match one’s body with one’s heart
Sand: To take the bearer where they wish
Song: In praise of the goddess Bird
Bone: To move unheard in the night

The Surun’ do not speak of the master weaver, Benesret, who creates the cloth of bone for assassins in the Great Burri Desert. But Uiziya now seeks her aunt Benesret in order to learn the final weave, although the price for knowledge may be far too dear to pay.

Among the Khana, women travel in caravans to trade, while men remain in the inner quarter as scholars. A nameless man struggles to embody Khana masculinity, after many years of performing the life of a woman, trader, wife, and grandmother.

As the past catches up to the nameless man, he must choose between the life he dreamed of and Uiziya, and Uiziya must discover how to challenge a tyrant, and weave from deaths that matter.

Set in R. B. Lemberg’s beloved Birdverse, The Four Profound Weaves hearkens to Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. In this breathtaking debut, Lemberg offers a timeless chronicle of claiming one’s identity in a hostile world.

I’ve been having such a good year for novellas, I haven’t read a single bad one and this was no different! Queer novellas are pretty much the only thing giving me life right now.

The Four Profound Weaves is a novella set within R.B Lemberg’s Birdverse series. It follows a nameless man who has recently transitioned, as he searches for a name; and his friend, a weaver, who is searching for her Aunt so she can be taught how to weave from death, the last of the four profound Weaves.

As a newcomer to this series, I won’t lie, I did find the first half quite confusing. There is so much history, mythology and worldbuilding that needed to be crammed into such a small novella and I think I probably would’ve benefited by reading some of the Birdverse series prior to jumping straight into this, just so I had a better understanding of this world. But by the second half, I felt much more comfortable in the world and really enjoyed this!

My absolute favourite thing about this novella is the magic system. Interesting magic systems are of one the best parts of reading fantasy because they’re all so unique, and the fact this one was all about weaving was so cool?? I need more crafts and magic in my life! Weaving magic can be created through four elements: wind, for change; sand, for wanderlust; song, for hope; bones, for death. The way these magics influenced the story and world were so interesting. I found the carpets of change, made from wind, particularly amazing: that these carpets are used by individuals who wish to change their bodies to match their identities is just so cool?!

Which leads me to my second favourite thing about this novella, the exploration of gender, expression and identity. God I really just fucking love books that have magic systems that allow for trans and nonbinary individuals. We have evolved past the need for binary magic systems!! I loved how the nameless man explored his new identity but in a way that took into account the fact he’d lived life as a woman for 60 years? The way he embraced the fact he was a man but also that he’d been raised to trade and explore the world, which would usually be a woman’s role. It was so great to see that acknowledged? That yes he was a man, but you don’t just lose everything that made you who you are for the last 40 years after transitioning?

This was a really great novella. Given the subject matter, there is a great deal of transphobia, dead-naming and misgendering so do be aware of that going in. But I’m definitely very interested in reading more of Lemberg’s work set in the Birdverse!

Blog tour: The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco

Rach @ Anxious Nachos1 Comment

I am so excited to say welcome to my first ever blog tour stop!! Thank you so much to Shealea at Caffeine Book Tours for inviting me onto the tour, and to both Rin Chupeco and the publisher for offering a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. In just a few short words: The Never Tilting World is brilliant book, one about family and truth and the corruption of power. Also bisexuals. 

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Book information

Title: The Never Tilting World

Author: Rin Chupeco

Publisher: Harper Collins

Publication date: 15 October 2019

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy

Synopsis:

Frozen meets Mad Max in this epic teen fantasy duology bursting with star-crossed romance, immortal heroines, and elemental magic, perfect for fans of Furyborn.

Generations of twin goddesses have long ruled Aeon. But seventeen years ago, one sister’s betrayal defied an ancient prophecy and split their world in two. The planet ceased to spin, and a Great Abyss now divides two realms: one cloaked in perpetual night, the other scorched by an unrelenting sun.

While one sister rules Aranth—a frozen city surrounded by a storm-wracked sea —her twin inhabits the sand-locked Golden City. Each goddess has raised a daughter, and each keeps her own secrets about her sister’s betrayal.

But when shadowy forces begin to call their daughters, Odessa and Haidee, back to the site of the Breaking, the two young goddesses —along with a powerful healer from Aranth, and a mouthy desert scavenger —set out on separate journeys across treacherous wastelands, desperate to heal their broken world. No matter the sacrifice it demands.

Book links: Amazon, Book Depository, Goodreads

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A demoness is what they call a goddess that men cannot control.

I want to start by saying a big ol’ THANK YOU to Rin Chupeco for featuring bisexuality in a fantasy novel because this is seriously all my jams, this is it, it’s all I want. The Never Tilting World was a whirlwind of action and romance, of finding family and losing family, and discovering the way power can corrupt and twist who you are. 

The Never Tilting World is told through four POVs. In an icy cold, dark and destructive world are Lan; healer Catseye suffering from PTSD, bound to protect a goddess; and Odessa, goddess suffering from an unknown illness, newly discovering her power. On the other side of the world in the blistering heat of the desert are Haidee, goddess trying to break free from her mother’s plans to wed her off, and Arjun, desert rogue and amputee who has one desire: kill the goddess. These four are pulled to the centre of the world where a dark and unknown terror awaits – the terrible Brighthenge temple which was the site of the Breaking, where the world was torn apart and the frozen and heated wastelands created.

“I didn’t hate Haidee exactly, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to throttle her for having no sense of self-preservation.”

i am so here for this snark

All four of these characters are so unique. I adored the sniping and snark between Haidee and Arjun, but I think my favourite was Odessa. Her character arc is brilliant, and it was so interesting to see from her perspective as her power grew and changed. The romance interwoven into the story was lovely, please authors I beg of you to keep writing awesome queer relationships into fantasy, it brings me such joy to see. 

Another thing I loved was the backstory of the world and how it came to be. Both Odessa and Haidee are told different stories from their mothers regarding the Breaking and what happened all those years ago, and so we the reader are as confused and intrigued by the mystery as much as the characters are. I do wish we’d gotten perhaps a little more information and closure on that but I understand completely there is a sequel which will continue this. It was really interesting to see how both Odessa and Haidee’s view of their mothers adapted as the book progressed, and as they discovered more about the events of the Breaking. The insidious way these events emerge is fantastic and I cannot wait to find out the truth about what happened.

Sacrifice is necessary for what was two to become one.

something bad will happen i know it

Another fantastically creative element were all of the twisted (although at times adorable…) creatures we met along the way. From the dolugongs, dolphin like sand sea creatures, to the giant scorpions, and horror shadow creatures that can steal you away. They were all so different and interesting, I loved all the run ins with them! 

The Never Tilting World is a really solid series start, it sets the sequel up so well (too well perhaps, I GOTS TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED). I’m already very attached to all four of our main characters and I actually don’t have one I didn’t like (rare indeed for me!) It was such a creative and interesting read, with a fascinating history and a bisexual romance which is just awesome! If you love strong bisexuals, creative creatures and a killer mysterious history, then pick up The Never Tilting World!

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Please do visit all the amazing bloggers who are participating in this tour! I can’t wait to see what everyone else thought and has created for this book!

If you’re eagle eyed you’ll be able to spot the bottom right corner, which mentions the Twitter chat we’ll having on Saturday October 19! It will be happening at 9AM EST – I may not be able to make it as it will be pretty late here in Australia, but do listen in to everyone as they chat about this awesome read!

Rin Chupeco

Rin Chupeco has written obscure manuals for complicated computer programs, talked people out of their money at event shows, and done many other terrible things. She now writes about ghosts and fantastic worlds but is still sometimes mistaken for a revenant. She is the author of The Girl from the Well, its sequel, The Suffering, and the Bone Witch trilogy.

Despite an unsettling resemblance to Japanese revenants, Rin always maintains her sense of hummus. Born and raised in Manila, Philippines, she keeps four pets: a dog, two birds, and a husband. Dances like the neighbors are watching.

Find out more about Rin over on her website, Goodreads, Instagram, Pintrest and Twitter!

Paws out,
Rach + Draco