Review: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

Title: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Author: N.K. Jemisin

Information on series: First in The Inheritance Trilogy

Audience: Adult, though with appeal for some older teens

Rating (scale of 1-5, with 5 being highest): 3.5

TL;DR: A dark love story set against a complicated backdrop of political intrigue where the stakes are life or death.

Longer review: N.K. Jemisin's debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, introduces a complex world of political intrigue where it is deadly dangerous to be among the elite or too far outside the norm. Unfortunately Yeine, our protagonist, is a descendant of both the ruling Arameri and the "barbaric" Darre. Centuries past, the Arameri conquered the world with the aid of the god of light, Itempas, and suppressed all other religions- and gods. Yeine's mother gave up a position of power as the Arameri heir to marry a Darre man, and lived out her life in exile for her choice. But shortly after her mother is murdered, Yeine is called to the capital by her grandfather to join the competition to become his new heir.

This is not an easy read. It is dark and sometimes confusing. I almost abandoned The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms before I finished it, but I stuck with it from a combination of sheer stubbornness and the appeal of the twisted romantic subplot. I am a sucker for any variation on the story of Psyche and Cupid, though this is more of a hint than anything close to a retelling. Fair warning, this book does contain a sex scene and there are no warm fuzzies. Everyone has hidden motivations; if morality is a spectrum, most characters lean away from the good end of the scale.

While The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms stands well on its own, readers will probably appreciate seeing how the story of these characters and their world plays out over the next two books in The Inheritance Trilogy. There is a diversity of cultures to this world that we are first led to believe is a mono-culture under the strict control of the Arameri. That Yeine's Darre people secretly hold some of their ancient beliefs and practices along with their darker complexions is easily assumed to be an exception. Jemisin created a very detailed world for this series, and it was difficult to appreciate or (for me, at times) to even grasp all of the meaning in a single reading. By looking at the same world, and some of the same events, from different perspectives in the second and third books, I gained a much clearer picture of the larger story.

That said, the murkiness of this book, where I was never quite sure of the motivations behind various characters actions or what their goals were, fit the themes of balance between light and dark or order and chaos rather well. That Yeine is trying to navigate this precarious, ill-defined space in her identity as outsider and elite, serves to emphasize the theme. This is one of several themes that Jemisin continues to examine and expand on throughout the series. I may've picked up The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms for a romantic fantasy, but I love The Inheritance Trilogy for a complexity that continues to make me think.

~Sarah, Carnegie-Stout Public Library

Read alikes:

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin: The first book in her third series, which was just published in August, The Fifth Season also features unique worldbuilding (the main magical power is literally worldbuilding or at least a power over mountains, earthquakes, etc.), and a main character whose powers make her an outsider.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik: For readers who are looking for a more typical (thought not entirely predictable) romantic subplot, this might be a good fit. I also might just really like this book (see previous review here).

The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson: A novella length story featuring an unusual female protagonist trapped by the ruling elite. A faster-paced story with more of an emphasis on action, but still featuring well developed, complex characters that touches on some interesting questions of identity.

Review: Bone and Thunder by Chris Evans

Title: Of Bone and Thunder

Author: Chris Evans

Information on series: Not part of a series

Audience: Adult

Rating (scale of 1-10): 9

TL;DR: An excellent rendition of a soldier’s eye view of war, Of Bone and Thunder places fantasy features like dragons and wizards into a setting reminiscent of the Vietnam War.

Longer review:  The Kingdom is the world’s preeminent power, but its powerful military confronts a serious challenge when they begin an occupation of Luitox.  Their enemy, the Forest Collective, is almost indistinguishable from friendly Luitoxians, and expertly melt into the jungle which blankets Luitox’s high peaks and wide, swampy river valleys.

        The action follows several narrators, from ground-pounding crossbowmen Carny and Listowk, to rag (dragon) pilot Vorly, and inexperienced thaum (wizard) Jawn.  The novel jumps between narrators, and sometimes significantly forward in time.  Through a series of interconnected episodes, the soldiers recount their experiences while trying to make sense of their part in a conflict that is too large and complicated for them to understand.  Some seek solace in thoughts of home, or by embracing religion or the patriotic rhetoric of their leaders – others turn to apathy, or to drug abuse, or begin to embrace the violent work they have been conscripted to do.

        The world of Luitox feels fascinating and deep, in part because of the obvious, and very well-executed, extended metaphor with American involvement in Vietnam.  It is rewarding to come across historical similarities that the author has taken pains to incorporate, like the racial tension amongst the Kingdom’s soldiers - here between human and dwarf rather than between white and black.  Even the fantasy elements have historical parallels, right down to the whup whup whup sound of dragon wings echoing the rotor blades of Vietnam’s helicopters.

        While there is character development, this isn’t a bildungsroman; no one grows from boyhood to manhood, or rises from humble farmer to world savior.  Further, while the book ends with some resolution for the characters, it contains neither the beginning nor the end of the conflict in Luitox as a whole. The reader’s view of the big picture is restricted to the knowledge that the characters themselves possess.  This will make Of Bone and Thunder completely unsatisfying to people looking for high fantasy, but the book is no less great for that.  Author Chris Evans has created a really intimate and harrowing look at war as seen through the eyes of a common soldier, a perspective that is almost unique in the fantasy genre, and is well worth the read.

Read alikes: The novel’s point of view meant that the first read alikes that sprang to my mind were outside of fantasy.  Here are three books with similar perspectives – the points of view of regular soldiers during war.

Seven Men of Gascony, by R. F. Delderfield:  This is a classic work of military, historical fiction, which follows seven young Frenchmen conscripted into Napoleon’s army.  Through the victories, the horror of the retreat from Russia, and the reckoning of Waterloo, the friends fight to keep each other alive.  A bit older now, the novel shows some age in the more formal-sounding language, but does a far better job than more modern authors like Bernard Cornwell in illustrating the effects of war on ordinary soldiers.

Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi:  Great military sci-fi in which a squad of geriatrics is enlisted to fight humanity’s wars amongst the stars.  Though some characters go on to do big things later in the series, in this first volume they fight for survival and their squadmates as humans try to win colonies from a myriad of strange and sometimes violent inter-stellar races.  

The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien:  Perhaps the preeminent novel of the American soldier’s experience in Vietnam.  Of Bone and Thunder doesn’t include anything similar to O'Brien's interesting musings on the role of story in life, and probably isn’t destined to be a classic, but both books see the war intimately through the eyes of soldiers on the ground, and both have an episodic feel.

If you need a read alike from within fantasy, here are some books with action that falls outside the sword and sorcery fantasy tradition even if they don’t feel quite the same.

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik:  Very much a military fantasy, even if it is more character driven, Novik introduces dragons into Napoleonic era warfare.  Probably would be really interesting to anyone who enjoyed the dragons and action in Of Bone and Thunder.  But it is pretty evident, even in this first of a nine-volume series, that Laurence and Temeraire are destined to great things and a leading role in their world.

Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan: An entertaining mix of mages and muskets.  This first book in a trilogy also follows several different warriors through their battles, and is also a bit of a change from the usual fantasy fighting conventions.  The characters involved, however, are clearly the major players in the overall story, so the feel is more like traditional fantasy.  Chris Evans, author of Of Bone and Thunder, has a trilogy (starting with A Darkness Forged in Fire) that sounds similar to McClellan’s books, but I haven’t read them, so I don’t know.

Review by: By Seth Warburton Ames Public Library

Review: Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Title: Uprooted

Author: Naomi Novik

Information on series: Not part of a series

Audience: Adult, though with appeal for some older teens

Rating (scale of 1-5, with 5 being highest): 5

TL;DR: A character-driven fairy tale with Eastern European influences that explores the ideas of home and forgiveness (and just a touch of steamy romance).

Longer review: I’m not surprised that Uprooted was the top pick for the May 2015 LibraryReads list (Publication Date: May 19th). In fact, I was one of the librarians who recommended it for the LibraryReads list after I lost most of a weekend reading it. A colleague had picked up an ARC at the 2014 ILA Conference, and passed it on to me with high praise when she finished.

Naomi Novik has been on my radar for several years because of her Temeraire series about an alternate history Napoleonic war with dragons. Many readers have told me how much they’ve enjoyed a recommendation for His Majesty’s Dragon, but somehow it’s never made it off of my TBR list. After reading Uprooted, though, His Majesty’s Dragon has moved up the list.

Uprooted is a coming-of-age fairy tale with a charming first person narrator and detailed, but not overwhelming, worldbuilding. Novik draws on the myths and legends of Russia and Eastern Europe, an influence that helps to differentiate this story from the more typical Celtic or Scandinavian fantasy settings. The story is set in a distant valley of the fictional Polnya near the border of hostile Rosya and the dangerous Wood (a forest filled with aggressive danger).

This is a story of self-discovery and forgiveness, and though it is very character-driven there is a fast moving plot. Agnieszka, our narrator, is 17 years-old and nothing about her is particularly special, though her family loves her. Perhaps her family loves her even more because she is such a failure at sewing, cooking, and almost any activity other than getting into messes outside. Agnieszka’s best friend Kasia, on the other hand, is a paragon of perfection and beauty, much to everyone’s despair.

Once every ten years the Dragon, a powerful wizard who protects Polnya from the Wood, selects a 17 year-old girl from the valley to serve him in his Tower. Because the Dragon holds himself apart from the locals, the girls he chooses are isolated for their ten years of service from friends and family, and they inevitably return so changed that they move to the distant capital to start new lives. So it’s obvious to everyone that come the 1st of October, the Dragon will choose Kasia as his servant and Agnieszka will lose her best friend. Of course, SPOILERS!, nothing goes as expected and the Dragon instead takes awkward, clumsy Agnieszka away from her beloved home.

There’s a touch of romance, which is steamy enough that it might be off putting to some readers, but the focus is on how the characters, especially Agnieszka, grow and change. Novik escalates the stakes throughout the story creating the sort of tension that left me reading well into the night. Uprooted is an engrossing fairy tale that I suspect I will be rereading in the near future.

Read alikes:
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik: This is the first title in Novik’s series about an alternate history Napoleonic Wars with dragons.

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder: The first of a fantasy trilogy featuring an unusual female heroine and a darker romance. Yelena is offered a reprieve from her death sentence for murder if she agrees to become the new poison taster for the repressive leader of her country where anyone with magical talent is killed.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo: The first book in Bardugo’s Grisha trilogy also features a heroine with unexpected powers and a setting influenced by Eastern European culture. Though this series is intended for a teen audience and has a focus on the currently popular love triangle.

The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson: This is also the first book of a Young Adult trilogy, though it stands well on its own. The setting is more reminiscent of Spain, but Elisa, the novel’s narrator, is a young woman who has a similar path of growth and self-discovery with a touch of romance that by no means defines her.

~Sarah, Carnegie-Stout Public Library