A newsletter should not be difficult for me. I’m tuned in. I’m a yapper. All I have is opinions and the only skill I’ve bothered to develop my entire life is my ability to vocalize said opinion. Unfortunately, upon dropping my first newsletter, I disappeared off the face of the Earth for five months. Sorry about that.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I did release a blog post in January about Saltburn. And then after that, I had to study really intensively for an exam. After I passed in March, I tried my best to jump back on the horse. Even while studying, I had a few words written up about the Barbie Oscars controversy. More recently, I’ve started newsletters doing technical analyses on why certain lines from Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department album don’t work for me AND a reflection on BookTwitter following a major brown-facing scandal that shook the community. And I haven’t posted them. Why? Because Twitter brain is petrifying me.
Twitter (not X, fuck you Elon Musk) is a cesspool of discourse and debate for two reasons.
People approach tweets from their strict point of view. If your experience doesn’t encompass or align with theirs, then they will try to figure out how their experience fits into yours. This is annoying.
Example
Person who likes pancakes: I like pancakes
Person who LOVES waffles: What about waffles tho? You didn’t mention them…
People will approach your tweet in bad faith or a thinly veiled insult. This is worse if they don’t like you.
Example
Person who likes pancakes: I like pancakes
Person who is defensive over waffles: All you pancakecels are the same… So it’s fuck waffles then?
Hyperbole is dead.
Example
Person who likes pancakes: pancakes are soooo good… if i could only eat one food for the rest of my life it’d be pancakes
Person who likes waffles: that’s actually really hurtful to waffles who i think would also like to be eaten.
After a number of years on Twitter, you start adapting to the atmosphere. You begin to tweet defensively, making sure to include exceptions or inclusions in the reply. I personally have started to temper my language, making sure to say “mostly” or “almost always” just so people think I’m not making a totalitarian statement. And when replying to people, when attempting to add nuance to the conversation in good faith, you have to be careful to not come off as someone who could be assuming the worst of them.
It’s exhausting.
My friends tell me I have a major issue when imagining “the reader”. I’m a huge overthinker, and a large fraction of that is dedicated to thinking of how the reader will interpret what I’m writing. Any writer knows that’s a noose around your neck just waiting to tighten. It’s impossible to please or account for everyone’s interpretation when writing. Trying to do so is a fool’s errand. And yet, that does not stop me!
Just kidding. To be more accurate, it does stop me.
Obsessing over the viewpoint of the reader is one of the most paralyzing things a writer can do. It will stop you in your tracks. It will result in an overwritten jumble of garbage. Writing is about clearly expressing an idea, not every idea that could possibly be considered in the conversation.
My Saltburn piece suffered because of this. I got to the heart of what I wanted to say… at least three times from three different angles. That wasn’t needed, but I was afraid if I didn’t account for every angle, every viewpoint, then someone would quote tweet and call me stupid. Which, you know, they’re bound to do anyways.
All this to say, I’m tired. I do this in most of my informal reviews, the wishy washy language, disclaimers that opinions are subjective, the accounting for every angle. It’s my only protection against unfair internet criticism, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to part from it completely. It has saved my hide a couple of times. But I hate that I have to do it- both because I wish that people would interact with things with an open mind and also because I wish I had the confidence.
Writers are the most insecure people alive, and I am not exempt. It’s a good thing to be critical of your work, because it pushes you to be better, but not to the point of active detriment. I’m rereading this newsletter and realizing I said nothing of value, but I’m going to press publish anyways because I’m suffering from major writer’s block. Nothing is ever going to be perfect, and I have to put something out there and cope with it. Hopefully, the words will flow, and I will be convicted enough to stand behind them. If anything, it’s short and concise, which is exactly what I should be striving towards.
From the moment I saw the first images from Saltburn directed by Emerald Fennell, I knew I would probably write about it in some larger connection to Dark Academia. Then the movie came out and I quickly realized I would hate it. And yet, here we are—a few pleas from my friends to talk about it and one two-star watch later. This is not a review. Saltburn is obsessed with beauty, but its aesthetic is an empty vehicle.
I feel uniquely qualified to talk about Dark Academia. I have a bit of an insatiable fascination with the genre. Each time a Dark Academia book’s plot is postured to me, I find myself compelled enough to read it. As of typing this, I’ve read the 5 of arguably most popular Dark Academia novels (The Secret History, If We Were Villains, Babel, Ninth House, and The Atlas Six). I have read books that I consider to be dark academia but are less popular (Vita Nostra, The Amber Spyglass) and books that often are part of the conversation but I do not think are dark academia (Vicious, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Never Let Me Go, The Goldfinch). I wish I could say I enjoyed them as much as they were enjoyed by the people who recommended them to me. But my taste aside, be assured, I understand this genre deeply.
But to understand Dark Academia, first, we must begin with Harry Potter. (I’m sorry.)
Though many now can’t help but associate Harry Potter with the vile and bigoted views of its transphobic author, the 2000s were dominated by Harry Potter as a cultural icon. The seven-book series focuses on a young wizard as he navigates magical schooling in a castle under a looming threat from a dangerous dark lord who attempted to kill him as a child. Hordes of children waited on their 11th birthday for their letter from Hogwarts, secretly hoping that they too were wizards. They dreamed of perambulating through ancient halls into ivy-coated courtyards, of studying well worn cloth or leatherbound books. We did not know it at the time, but Hogwarts became an ideal, an aesthetic, that seeded its way into the minds of young children everywhere, and those children have grown up.
I thought I was so clever when I made the Harry Potter to Dark Academia connection. In fact, I was on the phone with my friend, who then quickly pointed out that she made the same observation a year ago, and I just forgot. Well, joke’s on both of us, because apparently, anyone who has been on the internet long enough to study the blade (tumblr) could make the connection. It’s even on the Dark Academia wikipedia page, sourced from this article, something I just googled so I could write this.
But still, what is dark academia? Per Wikipedia, it’s “an internet aesthetic and subculture concerned with higher education, the arts, and literature, or an idealised version thereof. The aesthetic centres on traditional educational clothing, interior design, activities such as writing and poetry, ancient art, and classic literature, as well as classical Greek and Collegiate Gothic architecture.” But also trust me, it’s a genre. It’s supposed to be about books that are thematically intertwined with academia– about an established college or institution in some way and usually, there’s a murder or something to make it dark. Many pretend that Dark Academia is meant to comment on the state of academia itself, and the violence in the novel must intertwine with such themes, but thematics have always taken a backseat to aesthetics and they always will. It’s all about the Aesthetic.
And yes, I do think that Saltburn fits within the heavily curated dark academia aesthetic. It opens at Oxford and you see them study a little bit. The bulk of the film takes place on an estate overlaid with the perfect Dark Academia interior. The movie is named after the house, the film ends with an indulgent tour of the house, the house is a character and a symbol as much as it is a setting. It’s kind of gay through a one-sided homoerotic friendship. There’s murder. These are symptoms of Dark Academia. It is no coincidence that this movie has become popular with the late-gen z/early millennial crowd, the demographic most familiar with Dark Academia. Also, the characters are reading Harry Potter throughout the film, which must count for something, though there is another book that must be considered in this conversation.
The Saltburn Gang in the Saltburn House
The Secret History by Donna Tartt is perhaps the original it-girl of dark academia. Many of the popular Dark Academia books that have succeeded it seem like pale imitations (If We Were Villains by ML Rio) or are direct responses (Babel by R.F. Kuang). The Secret History is compared, from time to time, to Bridehead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, perhaps most infamously on a podcast claiming that the novel was heavily inspired by Tartt’s time at Bennington College, an institution apparently culturally influenced by Brideshead.
Going into Saltburn, Jacob Elordi, who plays Felix, mentioned that he read Brideshead Revisited to prepare for the role. I expected some overlap. I did not expect Evelyn Waugh himself to be name-dropped in the film. I did expect that, having read the book, it would give me a better cultural or thematic context for what the film was trying to accomplish. Mostly, it did not. Also, I assumed that the film would be, like, kind of gay. Because Brideshead is kind of gay, and, well, all Dark Academia is kind of gay.
I attribute the association of homosexuality (specifically between two men) and Dark Academia to two sources. First, of course, The Secret History is a little bit gay (well, it is gay, but probably not how you’re anticipating). Second, Harry Potter. It is no coincidence that the rise of Dark Academia has come in tandem with a newly reinvigorated love for Harry Potter fanfiction. All the Young Dudes and its Consequences (derogatory).
Is Saltburn gay? Yes. But it doesn’t matter. Just like wealth or class or anything does not matter in that movie. It’s a vapid display of empty aesthetics, the ultimate dark academia creation.
Saltburn is about an Oxford scholarship student, Oliver Quick (Barry Keogan), as he forms a friendship with the wealthy Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). With no other friends, Oliver quickly becomes enamored by him and shares details of his poverty-stricken background. After the death of Oliver’s father, Felix invites him to stay the summer at his estate, Saltburn. Oliver accepts the invitation, spending time with Felix’s eclectic family, until Oliver’s happiness begins to unravel at the seams.
Now, I will spoil the movie. We must if we want to get to the bottom of things.
First of all, Oliver ends up murdering the entire family and inherits the house, the titular Saltburn. Usually, the point of the movie would be the why but we don’t get much of an explanation. We know that Oliver loved Felix, but also hated him. He hated all of them. But also loved them. This could mean anything, but luckily, we have the trusted tools of media literacy on our side. (I have seen so many people misinterpret this movie with such gobbledygook analysis that I have little faith in determining a clear answer.)
Saltburn is not about class in the slightest. Oliver is regularly made fun of for wearing cheap clothes, mocked and belittled for not being able to pay for things, and tortured by Felix’s cousin with the reminder that he’s a charity case. We later find out that Oliver is not actually poor at all, and it was part of a ruse to get Felix to like him. The rich in this movie are depicted as cold and self-absorbed in passing, but this never manifests in anything truly heinous, unlike Oliver’s actions. They might treat the less fortunate as disposable, but Oliver is right to be afraid about his status in Saltburn because he is an outsider. He’s a psychopath manipulating them all from the start.
So what does Oliver desire? It could be a yearning for a feeling of belonging (after Oliver kills Felix’s mother, he forces her hands around him in an embrace), but that’s not right. Oliver’s concerns about fitting in were always second to his obsession with Felix. But what is his obsession with Felix? Is it that he is kind? Is it that he is social? Is that it is because he makes Oliver feel good?
Honestly, I believe his obsession is entirely aesthetically driven. It is because Felix is beautiful.
At the end of the film, it is revealed that Oliver orchestrated the entire plot from their first meeting onwards. He was obsessed with Felix, relishing in this plan, before he had said one word to him. We could attribute this to lust, with desire for Felix, which is present, but ultimately, Felix is long dead by the time the plot resolves when Oliver possesses the Saltburn.
Felix is the first person Oliver kills and the one he truly desires. Oliver’s desire to possess the house comes from his failure to be able to possess Felix. Saltburn and Felix are heavily linked together, with the introduction to the house centering Felix in the frame rather than anything the house has to offer. While Felix and the house represent the same thing to Oliver, an argument must be made for why this same thing is beauty.
Felix claims Evelyn Waugh was obsessed with Saltburn. In Brideshead Revisited, the Brideshead Castle, and by extension Saltburn, represents many numbers of things, most of which aren’t meaningfully interfaced with in this movie, except its enduring beauty. Brideshead is so beautiful and captivating that the main character feels compelled to capture it, and it is part of the reason that he becomes an architectural painter. In Saltburn, Felix’s mother has an obsession with beauty, both for herself and everyone in her vicinity. Saltburn is an extension of that beauty, carefully curated and meticulously preserved.
Next. The Minotaur.
Many try to attribute the Minotaur symbolism in Saltburn to his place in mythology as the slain beast by the hero Theseus, but that trail of thought quickly becomes convoluted. It is difficult to argue that the minotaur is a symbol of helplessness, victimhood, or privilege, all themes the movie attempts to convince you it is interfacing with. Fennell claims the symbolism is about “the prey that becomes predator”, the boy dressed in deer antlers who resembles the beast at the center of the labyrinth. Whatever that means.
Oliver is not molded through the events of the film into becoming a predator. He is born one. A more cohesive argument would be of the minotaur as a symbol of the corruption of desire.
Saltburn Deer!Oliver like an hour before he kills Felix
The legend tells that Minos, ruler of Crete, asked for a bull from Poseidon to prove his favor. He got his bull, and was meant to sacrifice him, but could not bear to because the bull was so beautiful. Poseidon didn’t like that, and as retaliation, made Minos’s wife fall in love with the bull and bear a half-bull child, the Minotaur. The Minotaur, an abomination and beast, grew violent and bloodthirsty. To keep the Minotaur locked away, the ruler of Crete asked Daedalus, an inventor to create a maze to place the beast inside.
Saltburn Maze
In Saltburn, there’s a maze. At the center of the maze, there’s a statue of a minotaur. That’s where Oliver kills Felix, while he is wearing deer antlers in a similar fashion to the minotaur’s horns and Felix is wearing wings in a similar fashion to how Daedalus would eventually craft wax wings to escape Crete. There is no Theseus here. There is no hero. There is the man who crafted the maze, thinking it would keep him safe, and there is the minotaur, the violent consequence resulting from the corruption of desire, an obsession with beauty.
It could also be argued that Felix’s wings are a reference to Daedalus’s son, Icarus, who is known in mythology as the boy who naively tested the limits of his freedom, who flew too close to the sun until the wax from his wings melted and he plummeted to his death. But such an analogy means nothing in the context of the film. Such Grecian myths are vessels for lessons, in Icarus’s case, to be cautious. But what was Felix’s crime? How does he embody a cautionary tale?
Felix can be cold, and he can use people, but these were not his sins. Yes, he would eventually dispose of Oliver, like he used and disposed of all his friends before Oliver, but the entire movie is recontextualized so that Oliver had planned to befriend and destroy him before they had ever met, and so Felix’s fault was falling for Oliver’s ruse. His ultimate sin was to show kindness to someone whom he thought was a friend, his kindness to Oliver being the catalyst for his demise. And so, any comparison to Icarus or Daedalus is an empty symbol, a meaningless allusion.
All of Saltburn, front to back, is utterly vapid and extremely boring.
You may think it cruel of me to whittle down something as complex as desire to an aesthetic beauty, but Fennell did that herself. She removed all thematics from the film, anything meaningful about class or gender or sexuality. In her film, beauty is simply beauty.
She erects beautiful images and alludes to symbols and promises the audience that they mean something, only for them to be hollow approximations of anything real. The audience slowly realizes that all motivations thus far mean nothing, almost to an infuriatingly stupid degree. They are lead to believe that the movie would be about class, and she subverts this idea, but does not replace it with another. Desire, love, hate mean nothing to Oliver. It means nothing to the viewer. It is not afforded context or reflection and is instead used as a weak motivation. What hole in himself is Oliver attempting to patch with Felix’s love? What about this desire corrupted him so? We have no answers to any of this, and have no choice but to attribute it all to the aesthetic.
Straight Saltburn Felix and mildly homosexual pre-Saltburn Oliver
Felix’s family’s, especially his mother’s, acceptance of Oliver means nothing, so he does not seek acceptance. He does not care about maintaining friendships outside of Felix’s, so it is not social affability. He resents going to high-class functions, so it is not class. He is raised middle class and has enough money to get by, so it is not money. And it is not high-class finery, because while he shows appreciation in passing (more of a Chekov’s gun than anything else), it never seems like anything he has an interest in possessing. He’s only concerned with Felix.
Oliver lies to his family, making himself to be a better scholar and athlete than he is, so he is driven by a desire to feel important. But when Felix’s cousin mocks him, telling him that this house and this summer will only ever be a story to tell his children, it is not rooted in anything specifically important to Oliver. Oliver is disinterested in the prestige that comes with the house and is only concerned with maintaining his spot there next to Felix.
At the end of the film, Oliver gains possession of the house as a final middle finger, proof that the house will not become a story to him, but Felix had been dead for 15 years at that point. It’s all worthless. Not in the, “oh, the tragedy of the situation” type of way, but truly, the film is not saying anything meaningful about human desire. It’s just about some crazy guy.
May December was another 2023 release in which there was a subversion about the seemingly complex motivations of a depraved character. The film follows an actress as she researches a woman she is meant to be playing. The movie within the movie is based on how the woman groomed a thirteen-year-old boy and the actress is attempting to peel back the complexities of the situation because, well, the woman is now married to the then-boy now-man she groomed, so there must be more to it. Except there isn’t. As the film goes on, the audience finds that the woman is simply crazy, there is no complexity behind it, and she is delusional and manipulative.
The subversion in May December means something within the narrative. It amplifies the tragedy as her victim comes to terms with how she stole his life, not for love, but for nothing. It causes the viewer to question their motivations with the film, and why they expected anything more to the story, as they watch how the actress sensationalizes the tale, spinning it into whatever she wants with no regard for the simple truth of the matter. It’s a reflection of how audiences consume such stories, our carnal desire to find something thrilling in the straightforward and tragic.
There is no such narrative purpose in Saltburn. The themes about class and wealth are not turned on their head, they are discarded. At the beginning of the movie, you’re meant to think that Oliver is Felix’s toy, and by the end of it, it’s revealed that Felix is actually Oliver’s toy. But while Felix’s possession of Oliver could be a commentary on how the upper class commodifies and controls their relationships, Oliver’s possession of Felix means… well… that he’s crazy. He’s not getting revenge. He’s not getting his licks in. He was crazy to begin with, from day one.
A dramatic shot of Saltburn Oliver. Plotting as he always is. He’s upside down get it because it symbolizes how he’s flipping everything on its head. Wow. Incredible stuff.
He’s crazy. Wild! Can you believe he killed all those rich people and possessed their belongings because he could not possess them!? Wow. That sounds cool to say, so I’m sure it means something. I’m sure it does. There are all these cool shots and symbols scattered throughout the movie. I’m sure it all means something. I’m sure. He killed Felix because he could not keep him. Because he killed Felix, he was driven to insanity and killed everyone else. Or maybe he was insane from the start! What a twist! Oliver loves Felix. Doesn’t that mean anything? He hates him. That should mean something.
Or maybe they’re just empty motivations, moving forward pieces on a chessboard towards mildly depraved scenes so we can continue to pretend that any of it has thematic value. Truly, this is Dark Academia through and through, much more concerned with idealization, an aesthetic, and a vibe than saying anything of thematic importance.
Lowering one’s yearly reading goal is a common sentiment I’ve seen in bookish spaces, probably more than the layperson would expect. I suspect it’s some sort of backlash to “overconsumption” driven by comparison to others on social media and this need to keep up with the voracious reading habits of one’s peers. Some would argue you cannot “overconsume” when it comes to a work of art, but that is a different discussion for a different day. The bottom line is– the constant fluxing and quick trends of social media pressure people into feeling as if they must keep up. If you’re on bookish social media, that will apply to books.
I get this. I really do. But also, I’m above it. I’m simply #builtdifferent. I’ve never cared for the bandwagon which is why I’m always five years late to every relevant discussion and can never capitalize on discourse clout properly. I’m lowering my reading goal for other, more personal reasons. I will explain in a moment.
But first, we must dissect… why 69?
The first year I committed to a serious reading goal was 2021. Like most of the human population driven insane by the COVID-19 quarantine, I began reading again in 2020. But, instead of discovering a new part of me, I was rekindling something that had simply been latent for the duration of my college years. I had been a big reader my entire life, barring the four-year stretch I was in school, and coincidentally, I graduated into a bit of a global reading renaissance.
I never tracked my reading when I was in high school, but I knew I easily could read 50 books in one year. And I did. I met my 50 book reading goal for 2021 around midsummer and then instantly hit a wall. It was difficult for me to pick up another novel, and I meandered my way through the rest of the year, picking up traction at the end with exactly 69 books read. I snorted to myself. Heh. 69. And then I set it to my reading goal in 2022. And after closing 2022 out with 74 books, I said I’d do it again. But in 2023, I had a bit of an issue.
All in all, I got a lot done in 2023. I met my reading goal. I read 73 books. I watched 111 films. I usually average 70 of each. On the creative side of things, I continued uploading reviews to GoodReads (I know I neglected this blog). I covered TIFF as a film critic. Between the months of April to September, I outlined, drafted, edited, and began to query a novel. I participated in (and won) NaNoWriMo in November. I was pulling insane numbers. But I really wasn’t quite pleased with most of it. (I’m proud of that April to September novel I will not lie but everything else can maybe go in the trash.)
I flourish under structure. I get NaNoWriMo done because there’s a word count I have to hit every day, and I take it seriously. It’s how I draft all my novels now, by setting a minimum word count every day and sticking to it. It’s the same thing with my reading goals. I have to stay on top of it. If I don’t have that structure in place, and I don’t have respect for that structure, I will not get anything done. I will wallow and be depressed and not pick up a book. But that structure was beginning to be a little too much.
All was well until June of this year. I read Dark Age by Pierce Brown and Babel by RF Kuang back to back, honestly at the same time since the audiobooks came in so close together. If you’re a reader who knows anything about these novels, you’ve probably covered your mouth in horror. Because, yeah, it was bad.
Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series is famously anxiety inducing. When I read the original trilogy, I would have to take breaks between books by subsequently reading something lighthearted to prevent amplifying that anxiety. Dark Age is perhaps the most depressing of any book in that series. It’s a 833 page checklist of war crimes and emotional turmoil. And, for whatever reason, I followed it up with Babel which is allegedly about the power of unions but in reality it’s about the inescapable soul crushing effects of imperialism.
I’m going to go into the mental breakdown Babel inspired in a moment, and you might think, “wow if it inspired such a strong emotional reaction, it must be a good book.” And to that I say: lmao. There are so many criticisms I have of Babel from its existence to its execution. At the end of the day, RF Kuang agitated my worst anxieties about imperialism, but it was a quote from Blade Runner 2049 that I applied to the narrative that set me over the edge.
So, yeah. I had a mental breakdown (sort of). I cried so hard I threw up (likely place for me to be). I wrote a really long thread on Twitter about imperialism and my own personal relationship to it as a receptively bilingual biracial. Looking back, this was all very humiliating. Like girl, just get a grip. But the all-consuming dread of imperialism had its BOOT on my NECK and it was not letting up.
And after that disastrous double punch, it was difficult to pick up another book. I was in my reading dark night of the soul. The only books I got through were few netgalley ARCs requested, all of which were reviewed late. That is, until September when I realized I was 10 books behind my reading goal schedule.
Oh yeah, I messed up.
So, I did what I did best. I made a schedule of books to read until the end of the year and stuck to it. Of course, I tried picking books I’d enjoy, but I was limited. I wanted to start the Liveship Traders Trilogy after finishing the Farseer Trilogy in 2022, but I could not get to it. Those books were too long. I wouldn’t be able to finish them and meet my goal. In fact, I couldn’t start any high fantasy, because they’re longer and slow to get into, and I wanted to focus on books I could get through very quickly.
And so, I was picking up a lot of breezy and short books. Some of them I really enjoyed, since I was healing from the Dark Age/Babel fiasco, but my diet felt incomplete and unbalanced. I was missing books I could really sink into and think about. I like books because I (allegedly) like thinking. And I was depriving myself of that just to get through to my goal.
I felt similarly about NaNoWriMo in 2023. I was making my word goal, but it felt like garbage. I’ve written enough to know when I do and do not feel confident in my drafting. With such a high word count, I was not ensuring that I got enough words on paper to finish a novel, but instead, I was producing such a copious amount of vapid ramblings that ensured I would never open the document to revise the novel. At a certain point, productivity can be counterproductive. Yes, I can write 50k words in one month, but it is certainly not a book and may never become one.
In 2023, I’m not going to work for the reading goal. The reading goal is going to work for me. 42 is the funny number from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It is so far below what I can expect to read in a year and I’ll have no trouble meeting and then surpassing it. This year, the vibes will dictate where I go. There will be structure, but just enough that I do not feel aimless. I will read the books I’ve been wanting to read for years now. I’ll read more diversely and plan out what I pick with more care.
On the writing side of things, I won’t let high word counts and expectations rule my life. I’ve been using writing as a mental health crutch, and it’s lead to a lot of sloppy work. If I’m not drafting, I start going a little stir-crazy. But, I need to be more intentional. I must begin to try new things. Screenwriting will certainly take a while to learn, but it’s a worthy sacrifice of time. If I want to write a more involved high fantasy or historical fiction, I must research instead of just sitting at the computer and word vomiting. The only reason I was able to write my April-September book so quickly is because I had been sitting on the idea and letting it marinate for 2 years, so when it was time to write, I didn’t have to discover the story or the characters through the act of writing. Normalize sitting with your thoughts, maybe?
Yes, I can read 69 books a year. I am capable of that and so much more. But, like, who am I trying to impress? Who cares? At the end of the day, the consumption of art is primarily an act of introspection. You read, you watch, you write for yourself. It’s an act of self-awareness and self-understanding. This past year, I’ve been using it as a means of escape, to drown out the voices of insecurity and anxiety in my head, but in 2024 we are embracing the voices. We are reading books and watching movies to connect to ourselves rather than chase some arbitrary goal. And hopefully, we pick a good mix so we don’t cry so hard we throw up.
I have access to this book because one of my close friends let me borrow her ARC. While many consider their reviews to be external guides to help or spark discussions with other readers, I have primarily considered my reviews to be more internal reflections. I write reviews because I find it interesting to discuss and analyze the contents of a book. This is why I’m publishing this review of Crown of Starlight by Cait Corrain, even though it may never be published. This was originally planned just to go on GoodReads but as of right now the site is not allowing anyone to leave ratings or reviews so…
The entire bookish community has heard of the Cait Corrain scandal. Tldr; An insecure debut author made numerous fake accounts on GoodReads and review-bombed others in her debut year– some even at the same imprint and with the same agent. After a swift but convoluted fiasco of events in which she was proven to be the culprit, Corrain was dropped by her agent and her publisher announced it would no longer be publishing Crown of Starlight or any other book on her deal.
Does that mean the rights get reverted back to her? Will she be able to seek out a new publisher after an appropriate statute of limitations? Will anyone even want to work with her after such a tarnished reputation? Will she self-publish? Can she self-publish? Who knows… who knows… I will be spoiling the book either way.
Before we continue, please consider supporting the affected authors, most of whom are authors of color. I have linked a GoodReads list that compiles all the books to support here.
Crown of Starlight is pitched as a spicy sci-fi reimagining of the tale of Ariadne and Dionysus. Ariadne has grown up in the cold, cruel, empire of Crete, pruned by her oppressive father to be its next ruler. Every year, per a treaty between Crete and the empire of Athens, numerous Athenian warriors must be sacrificed to the monster living in the labyrinth of Crete, the Minotaur, Ariadne’s half-bull and feral half-brother. This year, though, Ariadne is placed in charge of the ceremony to prove her worth, but instead, she views it as a means of escape. And this year, the prince of Crete himself, Theseus, comes to defeat the Minotaur or die for his people. They work together to kill the Minotaur and escape Crete, and shortly after, Theseus takes Ariadne as a prisoner to leverage her against her father.
Then begins the actual romance of the book. Ariadne escapes and runs into Dionysus, the God of Wine, Hedonism, and other things. He has a cult of good times. He takes an instant liking to her, offering her his protection, and eventually proposes a mutually beneficial marriage between them. To be accepted into Olympus, he needs devotees from all major empires, but has none on Crete because Cretains worship the Moirai (not the Gods). But if Ariadne pretends to be devoted to him, then he will be allowed on Olympus again, and if she marries him, she can accompany him there and finally be safe from her father. She agrees, slowly emerging from her self-loathing and sexually repressed shell, falls in love with him, smuts it up, rejects Olympus to prevent a war between Crete and Athens, dies, and then is resurrected to spend near eternity with Dionysus.
You might have read that and went, “Wow, that’s a lot of story, no wonder the book is 560 pages!” WRONG! It’s 560 pages because it is horrifically overwritten. The pacing is another issue, though not as egregious.
First and foremost, the prose style is, what I would describe as, fanfic casual. It’s the sort of tongue in cheek humor that didn’t quite mesh well with the setting. Tumblr talk, the novel.
“Realizing I’m being gaslit by my entire world doesn’t make it easier to deal with, but hey; at least I have some part of my soul.”
“If she was hoping this sob story might have engendered sympathy, she was dead wrong.”
“Alleged– and I cannot stress this enough–ly.”
There are “Yeah, no”s. There are “Ugh”s. There are colloquialisms and fillers. You might have noticed gaslight– a word coined from a 20th century film. One character also uses “flew too close to the sun” as an idiom when Icarus (the boy whose tale birthed the phrase) is a featured character in the book and neither Ariadne nor the reader ever saw “fly too close to the sun” as his fate is unknown.
Just because Gideon the Ninth was able to get away with colloquialisms and sarcasm and humor in its space opera does not mean it will work in every novel. They must be deployed with a skilled hand to create a cohesive atmosphere, but unfortunately, here, the style feels out of place. The prose seems juvenile, though it is an adult novel. Even when more impressive vocabulary words are used, they’re often chucked in as adverbs instead of integrated into the prose. It does not help that everything is overexplained to the reader as if they do not have the critical thinking skills to parse through an adult narrative.
As the reader, every single little thought Ariadne has is spelled out for us. Nothing is left to inference, nothing is presented to be reflected on. Some scenes desperately needed to be cut. And I’m not talking about scenes that are unengaging or boring, I mean nothing is happening other than the fact that she’s thinking. There are three scenes in the book at least where we see her go to sleep. And multiple where she wakes up. Tons of wasted space.
If all of this was cut, the pacing would be alleviated from a huge burden. Ariadne escapes Crete at the 30% mark and she loses her virginity at the 70% mark. Sex is a big part of the book even when the main character is not getting any, but I thought it would be more given how it’s marketed. The second act slog is where she falls in love with Dionysus which sort of… he doesn’t feel like a real man. Okay. I know he’s a God, but that’s another issue.
Everyone is way too honest. In the beginning section, there’s some self-awareness with this. Ariadne admits she shouldn’t be honest, but has little other choice. As the book continues, the “should I be honest” self-awareness erodes and in its place takes a much more boring form of self-awareness. Everyone wears their intentions on their sleeves. Dionysus is extremely honest with Ariadne, not only in a genuine sense when a normal person would probably be guarded, but in a superhuman sense where he’s incredibly aware of his own feelings and can communicate them properly.
Typically what makes books interesting is the gap between what a character feels and what they say, or what a character says and the other person understands. It also allows for a lot of the character and personality to shine through as it displays how different people express and mask their emotions. This makes dialogue and situations feel authentic and realistic. When the disjointed understanding becomes aligned, we find a resolution. That didn’t really happen in this book. We know EVERYTHING Ariadne is thinking, she is very aware of it as well, and her journey of discovery centers unlearning and relearning through logic and love. Which, sure, is something, but it’s also very boring.
It’s not only Ariadne. There are multiple scenes where the reader learns of Hera, Athena, and Ares’ evil schemes because Ariadne overheard them discussing it openly in such perfect detail that she immediately understood what was happening. It’s an annoyingly convenient amount of honesty. Everyone is either open, or they lie when Ariadne already knows the truth. Well, all except one.
Ariadne is betrayed by Theseus and she does not see it coming because she is lightly smitten by him. And boy, the entire thing is a mess, moreso regarding how thematically Corrain used Theseus as a deconstruction of the hero trope.
Ariadne understands her father, Minos, is not a terrible person– he’s someone who will not respect the treaty and will seek vengeance on Athens even after the Minotaur is defeated. Theseus asks her if he will honor his word, and she tells him that Minos will not. But when Theseus makes attempts to safeguard himself and captures her to use her as a bargaining chip, she finds it an unforgivable offense because he flirted with her a little and did not give the Minotaur a clean death. “I convinced myself that… Theseus [was] the righteous hero who would be grateful for my aid and follow my instructions to the letter.”
Theseus’ own words on heroism are, “True heroism, real heroism, is doing whatever you must in order to defeat your enemies, no matter the cost.” Although Ariadne escapes, Theseus keeps up the ruse that he has her prisoner to protect himself, but war begins. Ariadne herself admits that she thought Theseus’ ruse would prevent a war. His faux heroism, then, boils down to how he uses people’s lives as fodder in war to win battles. Or does it?
Ariadne regularly compares Theseus to her father, a cruel and vindictive oppressor, but Theseus’ violence is only ever a reaction to Minos’ violence. At the beginning of the novel, Ariadne is opposed to killing her father because she does not want to continue the cycle of bloodshed, but by the end, she claims it is impossible to reason with an oppressor and so he must die. The only difference between Ariadne and Theseus is that she has direct access to her father to kill him, and Theseus has no tools other than his armadas. The narrative wants us to believe that Theseus is cold and calculating and cowardly, but his actions are understandable. There is no other alternative path presented to Theseus, one where he chooses a selfish way out.
(Personally, in that situation, I would be built different and find a way out that didn’t involve the death of millions of people, but in a book, we need to see that way out. We need to see him make the choice to be needlessly cruel.)
Later, when Ariadne is dead and wandering around the underworld trying to find her way out, she stumbles across Theseus in Tartarus (Grecian superhell) (she got into Elysium btw… Grecian superheaven). He begs for her mercy to free him, but she says no, citing it was his stupidity and ego that led to the death of millions. She then says, “Heroism is bullshit, and heroes don’t exist, because none of us are so important that our ‘heroism’ nullifies the harm we do.”
Yasss girlboss slay except it literally does not apply. It was either let his men die every year painfully at the hands of the Minotaur or go to war with a man who cannot be reasoned with. What, exactly, was the right thing to do? How was he meant to put an end to the violence without harming anyone? Even if he followed Ariadne’s every instruction and let her be instead of capturing her, millions would still die from the ensuing war. Ariadne just hated his guts because his vibes were off and she was personally embarrassed at being played. We’ve all been there girl, but don’t go grandstanding about it.
Now hold on tight because I’m not done with Theseus just yet. In the original myth, Ariadne falls in love with him. Here, he is merely her first crush. This weakens the book. Throughout the narrative, she’s uncomfortable with her sexuality because in her religion, desire is Bad. Even after marriage, she’s expected to lay down in bed like a piece of cardboard and let her husband have her way with her (for whatever reason). There’s a personal aspect to Ariadne’s fear of lust, and that’s the fact that her mother’s affair was a great shame that lead to the birth of the Minotaur. See what happens when you can’t keep it in your pants? You birth half-bull monstrosities.
If Ariadne gave in to her lust toward Theseus early in the book, we would’ve been cooking with gas. Top shelf liquor. First of all, we would have more of a reason to hate Theseus because he would’ve taking advantage of a naive young woman. He would’ve truly plotted a real act of betrayal against a lover. Second of all, for the rest of the book, Ariadne would have a good reason not to trust herself. We would see why she hates herself and how she’s terrified of mirroring her family. She wouldn’t be able to figure out if her feelings for Dionysus are true or just fueled by lust. Everything the narrative tried to craft by having her guarded and cautious would have actually hit because we would’ve seen the consequences of a misfire. It would be so nice if these interactions had some real weight behind them instead of being propped up by paragraphs and paragraphs of explanation.
There’s probably something to be said about how sex and lust operate in this book but I simply do not care. It is not interesting to me. It did nothing for me. Ariadne’s self discovery through sex did not move me. Similarly, how Ariadne hates her family, going as so far as to lump in her younger sister (who does nothing) in with the cruelty of her father and mother, is similarly puzzling but not worth my time.
I’m sure this book had its audience. I know there are readers out there who would’ve found the relationship between Ariadne and Dionysus rapturous and healing. At the end of the day, they are a good pairing and are characterized with enough skill to be well suited for another. There are just enough tropes in the book to attract fans of those tropes without having the book felt like it was written around them, a feat in and of itself. The fake marriage plot was even convincing enough, as was their blossoming attraction. It wasn’t my cup of tea, but it wasn’t done poorly, and it had a place in the cosmos and on bookshelves. That was until Cait Corrain botched it for herself.
The hardbound ARCs for Crown of Starlight are gorgeous. All the art that’s come out for this book, even unreleased WIPs on Twitter, are gorgeous. She had special editions lined up.
I truly hope Corrain never reads this, but this entire situation makes me feel insane. Like I said, the book had its audience, but it also had issues. She was not only insecure enough in her own success to attack others, but confident in her own skill to attack others. INSANE TO ME.
I’m going to be honest. No matter what, writing a book is very difficult. Very challenging indeed. But a book like Crown of Starlight is on the easier end of things. The prose is accessible and mimics modern inflections, and so she was writing prose in the same cadence and style as her own speech. It’s romance driven rather than political so she does not have to deal with fleshing out her world or government structures. (Yell at me if you want but I have drafted like 5 different books at this point and know exactly what makes some more challenging to write than others.)
Style and genre aside, it’s needlessly overwritten, like training wheels on an adult’s bike. I don’t know how she could, in good faith, compare her book against others, especially those with more complex and developed elements than hers. I don’t even know how she put them next to each other and felt something, let alone mustered enough of a feeling, whether that be confidence or insecurity, to take shots.
Not only that, but some of the books she attacked were Young Adult novels. Sorry, how are those books in competition with hers? They’re on completely different shelves and written for different audiences. Yes, adult women often read YA, but YA books are written for teenagers as the primary audience. There’s BDSM in Crown of Starlight. It’s not competing for a teenage audience. This is something else.
This is not a cautionary tale, as most have enough sense not to do something so foolish. But it certainly is an interesting insight into how intense jealousy can be felt and what ugly weapons are forged from it. Personally, I struggle a lot with jealousy, but I also feel like my outlets do not harm others. There’s also something to be said for how she was more likely to see an author of color as a threat than a white contemporary. Whether that was intentional or unintentional, it was racist. I don’t need to tell you this. We all have common sense here. I hope. Sabotaging other people is not good!
As a writer, I’m often afraid that my reviews will come back to bite me. I can be a little snarky. I try not to drag the author into them, but sometimes it is important to try and understand both their skill level and intent in order to interrogate where the book went awry. Sometimes it’s obvious an author’s read one of my reviews. And I’m like. Oops. It’s sort of an awkward position to be in, especially if (God willing) I eventually do get a book deal and I’m eventually colleagues with all these people.
That being said, I want to make a few things clear. I never write reviews out of jealousy or spite. I always back up what I say with textual evidence and personal reasoning. I never attempt to mock or belittle the work. Sometimes things are a little silly or a little frustrating, but I never try to put anyone or anything down. EVERYTHING has its own audience, and even if I’m not one of the people who’d enjoy the book, someone who did could be reading and I don’t want to make them feel bad about their enjoyment. I’m not here to tear down other people. I’m here to talk my shit and, if fate allows, someone could decide if a book will be right for them. Alright? Okay. If I start beef with some future colleagues, that’s their problem I guess. If I write a negative review of your book just don’t read it!!! We can still be besties ❤ Understanding subjectivity and beginning enriching dialogues through criticism is healthy for the continuation of art and if we censor our thoughts then we are losing a part of ourselves. Who better to critically engage with novels than the people who will write the next one?
Alas, if only that was what Cait Corrain used GoodReads for.
The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei is classified as a sci-fi thriller, but it’s more meditative than that’d imply. Humanity’s crumbling into the sea, and in a last burst of hope, they launch 80 young adults into space to reach a new inhabitable planet. The crew of this journey has been training for the mission since they were 12, rigorously studying and growing up together, and now they inhabit a spaceship ten years from its destination. As the first phase of their mission begins, pregnancy and child rearing after a decade long hibernation, there is an explosion onboard- likely triggered by one of their own. Asuka, resilient but technically inadequate compared to her peers, survives the explosion and must discover who is culpable before they strike again.
I really liked this book. Like. A lot. So let’s just start there. 4.5 stars rounded to a 4.
I’m probably going to bring up a decent bit of science fiction in this review. This is not to say that this book is trying to be like anything else, or that any of what I compare it to is better or worse, but it’s much easier to talk about a genre as varied as science fiction with a basis of bearing and a good point of comparison or connection.
Personally, I’m hesitant to call this a thriller because the plot doesn’t coax any feelings of doom or overwhelming dread. It does get exciting at parts, and you do believe that the crew is in genuine danger, but it’s a who-done-it whose detective genuinely does not believe that her peers want to cause her harm. Obviously, someone on the ship triggered the explosion, and yes people died, but from Asuka’s perspective, she doesn’t really see any of these people capable of harboring violent malice. The risks associated with the mission are on par with most sci-fi with a similar colonization premise, there are limited resources on the ship and no help in space, so if something goes wrong, it could mean certain death.
The direction The Deep Sky took is for the better. Personally, I don’t really need to see a group of women and other marginalized identities take any excuse to expose each other’s flaws and assume the worse. When they do point the finger in the book, it’s out of reluctance, if not desperation.
First quick round of comparisons. Regarding the ship and the crew, it has the same feel as Mickey7 by Edward Ashton. The protagonists of the stories could not be more dissimilar if they tried, but both books have the same sort of close-quarters crew from exceptional backgrounds who are very familiar with each other. The book is told with a split timeline similar to Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. While Project Hail Mary focused its flashbacks on Earth primarily as a means of interactive exposition, The Deep Sky uses it primarily as a way to build character and build a thematic throughline that extends past the ship. Honestly, I really enjoyed the split timeline. The book made excellent use of its format, the scenes Kitasei chooses to revisit are wonderfully actualized, and the split timeline model allows for the emotional beats to hold a hefty amount of weight. (Let’s go mommy issues! Everyone, give it up for mommy issues. Insecurity around close female friendships is second. Let’s go! Hitting all the marks.)
The writing was crisp and clear. The world and settings were well constructed. I quite enjoyed being in Asuka’s head. She’s a little rough around the edges, and frustrating at times, but impossible not to sympathize with or root for. I’m biracial as well, so I’m particularly fond of characters who grapple with similar dual identities. All the side characters are very defined with a good deal of complexity for an ensemble cast. The mystery itself isn’t terribly shocking, but it still manages to subvert expectations in a very satisfying way.
I could stop the review right here and say that it’s a good book and you should read it. Because I do believe that. It’s a well-constructed piece of science fiction, especially good for a debut, both stimulating and entertaining. It comments on the cynical world of today while projecting hope into tomorrow. The characters and conflict are well crafted and stick with the reader. Yes, it’s sci-fi, but the accessible kind that sticks close enough to Earth to feel entirely familiar. I hope this book gets big, and I hope that my words, in some way, accomplish that. I read this in the middle of a bad reading slump and breezed through it, impressed. I’m excited for what Kitasei does next.
But. Now. I want to talk about thematic. I have a lot to say. The Deep Sky has awakened the cogs in my brain, and unfortunately, I’m making that your (the reader’s) problem.
I decided to read this book while simultaneously watching the first 10 Star Trek movies for the first time over the course of a week. That may have done things to my brain. You’ll see in a moment.
Ursula K LeGuin, my queen, says in her forward to arguably one of the most famous sci fi novels, The Left Hand of Darkness, that science fiction is not a prediction of the future, but a reflection on the present. And true to the genre, the world Kitasei creates is nothing more than an exaggerated version of the world we currently live in. The climate crisis is out of control, sparking conflict between major nations. Extremist factions rise out of desperation, eco-terrorists and proto-MAGAS. And in the middle of all of this, some trillionaire decides to send 80 teenagers into space in an effort to save what’s left of humanity.
The question of if we should focus on the issues here first or use those resources to look forward is not new, in science fiction or in the real world. There were protests when the first Apollo Missions went up. Yes, the moon landing filled the world with the wonder of human capability and possibility, but it was funded to stick it to the USSR. It was a display of nationalism, meant to unite some people and scare others. We didn’t shoot for the moon to reach it, but to stick our flag in it first.
The current efforts of Bezos and Musk to develop commercial flights to space and colonize Mars are less of a space race and more a commodification of the space race. Billionaires would not be interested in technological development if they did not think that it was a means of furthering their wealth or retaining it in the face of human disaster. This is my personal interpretation of the situation, but I do believe it wholeheartedly because, by nature, to be a billionaire is to grow and maintain wealth and if any of these people deviated from that goal, they would no longer be billionaires.
The mission in the book is, from time to time, referred to as a vanity project by the trillionaire who funded it, but it’s impossible for me to believe in it beyond that. I want to see it as a signal of hope like the characters in the book, a measure of the tenacity of the human spirit and a projection of their capability, but I’m just too jaded. “Save humanity” is a noble goal, but humanity could either refer to the individual people composing all of human life or the vague concept of humans as a whole. Maybe it’s because I’m one of the people who would be left behind on the floating rock, but I really think we should be focusing on the floating rock.
In Star Trek: First Contact, we learn how space exploration (Starfleet) came to be. Basically, after World War III and devastating nuclear fallout, this one guy invents warp drive only with the intention of becoming rich. But in doing so, he unknowingly signals to alien life that humanity is advanced enough for interstellar travel, and aliens come to Earth and make first contact. After alien contact, the world unites, getting rid of money and their squabbles to focus on the betterment of humanity and developing Starfleet and the Federation to explore the galaxy. Sounds nice. Sounds good. I’m not sure why World War III was required to get there, but alright.
Importantly, Star Trek focuses on the expansion of humanity into space as something that goes hand in hand with world peace. We cannot focus outward without taking care of ourselves first. It refuses to make the choice between Earth and the cosmos. I love thinking and wondering about the possibility of human expansion into space, the possibilities that await us the farther we explore, but it’s impossible to imagine it as some sort of inspiration in the face of human collapse on Earth. I can’t do it.
Jeff Bezos shot Star Trek‘s William Shatner into space. If you don’t know much about Star Trek, Shatner plays Captain James Kirk, the original face of the franchise. He’s still around. As some sort of… publicity (?) stunt, Bezos decided to send him on a Blue Space Shuttle in 2021. You probably didn’t hear much about it, because the voyage didn’t exactly have its desired effect.
“I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses… but when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold . . . all I saw was death.
I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home… It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her.
Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong.”
Keep in mind this was the guy who was on the show with the relatively hopeful take on things. He wasn’t in First Contact, but the vibes are pretty consistent. He recognized what I feel like all people should: that space is exciting, but our hopes lay in our home. I also implore you to read the article. Despite how you may feel about Shatner’s entries into the Star Trek canon, this Variety article is a truly good piece of writing.
I don’t think that The Deep Sky is any less of a book because I disagree with some of the ideas in it. There are some I do find compelling and enjoyed how the conclusions were reached in the book, like who “deserves” to be on such a mission. If anything, I’m grateful that the novel posed its conflict the way it did so I was able to have this conversation. What’s a conviction if you never have it challenged? If anything, the ideas in the novel are meant to be an open-ended aspiration, a vibe rather than any sort of moral determination. You can see both sides of the coin. This is just my reaction to it. Also, I just kind of wanted to talk about Star Trek. Read the book, so you can join in the conversation too.
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros is backed by the Tiktok Hype Industrial Complex and I’ve got FOMO.
I am going to make one thing quite clear. This is not an unbiased review. I did not go into this book with an open mind. I typically don’t like this vein of fantasy romance, but normally it’s something I’m willing to push aside until the book begins to speak for itself. I had no such intentions for this book, because I made the terrible mistake of reading the author bio before I read the first word of her novel.
“A second-generation army brat, Rebecca loves military heroes and has been blissfully married to hers for more than twenty years.”
A dark cloud descends over my mind. Lightning strikes in the distance. Thunder rumbles underhead.
I am not going to pretend to understand the current politics of being a military wife. I don’t know where they stand on, like, the current war and sending our #troops overseas to drone strike Yemeni villages or whatever. But my guess is that they really don’t care, because if they did, their association with the military would not a badge of honor trampstamped across the backside of their novel. I cannot pretend to know exactly how Rebecca Yarros feels about the current state of US imperialism, the US industrial complex, or US foreign relations, but I can point to that line in her bio and say it makes me deeply uncomfortable. Because, like, what exactly about “military heroes” do you love so much?
A military hero cannot exist without a military villain. They are on opposite sides of the propaganda machine, one cannot exist without the other, and for every military hero you prop up, there’s another person, or rather sort of person, you kick into the dirt. Did you love the movie ‘American Sniper’, Rebecca Yarros? Is that the kind of military hero you love? Because after it came out, there was a rise in anti-Muslim threats.
Yeah, so basically, military brat writes war novel. But even if the book is more anti-war than a Nixon era hippie protest on the steps of the US capitol, I still don’t think military hero worship is cute, or ever will be. I don’t think supporting the US military is cute, or ever will be. I think we should normalize shaming people who support the military. (Veterans are a different conversation, and one that I am not very interested in having right now.)
So. Is the book anti-war? Well. It’s as much pro war as it’s anti war because it’s a whole lot of nothing.
In Fourth Wing, Violet is conscripted into war college to become a dragon rider. It’s dangerous. A lot of people die doing it. Her mom is a hot shot general who basically killed the parents of a bunch of rebel’s kids who are mandatorily conscripted, so a lot of people at the school want her dead. And at this school, you can just do that. You can just kill people. There are some rules sprinkled in here and there, but we basically see a kid get murked during sparring practice and the murderer just shrugs like “oopsies”.
The entire rules surrounding the school and who’s allowed to kill who when and why so many parents are okay with their kids dying and why the war would be okay with their conscripts dying require a lot of suspension of disbelief. And the logic of who wants to kill Violet when also requires suspension of disbelief. At one point someone remarks that after graduating from War University, people will protect Violet to stay in her mother’s good graces. Why doesn’t that protection extend into the school? Surely, if someone kills her daughter, she’d hate them after graduating. Because Yarros needed the plot, and the plot of this book is, “Violet doesn’t want to die.”
It took me about 60% into the novel before I realized nothing was really happening. This book bamboozles you pretty bad. The first chapter is really long and a ton of it is just blatant over the top exposition. Like, the main character literally recites a textbook to the audience. And then the exposition just keeps going. It doesn’t feel like you’re learning about the world in a natural way to progress the story. It feels like you’re being fed exposition through scenes of Violet lusting over another man and trying not to die. And while “trying not to die” sometimes works as a plot, it just didn’t here.
The focus of this book, besides the endless exposition, was clearly the romance. Xaden. Enemies to lovers. Except not really. Yarros never defines them as ideological enemies, only as circumstantial enemies, which aren’t really enemies. Your mom killed my dad. Okay. Same sort of thing happened in West Side Story, but they were on the same page about it. (JOKE).
Oh, but he wants to kill her. Or rather, she thinks he wants to kill her, but he really doesn’t, and the audience knows that, and he tells her that and she just doesn’t believe it. For the first 30% of the book, they don’t even know each other and he most definitely is not trying to kill her. For the next 70%, they are on the same side. They are instantly horny for each other. I guess it could be fun to read in a trashy when-will-they sort of way, but it does not deliver the enemies to lovers intensity you’d expect. I found it dull.
Oh, not to mention that there’s supposed to be a love triangle in this. It’s not really a love triangle, because Yarros was not interested in making the second love interest a desirable option. He’s the classic childhood best friend, and his name is Dain. He’s a squad leader, so logically, within the narrative, he must have some sort of skill or capacity for usefulness in his day-to-day operations. We see none of it. He’s nice to Violet, but overbearing, and not sexy enough. It seems that he has no desire but to abide by the rules and protect Violet. He’s barely a character. It’s trite.
I have mixed feelings on Violet. On one hand, I am a small girlie described as frail and undervalued because of this. I understand that Violet had a chronic illness, so I’m not gonna pretend to relate on that front or comment on that sort of representation, other than the fact that it was incorporated into the novel in a natural way. I appreciated how, in that sense, she didn’t feel like the typical fantasy heroine. Her flaws were well defined and how she overcame them was realistic enough. She’s easy to project onto. Comma. But.
Xaden’s nickname for Violet is Violence. (I found this 2 be CRINGE!) She has this whole arc about coming into her power or whatever, but a biproduct is that she is very dangerous. She can really hurt people. She’s a weapon. This makes her upset, but Xaden is like don’t be ashamed of being a weapon, be proud to be the weapon. Which like. Nice on paper, in an insular sense of “own your strengths”. Bad when you take a couple of steps away from the paper. Terrible when you remember the author is an army wife.
Interlude: I Discuss the Technicalities.
Prose: This is a voicey fantasy. It’s riddled with modern slang and anachronisms, with the narration resembling that of a contemporary romance rather than a fantasy. I don’t particularly like this! It might be your cup of tea! But it isn’t mine! Mostly because it was common on Wattpad when I was 13 and I don’t like reliving those days. I did my time. I have grazed those fields and am now going on to different pastures.
Editing: There were some weird sentences in here. I have a couple of highlights like “‘You know very well the natural pigment seems to gradually abandon it no matter the length.'” One, that’s not good dialogue. Two, badly constructed sentence. Just say gradates. PLEASE. These sorts of mistakes weren’t super common, but when they were present, they did pull me out of the book.
Pacing: This book gave me a little bit of my old Wattpad buzz, but I’m not sure it was its intrinsic quality as a page turner or if it was because I dared myself to finish it in one day (I didn’t). Either way, I do think it’s bloated. Because this book stakes its central conflict on Violet’s survival, once she ends up in a relatively safe position, it loses momentum. There are clear separate acts in the book, but as one ended, it became increasingly difficult to become invested in the next. If her life will always be in danger, what’s the motivation to keep reading? When will it end? Once I hit the 60% mark, boy howdy, I was ready to throw in the towel. Yes, that’s when the romance ramps up, but too bad the romance is uninspired. Like, relies on 20 questions to be endearing type of uninspired.
Dragons: Personalities but no insights. Their backstories were the stuff of legends, not points of connection. I had no idea what their motivations were. They didn’t feel like characters in their own right, merely support for their riders. Yarros tried to dissuade this idea by showing them to be adversarial or blabber something about how they do what they want by their own rules, but it doesn’t really land. The last series I had to read with magic interlinking sex and also dragons was the Farseer trilogy and I think that it was very brave of Rebecca Yarros to stitch together those ideas, but if she was gonna do that, then she should’ve written a book as good as any in that trilogy.
Vibes: People describe this as fun because there’s sarcasm and banter in it. I wouldn’t call it fun, but if that’s what your idea of fun is, go live your life. I’m not your mom. But if you agree with me, then know that this book is not fun.
Interlude: Fin.
I’m going to do my best to sum up my issues with the war sentiments in this book without spoiling anything or going into too much detail. If you want to go in completely blind, tap out now. If you’d be alright with some mild spoilers, proceed with your own caution.
For 80% of the book, you have no clue why these two nations are at war. There’s a throwaway line about how the enemy isn’t content with their resources and is greedy, but we all know that’s not really a reason wars are fought. Yet, that’s all we get. People are dying left and right, we hear about how taxing this war is, but the only ideology behind it is greed, so it doesn’t really feel real.
When we learn about the rebellion, it’s only about the effects of the rebellion. Because of the rebellion, the marked conscripts are orphaned, they hate Violet, they’re ostracized, etc etc. We don’t really know what the rebellion entailed. We don’t know in what way their parents betrayed the kingdom, or if they agreed with that decision. There are no politics, only the effects of said politics, which is why so much of the book seems hollow.
All of this hollowness culminates in some great reveal about the true reason for the war. Call me stupid, but when the book was done I had to go back and name search the countries to try and piece together why it was such a shocking reveal. We were given so little substantial information, the characters believed in so little to begin with, that it couldn’t have been a subversion. There was nothing to subvert. It turns out those dry textbook clippings were supposed to mean something for the story, but it was really hard to keep my eyes from glazing right over them because I had no reason to care about it because the characters didn’t care about it.
Up until the very end, I’d say the last 10%, I would say that this book was borrowing the aesthetics of war as a vehicle for some story about survival. I already hate that. By the end, when we learn the truth, it’s strange. Yarros is attempting to say nothing without having anything of substance to say. The great wool over the main character’s eyes in this book doesn’t say anything about the morality of war or how propaganda operates. If the book was about morality, the main character would have believed in the morality of a cause worth fighting and dying for (she doesn’t). If the book was about propaganda, we would have seen how the government brainwashed her (they don’t push a narrative, only hide things).
I see people bring up the military-industrial complex when it comes to this book, and I must respectfully disagree. I think that people just like… don’t know what that term means. It’s specific. It refers to the way that the private weapons manufacturers, the government, and the military interact with each other to perpetuate war because it is profitable for all of them. If war, then government get to have weapon and Lockheed Martin get to sell weapon. It’s not about how war is profitable because of its spoils or how people perpetuate war out of greed. The military-industrial complex isn’t about how the oil corporations pushed the US into invading Iraq, it’s about how weapons manufacturers push the US into supporting Israel so that they can get paid for the missiles they supply to them. This isn’t a huge deal, just a distinction that I find important, because I talk about imperialistic themes in media a lot and I like being precise.
In Fourth Wing, weapons are brought up in how they relate to the war, but it has nothing to do with the profitability of manufacturing them. Instead, the reason for the war becomes somewhat of a trolly problem. An us or them sort of thing. It can only exist as a hypothetical, and so still, it says nothing.
One thing the book is weirdly consistent with is the necessity of violence. Violet must become a weapon to survive. Violence against a foreign enemy is required in order to have peace. Either we must fight a warring nation to secure ourselves, we must fight with them to secure the both of us, but either way, we must fight.
This, believe it or not, is actually a form of US military propaganda. (I know you are soooo sick of me by now).
The United States Military justifies its far reach into other countries by parading as the global police force of the world. They believe that safety and security can only be achieved under the threat of violence. They perpetuate war by perpetuating the idea that the world needs violence to be secure.
This is part of the reason I found the “Violence” nickname, and the context surrounding it, to be troublesome. It’s why I found the cavalier nature of the slew of deaths to be worrying. It’s robbing war of context, yet still insisting that it is necessary. Death is necessary, but it isn’t something you should worry about unless it’s coming for you. In that case, it is kill or be killed. This is the nature of things.
Except it isn’t. And the book’s insistence that it is frustrated me. I don’t care if she corrects this in a sequel, it’s bad storytelling. Not only is it careless, it is lazy. If people are dying on page, there should be a good reason, or at least the attempt of a real good reason, other than to create stakes. A character becoming a weapon out of necessity is boring. You may disagree with me. That’s fine. But it’s boring. I am so bored.
So yeah, Fourth Wing. Not it. (I know I talk about a lot of things in this review, but by far, its biggest sin is the terrible exposition. So yeah.)
(I wish this was a silly review poking fun of the fact that you needed magic to use a pen or other weird convoluted aspects of the worldbuilding, but depictions of the military and war in media are much too important for me to disregard. Sorry I’m like this. I’ll find something silly soon.)
Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee is a neat novella that flies slow and low to the ground. Inspired by Persian and Arab mythology, the central focus of the story are rocs, enormous birds of prey. Or, more specifically, it follows Ester, a young woman who rises from apprentice to full-fledged ruhker, someone who raises and trains a roc. Rocs are trained to hunt for manticore, beasts that kill people indiscriminately and with little reprieve. Somewhat reserved, she is driven by her purpose with little interest in much else, her love for her bird almost as fierce as her hatred of manticores.
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC and for supporting SWANA reviewers!
The novella was an enjoyable read. The first half stalled, relying heavily on the spectacle of the world Lee wove together from inspiration. Lee herself is not SWANA. I am. I am often critical of Persian representation from non-Persian authors, a very common occurrence. That being said, there was nothing wrong with the cultural elements in this story. As an Asian author, Lee is probably well aware of how to avoid orientalism in her writing and she took care when describing the food and culture. I am not Zoroastrian myself, so I cannot speak to its accuracy, but nothing jumps out to me there. Unfortunately, it was all just a bit soulless. I had no sense of love for the setting or culture. It’s not a requirement of writing a good story, but it is a requirement of writing a great one.
All the love of this novel was funneled into that bird. The roc. Ester’s roc, Zahra. I like birds. I liked reading about Zahra. Of course, it was not simply Zahra, but what Zahra represented to Ester and how she brought people together. The day-to-day of ruhking could get repetitive at times, causing the book to drag, but for the most part, it was interesting lore. Although the first half is paced slowly, it pays off in the second half. Tension rises, and I started to become afraid for the main characters. The last quarter goes by in a blur and culminates in a satisfying ending that pulls the entire novella together. My nerves frazzled out, I felt truly connected to the characters. It puts everything so far neatly into place. The end elevates the ranking of this novella an entire star.
There isn’t much more to say. Untethered Sky is a solid, quick read. I wish there was a flame beneath it that eagerly encouraged me to place it in the hands of my friends, but all I can say is that you should read it if the premise seems interesting to you. Some passages were raw and jumped out at me, threatening to pull at my heart, but I wish a bit more of the fat was trimmed.
It’s a reply to this article, a Profile of bestselling Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson. If you read fantasy novels regularly, you know his name. Mistborn, Stormlight, Cosmere,some Wheel of Time, Skyward, Kelsier (from Fortnite, definitely not anywhere else), yada yada.
If you’re mad I reached out to a writer about their work, cope. People used to send reaction letters all the time to editorials. I had no interest in cussing this man out or insulting him, so I didn’t. You ever see a piece of writing and go, “Wow, I gotta get Ursula Le Guin into this person’s hands?” That’s what happened. And then I had some other stuff on my mind. I kinda like the points I made, and I’m posting while the topic is still hot in hopes that people will read it. If he actually, somehow, responds, then uhhhhh.
That being said, I don’t think you should email him unless you have something thoughtful to say. And I don’t think you should tag him on social media, period. I’m sure he’s dealing with a lot and I don’t think anyone deserves a social media dogpile. I’ve been there. It sucks ass. Unfortunately, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to have any sort of critical conversation about art or writing without wading the dangerous waters of Twitter, and we must do what we must to survive.
Hi Jason,
I’m here to talk about that Brandon Sanderson article. I’m guessing you’ve been getting a lot of backlash (I have logged onto Twitter. I suggest you don’t.), but I’m not sure if it’s hit your inbox yet. If it has, well, I’m not here to add to that. I just want to have a conversation, because you brought up questions that I have puzzled over as well.
Someone smarter than both of us (my queen, Ursula K Le Guin) touches on some of the points that you do in this blog post. In it, she gets into what the gift of storytelling is, what it means, and reflects on how subpar craft rarely gets in the way of the success of a good story. It’s a little more introspective than how you chose to end your article.
That blog post may have satiated your wondering, or maybe it has sparked a new question for you, or maybe, worst of all, it did neither. Which, if your article was any indication of your normal approach to a question, I fear that the last option is most likely. I believe that all great writers are curious, and the problem with your article was not that you were condescending or rude or jealous. It’s that you were stubborn. You were incurious. You admitted that you didn’t have much of an article and that you didn’t understand people’s obsession, but I think do. Or, at least, I’m closer.
You see, I am not a fan of Brandon Sanderson’s prose. I’m probably going to show my age here a little bit, and if I lose some ethos with you, that’s fine. As a recent grad at the beginning of the pandemic college, I was a fawn on new legs trying to get back into reading. I’d just received a STEM degree, and though I’d been a lifelong bookworm, I found it difficult to make the time for non-assigned readings. The problem with never picking up a book during a great period of transformational growth is that you’re not quite sure how your tastes have matured.
So, Mistborn fell into my lap. I read the first book. I liked it a lot. 5/5. I tried the second Mistborn book. It wasn’t clicking the same way. I put it back down and did not pick it up for another year. And in that year, I learned a lot. First of all, I started writing myself. Which, despite your skill level, fundamentally changes the way you interact with literature. And when you self-learn how to write, it involves reading books on craft and watching Brandon Sanderson’s BYU Lectures. So by the time I picked up The Well of Ascension, I was a much different reader and was very very interested in why I didn’t like it.
I have multiple reasons why I don’t like The Well of Ascension. You’re probably thinking that the biggest reason is that I had finally grown up and realized how undercooked Sanderson’s prose was. And I’ll be honest, I thought the same thing. I was the only person lukewarm on Sanderson in my group of friends and I wasn’t very happy about this development. But, I picked up that third Mistborn book and actually enjoyed the last two-thirds. It’s not like he experienced this magical jump in craftsmanship or anything of the sort. It’s not like I had reverted back to my old habits as a reader. Instead, I realized I could get past Sanderson’s prose if his story charmed me. The Well of Ascension was a darker book, more of a drag, and so that’s when Sanderson’s prose became a huge barrier for me. (You see how this connects to the Le Guin blog post?)
In Sanderson’s lectures, he tells us to learn from Marvel movies. He tells us to learn from Star Wars. He tells us to learn from what we find engaging, entertaining, and fun. That’s what he writes, and that’s what he aims to write. Stories that compel him, and by extension, compel other people. Time and time again, he brings up how to get people to turn the next page. That’s what storytelling is to him and that’s what it is to his readers. There’s a reason he doesn’t teach lectures on craft, but instead focuses on worldbuilding, pacing, and characters. It’s because it’s what he’s good at. Or at least, that’s the sauce that brings the flavor to his final dish. If it isn’t to your taste, then c’est comme ca. But the first rule of art is that it’s subjective.
Now, your article. You needed to put yourself in the shoes of someone who liked Brandon Sanderson’s cooking. You sat there, listening to him talk, and thought he was lame and realized you didn’t have an article. Zat was your first mistake, dear sir. When realizing you didn’t find anything compelling in his words, it was time to try and put yourself in the shoes of someone who would. It was time to write a new article. You may have tried, but if you succeeded, that article would’ve come out a lot differently. Because, man, if I was at Dragonsteel Con, if I had the chance to stay at Brandon Sanderson’s house and ask him questions and profile him, I wouldn’t return to his subpar prose like a broken record. Writing a profile/article isn’t a matter of fighting the current to prove a hypothesis, it’s riding it to see where the river takes you. And if you can’t do that, it was time to realize that wasn’t the article for you to write.
I will admit, if anything, I found your article to be funny. It reminded me of an episode of Ted Lasso or SpongeBob where the main character is so inhumanly nice that it slowly erodes the cynic’s sanity. (To be fair, if someone tried to get me to watch The Greatest Showman, I would start crying as well). Insightfulness presents itself in different ways, and there was plenty to find in his kindness and overall Mormonness, just not the sort you were looking for. I’m not going to pretend to know everything you two talked about during your stay with him. I only know what made it into the article, and I saw kernels of interesting thought snuffed out by a dismissive cynicism. His Kickstarter made waves, what’s changed since then? His publishing company makes waves, where are they heading? No one may know who he is, but his brand is undeniably strong, is he planning to expand it into the mainstream? His faith obviously paints his work, and he’s introspective enough to comment on it, and hopefully, its politics too. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see much of that. I think there’s an interesting article underneath the one you wrote, and if you ever find it, I’d like to read it.
One of those nerdy farewells honestly just take your pick,
When I was in college, I took an anthropology class. Its first midterm asked, “Is race real? Is it important?” Maybe it was phrased a little differently, but that was the gist of it. Though I knew the answer, I pulled at my hair at the idea of condensing it onto the four lines provided. Because race is complicated.
Race is not “real”. It’s a social construct. It’s more modern than the average person probably thinks, coming about in the 1500s and subsequently becoming very closely tied to the Atlantic slave trade. It groups people together by phenotypical traits, things that are observable like skin color or facial features. It’s a classification based on others’ perception of you, how others find a place for you in the world, rather than any sort of personal self-identification reflective of cultural upbringing. Race isn’t real but it is important insofar as it allows us to understand racism.
Racism is a system of oppression built on race. It’s a list of stereotypes and beliefs of inferiority based on the way that someone looks. Over time, this definition has expanded somewhat to include more specific ethnic and cultural signifiers, but it was invented around the idea of observable traits. Much of the specifics about racism can become complicated and contradictory and cluttered, but I will not dedicate much time to the nuances. What is important to know is that most people’s understanding of race is not based on any cultural understanding of how people in that race act, it is, rather, an understanding of how an outside force views a group of people.
Asian-American is only a useful phrase insofar as it explains the shared experience and treatment of those who have been grouped together as Asians in America. It’s more of a description of shared oppression than anything else. Any discussion of culture is divided by country, a discussion of ethnic background. There are cultural similarities between China, Japan, Korea, etc, of course, but though they all eat noodles, the dishes themselves are unique to each culture. The languages are different. They practice religion differently.
This is all important because many people in America have been conditioned to think of both cultural and physical otherness through the lens of race first. And race is understood through the symbiotic relationship with racism. So, what happens when you try to yank racism out of the equation but view society through a racial lens?
It gets kind of weird.
I am all for not depicting racism in fantasy when you’re not planning to make any sort of commentary on it. That’s great. But. You still, then have to put thought into how you depict people of color. Your first instinct to that news is “of course I’m careful not to have my BIPOC characters fall into harmful stereotypes”. And to that, I say that you’re still thinking of these characters through a racial lens, in which the way they’re depicted has more to do with others perceive them than how their culture has shaped their identity.
The default fantasy setting is European inspired. The cultural norms that writers don’t think twice about putting into their books are based on European, or modern western, sensibilities. It is not a blank slate. It is defined by a real world culture. And so, when you take a character of color and cram them into the world without any discussion of cultural differences, you’re having them conform to a culture that isn’t theirs. Their only claim to diverse representation is the color of their skin and their physical features. Which, you can argue that in your world, people who look different all have the same cultural background and your world doesn’t abide by the same regional distinctions that inform physical differences that this world does, but you are being lazy. Also, you’re full of shit.
Because there is a real-world counterpart to the idea of a racist-free utopia in which white people and people of color all share the same cultural sensibilities and coexist, and it’s the casual racist’s hope for a post-racial America. The really hardcore racists, the fascists, want to send all the people of color back to their countries or force them from white spaces. But the casual racists, they don’t mind people of color– as long as they act like white people. As long as they share Christian sensibilities and conform to what’s “normal”. Those are the good people of color, and if we ever want to be free of racism, people of color should all strive to be good and stop highlighting differences and shaking the table.
So, I guess this is a plea for authors, especially white authors, to think about how they depict people of color in their books. Think about their ethnic or cultural background. Think of the way that ethnicity operates in your world, the different regions and people who operate it and how they interact. If you want to do the post-racial American utopia because you’re lazy, whatever, but at least acknowledge that’s what you’re doing. Allow room for nuance. Your choice comes with consequences. This is a common critique of contemporary books, white authors writing characters of color without any understanding of how they differ from white people, but it’s still a criticism worth exploring in Fantasy. Because if the author does not take the time to world build every detail, people will fill in the blanks with their understanding of our world, so writers must be conscientious of what doors they’re leaving open.
It is possible to not have racism in your books and still depict characters of color, but it is important to still acknowledge the differences between them. People of color have different cultural backgrounds than white people and that’s fine to depict. In fact, it’s good. Difference should be celebrated and explored. Do not depict to claim ownership of cultural elements, but introduce and acknowledge. In fact, without racism, the cultural interaction could take a very different shape. They could meld and share more than they do now, and that’s an interesting way to world-build. Creating different cultures and reflecting on how they interact and grow together is a better sandbox to play in than a blanket culture that probably is western inspired. It’s just important to consider how they society got there.
I can imagine that there are a few white authors feeling very frustrated right now. A “damned if I do want to include diversity, damned if I don’t” kind of attitude. Which, I gotta say. If being told to think about depicting characters of color further than skin deep makes you feel overwhelmed or upset, then I think you should… rethink your worldview. Rethink how you interact with your marginalized friends. Writers are meant to be curious, and if you don’t think different cultures are worth learning about and depicting, then you’re not very curious, and also probably not a very good writer.
I received an arc of Lightlark by Alex Aster and read it before the average person did. It was marketed as a diverse Hunger Games, which didn’t turn out to be true. Of the main cast of six rulers, only one seemed to be a person of color, a Black man named Azul. After the book was published, I was shocked to learn that, apparently, according to the author, our main character was also supposed to be “Latinx/indigenous”. Which, like, What does that even mean?
The only descriptions of the main character’s physical appearance are green eyes, thick lashes, and skin that is “naturally tan”. Not only could this describe a white person, but these features can be found in West Asia and other regions as well. There is no Latin America in the Lightlark universe. And when she says indigenous, indigenous to where. The regional groups of Lightlark are divided by magical ability rather than skin color. Azul is the ruler of the Skylings, but there are pale Skylings. So, geographical indicators shouldn’t be indicative of physical feature, but indigenous implies that they are. Or rather, the author wants us to impose a modern understanding of race onto her fantasy world, which just does not work.
Lightlark exemplifies the issue of relying on representation that is only skin deep, even in Fantasy. If there was some sort of cultural distinction implying her background, something that resonated to Latinx/indigenous readers, then this confusion could have been avoided. The representation the author claimed would have been obvious to see, and easy to empathize with. This is the difference between thoughtless and thoughtful representation.
Also, there is the issue of fantasy depictions like Robert Jordan’s Aiel in Wheel of Time. They’re desert gingers. Tall, pale skinned, red haired, and home to a cruel and unforgiving desert. The desert had not always been a desert, which explains how gingers got there, but the optics are still weird. The way that the Aiel must veil themselves to protect from the sun, the steps they take to survive in the desert is reminiscent of how many desert-faring real world cultures did so, such as Arabs. This is just how humans survive in the desert, but these practices and beliefs around the desert have been folded into the cultural dress and belief in the real world, belonging to peoples who, for the most part, don’t really much resemble the Aiel. The ethnic groups of the desert are very diverse, but it was clear he was emulating whiteness specifically. The desert has shaped the people who have lived there for generations, shaped their culture. Learning from their practices and depicting their land yet refusing to represent them is strange, and although it is a made up world, it resembles erasure.
I am not going to pretend to offer some sort of catch all solution to this issue. Race is complicated. For example, Black Americans have been forced to adopt a shared culture through a racial lens because their ethnic histories were lost in the slave trade. It isn’t my place to dictate how Black people should be represented, only to encourage authors to consider this history when they depict this racial group.
The point of this article is to bring light to an issue, to challenge how you have been thinking about representation in SFF novels. It’s also worth noting that I’m writing from a western, American perspective. It’s meant to start a discussion, rather than end one. I’m tired of reading Fantasy books in which brown faces are just that- brown faces. Because truly, I believe that if we begin to consider the cultures from which we borrow the features we want to represent, it can only lead to a richer novel. Many authors already grab cultural inspiration from around the globe, but now it’s a matter of depicting and crediting them in a careful and thoughtful way alongside thoughtful characters. And as always, do not tell stories that are not yours to tell.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Redhood Books for the arc of The Magician’s Daughter by H.G. Parry. Had fun with this one.
The novel follows Biddy, a sixteen-year-old who washed ashore an isolated and secret magical island as a baby and was raised by the mage who inhabits it. Though she loves her home, she’s grown restless with solitude. When she finally gets the chance to visit the real world, it’s under less-than-ideal circumstances. Her guardian is in danger, magic is in a crisis, and through adventure, she is forced to confront the truth of what she’s been told her entire life.
Right now, “cozy fantasy” is beginning to pick up steam. I’d describe it as fantasy that is more comforting than isn’t, sort of domestic and something that’ll leave you warm. The Magician’s Daughter isn’t precisely a cozy fantasy, but it is very comforting. It’s infused with love and whimsy. As the kids say, the vibes are on point. They make the reader feel as if they’re reading a fun middle-grade fantasy, but for adults. Most witty adult fantasies are adventure/quest novels such as Stardust or The Princess Bride, but The Magician’s Daughter is more limited in scope.
The book plays close to its 19th-century United Kingdom setting, commenting on both its mythologies and historical shifts. The reflections on womanhood and sexism were interesting. Having a heroine who isn’t interested in romance was a good angle for this story, one that allows it to delve more deeply into other commentaries. It touches dark elements and isn’t afraid to confront ugliness, but does so with care and in a way that isn’t offputting. The reader feels safe.
The characters are lovely to be around and the world is easy to slip into. If anything, maybe a lot of the characters are a bit too similar and interpersonal conflict is too easily resolved. If their arguments were more abrasive, the storyline would be more interesting, but then a huge chunk of the appeal would be lost. These characters love each other and this is a story that highlights the good rather than explores the bad.
The prose is lovely and sharp without being too much. Biddy’s monologue has a distinctive voice and the rest of her world is infused with personality. The tone is perfect for the story. In fact, the tone sets the foundation from which all other expectations are built. And so, the tone, the character voice, and the descriptions, all layer beautifully and cohesively in a way that compliments rather than clashes. This work is delicate, but Parry succeeds.
The plot isn’t anything special, but it doesn’t need to be. The magic system, worldbuilding, politics, mythology, and characters are the clear story elements that shine. The plot attempts to string the reader along by offering mysteries to be solved and lies to be revealed, but truly the reason to get to the end is that the reader wants to see all of the characters end up okay and out of danger. In that way, I can appreciate its simplicity. The few attempts to subvert or complicate the plot and story didn’t really pay off.
I really like The Magician’s Daughter, almost to an embarrassing degree. I’d forgotten how much I am enchanted by whimsy-adjacent fantasy. But this was a great reintroduction to that genre, the strange combination of a high-stakes fantasy novel with a low-stakes tone and lovable characters. It was a great palette cleanser after reading Assassin’s Quest by Robin Hobb, I can tell you that much. If you enjoy witty fantasy, particularly those set in this setting, I’d recommend The Magician’s Daughter.
existing ironically 