She Who Hears All Whispers By DaVaun Sanders

She Who Hears All Whispers

By DaVaun Sanders

It's been a while since I've reviewed anything by Mr. Sanders. In this review series grand tradition of full disclosure, I know Mr. Sanders. We've worked together, being part of the same training class in 2014 where he was dubbed Mr. Radio for having the best voice in the class (Don’t worry, I’ll keep Frigid honest). Since then, we've both transferred to different departments but I still consider him a friend and count myself lucky to do so. That said, as my editor will tell you, friendship will not stop me from giving an honest opinion and I will attempt to do so here.

Mr. Sanders has lived in Phoenix since 2002 after earning a degree from Washington University in St. Louis. He started writing novels after the Great Recession forced him to step away from architecture in 2008. He has since then written three novels, a variety of short stories and scripts, and found time to start a family with his wife. He is currently the proud father of twins. He is also an acquiring editor of Fiyah, an online magazine for Black writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror (Good for him!). All while working a day job. My current theory is that Mr. Sanders doesn't sleep for more than 2 hours a day but I could be wrong (No no. You’re probably right.).

She Who Hears All Whispers take place in the disease-ravaged Revealed Lands within a society that embraces the very thing ravaging it (I will not talk about the lumpenproletariat, I swear). The Phage as it is called is a collection of highly infectious diseases with a variety of symptoms, none of them good. At best it causes shortness of breath and saps strength from your limbs. At worst it causes crippling pain while encasing your body in orange growths some of which are flesh-eating (Nice). To be honest there seem to be at least dozens of the Phage, all with different effects on the human body. It can be airborne, spread through fluids, blood, all manner of methods of infection. Society has embraced the Phage due to the fact that some people can use the Phage to fuel what I'm gonna call magic (Well then. That… alright. I’ve seen people sacrifice more for arcane power.). Powerful Phagelords can fly, destroy entire city districts with phagefire and listen to conversations from vast distances. The Phagelords use people called kaydka (fun fact, this is a Somali word which means reservoir as near as I can puzzle it out) to carry reserves of the phage for them that they can draw power out of. The Kaydka themselves can also take their own Kaydka, making themselves into a center-point of an entire system of disease-driven strength (... Holy Fuck it’s a magical ponzi scheme). This has evolved into a system of vassalage and oaths all focused on infecting people and using that infection to feed magical power to the people at the top. This is sealed by a blood ritual called Qaadasho (another Somali word meaning something like to take or captivate) which increases the amount of phage you can pull from a person and the distance you can pull from using an exchange of blood and flesh to link the two people. It's gory but feels very real as a ritual. (Can you imagine the thought process by which all of this is discovered? “Hey Steve, I bet if we become blood buddies I can use your disease for power” {well if you’re physically close to them you can pull power without needing a connection, the ritual just makes it easier and work over longer distances, plus allow you build that pyramid!})Worse it seems that the more destructive the strain to human well-being, the more power you can draw from it. So the elites at the top also experiment with the phage to create more powerful varieties to infect their people with... So they can draw from it for more magical power in their struggles against each other (No, this… this isn’t an allegory at all! Nope!). They do have to be careful, however, it is possible to draw all the phage out of a Kaydha, thus rendering them immune to the phage for the rest of their lives. These people are called damiyann (I have to admit here that my research broke down here can I couldn't find any sources for the word) and many yearn for such a gift and many who fear it.

The city of Mataano Qahndo is one of the great cities of the Revealed Lands, ruled by She Who Hears All Whispers, who also called the Matriarch or the Boundless Mother. She is served by her lieutenant phagelords, called The Matriarch's Daughters. The Daughters provide much of the administration and justice in the city, carrying out their overlord's will. They are all also magic users with Kaydha of their own to draw from magnifying their powers. So while even the Matriarch can't be everywhere at once, she doesn't have to. The Daughters can be in plenty of places. The city sits next to the Bay, widely believed to be the source of the phage. The Matriarch sends children out to dive into the bay and drag up animals and plants that might have new strains of phage to increase her own powers. This gives her an edge over rivals and allows The Matriarch to rule as an unquestioned goddess dispensing reward and punishment, cure and infection as she sees fit among her people. As a result, there is a constant stream of rural people, often called riftlanders come looking for a better life for even a Kaydha can find more luxury and comfort than some of the villages out there (Given these diseases… Fuck. Okay, this is thoroughly dystopian.).

One of those riftlanders is a woman named Suraldisha but she's not coming to Mataano Qahndo in search of a new life. She's coming to end a life but not just any life. Suraldisha is aiming at the most dangerous of targets. She's on a mission to kill the Matriarch herself (Good for her! You go girl! Slay [the] Queen! Slaaaay!). She's bringing a dress, a fish gutting knife, a bag filled with small bones and a secret that might be enough to set the whole city on fire. That fire would be metaphorical and literal by the way. She'll have to get inside the city, avoid an active guard force, survive phage pits and more just for a shot at her goal. However, she is possessed of a monomaniacal focus on her goal and just enough mental agility to reach out to others that could be of help to her. There's also the small fact that she doesn't have much if anything left to lose so she is willing to give up anything to achieve her goal because that's the only thing of value left to her. Interestingly enough though, the question isn't just can she take down the Matriarch, but is that enough? Because while the Matriarch is a tyrant and quite likely deserves death (there is no likely about that), in the end, she's only an element of a giant system of misery and oppression that runs on the devastation and sickness of its people. Kill one phagelord and another simply rises in her place. Because it's the nature of complex systems to make everyone expendable, including the elites. Destroy one member of the elite class and the system will swiftly fill that void with another one. The new boss may be worse or better than the old boss but the dictates of the system will limit their behavior. If for no other reason that if they don't tailor their behavior to the system they find themselves in, they'll be replaced by someone who does. Suraldisha may have to ask herself if simply murdering arguably the most powerful woman in the world is enough to achieve what she wants... Or if she needs to set her sights even higher than that.

As I've noted in Seedbearing Prince, the book series by Mr. Sanders that I reviewed in the past, there are few people out there who can world build with the kind of vivid imagination that Mr. Sanders brings to the table and do so as thoroughly and believably (From what I’m seeing...yeah.). She Who Hears All Whispers is a short book but Mr. Sanders uses his space with efficiency and gusto, keeping tightly focused on the story but giving us enough detail and information to realize that there's an entire world out there beyond Sauraldisha's experience. The story also benefits from well-written action and magical duels and Sauraldisha’s own intense character. She is a very driven and focused woman but not an idiot, despite making mistakes throughout the story. I will note that here it is a good thing to have your protagonist make mistakes and have to pay a price for those mistakes and Mr. Sanders doesn't hesitate on that front. Sauraldisha does, however, dominate the story completely and doesn't leave much room for the small supporting cast. So we're not given much delving into their motivations or thoughts. Given that some of them were more educated about the world around them and interesting characters in their own right, that's unfortunate in my opinion. Some transitions in the story aren't as smooth as I would like. I understand what Mr. Sanders was trying to do with his final reveal and why it was done but I'll honest and say I just don't enjoy that style. I can't go into that without spoilers but I'll just say it wasn't for that it would have gotten a higher grade. Still, She Who Hears All Whispers is fantastic at what it does and how it does it. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in taking a look at a strange new world and deeply and vividly human characters within it. She Who Hears All Whispers by DaVaun Sanders gets a B and a recommendation from me, it is available both in print and kindle.

For those of you who would like to take a direct look at Fiyah Magazine, please take a look.  Let them know I sent ya.  https://www.fiyahlitmag.com/

Now, this review wasn't chosen by our patrons but as part of my goal of looking at stories review by independent authors.  That said, if you like the idea of someone grabbing stories by independent writers and giving them a review, consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where you can vote on what books get reviewed for as little as a 1$ a month.  Next week I return with the Dragon Republic by Ms. R.F. Kuang, join us to take look at the sequel to the Poppy War!  Until then, as always Keep Reading!