Skullsworn By Brian Staveley

 Skullsworn

By Brian Staveley

Skullsworn is the fourth novel set in the world of The Emperor's Blades and is honestly a fairly stand-alone book. I've only read Emperor's Blades but I was able to follow everything in this novel fairly easily. It's set before the other three novels and features Pyrre Lakatur, an acolyte of the god of death; a fairly talented assassin, but not yet a priestess. To become a priestess she must complete the final test, killing a specific collection of people that satisfy the lines in an old hymn. The last line being killing the love of your life (Yeesh.). 

She has 14 days to do it once she starts killing and has to do it while being watched by witnesses sent by her order to prevent any cheating. If she fails, she dies as the witnesses, themselves incredibly skilled assassins, will kill her. Now Pyrre is an incredibly talented murderess, able to kill with poison, bare hands, blades, and your standard array of household goods as we expect from such characters at this point. So the killing part is not a problem. The problem is that Pyrre has never been in love before and is wrestling very hard with love as a concept. I'll admit when you're not sure what love is and are pretty sure you've never been in love, it's damn hard to find the love of your life and murder them (I don’t know, seems like it just gives some room for fudging…{You also have to convince two senior assassins that you’re not fudging, if you don’t, they kill you.  Also, the god is real and might rat you out.} Fuck.). 

Pyrre is a smart and ambitious girl with a lot of drive, however, so she has a solution! She'll find the one guy who so arrested her attention and emotions that she remembers him years later as vividly as the first night they fought bare-knuckled in a ring. Then she'll force him to love her and she'll love him, in 14 days. Then she'll kill him. It's a simple plan! Well, it would be, except for the fact that this guy is a champion bare-knuckle fighter who is not only capable of knocking out men three times his size with his bare hands. He was also able to defeat her in combat, back before hitting his peak level of skill, fame, and lethality. He's also an empire-wide known soldier and knife fighter. Due to being a combat veteran of several campaigns, he's also the commander of a large garrison force of really effective soldiers and peacekeepers preventing the city of Dombang from rising up by the near-pure force of will and personality. He's also a paranoid bastard who is as intelligent and canny as such a commander has to be. 

There's also the tiny, little bitty fact that she kind of abandoned him without a word in the dark of the night. SHe did this years ago and never bothered to write him so much as a Dear John letter since. So he might have complicated feelings upon seeing her face again. The kind of feelings that might lead him to decide he doesn't want anything to do with her, instead of throwing himself headlong into her embrace and not incidentally her knife (I mean, it occurs to me that, up until this point in her life, this guy has been the love of her life. {I mean, I think so but she disagrees saying that she’s never been in love} Ugh.  An earnest and forthright assassin…). Considering that we know that they fought each other for money and fun the first time around, it's actually very possible that his reaction will be to try and plant his fist in her eye or his knife in her chest, assuming that she's back as part of a plot to kill him. Which he would be entirely correct in! 

That's not the only wrinkle here, see there's also the city of Dombang itself. Dombang is a trade city built in a vast river delta. That river delta is a deadly, vibrant green hell teeming with snakes, spiders, carnivorous fish swarms, large cats, and of course crocodiles as well as a wide variety of plants, all seemingly designed to make anything but the shortest of stays in the delta an incredibly painful suicide (I must do Science in this delta!  Harcourt, bring me my insect repellant and waders! {And the biologist was never seen again}). Even the native fishermen of Dombang regard being trapped in the delta on foot as an inhumane death sentence. Of course, the outlawed native religion practiced human sacrifice by casting out people into the delta. The empire of Annur outlawed this, partly because the gods that the Annurians worship declared those gods to be false divinity and partly because the city of Dombang practices offended the Annurians on certain levels as they often set out unwanted children (Before reliable abortifacients, infanticide by exposure or ritual sacrifice was pretty common in the ancient world.{These aren’t infants, children, usually around 8 to 10 from what’s shown in the book}  Oh.  That’s… fucked.  Still, not that much different from the Carthaginians, they’d sacrifice kids that old sometimes if I recall properly.)

 There's also the native people of the delta, the ones who abandoned the city thousands of years ago to embrace the screaming verdant death swamp (See! People can live there!  It can’t be that bad! {It’s pretty bad}). They of course hold the city in contempt and openly continue the traditional religion while claiming that the city was doing it all wrong and that the old gods don't want children or weak sacrifices at all. They want strong warriors and killers. They also claim that every generation the gods send back one of the sacrifices to maintain the faith and rituals. Which leads to the question, what are they worshiping if they're not worshiping real gods? If they're not real, what's killing the warriors who've lived their entire lives in the hell-swamp, and what's sending back survivors who are utterly convinced they had contact with the divine? (Look, polytheism, or at least some kind of animism, is probably the most intuitive system of faith for humans.  They might very well be worshiping real gods, just, you know…their gods.{Yes but in-universe a bunch of gods showed up in physical form and gave a list of who was a real god and who wasn’t, guess who wasn’t on it.} And clearly, Gods within a polytheistic system never lie? {You gonna call the god of death a liar?})

Under the surface of Annurian occupation and control the native religion seethes and discontent boils. I'll admit I'm not sure what concrete complaints the Dombangians have besides, they won't let us abandon children to the swamp to feed the snakes and gators. No one complains about the taxes and the Annurians don't seem that cruel or oppressive as far as foreign imperialists go (The Romans weren’t THAT oppressive in Judea either.  We endured worse, like the Assyrians. But the Romans offended Jews enough on religious grounds that Massada happened.). The guy in charge of the city is a native-born son! The majority of the elites are all locals! Of course, it has to be admitted that sometimes being a foreign imperialist is simply enough to stir revolt and resentment. I mean, if Arizona was under a Chinese boot, it's likely that it just wouldn't matter how nice and kind the Chinese were, I'd be annoyed by it. Let this be a lesson on the futility of direct imperialism kids, sometimes it's better to leave people independent and take advantage of them via a rigged economic/geopolitical system (Yeah, it is far easier to use structural adjustment loans to extract all the natural resources and leave them dependent on you for subsistence.). 

Pyrre is deeply aware of this because like the man she is here to seduce and murder, she was born and raised in this city. Unlike him, she has no love for this place. Her plan to overcome his natural aversion to her appearing out of nowhere? Incite a mass rebellion that will force him to accept her help in putting it down (This plan is… Super Genius level.  No chance it will backfire like an ACME rocket at all, no!). After already being a very capable killer and then receiving years of training from people who worship a god of death and think murder is the second-highest level of devotion (Wait, what is the highest? {Suicide}) is the kind of help you need in this situation. She's also gambling that the high-stress situation will inflame her own emotional response and help her break through her own mental and emotional barriers to love and attachment. Which, say what you will, is a plan that has the audacity and pure break-into-your-home-while-you're-there-and-steal-your-dog gall going for it. 

It's the kind of all-or-nothing plan you would expect from someone in their 20s who is still half-convinced that they're immortal. What really tickles me is that both of her Witnesses are very aware of this plan so that means at some point she briefed her superiors and got approval for this madness (“Well you see, I not only want to please the God of Death via the prescribed murders, but a city-wide blood orgy!”  At which point, they nod sagely.). I'm left wondering, was this plan A? Plan B? Plan 127? Did she workshop this plan? Were there plans that got rejected? If so, what was the plan that was so lunatic that this seemed like the sensible option? Were they excited by the sheer scope of this? Because her plan does boil down to “let me cause a revolution that will at least get tens of thousands killed over several years so I can become a full-fledged priestess.” I mean considering she's worshiping a god of death, I suppose no one can doubt her piety after something like that. Her sanity, sense of the appropriate, and desire to live may all be up for discussion but not her piety (Yes, but this is a Death God.  A desire to live is a theological liability.  Instead, she embraces the spirit of Wile E. Coyote, for death! {It also helps that she is so serious about it, just like Wile E Coyote}). 

This may be the point, as Pyrre starts her trial and the clock starts ticking down, she is forced to confront her ideas on life, death, love, and hate. She was also forced to do so with an intensity and depth that would be hard to reach under any other circumstance. She is forced to feel whether she wants to or not. She is forced to think about what she is doing and why she is doing it. She is also forced to confront her own origins and actions in a way that will either leave her with catharsis or dead. Either way, she will have broken through to a new level of self-understanding and control. Which seems important to her order. 

We see this in the Witnesses that are sent to observe and advise her. Also to kill her if she fails. We have Ela, a priestess of death who revels in life. In every scene, she seems to just be wringing out as much sensation and pleasure in the moment as she can. At the same time she doesn't come across as a shallow or empty hedonist but someone who has decided that life and death should both be treated without any degree of fear or trepidation. It likely helps that she's a woman in her prime instead of someone who has barely hit adulthood. On the flip side we have Kossal, a grumpy old man in his 70s, who veers between the extremely grumpy old man, kindly teacher, and grandfather figure and terrifying, ice-cold avatar of death itself. Their play with each other, with Pyrre and the other characters that show up in this novel, is a very layered and interesting thing to read. These are adults with complex but straightforward relationships, who understand and love each other and themselves. It's an interesting thing to see in a pair of people who will also kill absolute strangers because they felt their god told them to. 

This book manages to pack in a tense romantic plot with a perfectly sensible but out-of-left-field answer, a coming of age story dripping with blood and action, and a lot of skulduggeries and underhanded intrigue. There's a political/religious plot running through the book as well but it really feels a bit bare bones. Part of that is we're told this story completely through Pyrre's eyes and she doesn't care about that plot. Now, normally I would complain that this reduces the tension because if Pyrre is our narrator then we know she'll survive. That said, given the twists and turns, it's way more interesting to see just what her answer is to the questions of what love is, what life means, what death is, and her place in all of it than whether or not she lives or dies. Honestly, Pyrre would likely tell us that the answers people come up with to those questions are way more important than some trivia over how and when they finally die. After all, she would argue, you're gonna die sooner or later anyway so why fret over it so much? I can also understand why the 'bigger' political plotline was kinda pushed to the background, the book is barely over 300 pages and is tackling some big storylines as it is. It does a good job with the plots it chooses to focus on and the setting of Dombang and the river delta are incredibly well built. Providing a good setting for what I found to be interesting characters. Skullsworn by Brian Staveley gets an A- from me. 

I hope you enjoyed this week’s review which was voted for by our ever-wise patrons.  If you’d like a voice in our upcoming reviews, or discussions about future content, you should join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads  For as little as a dollar a month you can show your support for this work and get a vote on what you’ll see in the future! The poll for April is still up and if you join before April fools day you can vote on next month’s reviews!   Next week, I’ll be looking at volume I of the Magnus of the Library!  Hope to see you there and until then, stay safe and keep reading! 

Red text is our editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is our reviewer Garvin Anders

Harleen By Stepan Sejic

                                                                            Harleen

By Stepan Sejic 

So, this review wasn't really planned but when my roommate left this graphic novel in my room with a note that stated “review this.” Well, I have a policy of not upsetting the people who know where I sleep, and with good reason!  (Imagine if your pissed-off roommate was the Pinhead from Hellraiser, and you’ve just opened The Box. That’s what we’re dealing with.  Maybe that’s something you’re into, but Our Reviewer is certainly not.)  In all honesty, it helped that I was interested in the book. Stepan Sejic, a Croatian-born comic artist and writer, has been reviewed by me a couple times, although it's been five years since I looked at his work in this review series. I reviewed his Death Vigil graphic novel, which I loved, and his Ravine graphic novels, which I really didn't like. He's done other work such as the erotic romantic comedy Sunstone and erotic Supernatural story Fine Print for example (Hm.  I see a theme.). His wife Linda is also an artist and writer with works like Plunderworld, a retelling of the Hades-Persephone story; as well as Blood Stain, the story of a mad scientist's new assistant. Honestly, I do recommend Death Vigil and Plunderworld to everyone and I'm gonna admit I haven't read any of the erotic stuff, that said I have confidence in Stepan's skills. 

Harleen was a mini-series run under the DC Black Label that was released in 3 issues in 2019 and 2020. The graphic novel itself was also released in 2020. Now the DC Black Label is an imprint meant to allow creators to tell their own stories about characters in the DC universe without getting bogged down in canon. This honestly seems like a good compromise, keep the canon universe running for people who want it but allow stories that might not entirely fit to be told. It also seems to be taking up the duties of the discontinued imprint Vertigo, which is where DC printed its more adult content. Now let's look at the story itself. 

Harleen is Mr. Sejic's retelling of the origin of Harley Quinn and her fall from Dr. Harleen Quinzel, to Joker's abused and battered head-minion. Created by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini for the Batman animated series, she was originally supposed to be a one-shot character but she proved popular enough with audiences that they brought her back, making her one of the bigger recurring characters in the show. She also migrated over to the comics. She proved incredibly popular not just with comic book readers but also with the general public. Today Harley Quinn is an antihero who broke free of her toxic relationship with the Joker and is often compared to Marvel's Deadpool (She even has her own animated series, which is all kinds of adorable and based, for my communist variety of based.  Totally-Not-Pharma-Bro got kneecapped in the first two minutes and it was glorious.). To be honest, I kinda like the character too, although I prefer her original outfit to the modern hotpants version.

Now, one recurring problem is that some writers simply don't take Harley seriously, or romanticize her or worse her relationship with the Joker(Which is, you know, a problem.  Don’t romanticize abuse, kids.). Mr. Sejic however, takes Dr. Quinzel seriously but refuses to romanticize or whitewash either her or her relationship. Instead, he seeks to show us how an intelligent woman could be brought into the thrall of an abusive monster and end up with blood-stained hands herself. Let's make no mistake here, the Joker is an abuser and a monster, and Harley when under his influence did awful things. 

Mr. Sejic does this by presenting us with a very intelligent but isolated woman. She was academically gifted but because she was taken advantage of by one of her professors (look when you're a professor the correct reaction to one of your students saying she enjoys spending time with you is not to reach for the zipper of your pants(Can confirm.  It’s fine going out for drinks or something, but that relationship dynamic between a graduate student and their mentors is and should remain a kind of strange hybrid between collegiate and parental.  Mine even went out for a pack of smokes and didn’t come back, it’s amazing I earned my Ph.D.)). She is dogged by rumors of sleeping her way to a Ph.D. Which I'll be blunt isn't possible (Can confirm.  Even if you are fucking your advisor, you still have to defend your dissertation and get four other people to agree that you earned your Ph.D.  If you’re gonna bone your way to a Ph.D. you have to be successful with all of them.). This isn't helped by the fact that Dr. Quinzel is very self-sabotaging and prone to bouts of self-doubt. What she doesn't doubt though is her theory that the collapse of empathy and remorse is the result of a brain malfunction due to being in continuously stressful situations. We're actually shown some of the groundwork for this theory through her work with soldiers convicted of war crimes (It is also true to a certain extent.  Constant exposure to cortisol, especially in childhood and during puberty through the early 20s, leads to atrophy between the connections linking the prefrontal cortex with the rest of the brain, decreasing the ability of a person to self-regulate their behavior along multiple avenues, from being able to defer gratification, to controlling violent or sexual impulses.  Please please please, if you have a hard time controlling those, at least don’t combine them.  Being slutty is okay, being a bit agro is sub-optimal, but being rapey is NOT OKAY.). 

It's a theory that very few people take seriously, and everyone from Harvey Dent to Hugo Strange is telling her to drop it and get out of Gotham. However, with a generous grant from the Wayne Foundation, which seems to be funding any research it can find to attempt to cure super villains. As well as access to the patients of Arkham Asylum, Dr. Quinzel is sure if she can just find one patient who fits her model she can work out a treatment to rebuild empathy and reform even a supervillain. As she interviews one after another, she finally finds someone who will fit, she thinks. The clown prince himself, the Joker. (See, I’d start with normal criminals first, lay the groundwork with a big sample-size, and then try it out at Arkham… But there’s that self-sabotage…{Actually in this case it’s because Dent keeps her out of Blackgate, the prison with the normal criminals.  Ironically he does it because he’s worried that she would get hurt or worse get used and then get hurt} Wait. In what universe do district attorneys have a say in the administration of prisons?  Also: way to go Harv…{The one where Joker just keeps getting sent to the same Aslyum that never shows any progress in his treatment and he keeps breaking out of})

As she desperately tries to make herself believe that there's more than a monster under that clown's white skin, Dr. Quinzel finds herself emotionally invested in the Joker who draws her deeper and deeper into a relationship that breaks every damn rule of psychotherapy. It's a voyage of the damned in a lot of ways as we watch Dr. Quinzel justify and rationalize her every step into hell.  She willfully blinds herself to all the red flags on the way. Worse, she is smart enough to know what she is doing but is so lonely and desperate for not just validation but simple human acknowledgment that she can't help herself. Driven by a combination of PTSD, unhealthy attachment, and vulnerability, she is played like a violin and we're taken along for the ride. (Actually, while we’re here, unhealthy attachment is a really common problem in real human relationships, even without abuse. I’d recommend reading another book.  Attached, by Levine and Heller.  While we’re on the subject of abuse inside romantic relationships, I also want to make something clear.  If you find yourself in a relationship with an abusive partner: It isn’t your fault, you deserve better, and you have people who will help you escape.  You don’t have to be stuck in that terrible place.)

This would be a difficult story to tell and a lot of people wouldn't be able to tell it without going over the line and robbing the story of the weight and thought it deserves; because when you strip out the clown makeup and fistfights with men dressed up as a bat, it's the story of how a predator finds and takes down his mark. Told from the victim's viewpoint. Now we don't see any physical abuse here, because this story is about the recruitment and the fall. That said we see rampant emotional manipulation, gas-lighting, and disturbing mental images. I would honestly recommend that if you've been in an abusive relationship maybe give this book a pass.  It might stir up memories for you. Because Mr. Stejic doesn't glamorize anything but he doesn't pull his punches either. Which is the kind of Harley story I think we need and deserve honestly. 

It also helps that it is very well written and the art is amazing. As always I'm a big fan of Mr. Stejic's art style, he continues to be very good at drawing facial expressions allowing him to communicate volumes. His dialogue and pacing are really well done as well and his characterization is just damn good.  This frankly should be the origin story for Harley Quinn. Harleen by Stepan Sejic gets an A from me. 

I hope you enjoyed this review and if you did consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads Where our ever-wise patrons vote on upcoming reviews and get to weigh in on new ideas and themes for upcoming months.  Our next review for example Skullsworn was voted for by our patrons in the March poll.  The April poll is up for anyone who joins for just a dollar a month!  Until then, stay safe and keep reading! 

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black Text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

The Candle and the Flame By Nafiza Azad

 The Candle and the Flame 

By Nafiza Azad

Nafiza Azad was born in the mid-1980s in the city of Lautoka, the Republic of Fiji. When she was 17, in 2001, her family moved to British Columbia. In 2007, she entered the University of British Columbia. At first, she majored in biology in order to become a doctor but she changed her major to English and decided to pursue a career in writing. She has stated that this was influenced in part by the career of Willow Wilson, an American-born Muslim writer, and by S.A Chakraborty, who I am sure regular readers will remember as the author of The City of Brass, which we've reviewed earlier. She earned a BA in English Literature and a Master's degree in Children's Literature, writing a novel as her thesis despite the advice of a professor telling her not to.

The Candle and the Flame is her first novel, it was published in 2019 by Scholastic. The book did rather well being nominated for the Morris award for time writers. Ms. Azad has said that lot of the book was her pushing back against negative pressures that she felt in society. Be it the bigotry being aimed at Muslims in western society or the fact that multiculturalism as a way of life was and is coming under increasing skepticism(By reactionary nationalists and racists.  The idea that a society needs cultural and ethnic uniformity in order to function is and always has been bullshit,). Through the setting and the characters, Ms. Azad makes her own stance and argument rather clearly but without straying into preaching from a soapbox or detracting from the plot or characters. Which honestly makes her argument in a much stronger manner than any speech could. But let's take a look at that setting and those characters shall we? 

The story is set in the city of Noor, the capital of the kingdom of Qirat. The city and the kingdom are split in two, divided into one half ruled by a human rajah and the other half ruled by Ifrit Emirs. The division and the reason for it are quite recent. Not even a decade ago, the kingdom came under attack from the Shayateen, a tribe of Djinn who thrive on causing death and chaos. Although in my opinion, they don't really cause chaos so much as mass death. Maybe I'm just being fussy but life is much more chaotic than death. After all, life changes, moves, grows and makes all sorts of noise and ruckus. Death... Not so much (You are thinking from an individual perspective.  For a society, mass death disrupts everything from normal commerce to family life; taking the web of relationships that form the basis of all society and casting them to ruin.  That’s going to be pretty damned chaotic. {For a very short period at best and their goal was to wipe out society entirely.  Frankly teaching the humans new technology and whispering new ideologies to them would have caused more chaos and on a longer scale}). Given the statements of the Shayateen within the story, the whole invocation of chaos seems to be just an excuse to be bloodthirsty monsters. If I was a creature of chaos, for example, I would be striving to create life and tear down boundaries, not create mass graves where nothing grows. But, back to the story. 

Because the Maharajah of Qirat had aided an old Ifrit searching for lost kin, he was able to call them forth to save his kingdom before marching to war. While the Maharajah himself and his oldest son both perished in the war, throwing themselves at an army of creatures they could barely hope to hurt. They did successfully save their kingdom and people. The Ifrit came, and because they are organized, disciplined, capable of forethought and tactics... And the little fact that their very blood is lethal to the Shayateen, they were able to save Qirat. Well, most of it. The army of Qirat was practically destroyed and the city of Noor? Every inhabitant was butchered mercilessly except for two small girls and an old woman (Case in point, a Kingdom that has lost almost every inhabitant of a capital city loses what centralized bureaucracy it might have had.  It serves as a center of commerce no matter what economic system you’re running, and that gets disrupted. There’s also a power vacuum with the loss of the monarchy - without having some other system in the wings to replace it after they unalive the Romanovs anyway - which will lead to a power struggle one way or the other.  Or if it doesn’t because the second son or whatever escaped, that monarchy is still weakened.{their goal was to kill everyone in the kingdom and then just keep on killing.  That’s all, they don’t seem to have any other goal than to kill things!  This is a crude and efficient way to spread or create chaos at best.}I’m starting to think I’d just be a better class of Chaos Lord.  Because I’d do some killing, then keep it going, slowly, so the system could never re-stabilize.). 

The new Maharajah, the second son of the slain one was heartbroken but grateful. Plus aware of the fragile state of his nation. He granted the dry, desert half of his kingdom to the Ifrit as long as they agreed to defend the whole nation against attacks supernatural or otherwise. The Ifrit for their own reasons agreed. In the years since, the kingdom and its capital, have rebuilt once again. It is prosperous, full of citizens from across the world due to its location on the Silk Road. Once again the city of Noor is full, with goods from across the world bursting forth from its market and languages and people from across the world teaming and echoing within its walls. Once again, the specter of danger threatens the peace and prosperity of the city of Noor however, as rumors of Shayateen and Ghul sightings disturb and frighten the good citizens and their rulers. 

Among them are the three survivors of the last massacre, an old woman named Laali and two young women. One is a creator of cosmetics named Sunaina and another is our main character Fatima. The characters work as a microcosm of the city of Noor in a way. None of them are related by blood but they all consider each other family. Fatima is a Muslim, Sunaina a Hindu but they not only call each other sisters but live together and clearly care for one another. That said their relationship isn't free of friction and there is a bit of petty and not so petty arguing and fighting between them. Which if you've ever had a sibling, you know is perfectly normal. It's when you have a pair of siblings that are utterly formal and clearly avoiding such behavior that you know something is wrong in my experience (Oh, definitely. My sister and I have a great relationship; and every time I see her I basically flip a coin to determine if I lick the side of her face and say “This Child is Clean”.). 

Fatima's life, much like her city, is one ringed in by loss. She lost her birth family when she was very young, only to be adopted by Sunaina's family and then lost them in turn when the city fell. However, much like Noor itself, Fatima works not to be defined by her loss. She works as a messenger and sort of postal woman, delivering small packages and letters through the bustling streets of Noor. Because of this and the fact that she and her sister spent time after the attack homeless, Fatima knows the dense back alley's like the back of her hand. She also has friends among her neighbors and a pair of mentors in her boss and the owner of a strange little book store that never seems to actually sell any books. A man who also is willing to spend hours teaching her how to read, write and speak half a dozen languages. Despite her struggle with lingering PTSD attacks, Fatima's life seems to be moving along quite nicely, so you know that's not going to last. 

Meanwhile, Emir Zulfikar is a Djinn with a rising tide of problems. He only rules half a city but he has to deal with the human Maharajah and human nobility. In all honesty, the Maharajah is the least of his problems, if for no other reason than the man in question not wanting to be a problem. Both of them have to deal with a conspiracy in human society as powerful nobles and landowners seek to eject the Djinn from Qirat so they can get at the lands and wealth that are under their control (That’s just downright ungrateful.  But that’s nobility for you.  They’re all greedy short-sighted man-children.). Add on top of that that there are increasing attacks by Ghuls - a type of supernatural monsters - on travelers, and increasingly, inside the cities. And the Ifrit can't find out where they're coming from. Layer on the rumors that the Shayateen are hanging around and you have a stressful situation that could boil over at any moment. 

This isn't helped by the fact there are also a lot of boiling tensions within Ifrit society that could spill over. There's the conflict between Zulfikar and his Wazir, who seems to delight in pushing at the young Emir and trying to undermine his authority. This is complicated by the fact that the Wazir is the son of the Raees, the leader of Ifrit society. So when a high-ranking and magically powerful Ifrit dies under extremely suspicious circumstances and his power doesn't pass on to his heir like it's supposed to, it’s trouble that Zulfikar doesn't need. It's made worse when the only witness to the death and the only person who can give him any leads is our protagonist, Fatima. 

Zulfikar and Fatima are now having to learn to work together while dealing with unseen dangers and hidden enemies on all sides. They have to figure out what killed the Ifrit in question, why he was living hidden away in human society, what happened to his power and what they must do when they find it. Ms. Azad does a good job in making sure that answering these questions only leads to more questions and even greater dangers. Which helps keep the tension going without making the plot feel like it's dragging forward. 

The Ifrits are honestly pretty interesting to me, they're a matriarchal society but clearly, men are allowed to rise pretty high if they're allowed to rule entire cities. While they talk a lot about being devoted to reason and order, they're also pretty emotional people. That said, they're also a lot blunter and plain-spoken about those emotions than most human beings. Where we have a tendency to sit on our grievances and avoid expressing ourselves if it might lead to conflict; the Ifrit see no problem in just laying everything out in public and if the listener has a problem with that, so much the worse for them. There are certainly a lot of pros for such an approach, but I would think doing that too often in a human context would leave a person a bit isolated. 

The pacing and the characterizations are also rather well done, as are the relationships and most of the conflicts between the characters. For example, the relationship between the Maharajah and his wife is rather sweet and endearing. The characters all have rather decent arcs and grow in how they understand each other and themselves, which is nice to see. Even loss and grieving are tackled rather well in this book as we're shown the characters grappling with grief in mostly if not always healthy ways. To be honest, it's just nice to read a book where the characters don't burn every bridge in the pursuit of madness and power every now and again. There is also a restrained but somewhat interesting romance plot in the book.  I'm not sure I can call it a slow burn but it does simmer nicely for most of the book. 

That said, I felt that this book had an awful lot of telling instead of showing. For example, we are told rather quickly and somewhat awkwardly about the history of the attack on the City of Noor at the beginning of the book. A number of the villains also come across as a bit one-dimensional.  One of them, for example, is supposed to be a charismatic and popular person, but at no time did we see any charisma from him. Frankly, the character was an unlikeable and petty bully on top of a sex harasser and pest from his first appearance to the end. There are plenty of people like this in the real world but if you're going to claim someone is charismatic, show him being charismatic. I also regard the ending as a bit too pat and neat honestly. Once the good guys figure out what is going on and get their feet under them, they can roll up the bad guys rather quickly and easily. The Shayateen specifically were rather disappointing given how much the story had built them up. So if you're looking for an explosive and brutal fight, be aware you won't get it here. 

All in all, The Candle and the Flame is a pretty good book. Especially for someone's first novel. To be honest, given that it was meant to be aimed at teens, which I am emphatically not, my issues may be just an audience mismatch. So I would encourage my readers to keep that in mind when reading this book or if you're more worried about gray hairs than pimples maybe hand this book to a younger friend or relation. That said in my opinion this book is better than average but not great. I'm giving The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad a C+ but I think if I had read this book when I was 15, I would have rated it higher. So keep that in mind. 

I hope you enjoyed this review, which was chosen by our ever wise patrons.  If you would like a vote on upcoming reviews join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads The april poll is up and there are discussions about upcoming events!  Next week, by special request we review Harleen by Stjepan Sejic.  Until then, stay safe and keep reading!

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Breach of Trust By Gary T Stevens and Daniel Gibbs

Breach of Trust

By Gary T Stevens and Daniel Gibbs

Breach of Trust is the last book in a series by Mr. Stevens set in the Universe created by Mr. Gibbs. Before I jump into this, a quick disclaimer, both the editor and I know Mr. Stevens and my editor even aided a bit in the writing of this book. Furthermore, Mr. Stevens is a patron of this review series and sent me signed copies of his books (Same, plus I’ve co-authored other projects with him). That said, everything below is my honest opinion on the book but I would prefer that you, my readers, be aware of all the facts. I've covered Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Stevens in prior reviews and I feel I've exhausted explanations of the setting at this point. So I'll leave some links at the bottom to prior reviews if this is your first run-in with this setting and encourage you to come back to this once you're caught up. Warning there are spoilers for the prior books below so you may want to hold off if you're planning on reading them. 

Alright, quick recap, last book Captain Henry cleared his name in the Coalition and foiled a plot to turn Earth into a smoking wasteland. However, his Uncle Charlie, who was not only a second father to him but the man who helped him put his life back together when he was framed died while he was doing it. This meant that Captain Henry was never able to say goodbye and Mr. Stevens does a good job showing how this eats at Captain Henry. Piling on top of that, the Shadow Wolf, the ship that he and his Uncle worked on, the ship that gave Captain Henry a new lease on life, has developed fractures in the hull that will destroy it fairly soonish because of things Captain Henry did. The blow is compounded by the revelation that his best friend Felix who followed him out of the Coalition into Neutral Space was actually working for Coalition Intelligence the whole time, which causes a rupture in their relationship (Yeah, spying on your best friend is No Bueno.  Don’t be a narc for the feds.). The cherry on top of this ice cream sundae of pyrrhic victories is his questioning of whether he gave in to the frame job too easily in the first place and we have a man who, rather than strengthened by his recent trials, has been nearly hallowed out and is near his breaking point. Because everything that tied him to the man who gave a second shot at life is either gone or slipping away. 

First Mate Tia Nguyen also has problems with her unresolved past haunting her. In this case, the haunting is less metaphorical and emotional and more of the literal being hunted type. Tia is one of the survivors of a failed revolution on her homeworld of Hestia (I'll get more into that in a moment) and while that's always an issue, it's become more pressing. You see, a figure from her past has made his personal goal in life to find her, bring her back alive, and utterly break her. The goal being to have her sign an amnesty in exchange for forswearing the revolution and her socialist beliefs (Oh fuck that shit.). This man has the money, power, and the lack of morals to reach deep into the underbelly of Neutral Space and send all sorts of terrible people after her; including terrifying people that the crew of the Shadow Wolf has crossed paths with before and have a number of unsettled scores with. Tia is left with a stark choice: overthrow the government she's already failed to topple once, or be hunted by increasingly powerful forces until she is dead or worse (If at first you don’t succeed, try try again.). 

There are several larger issues at play here as well.  One of them is that the Coalition and the League signed a peace treaty. This caused the Saurian Empire to break the alliance and withdraw to their borders in disgust as the Coalition was on the verge of victory (Which is odd, because wouldn’t “not being invaded anymore” count as a victory?  Objective creep is a thing.  But then again, if you have not removed your enemy’s ability to wage war, they might just come back and try again.{The League as written cannot stop trying to conquer everyone, so the only way to ensure lasting peace is to topple the League government}). A broadly isolationist coalition of so-called Peace Parties holds the government in the Coalition and would rather slander anything that threatens their isolation as a plot to break the peace treaty than confront any threats beyond their borders. Meanwhile, the League has struck an incredibly unlikely alliance with the government of Hestia to fund a little science project, one that if it succeeds could enslave humanity forever (And there it is.). 

This is particularly haunting for Oskar, the ship's doctor of the Shadow Wolf, who fled the League and ended up on the Shadow Wolf. Because not only did he play a role in this project's predecessor but someone from his past is involved in it up to their neck. Only, they believe that this technology is the key to humanity's liberation. Arguing that this technology will end the war, violence, and anti-social thought forever bringing nothing but harmony and peace under the enlightened guidance of the League's leadership. A “guidance” that will be inescapable, forever. Now Oscar meant for the technology to be a medical treatment to cure crippling injuries, but confronting what his work has been twisted into threatens to break his very soul under a weight of guilt and grief that a normal human just isn't meant to carry. I'm being intentionally vague because the realization of just what it was and what it means was incredibly horrifying for me and I want to preserve that impact for you dear reader. 

Meanwhile, things have gotten worse on Hestia, which is saying something. Hestia was conquered by a cartel of mega-corporations generations ago using their money and influence to overtake them from within. Native Hestians are just serfs on their own world, not allowed to even grow their own food or make their own clothes. Because that would both deny the corps profits and give Hestians independence. Instead, they are exiled to slums deprived rural settlements and mining camps, and paid in company script.  They are constantly forced into debt for basic services and goods on a scale that would make even Jeff Bezos tell them to tone it down (Bring on the coal wars!  Resurrect the IWW and bring Mother Jones back from the dead!  Which side are you on, boys?  Which side are you on!?  As an aside, this is how modern neo-imperialism works, but with countries.  It was also how apartheid South Africa worked.). 

Meanwhile, the offworlders live in gleaming cities that Hestians cannot even enter without special passes, shop in stores with real money, and generally grow fat on the looted mineral wealth of the planet (Ah, Elon Musk’s childhood…). Frankly, it's a setup that breeds revolution and insecurity.  Even the Kabuki play of an elected government (of only preapproved parties) is only allowed to consider and vote on laws that are preapproved by the Hestian Corporate Councils. It's as if the US Chambers of Commerce was openly and outright vetoing laws and selecting the President while only allowing Chinese companies to vote. This makes them unlikely allies to the League of Sol and both parties are practically opening plotting to betray each other but the League needs Hestia as a safe place to test the technology and the Hestian corporate occupiers desperately need the technology to control the actual natives and rightful owners of Hestia. 

To defeat these forces, a combination of compromise and willingness to say no is required. Captain Henry, who has practically abandoned himself to a pit of despair has to relearn how to stand up and make peace with his past. To reignite that spark of courage that has led him to stand up again and again against impossible odds throughout this series and say no, I will not accept this. Meanwhile, Tia is going to learn how to make compromises with people who want broadly the same thing, a free Hestia ruled by its own people, but who disagree with her ideologically. This is in a lot of ways the core arc of the book, when is it okay to compromise? Who is it okay to compromise with? When does compromise become surrender and when does refusal to compromise become self-sabotage? Mr. Stevens does a great job of exploring this subtly through very emotional character arcs (It’s always been a strength of his really.  Complex emotional development with massive ensemble casts.). 

These themes are also reinforced by the actions and character arcs of Miri and Yanik. Miri a former Coalition spy has to make decisions on what's more important, protecting the living or avenging the dead? Yanik has to decide how much he is willing to sacrifice to meet what he considers his divinely given responsibilities. Both of them are heavily scarred by their past decisions and their struggle to keep living lives they can at least not be ashamed of also means exploring how much can be compromised while maintaining your core values and goals. It's honestly well done to see how these inter-lapping arcs reinforce and play off of each other. 

Of course, there's a lot more going on here. These arcs play out while the characters engage in firefights, daring jailbreaks, and desperate ship-to-ship battles for the highest stakes. Because if they lose, the very first steps to the path of complete and utter slavery of not just the body but the mind and soul will be set, and it will only be a question of who ends up holding the whip. It's an adventure that will lead you across neutral space and from the slums of mining worlds to the boardrooms of ultra-wealthy plutocrats. 

Honestly, I enjoyed this book, although I feel Henry's breakthrough could have used more foreshadowing. Also as always, several characters ended up almost completely undeveloped. Piper for example has had next to no character development and Cera was frankly a very minor character throughout the series at best. It's to the point that I'm left unsure as to either character's goals or motivations. This is a reoccurring problem with Mr. Stevens' approach to having large casts; there's never enough space for all of them. Honestly, I think merging some of the characters or just cutting them completely would have helped with some things (Yeah, you can’t really develop everyone…). 

However, the characters that Mr. Stevens was able to give focus and space to are wonderfully developed into people you could believe are real. With a variety of views, pasts, and ideas that help flesh them out and make them stand out from each other. Even the villains work well here, as each of them was fairly believable. Mr. Stevens even manages to give us a League villain that doesn't feel like a cardboard cut-out.  Instead, coming across as someone with very real beliefs and convictions grounded in something besides ideological fanaticism. Add in exciting action sequences and political wheeling and dealing and you have a satisfying end to the series. As I honestly think this is the natural stopping point of Captain Henry and Tia's stories. Breach of Trust gets an A- from me. 

I hope you enjoyed this review.  This review was chosen by our ever-wise patrons if you would like a vote on upcoming reviews and projects (we’re actually discussing one for this one summer), join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month.  Next week, The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad.  Until then, stay safe and keep reading!

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen