The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

The Collapsing Empire

by John Scalzi

John Scalzi was born in Fairfield California on May 10th, 1969. He was a 3rd generation Italian American, with his grandfather coming to the United States when he was a young child. He was also one of three children to a single mother, which meant that often his family struggled. He covers this in his essay entitled Being Poor. He was, however, able to get a scholarship and attend the Webb school; a private boarding school in California, and later the University of Chicago where he graduated in 1991 with a bachelor's in philosophy. He began writing professionally in 1990 freelancing for the Chicago Sun-Times. After graduating he wrote opinion columns and movie reviews for the Fresno Bee. He would get married in 1995 and the next year moved to Washington DC to take a job as an in house editor and writer for AOL. He was laid off in 1998 and since then has been a full-time writer. His writing career has been a memorable one, his first published novel Old Man's War (I highly recommend it) was published by Tor in 2006. It was nominated for a Hugo and Mr. Scalzi would publish additional works in that universe. He is also well known for the novel RedShirts in 2012 (The audiobook is read by Will Wheaton and it is an absolute treat). Mr. Scalzi has received enough rewards that going into them wouldn't leave us with enough space to review the novel. Let me just say that John Scalzi is a very respected author and he has earned that by writing good stories.

The Collapsing Empire takes place thousands of years in the future. Humanity lives scattered in the 48 star systems of the Interdependency, all of them connected by the Flow. The Flow is a poorly understood natural phenomenon that allows for faster than light travel along fixed streams from system to system. The economic and political systems of the Interdependency are centered and built around encouraging stable trade among the systems. This is done by traveling one-way paths within the Flow called streams. They sort of function as FTL rivers or currents pushing ships from system to system. When I say built around encouraging trade, I may be understating it a bit. With the exception of a single system, there are no habitable planets in the 48 systems of the Interdependency. The vast overwhelming majority of humanity lives in orbital habitats and none of the systems are completely self-sufficient. The systems are controlled by entrenched noble houses with trade being handled by Merchant Houses who have been granted total monopolies over certain products. This structure is undergirded by the Interdependency Church, a religion founded by the first Emperox (it's a gender-neutral title) that holds up the current social system as divinely ordered. The result is what we would call a hydraulic empire. A classic hydraulic empire is an empire that maintains control of its territory by controlling who has access to water, whether that be through flood control or irrigation. In fantasy and science fiction other resources often take the place of water (He who controls the spice controls the universe). In this case each of the Merchant Houses control resources or skills that you need to maintain human life in artificial habitats isolated in the void light years from any natural environment that humans could live on and each Merchant House lives under the gun of at least one Noble House with the Imperial House controlling both the center of the trade nets (so it can cut anyone who gets too troublesome off) and in theory enough military force to squash any single House (The Interdependency exists on a political tripod, the most unstable of structures. I can go on with the Dune references…). It's an incredibly stable and unmoving system as long as there are no problems with resource access.

As you might have guessed, there is going to be a problem. It turns out that those fixed streams in the Flow? They’re not actually that fixed after all. In fact, the entire Flow is shifting and moving, on a timescale measured in centuries or perhaps millennia but unfortunately for us, it's moving day. To be fair, it's not like humanity didn't have a warning here, the Flow cut off contact with Earth over a thousand years ago in the story and more recently another system was cut off, so it's clearly possible. However, no one wants to consider that the very bedrock of the system that has lasted for a 1000 years could simply decide to up and move away, except for a couple of scientists and their patrons. One of those scientists is Count Claremont, who was sent to End. End is the one system in the whole empire that has a planet that people can live on without much in the way of technology. However, it's poorly placed in regards to Flow streams, having only a single stream connecting it to Hub, the center of the Empire. As a result, End is a dumping ground for rebels, lunatics, and troublemakers who are allowed to fight it out amongst themselves as much as they like as long as they keep it confined to the planet surface and don't trouble the rest of the Empire. Count Claremont was sent here by the Emperox of the Interdependency so he could work without anyone bothering him and his work could be kept utterly secret. Because the Emperox was utterly sure that if the work became public that the vast majority of humanity would refuse to believe it and would waste time and resources fighting him instead of preparing for the disaster to come. Because if Count Claremont is right, each system is about to be cut off from one another for a very long time. Perhaps even forever and that means the only place where humanity is more or less guaranteed to survive is End. The place where they parked all their maniacs.

If that wasn't enough there are a couple more problems thrown into the mix. First of all the Emperox is dying and his only son and heir was killed in a freak racing accident, shortly before he started his own slide into mortality. This leaves everything in the hands of his daughter, who was born as the result of a short term relationship while he had in college. Cardenia is a nice girl, well educated, honest and strongly motivated to do good by her fellow citizens and prevent suffering whenever and wherever she can. She's also utterly untrained and unprepared to be the sovereign ruler of the human race and not really emotionally or mentally suited for the kind of cutthroat intrigue that comes with a throne in the best of times (You know, if I were an emperor and only had one heir, I would groom a number of backup heirs…{the law limits his options, not to mention politics}). Never mind the kind of intrigue that gets kick-started when you realize the entire system that your civilization and the survival of your species is based on is about to change beyond all recognition and there ain't a damn thing you can do about it. Because where you and I gentle reader would be throwing everything we got at ensuring our survival and the survival of the people we care about, there's a certain type of person who sees this situation and thinks to themselves, how do I use this to make sure I'm at the top of the heap when it's all over. Because some folks are perfectly fine burning everything to ash as long as they get to be king rat of the ash pile when the flames die down. Unfortunately the kind of steady state with very powerful ruling classes tend to encourage that type of personality in the ranks, which mean Cardenia not only has to try and prevent a mass extinction across several dozen star systems, she also has to figure out how to avoid being murdered in her sleep by people more interested in using it as a chance to take power for themselves.

She doesn't have a lot of time either, because the streams are gonna start shutting down sooner rather than later. In fact, the stream that lets people leave End is shutting down and when Count Claremont realizes that, he sends his son Marce Claremont to Hub to report to the new Emperox and advise her on what to do. Marce soon finds himself in a good deal of trouble as it seems a number of forces on End are willing to do all sorts of terrible things to keep him on End at all costs. Which brings in Kiva Lagos of the House Lagos, who agrees to get him off End on her ship and ends up getting pulled into the intrigues. To be honest, Marce and Kiva end up being my favorite characters in this novel. Marce is a scientist and a rather decent one who is completely out of his depth in dealing with people trying to kill him. Which is fair because if you develop a society where your physicists have to constantly fend off assassination attempts, you're likely doing something wrong and not leaving them a lot of time to do actual science. That said Marce isn't a coward or a bumbler and shows himself to be a fast learner. Kiva, on the other hand, is a foul-mouthed, oversexed, clever lunatic who isn't afraid to resort to whatever measures she needs to in order to solve the problems in front of her. If that means using an assassin as bait to blow up pirates so she can escape a system with a cargo of wealthy refugees fleeing a revolution to make up unexpected losses in trade then so be it.  I'm not sure I would want to be locked in a room with her but I can respect that level of bloody-mindedness and lateral problem solving and honestly, she's fun to read. Kiva is gonna need every ounce of bloody-minded cleverness she can summon, as she is getting pulled by Marce's company into the highest level of power games where people are gambling over becoming the ruler of the human race. Whatever's left of it anyways. That said I will say Marce and Kiva kind of overshadow Cardenia because if nothing else they get to do more.

The Collapsing Empire is a book of political intrigue as society unknowingly rushes to the very brink of collapse and I imagine for a number of readers that will feel very topical on some levels. The intrigue and plotting are well done and the characters are fairly interesting, although Cardenia is a tiny bit on the bland side. I like the effort and work that Mr. Scalzi put into the book. That said I do think the Interdependency kinda opened itself up to this by working to prevent any single system from becoming too self-sufficient. Even without a habitable planet, you can create self-sufficient living spaces using the resources of a star system. Most star systems are vast territories with enough resources (yes even water and carbon) and space to keep a technological civilization going indefinitely. Our biggest issue today is accessing the resources of the Solar System as living at the bottom of a gravity well (by which I mean our planet) makes getting anywhere else very expensive and difficult. Once you're out of the gravity well it's a lot easier. Not as easy as walking, but easier. That said Mr. Scalzi does address this in the book by walking us through the thought process behind creating such a system. I won't spoil the surprise though. It's a pretty good book, but I felt the ending was a bit rushed and as I said, Cardenia comes off as a bit bland. That's all I can say about it negatively. So I'm giving The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi an A-.

Next week, we start our celebration of Valentine's day by examining the career and writings of Dick.  Philip K Dick, the writer of Total Recall, The Adjustment Bureau, Minority Report, Man in the High Castle and of course, the work we'll be examining this month, Blade Runner.  Next week will be our first ever biographical post as I go over Mr. Dick's life and times and then we'll be reviewing Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (the novel the film is based on), the final cut version of Bladerunner on the 3rd week of February and ending it with Bladerunner 2049 to see just how far Mr. Dick's influence reaches.  Keep reading!

Red Text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen
Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders.

Rat Queens Vol 5: The Colossal Magic Nothing. Written by Kurtis Wiebe, art by Owen Gieni

Rat Queens Vol 5: The Colossal Magic Nothing

Written by Kurtis Wiebe, art by Owen Gieni 

Welcome back folks and welcome to the first review of 2019! Let me just say I hope your holidays were fun and relaxing and get lets right into it. We're opening the year with Volume 5 of Rat Queens. Created and written by Kurtis Wiebe, a Canadian comic book writer who has written for Grim Leaper, Debris, and also created the World War II comic Peter Panzerfaust. This volume's art was brought to us by Owen Gieni, a veteran artist who has worked on comics and webcomics since at least 2001. Mr. Wiebe has had some trouble keeping an artist, the first artist was dismissed when he was brought in on charges of domestic violence and since then artists have either had to quit due to ill health or conflicts between them and Wiebe. I cover this in greater detail in past reviews of Rat Queens. Speaking of, it's been a bit since we discussed Rat Queens so let me touch on the core concept of the series.

The Rat Queens are a group of lady adventurers out to slaughter monsters and make money; living in an anachronistic world of fantasy that would most likely remind you strongly of an old Dungeons and Dragons campaign. I call it anachronistic because the Rat Queens and other characters of the series don't feel like medieval characters but modern westerners living in a world where the technology just hasn't caught up to them. That said this is a fantasy so magic often steps in making up for the lack of technology. The Rat Queens are a group of friends who you sometimes wonder how they can stand each other but despite that, they're all willing to go to the wall for each other. Our characters are the wildly dysfunctional elf sorceress Hannah, the ever-sunny Halfling rogue Betty, the introverted human cleric Dee, the shockingly sensible Orc barbarian Bragi (seriously this woman is a responsible homeowner who invests her profits with an eye to retire while traveling a career path of murderous rage) and the dwarf warrior Violet who is the adult in the room whether she likes it or not. The worldbuilding in the story is honestly uneven in my opinion, there are parts that are great and interesting and there are parts that don't hold up so well. Which lends itself to the feeling that this world was born on a tabletop somewhere. The strength of the Rat Queens series, however, lies in these characters and their relationship to each other. This is not a smooth harmonious group, there's friction, conflict, resentments but there's also friendship and serious desire to do right by each other and that can carry you fair distance. The group is also buoyed by a revolving but strong support cast of characters like Dave the Orc Druid, or Sawyer the repentant assassin turned Captain of the Guard and Hannah's on and off boyfriend/sex toy among others. That said these girls aren't the heroines of epic fantasy; they're mercenaries willing to do a good deed, but they wanna be paid for the trouble and they intend to spend their pay partying hard enough to do a fair amount of damage to any town they save in their own right.

The series has had some rocky parts in its brief history including having to go on hiatus until returning after volume III in a soft reboot of sorts. This volume sets out to explain the reboot in-universe and bridge the gap between volume III and volume IV. To make the story short, volume III ended with Hannah tossed into an interdimensional jail (for attempting to rescue her father from a death sentence) and about to cut a deal with a demon to escape. Volume IV has everyone back in town as if nothing happened. I'll admit this drove me a bit nuts as the events of Volume III clearly happened in some form but there was no explanation. Well, this novel sets out to explain what happened and why there was such a change between the two volumes. It does so by tying in a mystery that only Betty our drug loving sneaky halfling can answer. People are disappearing and worse no one remembers the people who disappear into thin air. Except for Betty, so she has to figure out why the people around her are vanishing and what if anything she can do about it... Before she's gone too. Betty takes center stage here and we get a full look into her past which has been hinted at before and we also get a bit of a peek into Betty's mindset and how she views the world. Which is interesting all on its own.

There is a theme of loss and regret running through the volume and how we deal with it as well. Of how we deal with lost loves one, missed opportunities, or how we deal with the hole in our lives and relationships when someone we care about is gone and the effects on our remaining relationships. Even if we can't really remember who is gone, that hole is still there and has an effect. How we deal with that is shown in the contrast between Betty and our villain who I won't name because of spoilers. I will say it's an interesting way of having the Queens create their own nemesis and I'm really eager to see where it goes from here. This volume of Rat Queens worked a lot better for me than the last one, but I feel we're not quite at the glories of the opening volumes just yet but I can see the path back from here. Rat Queens Vol 5: The Colossal Magic Nothing gets a B from me.

So quick note, February we'll be looking at Philip K Dick, the writer of so books that you have actually watched as a movie. Movies like Bladerunner, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report and more. We're gonna jump right to Bladerunner or as the book is titled “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” this February and look at the movie and the sequel as well as discuss its impacts. Which I've touched on before but we could stand to take a longer look at.

Before we do that though, we got one more January review. Let's look at what happens when an empire collapses. Keep Reading.

The North Valley Grimoire By Blake Northcott

The North Valley Grimoire 

By Blake Northcott

It's time for the last review of the year! We've made a concentrated effort this year to bring you titles by independent authors and will likely continue to do so next year. In that spirit, I thought we should end the year with an independently published book and you don't get more independent than a book that was funded via Kickstarter. Let's begin with our author Ms. Blake Northcott. Ms. Northcott was born in Bramalea, Ontario Canada, to a Canadian mother and Slovakian father (as a result she is also is a citizen of Slovakia). She started writing early with work appearing in Seventeen Magazine when she was eleven and winning several local contests at thirteen. She would also live a semester in Japan, learning Japanese and some Spanish; and would also become fluent in French (Shocking for a Canadian! Shocking!). She returned to Canada to finish high school and graduate from McMaster University with a degree in English. Ms. Northcott's first novel was written in 2009; called VS Reality it was originally a script for a fourteen issue comic book series. When funding fell through, she self-published it on Amazon in 2011. It would end up topping the best selling list on Amazon UK in two categories. In 2014 she took a job with the comic company Millarworld (which published KickAss, Wanted and Kingsmen among others) as an editorial writer. She also launched the Arena Mode Saga, which ended up being the most-funded science fiction series on Kickstarter. After that, she started writing for Aspen comics and Dynamite comics in addition to writing more novels (...Okay, she is disgustingly prolific.). In 2018 she would go to Kickstarter one more time for her latest book, The North Valley Grimoire because in her own words, she didn't want to compromise the story. So how does this story hold up? Let's take a look.

Calista Scott isn't having the greatest senior year at the exclusive private Hawthorne Academy, where the children of the wealthy and powerful of the North Valley of Virginia come to learn and network. Of course, Calista isn't one of the children of the wealthy and powerful. Her Mother was a federal civil servant (given how close you are to D.C and the Pentagon there are a lot of civil servants in the area), her father divorced her Mother when Calista was very young so she has few if any memories of him. I say ‘was a federal worker’ because Calista's mother was arrested for terrorism and buried in a deep, dark federal prison, without a trial. If this seems odd to you that a federal servant could be arrested on US soil without a trail, well the story does address that fairly well. This led to Calista's popular friends dropping her like a hot potato and leaving her incredibly socially isolated except for two friends. The first is Kaz Hayashi, the son of two doctors who are constantly pushing him to study harder despite the fact that what he really wants is to take a crack at the pro-gamer circuit. There's also Jackson, a young man whose star is on the rise. The star quarterback of the Hawthorne Academy Krakens, Jackson was looking at his choice of colleges when he graduates; so when his family is found dead and their house burnt down... It's a bit of gut punch for everyone, including Calista. However, Jackson may be dead and gone but he left something behind for Calista that may offer her a chance to radically change the course of her life for the better. If it doesn't kill her first of course.

Jackson had a secret before he died he learned how to fiddle with the elemental powers of the universe through the use of words and symbols and he used that to leave Calista a message. This leads her into a hidden world of secrets, spells, murder, and government conspiracy because let's be honest, the governments of the world wouldn't be blind to this despite the best efforts of the people involved. The newly minted FATHER division of the CIA has one mission: to hunt down magic users and drag them into government custody, no matter who kicks and screams (Oh look, the CIA doing what the CIA does best! Morally questionable snatch and grabs followed, I assume, by human rights abuses! Huzzah!).. What brings them to the north valley (besides the massive government industrial complex within a stone’s throw) is a killer who literally drains the life out of his victims with a touch. So far, the feds have managed to cover up the truth of the killings but not only is there the constant threat of the killer becoming more dangerous but the cover-up could be torn through at any moment as the number of eyes that have seen this crime spree is increasing at a rapid pace. Another issue that is plaguing our not-so-friendly neighborhood spooks is the fact that magic itself is becoming more common and easier to use and access. To the point that some people are casting magic spells by accident. FATHER does it's best to disappear as many of those who do that it can get its grubby government funded paws on. They do this through the use of magical agents of their own and the use of magical technology, that they refer to techno-alchemy. Techno-alchemy was the creation of a single man, one Nolan Fox. Mr. Fox, however, burned his notes, stole a number of things from the government and disappeared.

I gotta admit the cover-up was the most questionable thing for me. Not that it exists, but because Ms. Northcott has made a magic system that is insanely dangerous to the practitioner and bystanders. I mean in this book alone we have someone roaming around using magic to kill people with a simple touch! This isn't a complex ritual this person is doing either, the killer is simply walking into convenience stores, robbing them and killing people by touching them. Consider how much American society fights over the ownership of firearms, and now ask yourself the massive debate over the power to burn people alive with a word, turn yourself superhumanly strong, or be able to carry a lethal weapon simply by tattooing yourself with the right symbol. How comfortable are you sending your kid to school, knowing the school bully might be able to stab them to death with their mind? How comfortable are you with a world where companies can force customer loyalty by using the right branding? Where that unfortunate man muttering to himself and tearing away at his skin on the bus is actually tracing the outline of a murder everyone spell? Or where the government can read your thoughts? On the flip side, how do you prevent this information from becoming public if people can do this by accident? How long before something explodes on the evening news that can't be handwaved away or someone too famous or powerful to disappear starts using magic?  (Honestly, these sorts of cover-ups are always implausible, but they become even more so when everyone has a smart phone and the internet. Some kid is going to youtube himself throwing fireball and it’s gonna be over…{Because there are no videos of people doing “magic” on youtube right now, it happens but at the moment most people disbelieve it because everyone “knows” magic isn’t real.  My question is how long can that disbelief hold?})The questionable thing is that it's lasted this long, as it seems to me that the cover-up is increasingly threadbare if you'll excuse the metaphor. Now, this does give the story a political dimension, but Ms. Northcott to her credit attempts to engage with it while avoiding getting up on a soapbox. This story isn't a political allegory or metaphor but does have politics present and frankly has to because it's a story involving a pretty big and diverse group of people.

Ms. Northcott, however, does focus on telling things through the eyes and worldview of her main characters. Mostly Calista in this case, which means that the politics that she does touch on are pretty basic. Calista is vastly more concerned with things that are more personal to her. Like solving Jackson's murder, getting her mother out of jail, not dying or being expelled and... Oh right avoiding being stuffed down a deep dark government hole for the rest of her life. I'll admit in her shoes those would be the top of my list too. Calista is written very realistically as a teenager, so her lack of experience and emotional maturity can sometimes be frustrating, although not as frustrating as her teenaged communication skills, but honestly, I like that. She is clearly intelligent and driven and capable. She also takes the kind of insane risks that only a high school senior convinced of their immortality can take. Frankly, she reminds me of a number of PFCs I served with (That is one reason militaries recruit teenagers…). They weren't dumb but a lack of experience and realistic appreciation of how fragile their lives were led them to make choices that would drive their officers and NCOs half insane (Only half?). Now add in the fact that Calista doesn't just think she has superpowers like a Marine boot would, but actually does have magical powers beyond the reach of mortal men. That's going to skew your decision-making process a tad. There are plenty of books or films with “teenage” characters who act more like people in their late 20s but in this book, they feel like high schoolers and this something brought home when Calista and Kaz argue. This is something to keep in mind folks, teenagers aren't great at communicating their thoughts and beliefs not because they're stupid but because they have no experience and are often grappling with these thoughts and feelings for the first time ever. Additionally, because of that same lack of experience, it means that even normal arguments can explode into hormone-fueled dramatic tragedies. Even when there isn't the stress of a life or death situation. Ms. Northcott very capably works this characterization for her characters so I fully believe that Calista and Kaz aren't stupid or suicidal but instead are just teenagers without the experience or training to realize just how insane half the things they're doing are. Course they're in an insane situation, how do you catch a serial killer wizard and duck government agents without getting a little crazy?

Characterization is a great strength in the novel, as there are a large number of supporting and minor characters but none of them seem to be just acting as the plot demands. Each character that we spend any amount of time with has their own motivations, desires, and worldviews that logically and consistently drive their actions. My only complaint on the characterization front that there are so many characters that we frankly didn't spend enough time with some of them. For example, the substitute history teacher gets an interesting scene or two that should have been built on more in my opinion and the lack of time he got in the book did pull things down a bit (I almost feel like there were scenes that were cut from the final draft). I could say the same thing about Calista's Uncle, who seemed fairly interesting and I wish there was more space for him in the plot. As for the plot, it's well written and not hard to follow but I do think that Ms. Northcott might have tried to do too much in one book. She wasn't able to devote as much space to the more dangerous antagonist as that character deserved. That said the action is well written, Ms. Northcott writes very good and emotionally driven action scenes where she firmly plants you in the head of the character in danger. This makes the action feel very immediate when you're reading it and pushes the pace of the plot. Her magic system is also very interesting. It's driven by written symbols and spoken words (which are honestly just another type of symbol) that cause effects in the real world. It's not enough to have the symbol and words, however, you need the belief and will to power it. Once you have that and endless practice, however... Of course, there is a shortcut, blood magic, magic powered by blood is faster and easier but it leads to the temptation to use other people's blood and not ask first. That said, Ms. Northcott avoids info dumping everything on us and in doing so preserves the mystery of magic. In a world where most writers tend to want to stuff every piece of information they can into the story, it's a welcome change. I would suggest to any writer reading this, it's important that you know what the limits and rules of a magic system are when you're writing it. However, it's much less important for the reader to know it as long you remain consistent in your application of those rules but we'll talk more on that in the future. The North Valley Grimoire by Blake Northcott gets a B+ and I am fully on board for any other books set in the same universe.  If you enjoy urban fantasy with a bit of conspiracy, this is your wheelhouse.


Full disclosure, I backed this book on Kickstarter and honestly... I'm glad I did. This was a good book to end our year with. As usual, we are shutting down for a few weeks but we will return on January 18th, 2019 with a whole new review!

I would have a nice end-year message for everyone, but honestly, I just can’t think of a good one right now so… Yeah. Happy holidays and a happy new year I suppose. May fortune smile upon you etc.  Until then, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and have a marvelous new year and as always... Keep Reading!

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen.
Black text is your reviwer Garvin Anders. 

Kings of the Wild By Nicholas Eames

Kings of the Wild

By Nicholas Eames

Nicholas Eames was born in Wingham Ontario, Canada. He started writing in high school and actually got himself in a fair amount of trouble over that since he was supposed to be doing school work. His teacher actually sent the story to Ed Greenwood (creator of D&D's Forgotten Realms setting) who commented he had the fire needed for a good storyteller. Mr. Eames would take that comment and... put it on the shelf along with his written work when he headed off to college majoring in theater arts. In his own words, he would abandon that to pursue the more workable career of an epic fantasy writer. Kings of the Wyld is his first novel, published in 2017 by Orbit (an imprint owned by the French company Hatchette Livre, which isn't owned by Random House or Amazon... Yet). It takes place in a world where adventurers live and are treated like rock stars. Let's take a look at it.

Clay “Slowhand” Cooper was a mercenary hero once upon a time; known for wielding Blackheart, a shield he carved from a massive Trent (basically a tree that can move, sort of like the Ents from Lord of the Rings) after killing it for trying to wipe out a town. As part of the elite band ‘Saga’, he traveled the kingdoms of Grandual fighting monsters and committing deeds both fair and foul for money. They fought Hydras, Dragons, Manticores, Trolls, Giants and more. They saved Princesses, liberated cities and towns, and partied with grateful citizens of all social classes and standing. Saga even braved the depths of the Heartwyld; a vast dangerous monster-ridden wood where staying too long can lead to you contracting the Rot. A type of magically powered leprosy that causes your body to slowly rot away. However once upon a time was a long time ago, the band has broken up and gone their separate ways and frankly, Clay is content with that. He's gotten himself a nice side job as a watchmen, married above himself to a pretty if demanding wife who is determined to break him of his few remaining bad habits, and had a daughter; a young lady who loves rampaging in the swamp near his home collecting frogs and other creatures. Sure, Clay has mostly pissed away the riches he earned as a mercenary but all things considered, he's done better than he really thinks he deserves. His buddy Gabriel, on the other hand, has lost his wife, lives hand to mouth on a good day and won't let go of his dreams of reliving the past. Clay could live with that if Gabriel would stop coming by and trying to rope him into those dreams, events that only cause issues with Clay's wife who isn't enthralled with the idea of an aging husband risking life and limb in the pursuit of glory and old dreams. So, for the most part, he tells Gabriel no, has some drinks and sends him on his way. Until Gabriel shows up one last time...

Clay isn't the only member of the band to have had kids. Gabriel also has a daughter named Rose. Unfortunately for them, Rose is definitely her father's daughter and has decided to have a go at being a mercenary hero herself. She started her career by killing a Cyclops at 16. That earned her the nickname Bloody Rose and she decided she could only go up from there. When Rose told Daddy dearest, Gabriel tried to talk her out of it and when that didn't work, he tried yelling her out of it, which never works. Rose went off, got her own band together and took a shot at the brass ring and landed right into trouble. On the other side the Heartwyld, past the trees that scream to mark the rising sun and the cannibal tribes who eat each other because of a lack of options, on the other side of the mountains infested with tribes of Trolls and Giants is the Republic of Castia. A city-state that until recently was a wealthy and prosperous place to live. Now it's a death trap surrounded by a horde of monsters and their allies over a 100,000 strong defended by the broken remains of the Republic Army and the mercenaries they had hired all of them wise enough to know that all they can hope for is a quick death. Because while the monsters take prisoners, they don't do human rights. Gabriel is a broken down, tired old man, whose best days are behind him, he sold off his gear piece by piece just to afford another month's rent and some cheap wine to forget what he sold. Gabriel, however, is still a Father and he isn't going to abandon his only child to a fate most likely worst then death without even trying to save her. Clay's a father to and while he really just wants to stay home and let the past be the past... He ain't gonna be able to look his wife and daughter in the eye if he abandons Gabriel and Rose. So like it or not... They're getting the band back together and if the world doesn't like that... Well so much for worse for the world.

That's easier said than done. First, they have to survive the world that their battles helped make and deal with a number of demons from their past. Whether it be ex-managers and ex-wives, colorful bandits with a sense of humor, or monsters they thought safely slain. It may also mean confronting the new band system that has risen up since they broke up and retired. See, mercenaries don't go out into the wilderness to hunt down monsters and slaughter them away from the comforts of civilization anymore. I mean, no one sees you do it, which reduces the glory you get for it. So instead the cities of humanity have built massive arenas, sending out mercenaries to capture monsters and breeding them in large spaces under the arena to provide an endless stream of sword fodder for would be glory hunters to disembowel every Saturday for the entertainment of the entire family. So the members of Saga find themselves looking at a world that has become somewhat... Less since their heyday, with what was once their virtually needed profession turned into a form of cheap entertainment for the masses and the fact that they made all of this possible in the first place. I found myself putting down the book and really having to chew on that for more for a while, as whether or not he meant to, Mr. Eames has delivered more than a little social commentary with this part of the book. The men of Saga may have the kind of men who would drink to much, drug manically, sleep with anything that said yes, and fight anything that gave them lip to the point that even Clay began to wonder what the difference really was between a human mercenary and an Orc but there was a need and purpose driving their lifestyles. Now? They're a diversion. A way to keep the common masses from asking too many questions and instead focusing on who they're going to see die tomorrow night.

A couple members of Saga also have to be rescued from their current lives, whether that means rescuing a man from a palace, from his research obsession, or a prison cell where he's stood as a stone statue for 20 years. As while some of the members of Saga may be materially better off than others, it does seem that only Clay has actually done well for himself. In doing this the band has to confront their mistakes and short falls as people and adventurers; including the fact that this horde may have its origins buried in their own actions from decades ago. They also have to reignite the common bond that held them together as a unit against the whole world and remember the friendship that made their legendary acts possible in the first place. So this becomes a story of relationships and the consequences of those relationships. Whether it's the bonds between a Father and his somewhat estranged Daughter, between lost spouse and grieving survivor, or between friends who have spent many years apart. Mr. Eames does a wonderfully realistic job of showing a close-knit group of men coming back together. Each of the band relates to each other in different ways, specialized friendships within the band are present, which is what happens in groups. Even close knit ones. The relationships are functional ones as well, so this isn't a dysfunctional band of ragged misfits. This is a group of men who honestly enjoy one another's company and that covers for the fact that they're old, fat and not as fast or strong as they used to be. Saga is just gonna have to hope that old age and experience can provide them with enough trickery to overcome the speed and strength of youth.

Mr. Eames also provides a good amount of humor mostly provided by Clay, as the story is told from his first-hand perspective. This is honestly the best choice as Clay is the most adult member of Saga and the most relatable character in the story. The humor also helps lighten the dark tone of the world a good deal. This leaves the book striking a rather nice balance, it's dark enough to be serious and is easily epic but is funny enough that you're not reaching for your anti-depressants after reading Chapter 1 (Like you will if you read anything by R. Scott Bakker). If you're a fan of 70s rock, you'll also find a number of references scattered throughout the book and the idea of equating the classical band of adventurers to a rock band has way more juice in it then I would have thought just picking up the book. Mr. Eames also does a good job of capturing the frantic energy of his action and sheer mania it takes to fight something the size of a bus with teeth long enough to qualify as a gladius. This book was recommended to me by one of my readers and I'm really glad I read it. Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames gets an A from me. Pick it up, you'll have fun. 

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

So next week, we going to go modern as I look at an Urban Fantasy from Kickstarter. We're looking at The North Valley Grimoire by Blake Northcott.  Keep reading!

Provenance By Ann Leckie

Provenance 

By Ann Leckie 

Ann Leckie was born March 2, 1966, in Toledo Ohio. She graduated from Washington University with a degree in music in 1989 and since then has worked as a waitress, receptionist, a rodman in a survey crew, and as a sound engineer. She didn't turn her hand to writing until after getting married and having children. She was by her own statement driven to writing out of boredom as she was at the time a stay at home Mother. Her first novel Ancillary Justice was first sketched out in 2002, but she didn't start seriously working on it until 2006. She wouldn't finish it until 2012 when it was picked up by Orbit Publishing. So if you're ever feeling like you're taking to long to work on your own novel, remember that six years of work from Mrs. Leckie translates to a novel that would win the Hugo and Nebula award for best novel, the Arthur C Clarke award for best science fiction and many, many more. So don't be so hard on yourself. Mrs. Leckie would also write two sequels Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, which also in their turns won awards. Provenance is set in the same universe as that trilogy but far far away from the events of those novels, allowing us to examine events going on completely independent of Breq's actions. Let's turn to them, shall we?

Ingray is a young lady in a complicated position. Adopted from a public creche by a popular and powerful politician, she is locked in a struggle with her adopted brother over who will inherit not just her Mother's wealth and position but her very name and career. While Ingray is loved and cared for by her Mother, it's very clear that her brother, Danach is very favored over her and there seems to be little she can do to change that. This leaves her feeling like she's in a trap with the walls closing in as she has worked her whole life to inherit from her adopted Mother. If she does not inherit, she may not just lose a chance at power and influence but what little of both she has managed to build up on her own; as she has been working for her Mother's political office and helping manage her political campaigns. Would her brother want to keep her around once he inherits? Would she even want to stay and spend the rest of her life toiling in his shadow? That said, where would she go if she wanted to leave? These are hard enough questions even when the stakes are low but for Ingray, the stakes are life as she knows it. However, Ingray isn't someone who just sits on her rear and dithers while everything spins apart. When a young man in a similar position to hers is convicted of stealing the artifacts of his adopted family and shipped off to a type of prison called Compassionate Removal, Ingray sees an opportunity to achieve something. Something big, bold, and impossible to ignore. Something that not only proves to her Mother her worth but puts one of her Mother's political opponents in her debt. We can also see that whatever Ingray's faults she does not suffer from a lack of ambition. So she heads off to the neighboring system of Tyr with every scrap of cash she can beg, borrow, or earn with one goal. She's gonna get that thief out of Compassionate Removal, she's gonna find the artifacts and she's gonna become a hero or die trying. Of course, it's never that simple.

Family and the various different ways we build, understand and maintain our families are at the centerpiece of this story. Alongside that theme is the difficulty we can have when presented with an alternate way of understanding what a family is and who is part of it. I can understand this because if there's anything that seems universal and essentially basic, it's family. Families have traditionally provided the bedrock of our societies and are commonly considered to be the bonds that hold even when all other bonds of law, justice, and friendship fail. For the overwhelming majority of us, the role of our families in shaping our early lives, worldviews, and grown-up personalities cannot be overstated (My relatives and family, two distinct and only partially overlapping things, certainly created the creature whose red text you read today). We are all part of at least one family either by emotional or biological bonds, whether we want to be or not (For instance, Frigid is part of the Family I Choose). The idea that there are other types of families out there that have completely different ways of relating to each other and determining who is a member and who isn't can seem incredible to some people. But there are a vast array of ways to organize and maintain a family that is practiced even on our single little blue world. There are family systems that would not count your father as a relative, that would count cousins as siblings, that would say that a person can have three or four mothers and even more fathers (I have two dads and one biological father-who-is-not-dad, for instance. Neither dad is related to me by blood or marriage), these are real systems that developed here on Earth by human beings living in familiar environments. So imagine the incredible variation of family and what it means to people that would happen to a species that has not only lived on thousands of worlds but has done so for thousands of years with no common political or social framework to hold them together.

Leckie introduces us to these family systems and the people in them but leaves us to figure out how these families work and what the rules are through observing the characters and how they interact. Ingray's society is perhaps the easiest to figure out, as there are male and female parents, children, siblings, etc. It's also the system and culture we're exposed to the most as the story is told entirely through Ingray's point of view, so let's touch on this. Ingray is from Hwae, a system settled by humans long ago by other planets, that has functioned as an independent state for a number of generations. Unlike the Radch of the prior books, the people of Hwae have the concept of genders in their society and do make distinctions but the treatment of the genders seems to be fairly egalitarian since we see male and female soldiers, police and politicians at all levels of society. Adoption is common and seems to be expected of the upper class, although it is not just children without parents. Even well-connected families will ask a wealthier, more powerful family to adopt one of their children and this is considered perfectly normal (Not unlike ancient Rome?). In fact, it's considered good parenting, as it gives your child access to a level of education, connection, and power that you could never provide and that child may be able to provide additional favors and access to your other children someday. There is also an obsession with artifacts in Hwae culture that they refer to as vestiges. Vestiges are always physical artifacts of a past event, older, powerful families tend to have collections of them that they present as proof of their history and rightful claim to their social position. People even collect vestiges which can be almost anything; an invitation card to an old party, the guestbook from a hotel, a card that you bought when you visited the zoo. Having an old vestige that belonged to someone important or from a historical event is considered to be a great thing and can bring a lot of prestige to the person who has it and can be politically useful to an ambitious person (sort of how the early Christian church would treat supposed relics from saints or Biblical persons). As you might guess, this has created a market for fraud, forgery, and more. Which Ingray finds out about when the person she's looking to rescue explains to her in detail just what is going on behind the scenes in regards to vestiges.

This is complicated as Ingray finds herself drawn into alien and interstellar affairs. The Ambassador for the Geck, an alien race that allowed some humans to settle on their world but is otherwise isolationist, has taken an interest in the ship Captain that Ingray hired. The Ambassador insists that the Captain is Geck and a thief. The Captain insists that he is from Tyr and never stole a thing. Meanwhile, her Mother has guests from another star system. An archaeologist looking to dig into the past, believing that her own people might have been from Hwae or had lived there for a time before moving on to their current world. Any such discoveries would have political implications, as the nation that the archaeologist is from also has a number of imperial ambitions and is looking for ways to justify them. The archaeologist isn't alone, of course, she brought a distant relative but it's odd that she did so, since by the rules of her culture that relative and her aren’t allowed to speak to each or discuss the other person with other people. I'll be honest, I'm deeply perplexed how that even works within their society but it does make for some entertaining interactions. Imagine having a conversation with two people who are bound by every rule in the book to not only not interact with each other but to refuse to acknowledge anyone else's interactions with the other person while not being rude. When the survey on the dig site goes terribly wrong and accusations of criminal behavior start flying, Ingray has to parse all these relationships, and how they tie into the greater political actions going on in the background.

Ingray herself is a very believable and fun character. While she's smart, capable and often decisive in her decisions and actions, she's also very anxious and prone to feeling overwhelmed by the runaway events that are pulling her along. That said she's at her best when she's dealing with people directly because she's been trained from a young age in politics and politics is the art of dealing with people. While privileged by her upbringing, she is still something of an outsider due to the fact that she is unlikely to inherit from her Mother. That said, she was brought up in what I would refer to as gentle society so violence is very shocking to her when she meets it face to face. She's not an action character and would prefer to sit down with everyone and discuss this rationally over a hot meal. This makes her a very different character from Breq, who as a former soldier and ship of war was no stranger to violence and its consequences. Not to mention that in the first book of her trilogy, Breq was pretty much hellbent on murder So expect a much different main character this time around. That Mrs. Leckie is able to write both characters as convincing people that you can feel sympathy and root for is a testament to her writing abilities.

If you feel a bit intimidated by the Radch trilogy, this book actually makes a good gateway into the universe. Just be aware that there no common characters or events between the books and that Provenance might just spoil a touch of the trilogy for you. That said, it stands up on its own magnificently. You could read this book and none of the other books set in the universe and still walk away with a complete story that contains everything it needs to, to be understandable. I'm giving Provenance by Ann Leckie an A.

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen
Black text is your reviewer.

You know while it was great book, there wasn't a lot of action here. I think we need something wilder next.

Next week, Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. Keep reading!

Monstress Vol: III Haven written by Marjorie Liu Art by Sana Takeda

Monstress Vol: III Haven

Written by Marjorie Liu Art by Sana Takeda

It's been a while since we've covered this series, so let me start from the ground up. Marjorie Liu was born in 1979 in Philadelphia, in the United States. Her father was Taiwanese by birth and her mother born in the United States. She would attend Lawrence University in Wisconsin, majoring in East Asian Languages and Cultures and minoring in Biomedical Ethics (Woot! I too studied biomedical ethics extensively). It was while in college that she found herself drawn into the world of comic books. Afterward, she would attend law school at the University of Wisconsin. While there she would also take an internship in Beijing working in the American embassy for the Foreign Agriculture Service which was dealing with the Chinese government's newly created rules in regards to importing genetically modified foods. She graduated in May 2003 and was swiftly admitted to the bar. However, she quickly found that lawyering wasn't working for her and decided to become a writer She published her first novel Tiger Eye in 2005, and started writing for Marvel comics in 2009. She would start publishing Monstress in 2015 but we'll get to that. She currently teaches a course on comic book writing at MIT and a class on popular fiction in the Voice of our Nation workshop. Sana Takeda was born in 1977 in Niigata Japan. She got her start as a professional artist at age 20 working as a 3D CGI artist for Sega, she would become a freelancer at age 25 and found herself working for Marvel, in 2010 she worked with Ms. Liu on X-23. In 2013 Ms. Liu would first pitch her idea for Monstress to her and well here we are.

Monstress is a creator-owned comic published by Image. Volumes one and two both won Hugo awards for best graphic novel, in addition to winning a swath of Eisner awards for its writing and art and honestly, it earned each and every one of those awards. It is set in a matriarchal world inspired by 1900s Asia, a world that is still reeling from a race war and teetering on the edge of another one. The division lies between humanity and well...everyone else. Whether that be the cats who are traditionally neutral and focus on gathering knowledge and learning; the Ancients, immortals who look like various animals and tend to have vast magical powers; or their half breed children the Arcanics who trace their origin to interbreeding between the Ancients and the humans. Humans and Arcanics once lived together more or less peacefully but the rising power of the all-female religious order the Cumaea has spread a poisonous doctrine of human purity... Backed by magical powers they gain from using Lilium, a material created using the bones of Arcanics or Ancients. The last war ended in an uneasy draw and even now various forces push everyone towards the brink of a new war. In the middle of this Maika Halfwolf embarks on a journey to learn more about her past, who she was and what the hell is this thing she's carting around in her body? That thing turns out to be Zinn, one of the Old Gods, creatures that had been cast out of the world and can now only be seen as massive but harmless apparitions. Zinn, however, is very physical and even more dangerous, as he brings Maika plenty of power to achieve his aims. As long as he gets to feed and he loves best to feed on sapient life. Along the way she is joined by the Nekomancer Cat, Ren who has his own hidden agenda and loyalties and companion/foster daughter Kippa, who is a fox blooded Arcanic with no hidden agenda and a disturbing amount of faith in Maiko's ability to chose to do the right thing.

This volume opens up with Maiko fleeing to the city of Pontus, a city in the very heart of human territory but protected by a shield built by Maiko's long dead and lost ancestor the Shamen Empress, who is also the person who brought Zinn into this world. In Pontus, Humans, Arcanics, and Cats more or less live in peace but things are tense. The city is full of refugees fleeing purges and slavery in human lands, meanwhile, the shield is old and can only be powered by someone from the Shamen Empress' own line. At any moment the shield could fail and if it does, it's a death sentence for everyone in the city. Maiko, of course, is not helping the situation, having made a number of powerful enemies among them an Arcanic ruler known as the Blood Queen. The forces of her enemies have followed her to Pontus and are threatening the city. The government of Pontus thus makes a deal with Maiko, she and her buddy Zinn the life eating abomination can go into the forgotten depths of an installation build by the Shaman Empress or the city will use everything in its power, including weapons created by the Shaman Empress to kill things like Zinn, to subdue her and hand her back to her enemies to keep them from burning down the city. Maiko for once makes a deal and goes in with Zinn, to plumb the secrets of her ultimate grandmother and try to preserve some corner of safety for innocent people. Meanwhile, Kippa finds herself drawn into the affairs of the Fox People living in refugee camps. The refugees having survived one batch of screaming chaos, now know the signs of the approach of a whole slew of problems and this time they aren't standing still for it. They're planning their own way out of Pontus, hoping to find hiding places in the wilderness to preserve them from the wrath of a humanity gone mad. As if this isn't enough, Ren is called upon by his superiors to decide where exactly his loyalties lie and made aware of what the price of choosing poorly might be. Just in case all of this wasn't enough, we also have intrigue boiling away in the Human lands, as the Prime Minister of the Human Federation is making her own moves to try and win independence from the Cumaea and the remaining factions of the Ancients are making deals and drawing together to make their own plans for the war and for Maiko. Leading these people is someone who was once very close to Maiko, so the danger for her is growing by the moment and she doesn't even realize it yet.

Fair warning, if you haven't read the first two volumes, you're going to be completely lost. The story picks up more or less directly from volume II and keeps driving forward with no brakes. The plot of the story also thickens as we start to see moves by the greater powers of the world in the military and political sense as almost everyone has given up on preventing a war and is working to either survive it or win it. The writing is amazing and the art is drop-dead gorgeous, the amount of detail and the careful work of light and shadow in what is much more subdued color scheme then most comics creates a very unique and amazing style from Ms. Takeda. Frankly, I would tell any writer who had an artist this talented working on their series to do whatever they had to do to keep them, marry 'em if you have to, whatever. The world is dark but engaging and fearsomely realistic and the characterization is well done. We see Maiko as a person, she cares about members in her family but is still a teenager, by turns rebellious, angry at her unjust and brutal treatment and eager to dish it back to sullen and at times even happy and joyful. I can't recommend this series enough. I'm giving Monstress III: Haven by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda an A.

Red text is your editer Dr. Ben Allen
Black text is your reviwer Garvin Anders.

Join us next week for Provenance by Ann Leckie, Keep Reading!

The Poppy War By R.F Kuang

The Poppy War 

By R.F Kuang

Ms. Kuang was born in Guangzhou, China on May 29th, 1996. In the year 2000 her father - a former student who was at Tiananmen Square - took his family to Dallas Texas where Ms. Kuang would grow up. She graduated from the Greenhill school in 2013 and attracted by the debate team attended Georgetown University. She took a gap year in China working as a debate coach and like many newly liberated students found herself feeling strange without the specter of homework hanging over her every moment (the lack of homework can lead people who've been in school too long to do strange things, like review a novel a week). So she decided to write a book. She was 19. The book was published when she was 22. She is currently attending the University of Cambridge with a Marshall scholarship to earn a Masters in Chinese studies. Much like Ms. Kuang herself, The Poppy War is a result of the global system that we live in, allowing us to see stories we would never have seen in generations past; written by a person who in the past wouldn't have been allowed space to tell her story to western audiences. I'll get to that in a bit though, first let me discuss the story itself and the world that Ms. Kuang has been kind enough to write for us.

The Poppy War takes place in the Nikara Empire; once a vast and powerful state the empire could now be more rightfully considered a creaky confederacy of semi-autonomous provinces. Each province has its own money, it's own rulers and it's own army. In theory, they are united under the rule of the benevolent Empress Su Daji but in fact, they could barely be considered to be working together at times. This is unfortunate because the Empire has powerful enemies, chief among them is the island nation the Federation of Mugen. The Empire was once occupied by the Mugen, after being defeated in a conflict called the 1st Poppy War. The wars gained their name due to a strategy adopted by the Mugen. While the island is densely populated the fact is that the people of Nikara greatly outnumber them. Facing the problem of occupying a nation larger than their own and with a greater population base, the Mugen flooded the Nikara Empire with cheap poppy drugs. This reduced a good amount of the population to the state of hopeless drug addiction and the frank fact is that poppy addicts don't make good soldiers. On top of this, the Mugen played games of divide and conquer, pitting the rulers of the various provinces (called warlords) against one another so they wouldn't be able to cooperate effectively (This whole strategy seems remarkably similar to something that occurred historically…). During the occupation, however, three heroes, the Dragon Emperor, the Gatekeeper and the Vipress arose to unite the country and wage a long war called the 2nd Poppy War and drive the Mugen out. Two of the three heroes have disappeared and now only the Vipress remains to rule as Empress trying to hold together a nation in the face of possible destruction. What really ended the 2nd Poppy War though was when the western nation of Hesperia intervened after the Mugen committed genocide on the island of Speer wiping out all of its inhabitants due to their special gifts. The Speerlies were able to summon fire and they used that to fight the enemies of Nikara, as you can imagine that made them utterly devastating. The Mugen, fearing this ability, attacked one-night using advanced weapons and wiped out every Speerly they could find. This was over a decade ago now and Hesperia's attention is elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Federation of Mugen has a new emperor fully committed to conquering Nikara and taking its lands and resources for his people. He could honestly care less if the Nikarans come with that land, however. Which if you're a Nikaran kinda makes the whole thing even worse.

Our main character, Runin Fang (or Fang Runin, as the Nikarans put the family name first) is deeply aware of that. Rin is an orphan, raised by a foster family thanks to the Empress’ decree that every family with less than 3 children should take in at least one orphan. For many orphans, this was likely the difference between life and death and for a good number of them likely delivered them to happy homes. Rin was raised by poppy smugglers, who used her as cheap labor and were planning to marry her off to a man old enough to be her grandfather as a bribe to continue their work. Rin isn't just not-excited about the idea, she's violently opposed. She's only got one shot out of this however, she needs to ace the Keju, the Empire-wide test meant to find the best youths to study at the various academies of the Empire. She can't just pass it, however since most of the academies charge for the honor of studying there. She needs to utterly dominate the scores so she can enter Sinegard, the elite military academy where the best of the best study to become of the officers of the Nikara Militia. Their nations best hope of preventing a physical and cultural genocide at the hands of the Mugen military. The military is also Rin's best hope of advancement and doing work that actually matters to her. Of course getting to Sinegard is only the start of the battle, because Rin will now be competing directly with the children of the upper class for the right to stay in an academy with a 20% washout rate in the first year. She has to deal with students who look down on her for her skin color (the south part of Nikara is darker then the northern part, the northern part of Nikara is wealthier), her accent and her class origins. She'll also have to deal with the fact that some of the instructors think teaching her is a waste of time. So she has a year to learn enough martial arts, logic, strategy and more to compete with people who have been training for this from the cradle. The book does a good job showing just how desperate Rin's situation is and the kind of lengths she has to go to make up the gap. It also shows us how such a thing builds and fuels a desire for power within Rin. A desire to be taken seriously, to be free from the constant threat of having to live a terrible life or not even have a life to live and how far that will drive her. As a fun little cherry on top of all this, Rin may also have mystic gifts that most had believed to be just empty stories told to children. Rin might just have the power to contact gods that the people of Nikara don't believe in anymore and summon their power into the material world. Such gifts are dangerous though and there's a good chance that she may lose herself entirely using them, or worse, find that there's no barrier between her desires and reality. All of this while a possible Mugen invasion is constantly looming in the background.

The Poppy War is based on real-life events, specifically, the 2nd Sino-Japanese War or as many of us in the west would call it, the Chinese front of World War II (although if we're gonna be honest it started a good two years before any other part of the war). This is a forgotten part of the war in most of the West honestly but it's not forgotten in China. Nor is it forgotten in Ms. Kuang's family, her maternal grandfather fought for Chiang Kai-Shek, her paternal grandfather lived under Japanese occupation. During that time the people of China suffered horribly, as the Japanese military had for over a decade instilled blood-thirsty fanaticism within its troops and a disregard for the lives or even the basic humanity of their opponents. This was graphically illustrated in the Rape of Nanjing, the then capital of the Republic of China, where according to Western, Chinese, and Japanese sources (including members of the Japanese Imperial Army[But denied/minimized by the Japanese government in violation of all logic.]) the Japanese Military engaged in a six weeks of utterly brutal behavior murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians, killing surrendered Chinese soldiers, along with untold amounts of torture, rape, and theft. I mention this because Ms. Kuang bases part of her book on the Rape of Nanking and she doesn't spare any punches. To paraphrase her own words in a number of interviews she has given, she felt it was important to tell this story, especially given that there is a faction of Japanese academia who either claims that the Rape of Nanking was over-inflated (some of them claiming 20,000 deaths as opposed to over 300,000) or that it never happened and it was completely made up the Republic of China as wartime propaganda. In the west, the Rape of Nanjing was virtually unknown until the 1980s and 1990s [The Rape of Nanjing was one of those rare times where a Nazi could be classified as good. A Nazi official by the name of John Rabe -he was the liaison between the chinese government, the Nazi Party, and Siemens at the time - held his swastika armband up like a shield while protecting chinese civilians with his own body. That’s how fucked up it was. Granted John Rabe was very bad at actually being a Nazi and he’d been in China prior to the Nazi takeover.] While Ms. Kuang doesn't write out explicit scenes of such behavior, she makes it clear that these things are happening in the story and doesn't pull any punches. I would honestly defend this, as unlike some stories which use such scenes in a pornographic manner, this is presented starkly and coldly. It's not meant to titillate but communicate the sheer madness being unleashed in such a war. That said, it does make the book hard to read at some places and there are parts of the books that some readers would be advised to avoid and there are some people I would tell to avoid the book entirely for their own health.

Ms. Kuang as created a very well realized world for her characters to inhabit and shows us a high stakes conflict where losing could be the end of an entire people and the vanishing of an ancient culture as it's members are raped, tortured, and murdered. She unflinching shows us the stakes of such a conflict and the very human cost of refusing to admit to the basic humanity of your enemies while asking us how far would you go in such a situation? While the internet has gifted Ms. Kuang with the title of Grimdark's darkest daughter, I wouldn't call this book grimdark. For those of my readers who are unaware grimdark is a term for fantasy and science fiction that trade heavily on dark themes and grim endings. In a Grimdark fantasy, the hero is often little different from the villains he or she fights and the world is always a brutal, unfair violent place where the best you can hope for is being the one who does unto others before they can do unto you. There is also usually no hope of any improvement or change for the better, the wide eye reformer will end up the power-hungry cynic swiftly, the pure-hearted hero will be corrupted and twisted, left more brute than man. The Poppy War, while dark, isn't grimdark. Ms. Kuang take a great amount of pain to clearly present to us that Rin has a choice at every step along her path. That there are options beyond embracing the darkness. The question is whether Rin will realize that or throw herself off the cliff in the pursuit of power? The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang gets an A, along with my hopes that future generations will find a way to avoid bringing such stories to life.

I would also like to welcome back our editor (whose comments are in the red text), who gave the hunting parties a good run but no one escapes forever.

I am the most dangerous game, many of them died at my hand, but even I am not immune to intravenous ketamine.

Next week we return to comics, via Monstress Vol III. Keep Reading!