The Midnight Land I: The Flight

Finished January 23

The Midnight Land I: The Flight by E.P. Clark

This is the first book in a high fantasy series that is inspired by Russian folk tales, literature, geography, and language. The series is called The Zemnian.  The land of Zem is a matrilineal society where the women hold positions of power and influence and the men are seeing as strong and good-looking, but not as intelligent.  Clark has built a complex world that has a court that is gossipy and full of plots. The Tsarina and her court live in Krasnograd, in a building called the kremlin,a generic term for castle. Her younger half-sister, Krasnaslava Tsarinovna (Slava) is a woman with the skill of deep empathy. She can feel other's emotions and sometimes even their thoughts. Her role at court is to attend and give advice which sometimes encourages mercy to the wrongdoer. She finds her life tedious and the feeling of being constantly bombarded with the emotions of others tiring. 

When the daughter of a smaller kingdom within Zem, Olga Vasilisovna comes to the Tsarina to ask for funds to go to the Midnight Land, beyond the trees and map what she can, Slava finds herself asking to go along on this journey and receiving permission. Slava's father was a warrior from the land of the Steppes, and she is proud of that heritage even though she herself has never been outside the city. 

Olga helps Slava get together a suitable wardrobe, including trousers, and picks a horse from the royal stable for her to start the trip out on. 

As they journey, Slava finds the experience enlightening, as well as physically demanding. It takes her some time to overcome the pain from being on a horse all day, and being able to keep up with the rest of the group. At first the vast forest they travel through scares her, and staying in the barricaded shelters spaced along the roads feels odd. She is gradually accepted by the men with conversations between Olga, her men and Slava happening as they ride. But when she convinces the men to spare an elk they came across instead of getting fresh venison, she feels an outsider again. Slava dreams of the elk and when the group gets lost, Slava leads them in following the elk back to the main road. This example of her ability to talk to animal spirits causes curiosity and discussion about the different animal and tree spirits that exist. 

When, after visits to other small kingdoms within Zem they reach a small village near the treeline, and must switch from horses to dogsled, Slava finds that her presence is helpful for a reason she hadn't expected. As they travel and Slava's skills grow, she dreams and talks to various animal spirits, but also of the tree spirits (leshiye) who seem to want something from her, at least until they fully understand her skill. This is a tasking journey, where the group encounters a variety of dangers from weather to wolves to thieves, and sometimes Slava is placed in a leadership role. 

The novel ends with the group in Lesnograd, the capital of Olga's kingdom, where she hopes to ask her mother's sorceresses for help in understanding Slava's gifts. But there they find a very different situation than expected, and new dangers await. 

I really enjoyed this world, and the plot. Clark has done a lot of work building this world, and it shows. I've bought the rest of the series and look forward to following the story as it unfolds. 

Slava is an interesting character whose empathy makes connections with others, and whose growth gives her strength as she better understands what she is capable of. I also liked Olga and her rebellious nature where she has spurned the husband her mother arranged for her and taken one of her men, who is thoughtful and caring as her partner. 

The element of nature is strong here too, and important to the story. 

Realm of Dragons

Finished April 8

Realm of Dragons by Morgan Rice

This is the first book in the Age of the Sorcerers series, which runs to eight novels overall. As with many first novels, there is a lot of world-building happening here, and lots of characters to get to know. 

The story takes place in a kingdom that has been in a tense standoff with one of its neighbouring kingdoms for years. The current king has decided to accept an offer of marriage for his oldest daughter from the neigbouring kingdom, hoping that it will lead to a more peaceful future for them both. His daughter is willing and her new fiancé is attractive and charming. But does his kingdom have an ulterior motive?

We see the stories of all six of the king's children, three women and two men, all teens and early twenties, and all quite different in nature. Besides the eldest princess, one is tomboyish and wishes for the battle training that her brothers have been given. One is quiet, bookish, and keeps to herself except when she is wandering in the forests, making some discoveries of her own. 

Of the males, one is honest and resolute and his father sends him on a quest that may result in him not being where he needs to be. The second oldest is a party guy, who also goes through women quickly, and is always looking for a quick win even if he has to cut corners or take advantage of someone. The youngest is bookish and very intelligent and is looking for answers that may help his family in the long run. 

Besides these, there is also the sixteen-year-old son of a blacksmith, a young man who is naturally skilled with the sword, and finds that his fate may take him to places that he never dreamed of, even as it leads away from his family at first. 

I found the book interesting and with some interesting storylines starting involving dragons, monks with unusual skills, and danger coming from the seas. I would be interested in reading more in the series. 

To Hold the Bridge

Finished October 20

To Hold the Bridge: An Old Kingdom Novella and Other Tales by Garth Nix

The novella of the title starts the book and was the most appealing of the contents for me, likely because I'm a big fan of Nix's Old Kingdom fantasy series. In the novella, Morghan, a teen boy arrives at the Bridge Company, hoping to use the one item he owns, a share certificate, hoping to use it as a way to becoming a cadet for the organization. The Bridge Company has been building a bridge over the Greenwash, the wide and dangerous river that is the northern border of the Old Kingdom, for nearly a century. As the story begins, the company has a cable-drawn ferry, a castle on one side of the river, a fortified bastion in the middle of the river, and several foundational parts of the bridge itself. The employees of the company are grouped into four seasonal shifts, with a change in shift imminent. As Morghan passes the tests set for him to be accepted as a cadet, we see more of his past and his character. As he joins in the shift as they travel to the bridge, he finds his place and gets to know his superiors and guard members. Once at the bridge, he has the time to learn more skills necessary to his work, and he faces a unexpected test that has him drawing on the magic he knows as well as the physical skills. 

Following the novella are short stories separated into five sections, each having three to five stories in them. Many of the stories involve magic, some in a world similar to ours and some in our own world in another time. The first section has stories of magical creatures that appear in our world. The second section has four coming-of-age stories. The third section has stories of struggle with magic working against a dark force. The fourth section has lighter tales, one of which plays on Sherlock Holmes stories. The last section is science fiction and has three stories that take us beyond our known world. 

A nice collection overall. I enjoyed the fantasy and magic realism stories the most. 

The Black Witch

Finished January 29

The Black Witch by Laurie Forest

This is the first book in a high fantasy series set in a world similar to our own. The current political situation is only a couple of generations old and unstable. The main character is Elloren Gardner, a 17-year-old who has led a sheltered life. There was a major war going on when she was very young, with her grandmother Clarissa a heroine for the winning side. Gardnerians made a pact with the Elvish people to create a peace, but it came at a cost to many of the other ethnic groups around. Elloren's parents were killed in one of the final battles in the war and she and her brothers Rafe and Trystan were looked after by their uncle Edwin, who brought them up in a remote pastoral part of the country. 

Near the beginning of the story, Elloren is surprised by an announcement from Edwin that she will be joining her brothers at Verpax University, to study to be an apothecary like her mother. Her paternal Aunt Vyvian, at the core of the Gardnerian government is on an unannounced visit and wants to wandfast her to the son of a prominent family.

This is a land of magic, where children are tested for magic at a young age and then classified into ranking based on their magical ability. Many other nations of being have magic as well, magic unique to them. Elloren has been told that she doesn't have magic, but she suspects she might have a different sort of magic. 

As Elloren is immersed into a world of diplomacy, rivalry, and infighting and forced to deal on a daily basis with beings she has had limited to no contact with before, she must navigate this with limited help from others. 

She finds herself living with two others, one a being said to be evil incarnate, of whom no males are allowed to live, and the other a half breed that is outcast by most of her mother's people. She must earn her tuition with labour after refusing to bow to her aunt's will, and work in the kitchens with those who both hate and mistrust her. 

Worst of all, she is the spitting image of her warrior grandmother and people assume she is like her in all other ways as well. 

As Elloren meets individuals of different beings, she finds more in common with them than she does with some of her own people, and she finds herself making choices that will shape her destiny. 

This is a story of a world of prejudice, with a caste system, and betrayal between former allies. It is a world where some are trying to build bridges, while others are planning mass genocide. 

It is also a world of unpredictable magic, of dragons and elves, fae folk and werewolves. A world where maybe anything is possible. 

I found myself totally immersed in this book, and immediately placed a hold at my library for the next in the series. I'm looking forward to seeing what Elloren and her friends get up to next.