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Prophecy by Ellen Oh

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Prophecy has, in theory, everything I want in a fantasy: a female warrior protagonist, magic, political intrigue, romance. Unfortunately, the execution falls short.

Kira is a demon fighter, blessed (or cursed) with the ability to see the demons that have killed humans and overtaken their bodies for their own evil ends. To everyone else, though, it just seems like Kira is attacking innocent people, especially since the king, Kira’s uncle, has commanded her to keep the presence of the demons secret.

Due to her talents, Kira’s uncle has tasked her with protecting her twelve year old cousin, Taejo, the heir to the throne, from the demons and others who wish to do him harm. Her job not only puts her in harm’s way from the demons, but also from normal people, who don’t understand when she attacks people who resemble their friends. She also has yellow (or golden, depending on who you ask) eyes, which lead some people to think she is a demon herself. Unfortunately, all of her skills cannot prevent a traitor from striking the kingdom, and soon Kira is on the run with the prince and a few other warriors, hoping to eventually return and rescue their country from the traitor’s clutches – with the help of a mysterious and ancient prophecy.

The book is set in a version of Korea, which is interesting and makes it pretty unique in this aspect. Unfortunately, it still seemed a bit too much like the world of Graceling, a similarity that was enhanced by the plot parallels (warrior girl with strange eyes and special abilities must work for her uncle the king). 

I’m always kind of wary of books with a prophecy as a main plot point. Too often, it’s used as a lazy storytelling technique. Why must our brave heroes embark upon this journey? Because there is a prophecy that decrees it! I found that the prophecy in Prophecy fell into this category. It’s the driving force behind Kira seeking out a certain powerful item, a quest that seems a bit extraneous when the rest of the plot (demons, coups, etc.) is considered. The prophecy also involves a major secret that is rather obvious to the reader but takes ages to be revealed, making much of the book seem tedious.

Much of the story is told in dream/vision sequences, which often allow Kira to gain new information about the prophecy or a demon attack. I really dislike reading dream sequences (even the ones in Harry Potter didn’t make me a fan, and I’m a fan of almost anything Harry Potter). I tend to skip them, sometimes not even bothering to skim the text. I don’t think I’m alone in this.

So there were a few things that I didn’t care for personally, but I also felt that the writing was a bit weak, making this a below average book for most people. It tells the story, sure, but in a bit of a juvenile way, like the book is being written for a middle grade or younger audience (which it isn’t, considering the content and marketing). It couldn’t make up for the flaws in the story, as good writing often can.

I think Prophecy will still circulate among readers hungry for high fantasy, but it won’t be among their favorites.

Review copy received from the publisher. Prophecy will be available January 2.

Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst

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Vessel is the most unique fantasy novel I’ve read this year, and its execution is worthy of it.

Liyana has trained her whole life to be the vessel for her tribe’s goddess, Bayla. When Liyana dances and a magician speaks the correct words, Bayla will be called and inhabit Liyana’s body, displacing Liyana’s soul. The ritual kills Liyana, but Bayla needs a body to work the magic that will bring rain to the desert and save the lives of everyone who calls it home.

Liyana is prepared to sacrifice herself to save her tribe, but although the ritual is performed flawlessly, Bayla doesn’t come. Her tribe decides that Bayla decreed Liyana unworthy of her, and they abandon her to the desert. Liyana survives on her own for a bit, but her prospects are bleak.

And then a young man approaches her, claiming to be the trickster god Korbyn. He tells Liyana that the various tribes’ gods and goddesses have been trapped in false vessels, and they must team up together to rescue them or the desert people will perish. So Liyana joins Korbyn on his trek through the desert, gathering up the other tribes’ failed vessels of other gods and goddesses and heading east, toward the Crescent Empire, where Korbyn says the deities have been imprisoned.

The desert setting Durst has created is wonderful. Liyana loves her desert, though it is a harsh place to live. In one scene, she defends it to another character, and her words inspire love for the desert in the reader, too. Durst makes the desert a unique, fully-realized place, not a thinly-veiled copy of Middle Earth.

I loved many other things about the book, too. The magic system has rules that make sense, and it’s never used as a deus ex machina. On their journey, Liyana and Korbyn swap stories about the deities that we would normally call fables or folklore, but they also have an impact on the story and its characters. Liyana herself is protective of her people and her culture, but she’s not blinded by faith, either. Durst balances these two aspects of her personality well – she is neither blindly obedient nor the stereotypical rebel. The supporting cast all have distinctive personalities as well, even those who do not get much page time.

Many books start with a unique premise, but then execute that premise in a predictable way (Crewel is a recent example). Durst adeptly avoids this pitfall. Vessel isn’t a book full of twists and turns, but nor does it lead exactly where I thought it would. It’s believable and interesting throughout, and I never felt that I had read the story a hundred times before.

Lastly, I liked how the religion in the book wasn’t mythical (in the way that we consider ancient Greek religion mythical – fun, untrue stories that people used to believe). Liyana’s gods and goddesses are real, and they truly inhabit the bodies of others to work their magic. A lot of fantasy doesn’t go there, which is fine, but it’s more unusual to see it actually presented as the characters believe.

I know the cover doesn’t change what’s inside, but Vessel has a particularly striking one. I love the combination of pinks, oranges, and browns, and I love how powerful Liyana looks on it. The cover seems to depict her in the midst of her dance to draw Bayla to her, meaning that while it does depict a pretty girl in a pretty dress, it’s also relevant to the story. (And I’ll admit that I love looking at pretty dresses.)

Vessel is a great example of new territory fantasy can mine. One of the things I love most about reading fantasy is that anything is possible. The author has the whole world plus all imagined worlds to work with. Durst has done a terrific job with her imagined world.

I’d recommend this for fans of Girl of Fire and Thorns (for the hero’s journey aspect), For Darkness Shows the Stars (for the unique/believable world-building aspect), Shadows on the Moon (for the non-Western fantasy aspect), and possibly older readers of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon/Starry River of the Sky (for the folkore/mythology aspect). Its appeal should be wide to fantasy fans in general, but it’s a good example of story and writing that can draw in tentative fantasy readers as well.

Because I was curious and I figured you all might be too, below is a video of Sarah Beth Durst discussing the development of the idea behind Vessel. You can also read the first two chapters of the book at her website.

Finished copy received from the publisher. Vessel is available now.

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Blood Roses by Francesca Lia Block

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I’ve actually only ever read one other book by Francesca Lia Block – Pretty Dead, a slim vampire novel that was published in 2009. In anyone else’s hands, the story may well have been a generic vampire romance, but in Block’s, it was something else entirely.

Several reviews of Blood Roses, a collection of nine (very) short stories first published in 2008, call Block’s writing “prose poetry,” which I think is a good descriptor. The stories, which each take under five minutes to read, are loosely connected to each other and focus on teenage girls undergoing some sort of transformation – physical, sexual, magical. There’s a thread of fantasy that connects them all, sometimes dark, sometimes restorative, sometimes both. Block’s fantasy in these stories is a metaphor for adolescence and coming of age, and I loved nearly all of them.

In one story, a girl tells the reader that her boyfriend is an alien and explains how she knows. In another, a girl suddenly develops tattoos all over her body after becoming infatuated with a tattoo artist. In another, a girl meets a centaur and takes him home with her. Many of them are sexual in some way, and many involve other mature topics like drugs or family violence. While all of the stories are fantastical, Block doesn’t let her characters dwell on the fantasy aspects – the fantasy is simply a part of their world. (One review claimed that the characters may not all be quite sane, which is possible, I suppose, but it’s not how I prefer to think of it. It’s too literal an interpretation for me.)

Block’s use of language is always imaginative and always beautiful. She’s a fan of short, impactful sentences, unusual story structure, and interesting metaphors. The result is very moody, atmospheric writing you can get lost in. It can also result in some confusion as to what really happened, but that seems purposeful, and it doesn’t detract from the stories, which straddle the line between fantasy and reality anyway.

Due to the nature of Block’s writing, which is very different from most everything else, her books won’t be for everyone. Personally, I love them. She takes risks with language and trusts that her readers are mature enough to understand her. I often have a hard time with short stories, but these were a treat, and I think other readers interested in unusual, edgy fantasy writing will enjoy them too.

Book purchased.

The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy

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I’m really picky about the middle grade books I will read. They need to be smart, not talk down to the reader, and – perhaps above all else – funny. While the YA books I read and love can all be sorts of dark and depressing, I have found that I require humor in middle grade novels. The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom has it in spades, plus it’s smart and well-written, so it’s no surprise that I loved it.
The premise is pretty simple: we all know a lot about the princesses from our favorite fairy tales, but how much do we know about the princes? You know, those guys so vaguely-described that we just refer to them all collectively as “Prince Charming.” Healy’s book tells us the stories of four of these Princes Charming (note how the term is pluralized), and it should come as no surprise to you that they don’t all live happily ever with their princesses. Some of them don’t even live with their princesses, period.
The book begins by describing just what scrapes the princes have gotten into that have won them their princesses’ disfavor. These events get all the princes cast out of their homes in disparate kingdoms and, naturally, they eventually run into each other. That’s a good thing, too, since they soon discover that the bards of the various kingdoms have been kidnapped, and it’s up to them to rescue the bards (and their own kingdoms in the process). 
The standout feature here is, obviously, the humor. The princes are all goofballs of different varieties, and their characteristics are clearly exaggerated, but not so much that they become caricatures. The princesses, although they don’t occupy a starring role, are also easy to differentiate and run the gamut from nasty to, well, charming. All the characters have large personalities, and when they collide, it creates an explosion of adventure.
Healy has a lot of fun with traditional fairy tale tropes, poking fun at what we as readers blithely accept in a fairy tale, even though it’s patently ridiculous. He’s also full of some great puns. A certain professional review felt that the premise grew thin and the humor old, but I couldn’t disagree more. This is not a short book and I laughed my way through the entire thing – it’s so clever and fun. It’s a great read for kids who enjoy twisted or re-told fairy tales, particularly those told from “the other guy’s” point of view. It’s also a much-needed bit of levity in a fantasy field that is crowded with the dark and depressing.

Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin

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I adored Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Grace Lin’s Newbery honoree, when I read it in 2010. I loved the stories within a story and I especially loved the artwork. Reading the ARC of Starry River of the Sky, its companion book, is both wonderful and sad – wonderful because I get to experience it that much sooner, and sad because the artwork is almost completely missing. I will be sure to pick up a finished copy of the book to pore over the art when it’s released in October.
Rendi is a runaway, but we don’t know from what he runs until much later in the story. He ends up in the Village of Clear Sky and is taken in by an innkeeper as a chore boy, though Rendi is far from grateful for it. At the inn, he meets a motley group of individuals: the innkeeper’s daughter, whom he loves to taunt; the widow next door, who is always arguing with the innkeeper; crazy Mr. Shan, who dines at the inn every day but never stays the night; and the regal Madame Chang, who is much more than what she seems. Of course, in this book, everyone is much more than what they seem.
Each of these characters has stories to tell, which means the style of River mimics that of Mountain – the mostly realistic main story is broken up by fantastical folklore-ish stories. As the book progresses, these shorter tales turn out to have greater meaning for the larger story than initially thought. I love this idea, and I especially love how important it makes the simple act of telling a story. Rendi initially holds back, not wanting to tell stories as the others have. Eventually, though, after a bit of coercion from Madame Chang, he opens up, and that’s when his world begins to change.
Starry River of the Sky is a much quieter book than Mountain. Unlike Mountain, which followed Minli across a country, the main story in River takes place all in one village – and mostly all in one building within that village. This doesn’t make it less interesting, but it’s much less of an adventure story because of it.
I also found the story to be a bit preachier. The lessons Rendi is meant to learn are pretty obvious. It’s not a bad thing for the protagonist to learn something in a novel, I just thought it was more subtly done in Mountain than in River. The lessons Rendi learns in River are more overt,  more obvious. This could just be because I had read Mountain and therefore knew the style going in, but I don’t think that can account for all of what I noticed.
A difference that I did appreciate was Rendi’s attitude at the beginning of the book. Wow, that boy is a brat, and it was very refreshing to read. Usually the true brats are relegated to supporting characters or villains in books, but not here. As the story progresses, we see where the brattiness comes from, and we also see him change gradually. Rendi follows a true character arc.
Despite the differences, fans of the first book will be delighted at this offering, which is entirely Grace Lin and therefore wonderful. I myself am eager to get my hands on the finished copy – this is the kind of book that is so beautiful, it’s worth having your own personal copy.

Review copy received from the publisher. Starry River of the Sky will be released October 2.