Emma Goto
A fantasy book with some great plot twists. The story centres around Neema, a High Scholar for the Empire who belongs to the Raven faction. The setting of the book is that each person dedicates themself to a particular animal god - a fox, bear, raven, ox, monkey, tiger or hound. There's also the magic-using dragon faction that are kind of mysterious and live on their own little island.
In a way this reminds me of the faction system in Divergent, or like joining a house in Harry Potter. Your faction also determines what sort of work you do, and basically seems to determine your entire personality as well. Foxes are always playing tricks on other people, oxes are sturdy and reliable, the ravens are smart, and so on. In that sense the characters become quite the stereotype, which I don't really like.
Every 24 years, each of the factions choose a candidate and they fight it out amongst themselves to choose the next leader of the empire. Again this seems to call back to some other YA books that do similar things (maybe like Red Rising or Hunger Games - although not quite a fight to the death).
Partway through it also becomes a murder mystery. The author Antonia Hodgson previously wrote historical crime novels (this is her debut Fantasy), so I could take a guess that this is something that falls in her area of expertise. I would say the twists are this book's strong point.
I did really find this book quite interesting and I sped through in one day, but the funny thing for me although the characters are a bunch of adults, it almost teeters on feeling like a YA novel. Neema is 34, and all the candidates fighting to become the next emperor are probably also in their late 20s to 30s. Which makes sense - you wouldn't really want a 16 year old to be on the throne.
Yet, it doesn't quite read that way. If you told me Neema was 20, I would totally believe it. Although there's flashbacks to things Neema did when she was in her 20s and interactions she had with other characters in their childhood to help build this idea that she's in her 30s, it's somehow missing that maturity that I might expect out of a 34 year old. And I find it similar with the other characters as well (there's some bullying and a "will they or wont they" romance subplot which wouldn't be out of place with some angsty teens). I think the use of common YA tropes doesn't help.
Nonetheless though, otherwise a really entertaining read! It's made it on to the 2026 nomination lists for both the Hugo Award and Locus Award, so it'll be interesting to see how that pans out.
Originally posted at www.emgoto.com.
A fantasy book with some great plot twists. The story centres around Neema, a High Scholar for the Empire who belongs to the Raven faction. The setting of the book is that each person dedicates themself to a particular animal god - a fox, bear, raven, ox, monkey, tiger or hound. There's also the magic-using dragon faction that are kind of mysterious and live on their own little island.
In a way this reminds me of the faction system in Divergent, or like joining a house in Harry Potter. Your faction also determines what sort of work you do, and basically seems to determine your entire personality as well. Foxes are always playing tricks on other people, oxes are sturdy and reliable, the ravens are smart, and so on. In that sense the characters become quite the stereotype, which I don't really like.
Every 24 years, each of the factions choose a candidate and they fight it out amongst themselves to choose the next leader of the empire. Again this seems to call back to some other YA books that do similar things (maybe like Red Rising or Hunger Games - although not quite a fight to the death).
Partway through it also becomes a murder mystery. The author Antonia Hodgson previously wrote historical crime novels (this is her debut Fantasy), so I could take a guess that this is something that falls in her area of expertise. I would say the twists are this book's strong point.
I did really find this book quite interesting and I sped through in one day, but the funny thing for me although the characters are a bunch of adults, it almost teeters on feeling like a YA novel. Neema is 34, and all the candidates fighting to become the next emperor are probably also in their late 20s to 30s. Which makes sense - you wouldn't really want a 16 year old to be on the throne.
Yet, it doesn't quite read that way. If you told me Neema was 20, I would totally believe it. Although there's flashbacks to things Neema did when she was in her 20s and interactions she had with other characters in their childhood to help build this idea that she's in her 30s, it's somehow missing that maturity that I might expect out of a 34 year old. And I find it similar with the other characters as well (there's some bullying and a "will they or wont they" romance subplot which wouldn't be out of place with some angsty teens). I think the use of common YA tropes doesn't help.
Nonetheless though, otherwise a really entertaining read! It's made it on to the 2026 nomination lists for both the Hugo Award and Locus Award, so it'll be interesting to see how that pans out.
Originally posted at www.emgoto.com.
