Phoenix Extravagant
2020 • 346 pages
Ratings8
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings8
Average rating3.5
Dragons. Art. Revolution. Gyen Jebi isn’t a fighter or a subversive. They just want to paint. One day they’re jobless and desperate; the next, Jebi finds themself recruited by the Ministry of Armor to paint the mystical sigils that animate the occupying government’s automaton soldiers. But when Jebi discovers the depths of the Razanei government’s horrifying crimes—and the awful source of the magical pigments they use—they find they can no longer stay out of politics. What they can do is steal Arazi, the ministry’s mighty dragon automaton, and find a way to fight…
Reviews with the most likes.
Loved the themes and world-building, the characters were well-written, but I wanted more action and I wanted more of a story behind the fox-spirit character. This is NOT the mecha action book I hoped it was, but it was still excellent. Recommended.
This was a mildly frustrating read. It was on for a solid 4 in my rating until the last 20 pages...
The basic premise of the story is interesting - a magic system where grinding up artwork from dead artists produces magical pigment used to animate automatons, all set in an early 20th centuryesque Korea. Two very solid ticks with a cool sounding hard magic system and an interesting and less well known world basis. The non-binary gendering of the main character also added an interesting twist and the use of the plural pronouns to refer to the main protagonist gives an interesting reading experience. Even the family units are interesting, apparently consisting of three adults in a parenting role. The oppressive occupation and the cultural world building all gave this a very cool flair.
Unfortunately this did not stick the ending. It all just went a bit too whimsical and strange. Whilst there was a gritty realism to much of the rest of the book, this ending ended up feeling way to off tone. A shame, as the rest of the book was really good.
