Reviews with content warning for Violence - Scorpica

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

Scorpica is a solid epic fantasy novel that brings a fresh take to some tried-and-true tropes. It sets us up well for book two, and I’m looking forward to it.

For you if: You like epic fantasy with vast, sweeping worldbuilding and multiple POVs.

FULL REVIEW:

Thank you to Saga Press for the advanced copy of this book! I really enjoyed it.

Scorpica is the first book in a new epic fantasy series by super-successful historical fiction author Greer Macallister, writing here under the pen name G.R. Macallister. As soon as I read the premise — a matriarchal society of five queendoms in which girls stop suddenly stop being born — I was in.

Each queendom in this world has a specialty: battle, knowledge, trade, agriculture, and magic. The one that gets the most focus in this book is the warrior nation Scorpica, which of course is the title. We follow a handful of POV characters, including two Scorpican queens, a few Scorpican warriors, a mother and her daughter (one of the last four girls born) from Sestia (the queendom specializing in magic), the Sestian queen, and our villain.

This is a solid epic fantasy novel, and if you like books with sweeping worlds and lots of characters, I think you’ll like it. While the “each country has a specialty” trope is well-worn, I found that the twist of the fully matriarchal society helped it feel fresh. What’s especially noteworthy is that women didn’t have to take power in this world; they simply are more powerful and always have been, a true gender role reversal.

There are plenty of open questions and plot lines that set the next book up nicely; no cliffhanger, but not quite a tidy ending either. We also hardly got any worldbuilding outside Scorpica and a bit in Sestia, but given that the first book’s title is Scorpica while the series is called The Five Queendoms, that makes sense, and I think we can expect a lot more to come.

I’ll be watching for book two!

Content Warnings

aroseshaw's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

“She had all-magic”

📖Scorpica by GR Macallister

🌟🌟🌟💫

The first book in The Five Queendoms series, Scorpica is an epic fantasy set in a world ruled by women. Each of the Queendoms, not only ruled over by queens but where women are the center of civilization, relies on the others to Mai took the delicate balance and prosperity achieved by all. Suddenly the world is thrown into uncertainty when girls stop being born and an ancient power awakens which seeks to ascend over even the queens.

Scorpica is told through multiple interwoven story lines, each complex with interesting characters. At times, action packed and left me holding my breath, at other times it’s a slow world building saga.

Overall, I love the plot and the display of women in power and am definitely going to read the next book. However, it took me a long time to get through this one. I don’t have much attachment to many of the characters, although they are all interesting, and the pacing was jarringly slow between the action moments. I also loved that this is a women-forward fantasy novel and even though this first book left me unsatisfied, I’m looking forward to the next book.

TW: murder, child abuse, child abandonment, human saceifice

Challenges:

Popsugar: set in a non patriarchal society

Kats: multiple POVs

52: less than 2022 goodreads reviews

Content Warnings

bookaddictkatie's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

gcjay1994's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

irl_bookworms's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Right away, I can tell this will be a Marmite book. This fast style of storytellig is just not going to work for some folks. But those that do love it? Oh they will love every minute of it!

In a really interesting style that is both brutal and unforgiving, Macallister develops a world of five Queendoms, each with their own unique cultures, religions, and economies.

First off, I love to see an author who is unafraid to kill, harm, or injure their imperfect characters and Macallister is that kind of author. We follow an incredible cast of characters from Queens to slaves, an ancient god, and even ragtag group of bandits. And I devoured every single POV.

Second, there is so much that happens in these 450 pages - it almost feels as if this could have been an epic series on its own if each of the stories were more fleshed out. As it stands, the plot moves very quickly, but not so fast that you don’t connect with the characters and become involved in the plot. Still, I would have loved to have gotten even closer and to have had the chance to get very emotionally involved with each fascinating character in this cast. They were just so good!!

I definitely recommend readers giving this a chance, but if the first few chapters don’t entrap you, I would advise against continuing - this won’t be the book for you and that is plenty okay.

Actual rating 4.5 rounded up - 0.5 stars knocked off because of the suddenness of the resolution and how this seems to read as a complete standalone - so I’m not sure where a series can develop from this? Ooh but if we get a series of standalones, with a focus on each of the five Queendoms? I would adore that!

CW: Human sacrifice, descriptions of birth, child abandonment, slavery, selling children, graphic violence, sexual content

*I received an eARC from Simon & Schuster Canada, Gallery / Saga Press & NetGalley in exchange for my honest review*

Content Warnings

ariel790's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Has very intense, strong characters. Author does a great job of making you sympathize with every single one, flaws and all.

Content Warnings

maggieslibrarycard's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

2.0

Scorpica by G. R. McAllister

2 stars

Content Warnings (may contain spoilers): Death/Death of a Parent/Death of Children, Violence, Gore, Body Horror, Sexual Content/Sexual Violence towards a Minor

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

While there were some parts of this book that I had a fun time reading, I think all of its elements were unfortunately at best just okay.

The book takes place in five matriarchal queendoms, and follows the lives of a primarily female cast, as well as the reactions of the rulers of these realms, when AFAB children stop being born.

While there was a large cast of characters, including many different POV characters, I really never found myself growing attached to any of them, connecting to them, or even rooting for them to succeed in their chapters. All of the characters felt very flat, and underdeveloped to me, and all of the POVs had the same voice, which resulted in all the different characters feeling inauthentic and indistinct. As well, after finishing the book, it felt to me like a lot of the POV characters did not have satisfying conclusions to their arcs, and that the purpose of their chapters was mostly just to introduce other elements of the book, which in my opinion is indicative of poor narrative planning.

I think a lot of my issues with the characters come down to the author primarily telling the readers things in the prose, and not showing them. While I didn’t have any issues with the prose style of the book, we as readers were told a lot of things about the personalities and motivations of various characters in the novel, but it was less common for these characteristics to be displayed through their actions.

The pacing choices for this book were interesting, and the end result of the plot made me feel like this was almost more of a prequel to the series than the first book. (Which is completely okay! Just something to expect before you start reading so you don’t feel dissatisfied with the ending.) To that end, while the book was, in my opinion, fairly fast paced, it was very episodic, in that we would follow a particular character for a chapter and then not jump back to them for several years in the world’s timeline. There were a lot of time skips, and, as I mentioned before, a lot of POV characters introduced who were only included in a few chapters, which contributed to the prequel-esque and episodic feeling I got while reading. Again, not a bad thing! Just something to be aware of before starting to read.

Another big critique of the book was the limited world-building. While there are multiple queendoms, they all seem to operate in essentially the same way and we don’t learn a lot about the culture, magic system, and history of the entire realm beyond what is required for the plot, or the distinct natures of each of the queendoms, besides their focus on different industries. This is always one of my favourite aspects of fantasy books, so I was really disappointed that it wasn’t included very much here. I was also really hoping the book’s focus on women would result in it displaying different sorts of matriarchal societies in the different queendoms, which wasn’t really the case. As well, I was hoping there would be a more nuanced examination of gender and gender roles in the book. The difference between a person’s sex and gender is never really brought up, and children are determined to be male or female at birth. There is one non-binary character in this book - albeit a priest who exists mainly outside of the queendoms’ society - so I hope that in future books the author will critique the gender binary which seems to dictate a lot of the society’s operations. However, I should add that I am cisgender, so I would suggest referring to a non-cis reader for a more nuanced examination of these themes within the novel, as I don’t want to speak for or over the trans and non-binary community with regards to this topic!

There was a huge focus on sex and sexual content, which is fine, but I did find it strange that in a novel where this was such a key focus that there was only one minor f/f relationship, and other non-heteronormative sexualities were basically ignored.

The following section contains minor spoilers for the book, but I found it very concerning, so I felt the need to include it in my review.

During one passage in the book, a character, who is at this point a minor, is mourning the loss of one of her very close friends. To “help” her “cope” with this lose, another (adult) character who is in a position of authority over her by demonstrating the use of a sex toy on the minor’s body, which is described in fairly heavy detail and, most concerningly of all, was described in a positive light and the problematic nature of this encounter was never addressed. While I wasn’t in love with this book before this scene, it to me was a moderately fun and fast-paced read that I wasn’t expecting to think too much about after the ending. However, this section completely soured the reading experience for me and made me very uncomfortable. I was probably going to give this book a solid 2.5-3 stars before reading this scene, but I really couldn’t do that in good conscience after this part of the book.

Content Warnings

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