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A review by rubeusbeaky
Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff
3.0
I loved the concept: Steampunk, futuristic-feudal Japan with myths come to life; have your mechs AND your kaiju! Plus, I'm a sucker for griffins, so Buruu was just about the greatest animal sidekick ever.
...
The PROBLEM was, I read the Nevernight trilogy before this book, and Yukiko is VERY OBVIOUSLY the first draft of Mia:
Beautiful, lithe, fair-skinned, black-haired girl, who is of high social standing but not royalty, sees her father dishonored and her mother imprisoned then murdered (in this version she's pregnant, in Nevernight her son was a toddler) by a psychotic, narcissistic, despot. Her parents were complicated people, her father guilty of an affair, but still she sympathizes with their plight, and she seeks to avenge them. Aided by a magical animal sidekick who shares an empathic connection with her, the girl sets out to assassinate the despot. She is skilled with a blade, but she is outmatched by terrain and her enemy's resources, and in this world full of myths - including a masculine Sun god, a feminine goddess of Night and The Underworld, and a god of Storms - at times it seems the gods themselves are out to aid and thwart her. During her journey she learns that the very essence of the land itself is not what she once thought it was, and overthrowing the despot is not just a personal quest of hers, but a necessity to set right the balance of nature.
...
Transplant the setting from Japan to pseudo-Italy and you've got Nevernight. Which I loved... but I think Mia did it better. Her personality is clearer than Yukiko's. And the writing in Nevernight is cleaner, more poetic, less reliance on clunky exposition. Other people's emotional journeys are implied and interpreted, not stated baldly, lending a more realistic feel to all of Mia's subterfuge as we're there with her in trying to discern the truth about the people around her. And while steampunk Japan is cool, telling a story with mechs and yokai and kitsune and assassins - all wrapped up around the morality tale of "respect nature" - is too.... anime. It's too derivative. It's been done. I got very Princess Mononoke vibes from this book. Nevernight may have Yukiko at its core, but it's original in its execution.
Stormdancer isn't a bad book. I've just been spoiled reading Jay Kristoff's best books ^_^.
...
The PROBLEM was, I read the Nevernight trilogy before this book, and Yukiko is VERY OBVIOUSLY the first draft of Mia:
Beautiful, lithe, fair-skinned, black-haired girl, who is of high social standing but not royalty, sees her father dishonored and her mother imprisoned then murdered (in this version she's pregnant, in Nevernight her son was a toddler) by a psychotic, narcissistic, despot. Her parents were complicated people, her father guilty of an affair, but still she sympathizes with their plight, and she seeks to avenge them. Aided by a magical animal sidekick who shares an empathic connection with her, the girl sets out to assassinate the despot. She is skilled with a blade, but she is outmatched by terrain and her enemy's resources, and in this world full of myths - including a masculine Sun god, a feminine goddess of Night and The Underworld, and a god of Storms - at times it seems the gods themselves are out to aid and thwart her. During her journey she learns that the very essence of the land itself is not what she once thought it was, and overthrowing the despot is not just a personal quest of hers, but a necessity to set right the balance of nature.
...
Transplant the setting from Japan to pseudo-Italy and you've got Nevernight. Which I loved... but I think Mia did it better. Her personality is clearer than Yukiko's. And the writing in Nevernight is cleaner, more poetic, less reliance on clunky exposition. Other people's emotional journeys are implied and interpreted, not stated baldly, lending a more realistic feel to all of Mia's subterfuge as we're there with her in trying to discern the truth about the people around her. And while steampunk Japan is cool, telling a story with mechs and yokai and kitsune and assassins - all wrapped up around the morality tale of "respect nature" - is too.... anime. It's too derivative. It's been done. I got very Princess Mononoke vibes from this book. Nevernight may have Yukiko at its core, but it's original in its execution.
Stormdancer isn't a bad book. I've just been spoiled reading Jay Kristoff's best books ^_^.