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A review by coolcurrybooks
Sing the Four Quarters by Tanya Huff
4.0
Sing the Four Quarters is one of those books that I enjoyed reading but probably wouldn’t read again. If you’re looking for a warm, character driven fantasy story with a queer lead, you may very well want to read this one.
Annice is a bard, able to work magic by singing to the kigh, the elemental spirits. She also has the rare gift of being able to sing to all four types of kigh. Only, she wasn’t always a bard. She was born a princess, and in following her dream she was exiled from her family. According to the terms set by her brother, she would not be considered royalty, and if she ever married or had children, she would be charged with treason for endangering the line of inheritance.
Annice is totally fine with this. Then she gets pregnant, and she decides she wants to keep it. That’s already one potential charge of treason, but then she learns that the father of the child (who she wasn’t planning on being involved) has been arrested for treason and sentenced to be executed. Which means her pregnancy is now doubly treasonous. Only, she thinks he’s innocent, and she’s not about to let him be executed for something he didn’t do.
The narrative doesn’t hew closely to Annice. Pjerin, the father or her child, receives quite a bit of page time, so you know from off the bat that he really is innocent and that he’s being framed as part of someone else’s treasonous scheme. It’s one of those stories where you see the villains plotting, so you know way more than the protagonists. You also know that Annice’s brother the king is unlikely to actually charge her with treason and that if she would only talk to him, the entire affair could be reconciled. This isn’t a spoiler. Literally everyone in the book knows this except for Annice, and they keep trying to tell her. It could have fallen into one of those very annoying plot devices where the characters won’t actually talk to each other… but in this case, I thought it fit with the characterization.
I mentioned at the beginning of the review that Annice is queer. Specifically, she’s bisexual (word not used). She’s in a long term relationship with a lesbian woman who’s also a bard, but it’s an open relationship. Annice has flings with other people while she’s traveling around the country on her work as a bard. That, plus some sloppiness with birth control, led to her current situation. Oh, and I should also mention that Annice and her girlfriend remain an item through the book. The relationship with Pjerin isn’t romantic, which goes against almost every narrative expectations. The relationship arc isn’t Annice realizing, “Oh, I’m in love with him.” More like, “Oh, he’d actually be a good father and maybe I should try to figure out a co-parenting situation.”
In terms of world building, there’s no sexism or homophobia present in Annice’s society. There’s gay, lesbian, and bi characters, and their sexuality is never an issue in terms of how they’re treated. If you like Laurie J. Mark’s Fire Logic, then this might be a good book for you. The lack of homophobia/sexism was probably the biggest world building appeal. Otherwise, everything seems fairly standard Western fantasy with elemental magic (uh, again fans of Fire Logic might like this or vice versa). There wasn’t anything really memorable about the culture or setting. Very generic.
On the plus side, it is a warm book. Definitely not grimdark. The heroines and heroes might have flaws, but they’re good people. There’s some suffering but nothing that gets too bad. Everything turns out all right in the end. If you’re looking for a book that won’t emotionally drain you, then Sing the Four Quarters would be a good pick.
That warmth is what made me enjoy Sing the Four Quarters, but I don’t know if it was enough to balance out the weaknesses I found with world building and plotting. I don’t regret reading it, but I won’t be picking up the sequel.
Review from The Illustrated Page.
Annice is a bard, able to work magic by singing to the kigh, the elemental spirits. She also has the rare gift of being able to sing to all four types of kigh. Only, she wasn’t always a bard. She was born a princess, and in following her dream she was exiled from her family. According to the terms set by her brother, she would not be considered royalty, and if she ever married or had children, she would be charged with treason for endangering the line of inheritance.
Annice is totally fine with this. Then she gets pregnant, and she decides she wants to keep it. That’s already one potential charge of treason, but then she learns that the father of the child (who she wasn’t planning on being involved) has been arrested for treason and sentenced to be executed. Which means her pregnancy is now doubly treasonous. Only, she thinks he’s innocent, and she’s not about to let him be executed for something he didn’t do.
The narrative doesn’t hew closely to Annice. Pjerin, the father or her child, receives quite a bit of page time, so you know from off the bat that he really is innocent and that he’s being framed as part of someone else’s treasonous scheme. It’s one of those stories where you see the villains plotting, so you know way more than the protagonists. You also know that Annice’s brother the king is unlikely to actually charge her with treason and that if she would only talk to him, the entire affair could be reconciled. This isn’t a spoiler. Literally everyone in the book knows this except for Annice, and they keep trying to tell her. It could have fallen into one of those very annoying plot devices where the characters won’t actually talk to each other… but in this case, I thought it fit with the characterization.
I mentioned at the beginning of the review that Annice is queer. Specifically, she’s bisexual (word not used). She’s in a long term relationship with a lesbian woman who’s also a bard, but it’s an open relationship. Annice has flings with other people while she’s traveling around the country on her work as a bard. That, plus some sloppiness with birth control, led to her current situation. Oh, and I should also mention that Annice and her girlfriend remain an item through the book. The relationship with Pjerin isn’t romantic, which goes against almost every narrative expectations. The relationship arc isn’t Annice realizing, “Oh, I’m in love with him.” More like, “Oh, he’d actually be a good father and maybe I should try to figure out a co-parenting situation.”
In terms of world building, there’s no sexism or homophobia present in Annice’s society. There’s gay, lesbian, and bi characters, and their sexuality is never an issue in terms of how they’re treated. If you like Laurie J. Mark’s Fire Logic, then this might be a good book for you. The lack of homophobia/sexism was probably the biggest world building appeal. Otherwise, everything seems fairly standard Western fantasy with elemental magic (uh, again fans of Fire Logic might like this or vice versa). There wasn’t anything really memorable about the culture or setting. Very generic.
On the plus side, it is a warm book. Definitely not grimdark. The heroines and heroes might have flaws, but they’re good people. There’s some suffering but nothing that gets too bad. Everything turns out all right in the end. If you’re looking for a book that won’t emotionally drain you, then Sing the Four Quarters would be a good pick.
That warmth is what made me enjoy Sing the Four Quarters, but I don’t know if it was enough to balance out the weaknesses I found with world building and plotting. I don’t regret reading it, but I won’t be picking up the sequel.
Review from The Illustrated Page.