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anothersolipsist 's review for:
The Emperor's Blades
by Brian Staveley
There were definitely things I liked about this book, but it was difficult for me to get past the fact that the narrative was continually reminding me that women are less important than men in this fantasy world. The book shows that both through the ways that women and men are represented in the world and through the language and insults that get used. Even in a narrative sense, the two male point of view characters get vastly more screen time than the one female point of view character. The female point of view character is also portrayed as less powerful and given less in the story.
The portrayal of gender roles was unpleasant enough that I'm not planning to read more in this series, but there were things I liked. The world feels large and detailed, for example. The book's take on "elves" feels new and interesting, although I really struggled with understanding their motivations. Hopefully future books are able to flesh that out more -- their motivations seem important, but why would a completely emotionless race continue a losing war? I also liked the book's take on magic, and how the nature of magic drives those who use it to secrecy and deception.
Other things worth calling out -- this is the first book in a series. It does have an ending, but it also leaves lots of dangling plot threads. Also because it's introducing the main characters, they spend a whole lot of time failing badly throughout the book. Presumably this sets up their arcs for some displays of competence in future books. Finally, a central feature of one of the book's narrative threads is a religion which was jarring because it felt like a misunderstanding of Buddhism. For example, it features monks who spend lots of time meditating in pursuit of "emptiness". It's an unfortunate choice of words, because "emptiness" is also the most common English translation of the Sanskrit word "Shunyata", a core concept in Mahayana Buddhism. But the "emptiness" in the world of The Emperor's Blades is not at all like "emptiness" in Buddhism. I suggest that readers try to ignore any similarities between the Shin and Buddhists -- apparent parallels are very misleading.
The portrayal of gender roles was unpleasant enough that I'm not planning to read more in this series, but there were things I liked. The world feels large and detailed, for example. The book's take on "elves" feels new and interesting, although I really struggled with understanding their motivations. Hopefully future books are able to flesh that out more -- their motivations seem important, but why would a completely emotionless race continue a losing war? I also liked the book's take on magic, and how the nature of magic drives those who use it to secrecy and deception.
Other things worth calling out -- this is the first book in a series. It does have an ending, but it also leaves lots of dangling plot threads. Also because it's introducing the main characters, they spend a whole lot of time failing badly throughout the book. Presumably this sets up their arcs for some displays of competence in future books. Finally, a central feature of one of the book's narrative threads is a religion which was jarring because it felt like a misunderstanding of Buddhism. For example, it features monks who spend lots of time meditating in pursuit of "emptiness". It's an unfortunate choice of words, because "emptiness" is also the most common English translation of the Sanskrit word "Shunyata", a core concept in Mahayana Buddhism. But the "emptiness" in the world of The Emperor's Blades is not at all like "emptiness" in Buddhism. I suggest that readers try to ignore any similarities between the Shin and Buddhists -- apparent parallels are very misleading.