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A review by egelantier
Banner of the Damned by Sherwood Smith
4.0
so i thought, i need to read something quick and easy, and next thing i knew, i was reading banner of the damned, all glorious 695 pages of it. ooooooops.
it's a very distant (400 years in the future) sequel to inda (that's why i was wary of reading it before, and in some ways i was right, because apparently it took marlovens less than five generations to completely fuck up everything inda and evred and hadand and co sweated and suffered for. i rooted for you, marlovens, we all rooted for you! but worth it), centered about emras, a young asexual (it's a point in her personal history but not the issue of the book; sartorias-deles verse is wonderfully and casually blase about all the permutations of orientations and relationships, and it's one of the things i love passionately about these books) girl growing up in a heyan-like royal court of colend.
emras is a scribe, which is a profession and a vocation centered about not interfering, not influencing events and always telling the truth; as a result she's a sheltered, naive, kind and decent person, and it, of course, means that soon she will discover that a) lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off (ha) and b) good intentions pave the way exactly to the destination you'd expect.
anyway, the first part of the book is about emras growing up in colend and being assigned as a personal scribe to lasva, a brilliant and warm young princess struggling with her turbulent first love, and with her place in the court; and in the second lasva will go away to marloven hesea, a cold, martial kingdom, marry prince ivandred and do her best to wed peace and war, whereas emras will learn magic and discover, erm, things about herself she'd rather not.
it's glorious high fantasy in the same way inda is glorious high-fantasy: worldbuilt at a breathtaking scope, seamlessly blending high politics and personal lives and intersections thereof, populated with breathing multifaceted people just trying to do their best (or, occasionally, their worst), dealing with culture clash and with various ways of communication and miscommunication, quietly and with dignity showing many facets of love.
there's a lot of wonderful meta-commentary on inda (which exists as the in-universe text, in several permutations of various truthfulness), but the book stands pretty firmly alone as well. and there's a clever, clever twist built in (not shocking twist, per se, because you spot it far ahead of emras) that makes the whole book an exercise in breathless waiting for the tragedy.
but for me the most frustrating weakness of the book was in its strength: emras is a brilliant meta narrator (remember how in inda the pov will switch from omnipresent to tight third and back? it's addressed here), but the very nature of her narrative meant that in the second part of the book she willfully isolates herself from the things most interesting to me: lasva and ivandred's fraught relationship, lasva's attempts at integration, culture clash, everyday marloven lives. basically, i loved the book i read, but i'm sad for the book i could have read; but it's probably the point of the story, as well.
as always, highly and strongly recommended.
it's a very distant (400 years in the future) sequel to inda (that's why i was wary of reading it before, and in some ways i was right, because apparently it took marlovens less than five generations to completely fuck up everything inda and evred and hadand and co sweated and suffered for. i rooted for you, marlovens, we all rooted for you! but worth it), centered about emras, a young asexual (it's a point in her personal history but not the issue of the book; sartorias-deles verse is wonderfully and casually blase about all the permutations of orientations and relationships, and it's one of the things i love passionately about these books) girl growing up in a heyan-like royal court of colend.
emras is a scribe, which is a profession and a vocation centered about not interfering, not influencing events and always telling the truth; as a result she's a sheltered, naive, kind and decent person, and it, of course, means that soon she will discover that a) lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off (ha) and b) good intentions pave the way exactly to the destination you'd expect.
anyway, the first part of the book is about emras growing up in colend and being assigned as a personal scribe to lasva, a brilliant and warm young princess struggling with her turbulent first love, and with her place in the court; and in the second lasva will go away to marloven hesea, a cold, martial kingdom, marry prince ivandred and do her best to wed peace and war, whereas emras will learn magic and discover, erm, things about herself she'd rather not.
it's glorious high fantasy in the same way inda is glorious high-fantasy: worldbuilt at a breathtaking scope, seamlessly blending high politics and personal lives and intersections thereof, populated with breathing multifaceted people just trying to do their best (or, occasionally, their worst), dealing with culture clash and with various ways of communication and miscommunication, quietly and with dignity showing many facets of love.
there's a lot of wonderful meta-commentary on inda (which exists as the in-universe text, in several permutations of various truthfulness), but the book stands pretty firmly alone as well. and there's a clever, clever twist built in (not shocking twist, per se, because you spot it far ahead of emras) that makes the whole book an exercise in breathless waiting for the tragedy.
but for me the most frustrating weakness of the book was in its strength: emras is a brilliant meta narrator (remember how in inda the pov will switch from omnipresent to tight third and back? it's addressed here), but the very nature of her narrative meant that in the second part of the book she willfully isolates herself from the things most interesting to me: lasva and ivandred's fraught relationship, lasva's attempts at integration, culture clash, everyday marloven lives. basically, i loved the book i read, but i'm sad for the book i could have read; but it's probably the point of the story, as well.
as always, highly and strongly recommended.