Friday, November 3, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Bloodprint by Ausma Zehanat Khan



One of the authors I try to keep track of on twitter recommended The Bloodprint a couple of months ago, and as such, I quickly reserved the book when I saw it show up as available from one of my online libraries.  The Bloodprint is the start of a four-book Epic Fantasy series that's influenced by Middle-Eastern/Arabic culture (as opposed to the Western-Europe focus of a lot of "classic" Epic Fantasy) and the modern day world in those areas (one of the several major evil forces in the book is clearly influenced by the Taliban).  And it certainly is a lot different from much of the standard fare in the genre that I've read.

Unfortunately, while The Bloodprint shows some great potential and some fantastic worldbuilding, it fails to fulfill on that promise, even to the limited extent required of a book that is only telling 25% of the whole series.  The characters frequently show limited agency and get repeatedly into very similar situations, and questions posed by the storyline are never satisfyingly answered or even confronted a large portion of the time.  This novel is seemingly another example of a first in a series that spends too much time in setup and not enough time actually getting things done, and it leaves the reader disappointed that he spent such time on this novel.

More detail after the Jump:


----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
In the land known as the Khorasan, their exists a sacred scripture known as The Claim.  The Claim is not just a holy text, but its words contain a great magical power, and the recitation of its verses, particularly by special individuals, can have devastating effects.  However, for ages, verses of The Claim have passed only through oral tradition, with no complete writing of the sacred text known to still exist.  Scraps of The Claim remain written and carved in various places throughout the land.

Or they did at the very least - an Empire known as the Talisman, led by a mysterious man known as The One Eyed Preacher, has made it a centerpiece of their rule to destroy all writings, particularly that of The Claim itself.  The Talisman oppresses and subjugates those under its rule, especially the women, whom it often sells into the Slave Chains.  And The Talisman is only growing in force and covering more of the Khorasan.

Arian is a Companion of Hira, a council of women devoted in their lives to the preservation of The Claim and the cause of Justice.  But she is not just any Companion - she is the First Oralist, a woman with perhaps the greatest ability to recite verses of The Claim and to use their power.  Arian seeks the destruction of the Talisman, who (in addition to the rest of their evil) sold her sister into slavery when she was a child.  But when the head of the Companions brings word from a mysterious tyrant of another kingdom that a full written text of The Claim exists, the so-called "Bloodprint," she knows that the document might be the key to saving the land of the Khorasan.  Together with another companion, her loyal ally and warrior Sinnia, a homeless boy named Wafa, and the powerful Silver Mage, a man who seeks Arian's love, she undertakes a dangerous journey to try and bring back The Bloodprint to Hira, before the Talisman destroys it.

But the Bloodprint's supposed resting place lies within the kingdom of a man known as The Authoritan, whose kingdom may be even more perilous than that of the Talisman.  For while the Talisman destroys all writing, the Authoritan alters and subverts it to his own powerful ends.  Fleeing from one power that seeks to destroy the scripture and into the hands of another power that instead alters it, will Arian be able to find anything beyond death?
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Again, the ideas of The Bloodprint are really interesting.  In addition to dealing with Heroines fighting against forces that seek to oppress and subjugate women (the closeness of the name "Talisman" to "Taliban" is almost certainly not coincidence), the prime concept behind this story is the sanctity of scripture and Holy Words and the fight against those who would seek to destroy/pervert it.  These are ideas that have real relevance to the world today, where extremists attempt to justify their actions with religious interpretations of major religions (not just Islam of course, but Christianity and others as well, although again the background idea here is clearly that of Middle Eastern forces perverting Islam).  The story even takes an interesting turn near the end regarding the sanctity of the The Claim, beyond that of the obvious evils of the two Empires.

Sadly, while all of the above is set up in this book, the book doesn't really satisfyingly do anything in this book with that setup.  While the main characters - Arian, Sinnia, Wafa, and Daniyar - all show promise, none really pulled at me as a character I grew to love.  Most of the book is told from the perspective of Arian (Sinnia and Daniyar get occasional POV parts, but only sparingly) and her internal conflict - her need to defend The Claim vs her need to find her sister vs her desire to give in to her heart and give up the quest to be with Daniyar - is sold fairly well, although it does get a bit repetitive.  That said, the other 3 main characters exist largely as just archetypes (Sinnia is the little-jealous warrior follower, Daniyar is the lover hoping his loyalty will change Arian's mind on him, Wafa as the boy who has never known love following the first person to give him a chance) and none of the major antagonists really pop out either.

Really, repetition is the major problem with this book's plot structure - similar plot events happen repeatedly throughout the story.  The book starts seemingly quickly - by 20% of the way through, we have the main characters all identified and their quest known as well as the inklings of a conspiracy of actors of bad intent known to both the reader and the main character.  But while the overall structure of the plot is almost that of a Da Vinci Code-esque treasure hunt, one particular event happens repeatedly throughout - Arian (and often her allies) gets captured and then is rescued by an outside force.  Seriously, this happens no less FIVE times throughout the book (one of the five times, to be fair, is a feigned capture as part of a ruse, but the main characters never get to spring their ruse, but instead are rescued by an outside force as with the other captures).  It's particularly obnoxious in a story centered around heroines that the two main ones frequently lack agency in getting out of their own situations - Arian only begins to show her own powers near the book's very end, after repeated instances of "Step 1: Enter New Place; Step 2: Get Captured; Step 3: Get Rescued by Outsider who gives clue to next new place."

The book also ends in an unfortunate cliffhanger - a large part of which is predictable and not particularly satisfying.  Again, there's nothing wrong with a cliffhanger ending - A good cliffhanger ends a satisfying book with an ending that makes the reader want to dive in to the next in the series immediately.  But this book ends with a cliffhanger that makes much of the journey to get to that point seem meaningless, which is not going to make me likely to read the next book in the series.

There are other flaws (one other review I read pointed out that I missed that the secondary Heroine, the only black character of note in the book, is treated by male characters in a way that has unfortunately implications, though it seems to me unintentional on the part of the author) but really the shame of The Bloodprint is that it truly is a book that is very different from what I've read in the genre and does have some really interesting ideas.  In addition to being repetitive in the plot, the book spends a large portion of its content on worldbuilding, and that worldbuilding just simply does not payoff in any way here.  I wonder if this book could have been combined with the second in the series to form a more satisfying narrative, although again the repetitive capture-plots would still be a problem.

In short, The Bloodprint is ambitious but to me, a failure at putting together its ideas into a satisfying package or even just a satisfying start to a series that I'd want to read further.
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