SF/F Review: The Tangled Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi & Tobias S. Buckell https://t.co/DCxNe9lYsG Short Review: 6 out of 10 (1/3)— garik16 (@garik16) March 29, 2018
Short Review (cont): A quartet of Novellas (2 old, 2 new) set in a world where magic-use is easy but has costs that burden all of society to the point of destroying it, The Tangled Lands just doesn't seem to use this interesting world in ways that stand out, alas. (2/3)— garik16 (@garik16) March 29, 2018
The Tangled Lands is an interesting work to review mainly because it's not clear how to describe it. It's essentially a collection of four novellas - two old, two new - in a shared world, with each novella set after the other. Does that really make it an anthology as I've titled this post? I'm not particularly sure. The two authors created this shared world for an audiobook containing the first two novellas back in 2010, and this compilation adds two more novellas (one from each author) to create a short book.
That said, the problem with this compilation is that, while the shared world is interesting - basically it's a fantasy world where magic is/was commonplace, but casting even the smallest spells results in the creation somewhere in the world of "bramble", which can put people into an everlasting sleep - there isn't enough substance in the novellas to really make them that memorable. The original two novellas are definitely the strongest, but even they aren't particularly unique. The final two novellas are more miss than hit, with them feeling very more of the same. I'd like to see something more in this world (maybe a full length novel?), but this isn't a collection that justifies its existence very much.
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The Tangled Lands consists of four novellas in a shared world. In this world, magic is real and usable by anyone with the proper words and ingredients....but using it has a cost. With every spell cast, no matter how small, a piece of bramble pops into existence in the world somewhere - could be nearby, could be far away. Bramble is incredibly hard to destroy, and contact with it causes humans to fall into a deep, everlasting sleep (although lighter contact can result in a person being able to wake). Through the overuse of magic, several empires have been destroyed when they were overrun by the Bramble, forcing refugees to flee those once prosperous cities. In the City of Khaim, where refugees have fled, magic is forbidden and use of it is punishable by death.
The Four Novellas are as follows (in chronological order):
The Alchemist: When an alchemist creates a device to easily remove bramble, he presents it to the mayor of Khaim with the idea of prospering from the device. The alchemist also helps it will allow himself and others to once again use minor magics, which he needs to cure his diseased daughter. But the mayor and his magus have other plans for what can be done with the alchemist's device, and the Alchemist may find himself over his head.....
The Executioness: When her father, an executioner for the Mayor of Khaim, is too ill, Tana performs an execution in his place....only to return to her home to find her children taken by religious zealots who seek to convert others away from the use of magic and the horrors of Bramble. When her attempt to get them back fails, she falls in with a Convoy and learns to take action and fight to prevent this from happening again...even if it might not win back her children. But the only way to do so is to truly become the woman the legends speak of - the Executioness.
The Children of Khaim: Mop and his sister Rain are refugees who used to be somebodies in their old land, but are now reduced to trying to clear away Bramble for money. But when Rain is careless and finds herself in an eternal sleep by bramble, Mop refuses to end her life and seeks to hide her somewhere....only to find her body taken for someone else's sick purposes. Mop will be forced to search the underbellies of Khaim for his sister...and perhaps to take a chance on forbidden magic in order to find her, even if it gets him killed.
The Blacksmith's Daughter: Sofija is the daughter of a blacksmithing family who is forced to bankrupt themselves to meet a newly minted Duke's order for armor for his evil son. But when the Duke imprisons her parents in a pit covered with Bramble, Sofija is forced to do the impossible and complete the armor on her own....or to take desperate other measures to save her parents and escape.
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The main idea behind the world of The Tangled Lands is far from a new one in concept - there are plenty of stories dealing with the idea that Magic has a cost (for example, An Unkindness of Magicians by Kat Howard deals with someone who pays that cost). Where The Tangled Lands makes things kind of unique is making this a Tragedy of the Commons type issue - the cost of magic isn't just paid by the user, or even by a specific other person known to the user, but by all of society. And yet the gifts of magic - which is accessible to everyone - are so great even for minor spells that it takes incredible restraint for anyone NOT to succumb to its lure.
Oddly, none of the stories really deal with this idea except as a background for the tales within - this idea fuels the motivations behind actors in all four stories, but our main characters are only tempted in two of the stories to use magic at all, and one of those two stories involves that same magic user devising a way to mitigate the cost (reducing the externality to 0) and the other features a single use of magic whose cost never comes up in the story. Kind of a missed opportunity there, that limits the value of these stories - yes this idea creates a crapsack world, but it's not THAT different from other crapsack fantasy worlds.
This is the problem with The Blacksmith's Daughter - which feels like many prior fantasy stories of a impoverished girl trying to save her family from a cruel noble (and has an ending that really doesn't feel earned) and really the problem with most of these stories - they don't stand out at all. They're perfectly finely executed - again, I think The Alchemist and The Executioness are clearly superior stories, with stronger main characters and plots that have more clear purpose than the other two stories - but otherwise, they're nothing special. And while the stories do play out in chronological order, there's very little cohesion between the four stories, which don't exactly build upon one another.
Again, a novel set in this world might be interesting, but this just feels like a missed opportunity.
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