Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on October 17, 2023 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
A Stranger in the Citadel is a SF/F novel by author Tobias S. Buckell. The novel was originally an Audible audiobook "original" in 2021 and is now being published in actual print (and ebook) in 2023 by Tachyon Publications, a publisher who tends to publish a lot of really interesting short novels from SF/F authors. It's a novel that Buckell notes was inspired by Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 in that it features a world where literacy - reading and writing - is a heresy of the highest order and punishable by death. But unlike other novels I've read with similar concepts, where protagonists get introduced to reading and find it magical and seek to change the world, Buckell takes a different tack.
Instead we have a world where reading and writing genuinely is dangerous and the world without it - where stories are told and retold by griots and food is provided by magical cornucopias - is seemingly okay...until a "Librarian" arrives with a book and our protagonist, the Musketress (princess) Lilith tries to spare his life out of mercy. The resulting tale of revolution, of privilege and corruption and power, of love, friendship and human curiosity is fascinating and goes in paths you very much won't expect and is well well worth your time.
Trigger Warning: Sexual Abuse is referred to, although it's never seen on page, as a horror inflicted by one of the early antagonists. It shouldn't affect readers too much, but if it does, it's there.
Plot Summary:
Lilith is the youngest Musketress of Ninetha - the youngest daughter of Ninetha's ruler, the Lord Musketeer. It's a life full of hard training under the tutelage of her father's second in command, Kira, as the Lord Musketeer and Lilith's family are the guardians of the Cornucopia, the magical source of anything one seeks that was given to the people by the Gods. All the Gods ask for in return is that their commandments are obeyed, the most important of which is this: "You Shall Not Suffer a Librarian to Live."A Stranger in the Citadel starts with a setup that the reader may find familiar and carry certain expectations. Lilith lives in a city where literacy is forbidden and reading is punishable by death, where the only book she has ever seen is the secret one her father has her siblings guard and that she knows basically nothing about. Her father is the King essentially of this city and basically rules over a magical source of endless food/resources/anything-else-people-need....which he controls in a way to keep people beholden to him, such that there is still poverty and hunger and nobles who want more. Lilith's tutor and her father's second in command Kira is a commoner who is a devout believer in the god's rules and does not countenance heresy of any kind. Lilith is compassionate and caring and, while she's devoted to her training under Kira and is skilled with her musket, she is privileged enough not to wonder whether any of this might be wrong - and she's even privileged from the perspective of her siblings, who have learned the hard way that things aren't quite as idyllic as they seem.
Lilith has almost never seen a book and certainly does not know how to read or what a book might contain....but she has peaked into the hidden room in the Citadel that her siblings guard for her father, and there she knows lies the biggest heresy of all: A book hidden away. But the existence of the book is a strange curiosity she dares not ask about and she has no intention of trying to discover its secrets. Until one day, a Librarian is found entering the city and is taken to be killed and Lilith can't simply let him be murdered for something she doesn't quite understand...and Lilith's actions ignite a fire that will change all of Ninetha, and Lilith's life, forever....
In this type of story, usually what you'd expect to happen, especially when a man carrying books appears in the first few pages, is for Lilith to secretly sneak time with the Librarian, learn the joys of reading and either escape or lead a revolution with the aid of what she learns from literacy. This is...not that book. Lilith is caring and curious but she is a believer in the gods - who have provided the Cornucopia - and is not one to immediately turn away from what she knows and believes...even when things turn to an utter disaster and she finds herself on the run with the Librarian Ishmael. Similarly, the story seems like it's some kind of SciFi future of our world...and it is, but not quite in the way the reader, or one of the characters, would have ever expected. And while the story does to a certain extent tell a tale dealing with how valuable it is to know how to read and write, the story also notes how society is able to function through griots and repeated recollections to keep stories remembered throughout history.
What we have here instead of the usual is a story of corruption and power and abuse of that power, and of the people rising up upon discovering a betrayal by the one who mistreated them. It's a story of how people who are corrupt in one way may be abusive in even more horrifying ones and how even a revolution that displaces those people may not necessarily result in a better place. It's also a story about how hard it is to change such things, and how people can continue to believe in certain ideas and things well past them remembering where those things came from or if they still matter. And it's a journey of Lilith growing up and being shocked out of her privilege until she's ready to chart a new path, one which she's no longer naive enough to get killed over.
It's pretty good and surprising and not too long, so well worth your time now that it's in ebook format in other words. Recommended.
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