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 March 12, 2024 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.
The Siege of Burning Grass is a science fiction novel from fascinating and incredibly prolific author Premee Mohamed. Mohamed's works tend to be weird in setting/concept even as they deal with serious themes and rarely go the way you expect: her lovecraftian Beneath the Rising trilogy for example was incredibly propulsive and twisty in some of the best and most infuriating ways. And the Siege of Burning Grass is similar in some ways: the story is incredibly weird in setting - featuring two warring Empires, one of which uses extremely weird biotechnology (wasps that sting you and administer drugs to you on a regular basis!) and one that uses regular tech from their floating cities - and twisty in plot and deals with some serious themes all at the same time as it follows pacifist Alefret as he's forced by one Empire to give his support to an infiltration mission to end the war.
The result is a pretty interesting piece of work, as it poses questions such as what is the value of pacifism in the middle of war and how much is that worth, at what price can one stick to one's values when the circumstances are always bad, and what is the cost of nationalism and what it drives people to do. There's also themes of class and how that affects who gets to protest, and well probably a bunch of other themes I'm forgetting or may have missed. It's a pretty deep novel but not one that ever drags or feels like some philosophy tract: like Mohamed's other works, it captivates you and doesn't let go until it hits its ending and is well worth your time.
Trigger Warnings: Thoughts of Suicidal Ideation and discussions of how soldiers are taught to commit suicide, as well as disability euthanasia are parts of this novel. None of it is gratuitous and all serves a purpose, but fair warning.
Plot Summary:
For years, Varkal has fought all of its neighbors and has sought to absorb them into its Empire. Now it wages a long conflict with its neighboring Empire of Med'ariz and its Meddon people, who use strange tech and have their own incredibly strong flying cities. It's a conflict that has been devastating to the Empire , with its peoples suffering and the battles seemingly going poorly, even as most of the Med'ariz cities have suffered as well.
Alefret looks like a man who would be the ideal soldier - huge in stature and very strong, he looks like a brutish monster on first appearance. But Alefret is in fact the leader of the Pact, Varkal's small nascent pacifist resistance, and for that pacifism Alefret found himself bombed and maimed by his own people and imprisoned and tortured in a military facility.
But after months of torture, a Varkal general comes to him with a proposal: Alefret will be allowed to "escape" with a brutal zealot soldier named Qhudur, with whom he will work to infiltrate Med'ariz's last floating city, the one containing its rulers. There, Alefret will make contact with the Med'Ariz pacifist movement, who has somehow heard about him and think of him as a hero, and he and Qhudur will use that movement as a weapon to end the war.
It's a plan that supposedly could end this horrifying conflict that has been going on for years and all it would cost is all of Alefret's principles. Can he or would he actually do it? And what will be the cost if he tried?
The Siege of Burning Grass is a novel that has a very weird science fiction setting, but at the same time has a very familiar-ish setup. Your background setting features the Varkal Empire relying on biological technology - their technology is frequently living creatures they've created; for example, Alefret is being healed (partially unwillingly) by a genetically engineered suite of wasps that regenerates his leg, provides him with painkillers, and other substances, and he has to keep the wasps alive in order to keep the treatment going. And then there's the Meddon people who may use conventionally non-living tech...but also have things like floating cities. And yet, when it all comes down to it, this is still the story of a conflict between two Empires that was incited for a reason no one really remembers anymore (and the two Empires explain the inciting incident very differently) and where at least one such Empire has always been making war or forcibly expanding its reach over the years, without regards to the wants of the people they conquer. It's a setup that has obvious meaning in our present world and in history.
Into this setting comes Alefret. Alefret is a man who looks monstrous and strong but instead wants peace and for the fighting to stop. He's a pacifist in the truest sense of the word, who doesn't approve of even learning self defense techniques (because one's instinct will then become to use those techniques) and whose methods for trying to incite peace feature protests and leaflets. Alefret and his group, the Pact, notably come from lower classes in Varkal, as they bear the brunt of Varkal's warmongering, but they have little impact seemingly on actually stopping the war before they are brutally repressed by the Varkal corrupt military government. And well, it's no surprise: Varkal is a country that dehumanizes its enemies as non-human (literally), includes a school that they imprison Alefret in that he can tell was once used to essentially torture children, and cares more for its military and biotech than they do its people. So of course they would hunt down and torture pacifists.
So when they come to Alefret with the task of infiltrating Meddon's last city and trying to use his stature as a pacifist to get a brutal essentially brainwashed assassin (although he's more of a true believer than anything else) into the city's stronghold with the help of the Meddon pacifists, his first inclination is to do nothing to help these people. How can he help them with violence when this is who they are, when all it does in his own mind is cause the cycle of violence to continue? And yet, how can he not help if it can end the war with such tremendous suffering! This becomes even more apparent as he sees the tolls the war is causing and then he sees how the Meddon people have blood on their own hands - the people in the City seem largely to be living peacefully and happily, the pacifists are largely rich kids who are ignored as completely pointless and harmless, and the Meddon people are hinted to euthanize babies who show signs of disabilities or abnormalities, an obviously monstrous practice that would never have allowed Alefret to be born!
And so we have a really strong story here as Alefret is confronted with tough choices and questions about the validity and practical use of his values. The book doesn't have easy answers - it arguably ends in a way that sort of gives Alefret a happy ending through circumstances that have nothing to do with him (itself an interesting idea) which might be a little too easy, but it doesn't pretend that makes his internal conflict easy. And while you may hell at Alefret for not revealing certain information earlier, you understand all of his actions. The result is a real strong short novel from Mohamed that is well worth your time and your thoughts.
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