Wednesday, October 24, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Phoenix Empress by K. Arsenault Rivera




The Phoenix Empress is the sequel to one of my favorite books from last year - and one of the few books that I've ever given a perfect score to - The Tiger's Daughter (My Review Here).  So yeah, I had this book pre-ordered for around a month now, and my anticipation for it was through the roof.  In retrospect, there was nearly no way for the book to meet my expectations, so I don't want to sound too negative in this review: The Phoenix Empress is still a good book, and this series is still well worth reading.

What this book is not however is the same type of story as its predecessor.  The Tiger's Daughter was a romance set amidst the background of an Epic Fantasy Story - the entire book was essentially a confession of love from one heroine to the other.  By contrast, this book is an Epic Fantasy story with an element of romance, with part of the book being a confession of guilt (not love) from one heroine to the other and the other part sets the stage for a major epic fantasy conclusion.  The result is a far darker book, one that is still good, but not charming/funny/heartwarming like its predecessor.

More after the Jump:

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
Barsali Shefali and her wife Shizuka are finally reunited, 8 years after Shizuka's uncle exiled Shefali in a rage.  But the intertwining 8 years have changed the duo, and the woman Shefali comes home to is not quite the same young woman, filled with unshakable conviction in her divinity, that she remembers.  Who is this woman who drinks herself to excess on wine, who wakes up in the middle of the night thrashing with terror, who can't bear to see a bowl of water?  The answer can only be told by Shizuka herself, in a story that Shizuka fears will make Shefali want to abandon her.

For while Shefali was exiled, Shizuka was sent by her uncle, the Emperor, to conscript the people of the conquered land of Xian-Lai and to lead this army against the demon forces assaulting the Country's north.  But the horrors that Shizuka would see in this army, combined with her loneliness from her separation from Shefali, would affect Shizuka in ways she could never have imagined....and the end result of this campaign would result in disaster for the land....and Shizuka on the Dragon Throne.

But Shefali also carries a secret she can't bear to tell her wife: she is dying and will be dead within four months, as decreed by the goddess she met in her journey.  And when a new demon voice begins to speak in her head, will Shefali truly be able to find time to enjoy being together with her life, before the end?  And with the demon attacks on the land increasing, can Shefali afford to waste her last few days in peace?
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I want to preface this review by making this clear here:  The Phoenix Empress is a good, possibly very good, book, and I don't want to sound too negative, which I know I am going to be because comparing this book to its predecessor is inevitable.    For example The Tiger's Daughter, was a tighter book than this one, with a single narrative tied together by a framing device that hinted at things to come but never really went beyond that.  By contrast, this book has two narratives: the story hinted at by the book's title:

1.  Shizuka's story of how she went from a young 17 year old woman confident in her own divinity to the Empress who trembles in her own sleep; and
2.  Shefali's attempts to figure out what is happening to herself as Shefali attempts to try and find a way to enjoy what she believes to be the remaining last few months of her life.

They're kind of uneven narratives, even if both are written beautifully (Rivera is still a fantastic writer).  The sense of wonder at this world that existed in the first book is replaced by a sense of horror, and without the two heroines united, there's very little counterbalancing here - the result is a pretty dark book.  Moreover, the second narrative is clearly from the start leading into the third (and concluding?) book in this series, and is a bit distracting from Shizuka's tale of woe, whereas the first book's framing device never got in the way at all.

It all does still work.  Shizuka and Shefali remain excellent characters, and their developments over the past 8 years make complete sense as they are very different characters now at 25 than they were when we last left them at age 17.  I love them both still and want them to wind up in a happy ending - but if they do, that won't occur until the next book is over.  The side characters, from old (Ren, Baozhai and Kenshiro) to new - not least of which are a young woman named Sakura (whose relation I won't spoil) and Baozhai's no nonsense sister Xianyu - are excellent even if they don't get that much time to breathe.  None of them make as much of an impact as Burqila did in the last book, but they still fill out this world very well.

And there are a few lovely moments still - Shefali meeting her niece for the first time and her resultant happiness; a letter received by Shefali near the end almost made me tear up, etc.  But again this is mainly a darker book, and it does feel quite a bit like the middle book in a trilogy, whereas its predecessor felt like a more satisfying stand-alone.

I will still be here for the concluding volume to the series when it comes out, and a shorter story set in the past that is due out in December (Sixteen Swords), and hope to see the series give our heroines the happiness they deserve.  Because unlike in the first book, they do not find it here.
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