Tuesday, December 25, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Blade So Black by L L McKinney



A Blade So Black is the debut novel by author L.L. McKinney, and features a YA Urban Portal Fantasy novel that's a spin on Alice in Wonderland.  The novel is also features a black teenager as its protagonist, whose normal life (as opposed to her supernatural life) is heavily impacted by the discrimination and racism affecting blacks in America today.  The result, in theory at least, is a fantasy novel that features parts both familiar and unfamiliar to the genre.

Unfortunately, while A Blade So Black is definitely promising, it is very much the first in a series/trilogy, and it really feels that way.  Its main character is really good, as are some of the side characters, but the plot takes a while to get going, with the ending coming in a place that left a bit too much open to be very satisfying to me.  The romantic subplots of the book felt a little barebones too.  Still, the promise of this book's world and characters is enough to keep me interested in the sequel, even if I wasn't too thrilled with how this book winded up.


----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
When Alice's father died, she ran....and ran into a Nightmare - a monster from another world, manifested out of humanity's fears - and a strange young man with a sword who saved her from the monster.  Over the next few months, that man, Addison Hatta, would train Alice to use her own Muchness, as well as powerful Figment Blades, to enter Wonderland and destroy the Nightmares before they could once again enter the human world and wreak havoc.

A year later, the toll of fighting is taking a toll on the teenage Alice, who's trying to manage her high school life, her friendship with her best friend Courtney (who knows of her double life) and her good male friend Chess - to say nothing about dealing with her sick mother, who worries about Alice as a young black teen in a world where black women are so often killed by "mistake."  Alice is almost ready to give the fight up, although it would hurt her heart to part from Hatta, who she kinda has a crush on.

But when a mysterious figure right out of Wonderland's dark past returns and causes havoc, Alice feels desperate to fix things and to save everyone.  But can she do so without making the situation worse....and without possibly causing harm to her friends in both worlds?
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A Blade So Black is carried by its heroine, Alice, who's really fantastic.  I've seen other reviews compare her to Buffy, which makes sense from what I know of that show (I never watched Buffy, sorry), but she's a more modern take on that, and she's black, not white, with all that entails.  Not only does she have to deal with school (not really a focus in this book) and trying to maintain her friends despite her calling as a superhero in another world, but she has to deal with the rational fears of her mother about being just another black girl in a racist world.  Alice's insecurities and fears as a result feel incredibly natural and make her really easy to root for, even when she's taking actions that the reader can suspect will end badly.

The book also is rather good about being aware of when Alice is taking those decisions - so if Alice makes a move that would fall into the antagonist's hands, another character will call her on it.  It helps give the plot a verisimilitude it might otherwise lack and keeps the suspension of disbelief (although a reader might wonder if Alice in Wonderland exists in this alternate world)

I should add that the other characters, as well as the worldbuilding are rather excellent.  Alice's best friend, Courtney, knows of Alice's double life from the start and is naturally supportive while also expecting friendship in return from Alice and works quite well as a result.  Her other human best friend Chess also works really well as a sidekick, and the book nicely doesn't have either Chess nor Courtney have issues with Alice's secret identity when it is revealed, which is an annoyingly common trope.  And the Wonderland characters and world are really well done, which kept my interest rather nicely as the plot moved forward, even when the plot did verge at times into predictable territory.

Alas, the book's promise is mostly left for its sequels to figure out, as the book sets up some major plot elements that it leaves for its successors to deal with and ends on a rather unsatisfying note (and then throws a strong cliffhanger into its epilogue).  And this is with the book taking about half its pages to set up the world before moving on to the greater plot, so it's rather frustrating that the plot threads are left hanging.  These plot threads are particularly interesting, but the fact that so few are actually resolved here (well, basically none of them are) left me feeling rather unsatisfied at the end of this novel.  I expected at least one minor plot thread to be explained by the end of this book, but nope, it wasn't.*

*Spoiler in ROT13: N erpheevat zlfgrel va gur obbx vf Nyvpr va frireny crevybhf zbzragf - ntnvafg svraqf va Jbaqreynaq naq ntnvafg gur svany svraq va bhe jbeyq - punaaryvat n fgenatr cbjre bs yvtug naq orpbzvat na hafgbccnoyr sbepr.  Vg'f arire rkcynvarq jurer guvf pbzrf sebz naq Nyvpr vf gbgnyyl orshqqyrq ol vg, fb gur dhrfgvba vf yrsg va gur ernqre'f zvaq bs jung vf fcrpvny nobhg Nyvpr gung fur qbrfa'g dhvgr xabj....naq guvf vf fgvyy yrsg va gur ernqre'f zvaq ng gur raq, hanafjrerq.

In addition, and this is a weird complaint I know, but the book kind of tried a bit too hard to fit its "Alice in Wonderland" theme at times - for instance there are two human dreamwalkers who are Alice's allies who are essentially named Tweedledee and Tweedledum for no reason other than to stay on theme.  It was kind of silly and distracting.

Still, I'll be back for this book's sequel next year, I suspect, just to see how things resolve and because I did like Alice that much.  I just wish I could've been a bit more satisfied, and if you aren't sure if you want to start a new series and are looking for a book with a satisfying ending, you might not want to start here.


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