Thursday, January 17, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Spark of White Fire by Sangu Mandanna




A Spark of White Fire is the start of a trilogy of Young Adults SciFi (Space Opera) books by Sangu Mandanna.  The trilogy is an adaptation of an Indian epic, The Mahbharata (which I have not read), but obviously is not written to expect readers to recognize the aspects of the original in the adaptation, as most readers (like myself) have little experience with Indian mythology.

The result was a book I really enjoyed and one I tore through in one day and has had me rereading segments quite a few times.  It's far from perfect, but it features a very enjoyable heroine, a storyline that surprises at times, and a fun interesting setting that had me wanting more, while ending in a way that still left me satisfied.  I don't see a publishing date for book 2 as of yet, but I will pretty clearly be reading on when it comes out.


--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------------
"They say the gods' favorites can wreak havoc with their words.  
I am one of those favorites.  
Beloved By Gods....
And So I Wreak Havoc."

Esmae was raised a servant girl on the world of Wychstar, being educated along with the Royal Family thanks to the intervention of the Goddess of War, Amba.  But Esmae is no mere servant girl, unbeknownst to nearly anyone else other than the Goddess, and she wishes nothing more than to go home to her never-seen home "world" of Kali and to reunite with her family whom she has never met.  And when the King of Wychstar issues a challenge, with the most powerful warship in the galaxy, the sentient Titania, as a prize, Esmae enters and wins the challenge, to the shock of all.

But entering the competition is just the start of the daring plan Esmae intends to pull off - she intends to return home to a Kingdom stolen by her uncle - the Kingdom of Kali - and adopted cousin, gain his confidence, and then betray him to her exiled family and restore them upon the throne.  But when Esmae starts to enact this plan, she begins to find that the situation on Kali is not quite she expects...and that the family she has hated from afar is much different than she thought.  Moreover, the truth behind the family she has loved but never seen may not match her dreams either.

As things go on, Esmae becomes desperate to avoid a war between her family's forces, a war that could kill thousands.  But when the gods prophecy that Esmae will have a fatal confrontation, is there any solution she can find that won't lead to war....and death?
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A Spark of White Fire is told entirely from Esmae's point of view, with the reader learning things and seeing things as Esmae sees them.  The result is not exactly an unreliable narrator, but one who might not be seeing things always with a fully informed eye as until the novel begins, Esmae has never actually been to her home "world" or met her actual family, and the result is a plot that can surprise the reader as much as it doe Esmae.

It works out rather well, because Esmae is a particularly strong character - a heroine who has pined for what she was told was hers at a young age to the point that when she is first told/warned that she should no longer want it, she can't quite change her mind and still plows forward with determination, regardless of the consequences.  She's an excellent guile hero - while she's perfectly physically capable of performing superhuman feats of war, she prefers to achieve her goals with strategies born from intelligence and occasional trickery, and she has a soft spot for the family she's idealized so much.  She's an easy heroine to like and care for, and her actions and conflicts always make good sense.

The rest of the cast is generally solid, even if there are few interesting standouts (probably because we're so attached to Esmae's point of view we don't get to see enough of some other characters).  Esmae's cousin and eventual love interest, her cousin Max, is an interesting conflicted character who isn't quite how he appears, and enough mysteries surround him that I look forward to finding out more about him.  Esmae's best friend, the Prince Rama, is also a nice minor character, although there's very little about himself that doesn't revolve around Esmae.  Esmae's family members are all generally interesting, but the way they are portrayed is definitely affected by Esmae's biased narration, so their realities are interestingly not quite how they appear at first glance to the reader.

But besides Esmae herself, it's the worldbuilding here where this book shines.  This is a Space Opera world where the Gods exist and have powers to meddle with the lives of mortals - and two definitely do in this book - but have rules that constrain them from acting too directly in the Galaxy.  But those gods have set rules on mortal behavior, so battles in space are fought with spaceships - like the sentient spaceship Titania, who's a fun if underused character herself - but battles between infantry are fought with swords and bows instead of guns.  There are two kingdoms that are situated on space stations, including the heroine's home kingdom of Kali, as well as kingdoms on planets, and the Kingdom of Kali itself is developed quite well.  And then there's other parts of the galaxy.  Long rambling paragraph short, this is an extremely well developed galaxy that the story takes place in and it makes this story even more fascinating to see play out.

Though I really enjoyed this book it has some flaws that stand out.  One character is so obviously a bad guy from the start - even to the heroine! - and has basically no redeeming virtues that it's bizarre and distracting to see him existing alongside the other more developed - or at least morally ambivalent - characters.  The book also starts making a big deal about the sentient nearly omnipotent spaceship Titania, and it seems like her relationship with the heroine will be a big part of the book, but Titania disappears for a good portion of the book which was disappointing (and whether there are other sentient ships, which is joked about but never explained, is kind of a weird thing to not explain).  And well the latter half of the book is very much a countdown toward the fulfilling of a prophecy, which is definitely not one of my favorite tropes.

Still, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would and look forward quite a bit to the sequel whenever it comes out.  I hope we see some different viewpoints besides Esmae when we finally come back to this trilogy, but even if we don't I'm really curious to see where things go from here.

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