Wednesday, February 27, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty



The Kingdom of Copper is book two in S.A. Chakraborty's "Daevabad Trilogy" and the sequel to last year's "City of Brass" (which I reviewed here).  I really enjoyed The City of Brass - if there was any book where a Game of Thrones-esque comparison would make sense, it would be that one, but it was so much more than that: yes it featured a world of gray, where those who try to be lawful good tend to suffer, but it featured a world based upon islamic/arabic myth (djinn!, ifrit! marid!), great characters in their own right, an unpredictable (somewhat) plot, and avoided the problematic elements that mar Game of Thrones (no sexual assault or rape involved here).  It also dealt with serious issues, such as that of cycles of revenge, conquered peoples living among the conquerors in their former city, prejudice, racial discrimination and violent extremism, etc.  The book had some issues (mainly pacing), but it was a really strong start to a trilogy and I was really looking forward to the follow-up.

The Kingdom of Copper mainly doesn't disappoint and is an excellent continuation to the story. Taking place after a five year time-skip, the book increases the number of viewpoint characters to three (readers of the prior book can guess the new POV) and follows up strongly on all of the tantalizing cliffhangers/sequel-hooks left open by City of Brass.  And while the book is well longer than its predecessor, it uses its extra pages well and doesn't drag too much, and the characters remain really damn good and compelling.

Note: I read this book, like its predecessor, as an audiobook.  The audiobook reader is the same as for The City of Brass and she is really good, although the increased length of this book means the audiobook is 23 hours plus, which is well longer than my usual maximum limit for audiobooks, so if you'd - like me - prefer shorter audiobooks so that it doesn't take 2+ weeks to finish them, maybe stick to the print edition of this book.
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Five Years have Passed since the events of The City of Brass.  In that time, Nahri has remained coldly married to the man she does not love, Emir Muntadhir Al Qahtani, and has seemingly mastered her skills as a Nahid healer, helping her tribe and others in Daevabad.  However, her every movement is controlled by Daevabad's ruler and her father-in-law, Ghassan, and she knows that if she steps out of line, Ghassan will punish the Daeva people who depend upon her.  Ali meanwhile has found himself a home in a rural town in Am Gezira, using his strange new water powers from the Marid to ingratiate himself to the town by "finding" water to save them all from drought.  But Ali still struggles to control his power, and fears the Marid are not yet done with him....and also that the forces which tried to manipulate his good-intentions in Daevabad still plan to use him further.

Ali and Nahri haven't seen each other in five years, but forces will conspire to bring them together in Daevabad once again, where Nahri attempts to fulfill her dreams of a plan that could bring peace to the city's seemingly unending conflict between her clan, the Daevas, and the half-blood Shafit she secretly associates herself with.  But obtaining her dream is not something a despot like Ghassan will permit without strings attached, and while Ali's support may allow her to achieve this goal, it also complicates things.  For Ali's good intentioned idealism and refusal to bend will once again put him....and her....in the crosshairs of those who don't wish the status quo to change, and Muntadhir, his once beloved brother, no longer is willing to protect him - and worse, Muntadhir fears that Ali may be planning a coup, and will perhaps take action to stop him.

But the greatest threat comes from outside the city, where for the last five years, Darayavahoush "Dara" e-Afshin has been reborn, and working with Nahri's mother, Banu Manizheh, and her forces to reconquer the city, slaughter the Geziri and Shafit, and eliminate all who oppose them.  Dara has been reborn without Suleiman's Curse, as if he was an Ifrit, and finds himself possessing strange powers...in addition to a monstrous new form.  But Manizheh's plans involve truly horrifying acts the likes of which once made Dara notorious as the world's greatest monster, and no one may be able to stop her from carrying them out.....
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The City of Brass was mostly Nahri's story, but the book was split between chapters written from Ali and Nahri's points of view, bar the epilogue.  The Kingdom of Copper is split between three points of view - with Dara's point of view being added to the story, though it is now pretty clearly equally Nahri and Ali's story.  And all three characters bring something different to their perspectives, and are pretty great (particularly the main duo), which makes this story pretty damn easy to want to get through as quickly as possible.

In Ali, once again we have a lawful-good character - think Ned Stark - in a world where being lawful good and unwilling to bend in your beliefs is punished.  And yet for the most part, it's easy to see where he comes by his idealism and his actions, though often making me want to slap him for the second straight book when he doesn't see the obvious consequences coming, are very believable and understandable (it helps that several characters tend to point out to him the consequences).

And then we have Nahri, the more cynical pragmatic good character, who's been beaten down even more than Ali by the last few years of what has essentially been captivity.  She wants the ability to go back to Cairo, but still wants to do what's right by her people as well, to become the healer they want her to be, and yet also wants to try and mend the fences between her people and the Shafit.  And with Ghassan's approach to keeping power being to oppress both her people and the Shafit, this becomes absolutely incredibly hard, especially as Ghassan possesses the ability to potentially destroy her with his secret knowledge.

Honestly, the least enjoyable part about Nahri and Ali is how much in denial the two of them are about what they each mean to the other - it's been obvious from a book plus now that the two are pretty much destined to wind up together, but it takes a long time in this book for the two to admit once again that they are even friends (and no they don't get together yet in this book).  It's an understandable reaction the two have to each other honestly, but given the reader's knowledge of how things are almost certainly going to work out, the slow playing of the relationship is kind of annoying.  Still, the two are utterly fantastic characters who I cared about quite a bit going in and this book only grew my love for them.

The third main character is Dara, back from the dead (this won't come as much of a surprise due to the last book's epilogue) as he struggles to deal with the being he's become externally (and the power that entails), and internally as he's called upon once again to support and perform some horrifying acts.  It works, for sure, but well, it's a storyline that very much had me going "oh no, don't do this" repeatedly, so it isn't quite as good as the narratives of the real two leads.

Still, aside from the three leads, the rest of this world remains excellent.  The side characters - both returning and new are generally great, and the plot takes some pretty damn surprising turns for the most part.  I cared about a lot of the side characters, even those doing some pretty shitty acts, which is the mark of a pretty damn good book to be honest.

The book has some faults though.  For the second straight book, there are some pacing issues - in an annoying trope, the book makes it clear that the climax is going to happen at a holiday celebration in a few months from the start, which makes it feel like a waiting game at times.  Still quite a lot happens leading up to the climax, in often surprising fashions, so the book doesn't really drag as much as it could have, so it's not that big of a deal.  The book also begins with a five year time-jump from the end of its predecessor, but the characters sometimes act as if the events happened only yesterday, so it kind of doesn't work at times.

But these are minor complaints, and I cannot wait for us to return to this world and see the finale.  The characters, this world, the plot, they're all terrific and I enjoy them so much, and I really hope they wind up happy in the end, but either way, I'll be there as soon as the finale comes out.
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