Monday, April 8, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Deepest Blue by Sarah Beth Durst



The Deepest Blue is a stand-alone fantasy novel set in Sarah Beth Durst's "Renthia" universe, which was previously the setting of her "Queens of Renthia" trilogy (which I reviewed on this blog previously).  I enjoyed that trilogy a good bit, which first described a fantasy world in which humans had to live in lands inhabited by murderous spirits of the elements, who could only be partially controlled by women who possessed innate powers and more fully controlled by the powerful Queens of each country.  The prior trilogy dealt with two of the five countries in this world (Semo and Aratay), and this book moves the plot over to a third country: the island country of Belene.

And I enjoyed The Deepest Blue (read as an audiobook with the same strong reader as the trilogy), probably about as much as the trilogy's second novel (The Reluctant Queen), even if it still isn't up to the level of the first book (The Queen of Blood).  The new setting is an excellent change from the trilogy, and the new characters are generally well done, and the only returning character is amazing.  The plot is a little predictable at times, and oddly for this series the book has a habit of NOT killing characters, but otherwise the book moved at a nice pace, with a few surprises despite the predictability and the result is definitely worth your time.

Note: If it wasn't obvious from the above, this book is totally stand-alone and you do not need to read the prior trilogy to enjoy this book.  Only one character recurs from the trilogy, and while she's great you don't need to have prior knowledge of her to appreciate her, so you can totally start this book here.
-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
The Country of Belene is made up of islands in the ocean of Renthia - but not just any islands, but the corpses of spirit leviathans, whose bones still pepper the lands.  And unlike the rest of Renthia, Belene isn't just threatened by normal elemental spirits who want to murder its human inhabitants, but by the still living leviathans of the "Deepest Blue," who wish to destroy not only the islands, but all of Renthia if they're allowed to run loose.  The only one stopping them is Belene's queen, who must be incredibly powerful at controlling the spirits lest she allow the leviathans to waken.

To ensure that potential heirs to the Queen are powerful enough, Belene employs a deadly testing system: any woman discovered to have the power to influence spirits is given a choice - either renounce her family and speech and become a "Silent One" who enforces law on the Island or submit to the deadly Island of testing, where they must survive hundreds of spirits out for blood....for an entire month.  Nearly all who choose the Island die.  Only those few who survive can see their loved ones again, as newfound heirs to the Queen.

Eight years ago, Mayara's sister once chose the Island.....and did not survive.  Since then she has hid her own power to control spirits so that she would never be forced to make the choice.  But on the day of her wedding, a deadly spiritstorm forces her to reveal her power.  Separated from her husband and family, she chooses the Island....but the Island has become even deadlier than it was when it killed her sister - having killed the last 12 humans to set foot on its shores - and what chance does Mayara have of surviving with basically no training whatsoever?  And if she does survive, she may find that the Island is not the only horror lurking in Belene, and safety may never be hers again....
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The Deepest Blue takes the world that Durst built in her Queens of Renthia and shifts the setting to a new country within it - and that new country is really fascinatingly built.  This is a country literally built on the bones of dead monsters, filled like the rest of Renthia with thousands of deadly murderous elemental spirits, but also threatened by sleeping monsters.  The result is that whereas in the prior books we had Queens who were practically all powerful within their own nations, here the Queen is forced to rely upon others to maintain control, and the country has been forced into traditions that leave the populace scared to death of manifesting supernatural powers that are celebrated elsewhere.

It's a really interesting setting and a nice change from the trilogy (which I complained about as getting less interesting in Book 2 as we stayed in the same area) which keeps things interesting as the plot progresses and as the characters develop.  And those characters are generally excellent.  Mayara is a nice main protagonist - not as brave as prior heroine Daleina but still brave in the face of danger, impulsive and yet quick thinking and adaptable, passionate in her love for those she cares for but understanding of the changes that those loved ones undertake. And the solutions she comes up with to the problems facing her in this book are always interesting, with the final resolution she comes to being one that really reflects her character development in a creative and fascinating way.

The other characters are also excellent.  Secondary POV character Kelo - Mayara's husband - is at first seemingly a bit of a distraction from Mayara's more-interesting plot, but he develops in some fun and interesting ways.  The queen forms another small POV character and she's rather well done in how she acts and thinks.  The friends Mayara makes after she is taken to be sent to the Island are also excellent in their own quirky ways.  And then there's the returning character from the original trilogy, Poison Master Garnah is just the best - an amoral but hilariously sarcastic poison master whose actions tend to scare even her allies....I love her so damn much, and will be sad when she's not in any future Renthia book.

There are some issues here however.  One antagonist is so blatantly and comically evil as to be kind of silly, which makes him stick out like a sore thumb from every other antagonist in this series to be honest, as he has no redeeming points - or interesting backstory - whatsoever.  The book also has a bad habit of faking out deaths only to reveal that the deaths didn't happen later - which is especially noticeable if you read The Queen of Blood, which brutally kills off for real characters throughout and never tries a fake out.  There's also some pacing problems - as alluded to above, the book occasionally shifts from Mayara to Kelo's point of view, and the first few times it does so it disrupts a far more interesting narrative for one much less interesting and just made me want to skip forward to see what was coming for Mayara.

Still, it's a rather well done book, and probably tied for my second-favorite story in the series, and I do hope Durst isn't done with this world: we have two more countries to explore in the future after all.  If she does choose to explore them, I will be there.

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