Monday, December 23, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender



Queen of the Conquered is the debut novel by author Kacen Callender, and it's a hell of a debut.  I'd heard glowing things about this book months before it came out, so I'd been ready to reserve it the moment it popped up in my library, but man....if anything they understated how good it is.  Which is not to say that this is a light or "fun" book in any way - this is a tough book to read, but powerful and tremendously effective.

For Queen of the Conquered is a fantasy inspired by a number of real historical places and events - the place being the US Virgin Islands and the events being the slavery and oppression of the Islanders by foreigners, a few of which were POC themselves.  Our protagonist is essentially one such person, a black woman whose family was part of the ruling class despite its island heritage, and who tries to convince herself that she is a heroine in her quest for vengeance despite letting her privilege keep her from truly acting to try and help those who were suffering.  It's the rare story where you will not find yourself rooting for the protagonist, and yet it works and remains compelling from beginning to end.

Note:  As noted above, this is a book by a Person of Color inspired by real life slavery and oppression in a real part of the world, and dealing with related themes.  I'm not a POC - I'm Jewish so not always considered "White" by many racists in various contexts, but in the context of evaluating this book, I can only use my own knowledge and experiences which are obviously very different.  So while I've seen at least one POC on social media complain about this book's representation, and I've seen a few POC reviewers give glowing reviews to this same book, I can't really make any claim either way.  Just a disclaimer I think is necessary.

Trigger Warning: Rape and Torture - Slavery is a major part of this book, and slaves are beaten and treated horribly...and sometimes forced to have sex with masters, even if the forcing is through compelling power and not through physical force.  It's a justified part of this book, but it's not an easy read as a result, so be warned.

------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------------
The Rose family was once a member of the Kongelig - the nobility of the Fjern people who took over and now ruled the islands of Hans Lollik.  But they were not just any such family, they were the only family whose members traced their origins to the Islands themselves, looking just as Black as the native slaves working on the Fjern plantations on the Islands - and the rest of the Kongelig hated them for it.  And so they were all slaughtered in a plot masterminded by the other families.

Or so the families thought.

Sigourney Rose was merely a child at the time of the massacre, but with the help of a slave woman and a Kongelig cousin's whims, she escaped, and spent years growing up on the greater continent.  But Sigourney's heart hungered for vengeance, and armed with her Kraft (magic) that allows her to see into and control others' minds, Sigourney returns to her cousin's Island plantation and begins a plot to not only join the Kongelig, but to wind up its next leader, so that she can take her bloody revenge in the most extreme fashion.

But even with her power, Sigourney can't escape her skin - her Blackness - which marks her among the Kongelig as an "inferior," and someone to be dealt with.  And to ensure she can get into position for her vengeance, Sigourney has found herself at the head of the plantations that enslave the Island People and finds herself committing the same atrocities among them as her fellow White Kongelig families....and earning their immense hatred.

Hated by everyone, is there really a chance for Sigourney to get the vengeance and power she craves?  And even if there is, is she really doing what's right?  Or will her actions simply leave everything in ashes.....
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Queen of the Conquered at first feels like a member of a genre I've read a few times before - the book where an oppressed minority joins the oppressing government/empire seeking to rise up within it in order to use its power against its overall ends, with the lead character forced to wonder if having to enact the oppression of the majority upon their own fellows can ever be worth the end result, and if such actions are corrupting the lead character to the point where the ends can never be achieved.  Think Baru Cormorant for example.

But this impression is wrong.  Sigourney, our lead character here, is not grappling with the internal conflict that using the Fjern methods to rise up to rule the Islands will make her no better than them - she has already embarked on that path by the time the story has begun, accepted it as part of her privilege and moved forward, believing it is indeed the cost she is willing to pay in exchange for her vengeance.  Oh Sigourney, in whose perspective we see everything that happens in the entire book, hates herself for what she does, and feels self doubt in her private reflections, but at no point in her actions does Sigourney ever show that she truly doubts that her place shouldn't be among the oppressive Kongelig she was born into, atrocities and all, instead of the Islanders whose heritage she shares.  Sigourney's fight is not one of freedom (unlike Baru), no matter how much she may occasionally tell herself that, but one of personal Privilege: she wants the high standing she dreams her family once had, and as characters point out to her, her claims for global justice are clearly self-delusions.

Sigourney is in other words, not a good person, and only slightly better than the Kongelig who are her enemies.  It makes this a hard book to read, especially since Sigourney, unlike other similar characters (again, see Baru), is not a brilliant strategist or mastermind whose plots are fun to read: she's a stumbling young wom an making do with an incredibly powerful mind altering magic, and both her mistakes and triumphs lead often to only more horrors.  You will not fist pump for Sigourney's successes - more likely, you will be rooting for her to fail.  And yet the book's narrative is compelling, especially through the eyes of a young slave boy named Løren, who knows the reality of Sigourney's false motives and hates her and whose approval Sigourney desperately wants.  Through Løren and the other slaves we see in this book the reader will find something to care about and to hope for, which helps carry the plot forward as things seemingly get worse and worse for the innocents in Sigourney and her enemies' way.

Oh the book also contains a locked room murder mystery as well as political gamesmanship, which is done generally well, although the book seems to forget about the mystery at times for Sigourney to wallow in misery, which might annoy some readers.  But it all comes together in the end in a final act that is both shocking and convincing, although I kind of hoped the ending would go in another direction*.  Yet that direction leads to a sequel coming out next year, which takes the story further from here, which I will greatly anticipate.  Callender's writing is incredibly well done, and while in lesser hands this book could fall apart in misery, in their hands it works incredibly well and was hard to put down.

Spoiler for the ENDING in ROT13: Va gur raq, gur zlfgrel erfbyirf vgfrys nf orvat gur cybg bs gur Vfynaqref gurzfryirf, yrq ol gur Pncgnva bs Fvtbhearl'f thneq, Fvtbhearl'f zbfg gehfgrq pbzcnavba, Yøera, naq gur lbhat fynir tvey Ntngun jr frr n srj gvzrf va gur fgbel, jvgu gur Vfynaqref evfvat hc gb bireguebj gurve znfgref va n zber pbbeqvangrq naq zber yvxryl gb or fhpprffshy cybg gunaxf gb gur qrnguf bs gur ragver Xbatryvt....vapyhqvat Fvtbhearl.  Lrg Ntngun, jubfr Xensg cbjre bs vyyhfvbaf vf oruvaq rirelguvat, vzcrghbhfyl qrznaqf gb xvyy Fvtbhearl urefrys, naq snyyf gb Fvtbhearl'f xavsr.

V xvaq bs jvfurq gur obbx unq raqrq jvgu Fvtbhearl'f guebng phg - vafgrnq, Fvtbhearl yvirf sbe abj, jvgu ure cbjre orvat pehpvny sbe gur eribyhgvba'f fhpprff jvgu Ntngun qrnq, naq gur arkg obbx fhttrfgvat gur cbffvovyvgl bs erqrzcgvba.  V'z abg fher fhpu erqrzcgvba vf cbffvoyr, ohg Pnyyraqre pregnvayl unf zr phevbhf vs url pna jevgr vg va fhpu n jnl gb znxr vg fgvpx.
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