Monday, October 19, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Court of Lions by Somaiya Daud




Court of Lions is the second book in a duology by Somaiya Daud that began with last year's YA SciFi novel, "Mirage", which I reviewed here.  Mirage was an....interesting book, that I wanted to like more than I actually did.  As I noted in that review, it featured a sci-fi story dealing with the issue of colonialism, featuring a heroine from a conquered people and a primary antagonist (in the first book at least) of a woman whose heritage is half and half - her father the king of the conquering Vath and her deceased mother the former Queen of the conquered Andalaan people.  And the book seemed to know it could use this setting to say some interesting things....but the book never really got around to it, ending very abruptly right as things were coming to a head, and seemingly pulling a reversal as to a bunch of the character development.  So I was hoping the sequel, which is the conclusion to the story, would manage to do just that.

Unfortunately, not so much.  The book resolves essentially the cliffhanger from the first book in record time, basically removes nearly every aspect of conflict, and really doesn't deal with the themes at all, except to foreground the plot.  It's a novel that's again rather short, and feels like it's missing connective tissue to explain how things changed from books 1 to 2, which just again makes it all frustrating.  The best part of this novel is a new point of view character and romance on the side, but even that can't really make up for the squandered potential.  There's nothing really bad about Court of Lions (or Mirage), but it just punts on dealing with all of the interesting ideas in its setting, making it not particularly special or interesting overall.


-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------
Amani thought she was on the verge of making a difference, using her position as the Vathek heir Maram's body double to help her people, the Andalaans, possibly retake their planet.  She had made contact with the growing rebel movement and even seemed to be having an influence on the half-Andalaan Maram, leading her to a potential turn in favor of her Andalaan bloodline.  And of course, there was Maram's fiance, the noble Idris, with whom Amani had fallen in love.  But in stopping an assassination attempt on Maram, Amani's alliance with the rebels was revealed, and Maram sent her back into isolation, feeling utterly betrayed. 

And when Maram asks Amani to once again act as her double for Amani's own marriage ceremony to Idris, Amani finds herself forced to do so, despite it breaking her heart to marry Idris for someone else.  But she soon realizes the opportunity it presents to once again act for her people, and thatn Maram may not be a lost cause after all.  And if Amani can turn Maram - who is more torn between her two halfs than anyone knows - to the Andalaan cause, then she might really be able to free her people, reunite with her family, and create a world where she can be with the one she loves....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mirage created a world where colonization and conquest had resulted in the Andalaan people being under the thumb of the Vathek Empire, with the brutal King's heir being a half-Vath half-Andalaan girl used to consolidate his rule.  There was a lot of potential there, and the book never really managed to touch it, ending with all of Amani's attempts to turn said heir - Maram - to her Andalaan side as well as to help the rebels backfiring after seemingly a lot of progress.  And so it ended with Maram seemingly as cruel as ever locking Amani away, with her family now held as prisoners for her good behavior.

But Court of Lions essentially eliminates this cliffhanger immediately.  Within seemingly 50 pages Amani is back to being Maram's double, she has made arrangements to secure her family's safety, and Maram - who now takes the role of secondary protagonist with her own point of view chapters - entirely sympathetic to the Andalaan cause, even if she feels incredibly torn about it.  The cruel princess Maram is entirely absent from this book, despite her seemingly reverting to it at the end of the last book, and it's incredibly jarring to see.  Instead, Maram's behavior is pinned entirely on another character, and while that does make sense, how that character is easily dealt with and Maram converted to the side of good is almost unbelievably easy. 

This is a repeated theme of what happens in this book - things coming way too easily.  Is there a noble who Amani will need to persuade over to the Rebel's cause who might not be trustworthy?  Well turns out they are trustworthy and persuasion isn't very difficult.  Is the King seemingly becoming aware of what's going on and putting in his own actions to defuse it - and Maram seemingly being very willing to go along with it?  Well those actions amount to nothing and Maram never shows any hesitancy towards going back towards the Vath side. 

Mind you, things coming too easily to characters is not necessarily a deal breaker - a story can still work if the characters are strong and the themes are interesting....but Court of Lions repeatedly punts on doing anything interesting even when it seems ready to try to do so.  So an early conversation about how the conquering of the planet has left the Vath and Andalaan people mixed so much that actually booting the Vath off the planet isn't a realistic solution?  Yeah, nothing comes of that.  A character whose mother essentially collaborated with the Vath poses a trust problem and probably requires different convincing - not to mention should be a problem for trust by the rebels themselves? - nope, not an issue.  Maram's siblings (characters who threatened her standing and made her as a result more likely to be leaning towards Vathek cruelty in the last book) are basically non-existent, and the book even has a plot twist that essentially removes any chance of her dual loyalties causing her conflict by removing one of them.  I'm not saying I wanted this book to be a conflict between gray powers, but the issues of Empire and Colonization and everything just might as well not be there at all and that's just a disappointment and makes it all seem kind of pointless in the end. 

The best part of this book is Maram's new point of view, which is used to create a new romance with a woman hinted by the prologue to be a creature of the supernatural (she is, but absolutely nothing comes of that fact by the way, adding to the above).  This romance is surprisingly sweet, and while it's very chaste (all of this book is chase, the most you see on page is kissing), it was something I really enjoyed reading, and I found myself looking forward to Maram's chapters the most - except they comprise only 20% of this book and honestly feel more like a different book than the rest of it. 

Court of Lions is short, and it reads well, so I never really thought about DNFing it.  But given the potential of the setting that the book seems to know about and yet fails to do anything with, I wonder if it's a book that could've been better written by a more experienced version of Daud - because this version just came up with a duology that doesn't have a point to really recommend it over so many other books.  And that's a shame.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)