SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Hollow Empire by Sam Hawke:

 

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Hollow Empire by Sam Hawke: https://t.co/mBDVEI0jxH

Short Review: 7.5 out of 10
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 31, 2020

Short Review (cont): The sequel to City of Lies picks up two years later, as Silasta welcomes foreign diplomats to a city trying to reconcile with its past bad acts, and Joven & Kalina find their unknown enemy back with a new plot to destroy the country.

A solid 2nd book.
2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 31, 2020

Hollow Empire is the sequel to last year's "City of Lies," a both fascinating and frustrating fantasy novel from Astonishing Award nominee Sam Hawke.  The book featured a brother and sister - Jovan and Kalina - in the intriguing the State of Sjona and its capital city of Silasta, a city of ideals, where people can seemingly do what they want and love who they want...but secretly was built on a system of oppression.  Jovan and Kalina were both heavily privileged - their family is both publicly high in status and secretly in charge with proofing the Chancellor of Sjona's food for poison - and as such a large portion of the book was them figuring out how much they really didn't know about the lives of many who lived in their City-State, and how to deal with the rebellion of those oppressed peoples who...may have actually been in the right.  Add in Court Intrigue, a Mystery Traitor or Two, and the hinting of real dangerous magic in this low fantasy setting, and you had a very well done and enjoyable first book, even if it did have a few problems that prevented it from being one of my favorites from last year.

Hollow Empire follows up on the story two years later, once again with the story split between Jovan and Kalina's points of view, and dealing now with the cleanup from the class conflict and rebellion from the first book, while the city's unknown enemy remains out there.  This poses some interesting thematic questions about handling the aftermath and repairing the damage of oppression, but overall the result is a book that is a bit less interesting in themes than its predecessor.  On the other hand, our two main characters have grown tremendously since the first book for the most part, and that's such a really enjoyable thing to see.  Add in some more court/political intrigue, magic, foreign powers, and potential romance, and Hollow Empire may not live up to its predecessor, but it's still a very solid book.  

More after the jump, but warning: Spoilers for City of Lies are inevitable.

Note: I read this mostly as an audiobook, and the two readers are again excellent...but they are NOT the same readers as the ones for City of Lies, which is a bit disorienting.  

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Two years have passed since the Darfri Rebellion, and the city of Silasta, and the entire country of Sjona, is still trying to recover.  The reparation measures for the Darfri have gone a long way, but, as Joven, Kalina, and Tain know full well, they still have a long way to go - and some of the old families are not happy with how far it has gone already and how much they have had to pay for their own and their ancestor's actions.  And then there's the question that still lies in the background: who was the real funder of Aven's betrayal and when will they strike again?  

Two years passed, and Joven and Kalina lack any answers as to that last question, and as a result much of the Council has moved on, acting as if their unseen enemy never really existed.  And Joven himself has more duties now to distract him from a question he knows is important, namely the teaching his 12 year old cousin Dija to be his heir as the Chancellor's poison proofer (even that means poisoning her himself).  Joven and Kalina know their hidden enemy to be out there, but the longer they are distracted and unable to find anything, the more the others think them crazy and discount them....even if they did save the city during the rebellion.  

But with the festival of Karodee on the horizon, Silasta will soon be home to foreign dignitaries from many bordering and non-bordering nations, with their own cultures, religions, and potentially....their own magics.  One of these foreigners is certainly the most likely mystery enemy of Sjona, and with them all within the city's limits, it is only a matter of time before they finally strike....and when they do, it will take all that Joven and Kalina have learned from their past mistakes to survive..... 
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Hollow Empire follows City of Lies' structure: the book alternates chapters between Joven and Kalina's perspectives, with excerpts before each chapter just like in the first book.  The excerpts have changed a little though - whereas with City of Lies, the excerpts explained various poisons that would thereafter show up in the story, Hollow Empire's excerpts detail past records from the family of past poisoning incidents.  But these incidents never really have anything to do with the story even if a few regular characters do occasionally cameo in them, which makes them kind of nothing more than distractions, which can get a bit annoying.  

Which is a shame because Joven and Kalina's points of view remain extremely well done.  The two remain highly capable despite their disabilities (Joven's OCD and Kalina's physical infirmity, which hasn't been helped by her injuries last book) and are both strong presences: Kalina in her sharp intelligence in trying to figure things out calmly and coolly through reason and diplomacy, Joven in his more reckless chasing after practically any lead no matter the danger and refusal to change his tact even when others think he's crazy.  Joven is, especially early on in the book, often frustratingly dense in his actions, but his intentions are good and understandable even as I wanted to yell at him to stop and think, which makes it still work. 

Best of all, the two have learned and changed from their experiences in Book 1 and have taken efforts to not repeat their mistakes, in a way that is often not seen in many series/trilogies.  The two were privileged and somewhat naïve despite their intelligence in the last book, often having to be forced to listen to the concerns of the Darfri people even in the midst of a literal rebellion, and they were among the better ones in this respect back then.  Here they not only take the Darfri seriously, but at the first sight or hearing of something being wrong for people elsewhere, people they don't know, they take it seriously, even making efforts to hear people who might legitimately be not in their right minds.  A choice Joven in particular makes in the last third really shows this shift, and it's highly enjoyable to see such character development and a plot that doesn't rely upon our heroes making the same naive mistakes multiple books in a row.  

Besides Joven and Kalina of course, the rest of the characters are generally well done, with some interesting changes to old ones and some interesting new ones introduced.  Hadrea's arc in this book will remind many of Star Wars, with fears that she's going down a dark path in her use of magic which is not quite fully dealt with in this book (see my thoughts below).  New household members of the family Dija (Joven's 12 year old heir) and Sjease (their non-binary housekeeper) are excellent additions with their own moments, and the number of new foreign characters also add substantial context to Sjona's unusualness in its openness towards gender/sexuality and provide substantial new intrigue.  

The plot and themes however aren't quite as well done as in City of Lies, with the themes being a bit less interesting and often then discarded in favor of more pressing issues of plot.  So for example, a major theme is the conflict between the old families and the Darfri over reparations that have been made over the past two years, which obviously aren't enough, but are still felt by these people of high status to be outrageous....and prime them not just against Joven on the council but for making dangerous actions and bold accusations that threaten civil peace once more.  This issue is basically dropped midway through as the City faces attacks from within that take priority.  The new characters and whatnot are all interesting and work to create a new mystery of magic and treason, except the magical aspect of that brought up at first winds up being a nothingburger (and obvious to the reader) that is later substituted by a different magical mystery and the court/political intrigue plot....well, let's just say that while the mystery isn't so blatantly obvious this time, readers should not be expecting a strong mystery plot from this series.  And it ends in kind of an abrupt fashion, with a major feared event occurring finally happening and then being resolved within the final 50 pages.  

And then there's Hadrea's arc, which essentially ends on a cliffhanger even as everything else is resolved, which is just so frustrating - we never get to see the dark implications of her own choices, even if I can guess at some of them.  But other than that, the ending is satisfying and I really look forward to reading this trilogy's conclusion, where I hope the main duo/trio will find a happy ending, and Silasta can find a new era of actual peaceful prosperity.  They've got a long work ahead of them.