Friday, September 17, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Councilor by E.J. Beaton

 





The Councilor is the debut novel (and first in a series) by author E.J. Beaton.  The book is marketed as a Machiavellian fantasy, featuring a woman whose life's work has been studying and crafting a book based upon past history of what would be a truly "Ideal Queen", but that marketing - as is typical - is a bit misleading.  The story is instead the tale of a commoner woman given the chance at guiding power, finding she has a taste for it herself and struggling to handle her desire to do what's right, the lessons of her commoner heritage and an oppressed minority lover, along with the lessons her tyrannical ruler mother figure once taught her. 

And there's a lot here to like in The Councilor, especially in its lead character, its world (a very egalitarian and LGBTQ-friendly world, despite the oppressive treatment of a major minority group), and some of its prominent side characters.  Still the book, which isn't short but isn't long either, doesn't seem to have enough page length to deal with the moral and other struggles of its heroine, such that it doesn't quite seem to have enough space to deal with the interesting issues being dealt with.  There's also a drug addiction plotline that goes absolutely nowhere (and is advertised on the back page), which is very weird.  I'm very much interested to see where this goes in the next book, but this didn't quite hit the potential that it set up, to my disappointment.  
---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------------
Lysande Prior was an orphan girl, a survivor of a fire in the White War, and no one of consequence before she became somehow the favorite of the legendary Iron Queen Sarelin Brey of Elira.  As palace scholar, and a woman with access the queen who had legendarily defeated the powerful Elemental leader, the White Queen, Lysande has spent her years researching the past for her book "An Ideal Queen", trying to put together the traits of an ideal ruler.  Yet Lysande can't help but feel ill at some of her close friend's policies, such as the hunting down of innocent Elementals....elementals like the woman Lysande has fallen in love with.  

And then Lysande's world is turned upside down when the Iron Queen is murdered, seemingly at the hands of one of the other noble leaders of Elira....at the behest of a resurgent and powerful White Queen.  The Queen did not leave behind an heir, and instead names Lysande "Councilor", an unprecedented position for a commoner, which is meant to pick the next ruler of the Country.  But as Lysande tries to figure out to whom to hand power - and who might've been responsible for the Iron Queen's death - she begins to realize she has a taste for power herself....and that there is so much she could do with the power.  

But Lysande soon finds herself struggling between trying to grasp a tighter hold on power and trying to do something good with it, such as possibly reducing the oppression of Elementals and helping the common people.   But without knowing who she can trust, and with an enemy Queen out there out for blood....will she be able to hang on to that power if she tries to do actual good?  
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The Councilor is the story of Lysande Prior, told entirely from her own third person perspective, as she is given the opportunity to wield power - first indirectly and then directly - in a country that is split into various city-states, each with their own politics and prejudices, as somewhat (but not always) exemplified by their various leaders.  It's a country that has responded to a war started by a magic-wielding minority group (the Elementals, people who develop power to wield elemental magic) with oppression, to the point where innocent elementals live in hiding for fear of being discovered and immediately executed.  And then of course there are several neighboring nations with their own political and economic goals that have their own intentions on Elira.  

Into this country steps Lysande, who as an orphan girl essentially adopted and trained as a scholar while in the palace of the Iron Queen Sarelin, never expected to ever wield any power - or to be accepted as wielding any such power.  Lysande is a complicated figure, full of insecurities due to her various idealist and non-idealistic beliefs (she's very much a contradiction), full of both fear and ambition at the same time.  She idealizes Sarelin, and yet knows the executions and oppression of elementals by Sarelin is an atrocity - and yet she can't bring herself to openly do more than stop the executions at first.  She fears the noble leaders for the possibility they are the traitors, but she can't help but desperately crave their friendship, even as she decides her best response to their untrustworthiness is to hold onto power.  She is tremendously attracted to one of those leaders (the enigmatic and incredibly intelligent Luca) and yet just as fearful of that attraction, taking comfort in having sex with an advisor just to get her urges out of the way - all the while also pining for the elemental commoner woman who left her.*  All these contradictions make Lysande swirl with constant thoughts in her head about what to do next, but at the same time she has to be, and is decisive in the moment, for good or bad.  

*This is a very LGBTQ-normal world, as evidenced by Lysande being bisexual, with deep attractions (and having sex with) both male and female characters in this book.  It's not just Lysande either, two of the City Nobles are gay/bi and attracted to one another, which is a problem not because of their attraction, but because one of them is betrothed to another in a political marriage.  The book also isn't really concerned about Monogamy, as Lysande experiences deep attractions and desires for relationships with multiple people at the same time, with nary a thought that the feelings reflect any cheating or betrayal of the other.*

Lysande's internal beliefs, as well as her growing desire for power as she tastes it - and the fear that holding onto that power will tie her hands from doing something actually good with it - carry the plot forward, as she deals with potential threats from outside the country and from within, as well as the rebel leader from an oppressed group threatening a new deadly war.  Lysande has to deal with the fact that her beloved Sarelin may not have been as good as she would like to believe, and the fact that there are elementals who don't want to wage war and just want to live in peace, something that is against common majority sentiment.   And so the book deals with issues of power/race/class decently and in interesting ways, up through a conclusion that presents new possibilities for the sequel.  And well I guess I should add here somewhere that the other characters in the book are as excellent and as interesting as Lysande herself, which really helps the book explore these themes.  

Still, the book has some flaws, and honestly could've used more pages spread here and there to build up the world - I was confused at points about the foreign neighbors and their political situations, and more importantly, Lysande's struggles with her potential ideals, with the words of the woman she loved and with the fact that elementals may just be other people, often seem shortchanged by the need of the plot to go forwards.  Also a major element of the plot is a drug addiction for Lysande, with her taking an illicit drug (Chimera Scale) with unknown side effects and only increasing the dosage over time....which never makes any difference whatsoever to the plot.  Like at one point she's forced to stop taking it for a while, and she never undergoes any withdrawal symptoms.  I suppose the drug addiction could be an issue for the sequel, but here it's played largely for a red herring, and well, it doesn't really make sense for such a serious issue.  

In essence, if the book would've slowed down at times, forced Lysande into more deliberation and probably got rid of the drug subplot (or turned it into something meaningful), it might have really been something great.  As it is, it's a book with clear potential that doesn't quite reach it, although I still do have hopes for the sequel.  

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