Thursday, December 30, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Descendant of the Crane by Joan He

 




Descendant of the Crane is the young adult fantasy debut of author Joan He, whose 2021 novel The Ones We're Meant to Find I really enjoyed (My review here).  This book features a world that is thrilling with its complexity, with a well meaning heroine finding herself betraying herself more and more as she tries to do both what's right and true.  It's a book with some classic plot setups that you might imagine, and features some serious themes such as cycles of oppression, nobles vs common people, fears of people with power, sins of the past and more. 

And what Descendant of the Crane does with these themes and plot setups are really interesting, with the story taking a number of plot turns that are very different from what I expected and from what I've seen in books with similar themes and issues.  The protagonist is highly likable and easy to understand, and the story never takes the easy way out in dealing with its complicated issues.  Still, the book ends on what is a resolution but is also at the same time a cliffhanger that makes the story feel incomplete, and it doesn't seem a sequel is likely to be forthcoming, so readers looking for an entirely satisfying stand alone story may want to stay away, even if it does sort of work on its own. 
-----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------------
300 years ago, the king and nobility of the country of Yan ruled the people with an iron fist, using their magical soothsayers - the "sooths" - to control the populace, along with edicts preventing commoners from access to education and bettering their lives.  Then the Eleven came and overthrew the King, and issued the Tenets by which people should live, tenets which declared that all soothsayers should be killed painfully to prevent a repeat of the past.  

Now, the new King of Yan lies dead, leaving Princess Yan Hesina in a state she never wanted - presented with the possibility of rule, something she never wanted, at least not so soon.  Especially after what she saw coming from her father's body, a golden mist that shows the death was in no way natural.  And so Hesina takes an act that she knows is treason in search of the truth: she finds a hidden soothsayer and seeks her aid.  The soothsayer tells Hesina to go to her dungeons and find a criminal wielding a rod, and to appoint him as her representative in a trial for her father's murder.  And so Hesina finds a strange man, who gives his name only as Akira, to act as her representative, despite that man's mysterious past.

But the trial serves others' purposes as well, others who would be happy to manipulate the trial for a purpose other than finding truth - to inspire a war against the neighboring attacking country of Kendi'a.  And so Hesina finds her trial and her country now in danger of going awry, leaving her even more desperate to find the truth before her unknown antagonists can do too much damage....but the truth she seeks may be more dangerous than she could have ever imagined.....
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Descendent of the Crane begins with a setup that I've seen a couple of times in YA books this year: you have a land where a past people were overthrown and now must remain hidden or be oppressed or worse (the sooths); a protagonist in royalty who winds up interacting with this oppressed group who realizes their oppression is wrong; and of course greedy nobles hungry for power they supposedly had in the past.  The protagonist has a more martial brother with whom she has arguments - who would usually wind up opposing her attempts to change the oppression.  The usual resolution of this setup is one in which the protagonist royal winds up being one of the oppressed minority without her even knowing, and her taking the throne to remedy things.  This book however, isn't interested in anything so easy.  

For example, while the treatment of the sooths now is certainly evil, the old regime that was was overthrown was indeed oppressive in tis own right, openly favoring nobles over commoners (naturally the new order isn't necessarily all better for the commoners, with the system being corrupt in its own right).  Hesina's full-blood brother actually loves her and doesn't want to rule even as he disagrees with Hesina's pursuit of truth at all costs, and turns out to also sympathize with the oppressed sooths, even if circumstances prevent him from saying so out loud.  The foreign country that the nobles want to incite into war isn't a peaceful neighbor, but a country that relies upon slavery and has plenty of its own vices in how it uses power.  This is a story where nearly everyone is three dimensional in many respects, with faults and virtues of their own, and most of the eventually revealed antagonists (other than one who's revealed fairly early) have motivations that are highly understandable and hard to deal with.  

And this works so well because of our protagonist, Hesina, who is determined to find the truth, even as what she finds threatens more and more to break her into pieces.  Her use of a trial results in one noble hijacking it to try and pin the blame for her father's murder on one scapegoat after another, for the sake of provoking a war that she knows is wrong.  It also teaches her how the oppression of the Sooths is so clearly wrong, even as it shows her at the same time that openly supporting the Sooths could lead to her destruction, as the Eleven's teaching of the Sooth's evil are deeply ingrained in the people.  And worst of all, what she knows about her father, and what she discovers through her investigation is revealed to be very much not true.  Hesina is warned time and time again by people she cares about that to go farther is to risk betraying all her ideals, but she cannot stop, and needless to say, this results in some devastating results. 

These results come from again the fact that none of these problems have easy answers.  There is no way to deal with the oppression of the Sooths easily, especially when the people and the nobles fear and hate them for what they did under the old regime.  There is no easy way to deal with the wanting of war against an enemy who IS actually attacking their border villages and does promote the evils of slavery.  And there is no easy way to deal with the truth about a beloved dead king who turns out to be far more gray than imagined, resulting in Hesina's own memories being tarnished, to say nothing of the legacy she's supposed to rely upon.  Or to deal with others who are trying now to make up for past acts that were horrendous and deserve punishment.  Unlike books I've seen which attempt to imagine some way to resolve these issues by the ending, Descendant of the Crane never does, which is for the better.  

Still, this leads to an ending that is a clear resolution but is also cliffhangery, as everything still winds up in the air. Moreover, this cliffhangery ending isn't the only issue with the book - the book also throws in a romance subplot between Hesina and Akira that seems half-assed, with it being forgotten for pages, restored for a short time and then forgotten thereafter.  Given that the author has stated there will be no sequel for various financial reasons on her website, this may make some readers not want to give this one a try.  But honestly, I do think it still is worth your time, if you're looking for interesting YA and are willing to accept a book that isn't quite complete in its plotline.  

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