Tuesday, February 8, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Thousand Steps Into Night by Traci Chee

 


Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on March 1, 2022 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.  

A Thousand Steps Into Night is the latest Young Adult Fantasy from author Traci Chee, author of The Reader Trilogy.  That trilogy (The Reader, The Speaker, and The Storyteller) was a really surprising and meta take on dark YA fantasy, with some real heartbreaking moments along the way, and I really recommend it.  So when I saw that Chee was returning back to fantasy with this book (after an award winning/nominated work of historical fiction based upon Japanese internment camps), I was immediately interested.  

And while A Thousand Steps into Night isn't quite as interesting as The Reader trilogy, it's still really well done and enthralling Japanese-myth inspired YA.  Featuring a girl who doesn't fit in in a society with strict gender roles, who winds up becoming cursed to become a demon and is forced to go on an adventure, the story features a very strong heroine, a surprising mid-book turn, and a really great setting.  Add in some excellent side characters, and a story with strong themes - particularly about the fight for more freedom and opportunities for people of all genders (M/F/NB, cis or trans/queer) - and an adventure that never gets less interesting and well, this is very enjoyable and I had problems putting it down, even if it never quite hits a level of greatness.  

Trigger Warning:  Forced Kissing - twice, once by a character actually trying to make an advance on the victim.  That's as far as it goes, so it's not that bad, but fair warning.  

----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------
From birth, it was clear Miuko wasn't really fit for her role in life as a girl in the servant class in the realm of Awara.  She was too loud, too clumsy, too outspoken, etc. - traits that did not make her particularly attractive as a marriage prospect, the duty of a girl of her age/era/social status.  But she had a safe more or less happy life as the daughter of a single father, helping him run the inn in their falling-apart village.  

Until one day, an errand leads to a chance encounter with a demon and a terrible curse - a curse that will turn Miuko herself into a demon of vengeance who will kill/destroy anything she touches.  Cast out in fear from her village, Miuko desperately goes forth into the world for the first time searching for a cure to the curse, alongside a thieving magpie spirit who she chanced upon on the road.  

But Miuko's quest is filled with perils, as the humans of Awara are not kind to girls and women out on the streets alone, and the spirits, gods and demons of this land are ever present, and very dangerous to those who encounter them.  And then there's the demon prince Miuko keeps encountering her, who wishes for her to complete her deadly transformation to be at his side.  And then there's Miuko herself - having experienced freedom for the first time, does she really want to go back to that life in the first place?  
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A Thousand Steps Into Night combines two not too uncommon types of stories.  First it's a story inspired by Japanese myth/fantasy*, with gods, spirits, and demons all living not alongside, but not too near humans, such that they're ever present as a threat and yet not fully understood, allowing our protagonist to be surprised (or worse) when she encounters them.  Second it's a story of a girl in a world with strict gender rules - misogynistic and often anti non-cis rules - who learns how she chafes at those rules, and winds up taking steps in the end, as she encounters differences in attitudes in other places and times, to change all that.  A lot of readers will have encountered both types of stories before, or even the combination.  

*The blurb describes it as "Japanese-Influenced", and the world seems familiarish to me based upon other Japanese myth inspired stories, but the book contains footnotes and explanations of words used and creatures who show up as if they are from an invented language instead of Japanese, so I'm not sure anything is directly ripped from Japanese myth as much as just very inspired by and very similar in concept*  

That said, Chee makes this combination really work, and a large part of that is how enjoyable the world and its characters are, especially Miuko.  Miuko blurts out whatever comes into her head, and is clumsy, and well these things don't really change.  She also is a girl with an incredibly good heart, who pines for her father's caring, and who wants desperately to stay human and not wind up becoming a threat to her friends.  And as she adventures, she realizes that she enjoys the feeling of freedom and that while she would never want to be a boy (and trans people exist in this world and are relevant characters, if marginalized in a plot point) she isn't sure she'd want to go back to a world where she didn't have that freedom, and where she just stayed back in the inn....even with all the hardships she's endured.  But while Miuko is brave and learns to be more daring as the book goes on, she's most notably not perfect, often screwing things up and occasionally doing some pretty bad things without realizing it - things she badly tries to make up for later.  And so she's just a really enjoyable heroine to follow, especially as the book throws things for a loop in its second half (more on that later).  

Add in the side characters and the world, and well you've got something special in this story.  Most notably there's the magpie Geiki, Miuko's first and most important companion, a spirit who has two bird forms and can transform when no one's looking, who like a typical magpie loves to steal things - at least for the enjoyment of stealing, not actually for keeping whatever he steals.  He's not the most knowledgeable of companions - especially about the human world - but he's such a, well eager is the wrong word, but free-spirited (pardon the pum) character that he's a great foil for Miuko, who begins so anxious and shy.  In a very nice touch, Miuko and Geiki's relationship is that of friends, and is never romantic (there is no romance in this book), but it grows to the point where they obviously care deeply for one another, which affects their actions as they try to save the other from the threats they encounter.  

And then you have the rest of the world, whose demons, humans, spirits and gods are all diverse in types and attitudes, leading to a plot that takes some very surprising twists - especially at the book's midway point, where everything takes a turn on its head.  This leads to a climax that features a very different - a very changed Miuko - making a choice with the help of her friends that she could not have even imagined at the beginning.  It's a plot that deals with the struggles of those who aren't cis men/boys, and Miuko fights not only for the safety of people from the demon antagonist in this story, but also for people both like her (cis girls) and not like her (trans or NB characters) to have more choices in life, to not be ruined and limited to certain places and roles, and to be free in the end. 

Perhaps the changes Miuko wreaks in the end come to easy, and perhaps this story never really hits the edges of greatness that I've seen other books with similar themes do, but A Thousand Steps Into Night still works really well and is an excellent YA/Coming-of-Age fantasy that I will definitely recommend.  


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