Friday, April 29, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Blind King's Wrath by Ashok K. Banker

 


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 May 3, 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.

The Blind King's Wrath is the third and final book in Ashok K. Banker's The Burnt Empire Saga trilogy, which began in 2019 with his Upon a Burning Throne (my review here) and continued with last year's A Dark Queen Rises (my review here).  This series is the third SF/F adaptation of the Mahābhārata I've read, and honestly, it had through two books left me a bit ambivalent about what I thought.  The first book appeared to be adapting straight a lot of the material from the original epic, with a few major changes here and there, most notably the existence of a clear persistent evil antagonist, and it worked and intrigued...but still it was hard to tell what exactly was Banker's vision in changing the original.  The second book switched things up entirely to setup other characters and other parts of the world for the story's conclusion....but really lost the story's forward momentum and wasted a lot of time with expendable characters.  So I was curious to see what Banker would do with his final book, and what his vision really was now that everything was setup.  

Unfortunately, after reading this final book, I'm still not sure what Banker was aiming for in adaptation - because this book condenses the major events of the epic into two parts, spends a lot of time with characters we barely or don't know and don't really matter, and has pretty much every major revelation fall flat.  Major characters from the prior books who you'd think - both from their setup there and the source material - would be a factor are entirely absent, the potential conflict between sides who are equally at fault is replaced by a battle of good vs evil, and certain plot twists just never are given time to actually matter before they're then reversed for good.  There seem to be two attempts at changes to adjust this work to the modern audience - both in changing the genders/sexualities of various characters and in trying to shoehorn in a theme of the evils of Empire and importance of governance - but both come too late to really make a difference and this book is too short for them to feel like much more than throw-ins.  The result is a book that will not impress those with knowledge of the source, and probably won't inspire those new to it either.  

More specifics after the jump:

------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
The Players in this Epic have been set, and the conclusion begins, with the powerful Avatar Krushni - reincarnation of the daughter of the evil and powerful Jarsun - planning a confrontation to ensnare her father and put an end to his terror once and for all.  Now the adopted powerful daughter of the King of Gwannland, she plans a Wedding Contest to draw all the power people on the continent - both from the Burnt Empire and from without - to her....a contest that requires such feats of Martial Ability so as to be impossible for ordinary men and women.  

But those attending are not Mortal Men and Women - ranging from Jarsun himself, to the Hundred heirs of the Burnt Empire, to the powerful Guru Dronas, to the Five - the surrogate demigod children of Shvate, all of whom have incredible and wondrous powers.  When these powers all compete for one contest, for Krushni's hand, the seeds of a war the likes of which the continent has never seen will be sown. 

This devastating war is all part of Krushni's plan to finish off her father....but Jarsun is no fool, and he has plans and allies of his own, including the Krushan Emperor Adri himself, as well as secrets that, once unleashed, will put him exactly where he's always dreamed - on the throne of the Burnt Empire.....
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When authors do retellings and adaptations of classic stories, there's usually some kind of spin done on these stories, such that the stories are changed enough to become something new - to send a new message, or to take place in a different type of setting, etc.  So to use the other two retellings/adaptations of the Mahābhārata I've read, you have Sangu Mandanna's Celestial Trilogy, which shifts the story to YA Science Fiction (with some Fantasy elements) and tells a slightly different version of the story of family and cycles of vengeance; or you have Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Palace of Illusions, which tells a feminist version of the tale from the perspective of Draupadi/Panchaali (whose role in this version is played by Krushni). 

But Banker's retelling can't quite figure out what type of retelling its going for - with the series at times being near straight retellings of how there are five exiled kids of one heir and a hundred (and one) of another that go on collision courses towards war, among many other things....and at other times, the story being one of these familiar characters being instead placed onto a battle of clearly good (Krushni/Vessa) vs evil (Jarsun).  There are two very notable changes: First, the book changesthe mostly male cast of the original to one made up of a mix of men, women, and non-binary cast members (similarly the entirely straight cast of the original features a number of queer characters), something which is very welcome.  Second, the story tries to introduce here a story of a Conquering monstrous Empire in the Burnt Empire vs the Caring about the people heroes in The Five....but this theme comes up only in the Five's internal dialogue and comments and comes too late in this trilogy to really make much impact, especially as its swallowed up entirely by the big war and never becomes relevant.  There just isn't enough time or pages here for that theme to go anywhere.    

And really that's the same for a lot of things in this book, to the point where it feels like a lot of the plot threads of the original that are made to feel important in book 1 are completely dropped, making it seem like the author was in a rush to get to a conclusion.  So remember how many pages were devoted to Kern, the first son of Karni by the Sun God, who was clearly fated to fight The Five as prophesied by the God Inadran (and to fight her child Arrow in particular)?  No he never shows up here and that whole plot never happens (whereas of course that's a huge tragic part of the original).  Remember Adri's unfaithful wife and his duplicitous brother-in-law who scheme to take over his power politically?  Yeah they're not here either.  Instead we get a book that is devoted to three things - a TON of recap as if you forgot the prior two books, framed as the in-the-know characters getting everyone else up to speed; the Wedding Contest and how that sets up the major conflict; and the major war and battle between all the forces.  

And while those things have their moments - and Banker makes them suitably dramatic and epic, with massive heroes and villains doing incredible feats throughout - there just aren't the characters or plot twists to make those moments meaningful.  Of the new characters, The Five are excellently done, and I enjoyed them immensely, but their opposite number, the Hundred, are just spoiled brat assholes....who never actually do anything relevant in the end.  Moreover, all the plot twists that occur here are ones that are either obvious or just incredibly underwhelming - for example Jarsun's major plans are based upon secrets that are not only known to the reader since book 1....but have also been blatantly known by the protagonists since book 1, so I just kept expecting there must have been something else because the reveal was such a let down.  Similarly, the way Jarsun's plans are foiled is by him openly admitting his schemes in front of the characters' he has bamboozled with them, which is just incredibly stupid, so of course it falls apart.  And even the final confrontation between Jarsun and Krushni, which should be super dramatic, is just incredibly anticlimactic.  

The first book in this series set up a major conflict between the children of Adri and Shvate, the Hundred and the Five, with Kern supporting Adri's children, just as in the original epic - with the major addition being that of Jarsun as a malevolent side force with his own schemes.  This book shows that Banker lost interest in that idea and was more interested in Krushni vs Jarsun, which is fine...except that it made most of book 1, and most of book 2 (everything featuring Tyrak) utterly superfluous and pointless.  It's as if Banker wanted to retell the entire epic, and then decided halfway through he wanted only to focus on this one small conflict, except he'd already set up the entire epic and had to ditch it all.  Which just makes this series feel utterly pointless and I really just cannot recommend it.  

Alas.  
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