Monday, May 16, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Merciless Ones by Namina Forna

 



 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 31, 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 Merciless Ones is the middle book in Namina Forna's YA Fantasy "The Gilded Ones" trilogy, which started with last year's The Gilded Ones (Reviewed Here).  I really liked The Gilded Ones, which was a brutal feminist YA fantasy set in a patriarchal West African world, featuring girls whose blood bleeds gold and who are treated like monsters for it, except when they're drafted into the Emperor's armies against the monstrous Deathshrieks that seem to be attacking the innocent villages of the people....and a heroine among them who discovers truths about herself and the world that reveal this patriarchal society is lying about how things are.  It was a brutal book, with characters suffering horribly from brutal dismemberments, abuse and rape as backgrounds (but never on page), but it worked really well as a feminist tale of women who desired to find a place for themselves eventually fighting back for themselves, with only two real flaws: an underdeveloped surrounding cast and a lack of anyone who didn't fit into a cisgender binary, an issue with gender dystopian books these days.*

*As a Cisgender reviewer/reader, I missed the lack of trans characters as a problem in my initial review, which I wrote two years ago, but one of my favorite reviewers, Alex Brown, pointed this out in their review on Tor.com here.  Given the issues of TERFS and trend of gendercide novels being done very poorly these days, this is a bigger issue that I should've recognized. 

The Merciless one still struggles with the minor character problem, but thankfully, and impressively, not only features multiple trans characters, but deals quite heavily with the issue of gender and what that means as a central theme.  Whereas the first book's themes were very much in line with the standard misogynist dystopia novel, this book takes things in a more universal and interesting direction, forcing heroine Deka to reconsider the revelations from the first book as she's faced with new threats from all sides...as well as new powers.  It's a fascinating novel that really surprised me, and so I really didn't care too much about the issues with minor characters, as Deka's own journey and what it portends is simply incredible, and the book ending on a cliffhanger that is going to make me desperately need book 3 as soon as possible.  

TRIGGER WARNING: Homophobia and Transphobia, rarely overt or on page, but these are major themes here as the book deals with each.  In addition the book remains brutal and bloody, even again as it never directly portrays any abuse/rape, but merely references them.  

Spoilers for book 1 are inevitable below:------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Six months has passed since Deka discovered she was the Nuru, the daughter of the Mothers - the ancient goddesses who once kindly ruled the kingdom of Otera before they were imprisoned by the by the Jatu, men with their own magical enhanced strength who followed the misogynist teachings of the "god" Oyomo.  Since then she and her fellow Alaki, along with their deathshriek comrades and the few men who have joined them, have been trying to fight a war against the Jatu to free all the women of Otera....but they have been stymied by strong Jatu forces wielding an Arcane Object that keeps the Deka and her allies out of their capital city and stronghold.  

But when Deka and her friends go on a mission to save one of the Mothers' ancient generals, they are confronted with the impossible: Jatu wearing a strange symbol on their armor that seems to disrupt Deka's abilities and who resurrect just like Alaki, and who seem to have male deathshrieks of their own - something that should be impossible.  Even worse, these new Jatu claim to be following their own new male god, Idugu, a being who the Mothers insist does not exist. 

To figure out what's happening, Deka and her friends attempt a daring mission to kidnap an Oteran elder for answers....but in the process Deka's powers begin acting strangely and affecting others in new and unexpected ways, ways that suggest that what she's been told by the Mothers may not have been wholly true, and that divine beings like the Mothers aren't exactly what she and the others have been led to believe....
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Gender dystopian novels can be very easy to do poorly - suggesting that gender is biological, or that women are superior to men rather than equal, etc. etc.  The Gilded Ones ended in a way that suggested this could possibly be its implications.  There were no openly transgender characters, our heroine and her friends were Alaki, women gifted with strength and magical fighting ability that were beyond that of men (although a secret group of men actually was equal to them), as well as the ability to resurrect both in human form as well as in monstrous deathshriek form.  The goddesses themselves were female, and appeared to have been imprisoned by jealous greedy men who took pleasure in imposing a society that oppressed women and forced them into a secondary role in society.  The story was done well mind you and given how patriarchal society is in this country and in other countries (such that in Sierra Leone where Forna grew up), it wasn't the worst concept to show women fighting back and as being stronger, but the implications could have been troublesome if taken to a logical conclusion.  

The Merciless Ones does NOT do that, and instead takes things in a very different direction.  In the months since Deka has lived among the Mothers and tried to help them create their new/old society, she begins to realize that their utopian vision has issues: a one trans woman general is seemingly not accepted as much as she should be, the men who have joined their cause are looked at with disdain, and the Mother's offers to women are often as much to make people magically forget their pasts rather than actually providing help to go forward into a better life.  This is a story that makes very very clear that gender is not determinative of anything - that men can be gentle and kind and "weak" and women can be fierce, that people should be able to love whomever they like, and that just as men aren't superior to women, neither should women be held superior to men, whether they be cis, trans or anything else - in contrast to what the Mothers' society seems to be implying.  I'll talk more about this in a spoiler section below*

*Spoilers in ROT13: Gur gehgu guvf obbx erirnyf vf gung gur Zbguref jrer va snpg bapr sbhe bs n frg bs svir ntraqre tbqf, jub fcyvg vagb gjb traqref gb gel naq orggre haqrefgnaq naq qrny jvgu uhznavgl; bayl sbe gur srznyr unyirf gb vzcevfba gurve znyr unyirf va n cbjre teno (gung jnf bayl cnegvnyyl whfgvsvrq) naq gura vzcbfvat n fgevpgyl bccerffvir zngevnepuny fbpvrgl...hagvy gur znyr unyirf sbhaq n jnl gb svtug onpx naq gbbx guvatf gur bgure jnl.  Gur zbguref jnagvat gb tb onpx gb gung fbpvrgl, jurer gubfr jub nera'g obea srznyr ner bccerffrq naq gerngrq ol yrffre (yvxr gur genaf jbzna Juvgr Unaqf) vfa'g nal orggre guna gur znyr'f bccerffvba naq sbeprq fnpevsvpr...naq gur fbyhgvba yvrf va gur svsgu tbq, gur bar jub vf ntraqre (traqrerq gurl/gurz), jubfr ningne gheaf bhg gb or Qrxn.  Va fubeg, gur obbx hfrf vgf fgbel gb fubj gur snyfvgl bs traqre'f inyhr va nal frafr, fubjvat gung traqre vgfrys vf n ebbg bs pbasyvpg, jvgu vg frggvat hc na ntraqre fnivbe va gur svanyr (rira vs Qrxn' qbrfa'g vqragvsl urefrys nf fhpu).

The result is an incredible novel, filled with action, a tremendous character journey for Deka, and again themes of gender and human value, love and forgiveness that are just incredibly well done.  This is a book that took a premise that started as showing the power of women over men, and moves in this novel to a critique of the very concept of gender itself, and of what gender even means if anything, as its heroines and heroes struggle to survive and find answers.  And the story takes a number of surprising turns, it uses its predictable twists in excellent fashion and its main heroine Deka is done really well.  Again the side character are a bit limited and often forgettable simply because there are so many of them, but the glimpses we do get into those characters' stories are often really well done, as we see the many ways these characters survived, thrived, and found their own loves and peace.  I cannot wait for book 3 at this point.  



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