Wednesday, April 12, 2023

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Furious Heaven by Kate Elliott

 


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 April 18, 2023 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.

Furious Heaven is the sequel to Kate Elliott's Unconquerable Sun, her genderflipped queer space opera retelling of the story of Alexander the Great, and is the second book in the trilogy. The novel is LONG, even for Kate Elliott (who is known for chunkers): Amazon lists it at 728 pages as compared to the first book's 522 pages. Still, I love Elliott in general (she's one of my favorite authors) and I really enjoyed Unconquerable Sun, for its fun space opera, its tremendous secondarary major characters, and some solid themes, so I was excited to bite into this, even if it would take up much of my reading time for an entire week (as opposed to my 1-2 day reading time of most books). This is especially the case because in my experience, Elliott works tend to really hit their stride in book 2s of her trilogies.

And well, Furious Heaven is pretty great at times, as it follows the second phase in the careeer of Elliott's version of Alexander (Princess Sun) - her campaign/invasion against the Phene (her version of Persia). The book features a bunch of new but still strong characters, develops further our existing characters, and features a breathtaking pace as Sun rarely allows herself (of is afforded) time to relax before moving on. At the same time, the book's breakneck pace is, strong interlude chapters aside, perhaps also a bit of a weakness, as we rarely get too much time to see how things play out as the status quo rapidly changes, and Elliott's Sun - ostensibly our most important character - remains by far the least interesting. So for once I think this is a slight step back from the series opener....but it's still very good.

Disclaimer: Elliott asked her followers on twitter two years back for suggested fake book titles to be included in this book and picked one I suggested in response and added me to the Acknowledgements of this book by name. I promise this credit did not affect my review.
------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------
Princess Sun Shān has, through her reckless brilliance, managed to fend off a Phene invasion of the Republic of Chaonia that no one could have predicted, all the while being on the run from assassins seeking to take her out for unknown purposes...most likely in order to remove her from the place of succession in place of the new baby daughter of her mother, Queen Marshall Eirene. The perpetrators of those assassination attempts, who killed Sun's precious bodyguard and one of her loyal companions, is out of reach, having fled with the Phene, and his crimes are kept hidden due to his status as a prominent Seer of Iros within the Yele League (and as the father of her companion Persephone). But Sun is devoted to bringing him, and those others involved in the plot, to justice, even if her mother refuses to take action and threatens her place as heir over it.

Yet Sun's plans for vengeance may have to wait, as Eirene is planning a new bold attack on the Phene Empire to regain its rich and populous Karnos System, an attack that will take cunning and skill to pull off - and will require all of Sun's expertise behind it. And when unexpected tragedy strikes Chaonia, Sun will find herself in charge of the attack...and the attack that will take her and her companions, and the whole republic itself, far father than anyone could have imagined.
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Furious Heaven is a complicated tome, with the book containing a number of characters with their own character and plot arcs, even if the main plot is sort of how I describe it above.  So yes, you have Sun's plotline at the center of the story, as she enacts the 2nd act in Alexander's career (in Elliott's own way), as Sun takes bold action against the Phene Empire and then wages her own war of conquest that keeps getting more and more ambitious, even if Sun's motives aren't usually about simply gaining territory or space and being a conqueror (more on her in a bit). 

But you also have Kurash, the Gatoi soldier originally known as Zizou, who struggles to find a place for himself once cut loose from the Banners and winds up finding things about himself and his people and what he wants for them and what he can do for them that he never expected.  You have Apama At Sabao, the Phene Lancer pilot who is struggling with her place now that her biological father is revealed to be a Rider and finds herself caught between rider politics and desires that complicate her wish to simply prove herself as being a worthy Lancer pilot doing good for the Empire.  You have Persephone of course, who struggles with the revelations of being a clone, the revelation of her progenitor's existence, her father's treason and just the sense of being caught between Sun's ambitions and her House's own plotting.  And then you have a number of more minor characters, some of whom even get POV chapters like new companion Makinde Bō, who don't quite have full plot arcs but still get development in and of themselves and aren't just pieces who revolve around Sun.  There's an awful lot here, as you probably expect from Elliott.  

And for so much in a single tome, it largely works really well because the characters are generally pretty interesting, even if Sun remains by far the least interesting of any of the stars.  Sun's recklessness and ambition makes for a compelling story framework, but she never really has to make any tough moral choices or go through much character development here, which is even commented on by one character noting that Sun is getting the benefit of another character's dark moral choice without having to actually take action in condemning that choice.  Fortunately, the rest of the story an the rest of the major characters work really well.  New character Makinde is, as I mentioned before, kind of a delightful addition with his cute symbiont, Persephone is an utter mess but is still really fun in her voice as she deals with shit going to hell around her (and I mean an utter mess - at one point she starts getting a crush on a character she really shouldn't for no other reason I can see besides herself just being completely all over the place, and it works because of how off her axis she's been thrown, even as it bothered me).  Apama At Sabao's character development and story arc is just fantastic, as she first struggles with the question of whether her career has been just the result of unknown nepotism, then the fear that she's just being used by her rider father to get to her mother, a person he desires, and then her struggles to save a teenage girl who happens to carry an immature rider on her head from Chaonian forces.  Really Apama's whole plotline there is just a gem and I loved it.  And the continued development of Kurash/Zizou as he struggles to find a place for himself in this world, and the deep themes of his arc, work really really well.  

The result is a story that is full of space opera action but also full of themes of identity, of development and discovering one's own self-worth and what it means to fight for others and themselves, of inequality and struggles faced by people who are in the way of ruling elite forces, of choices people have to make their own destiny and whether they can truly trust that such choices aren't illusions at all, etc.  There's a lot here that some better writer than me can go in depth into, and it does work pretty well for the most part.  

That said, despite the book being an absolute tome, it honestly feels at times like it doesn't have enough time or space for the plot and characters to breathe at times.  Sun's momentum is so endlessly forwards, especially as other events around her give her the opportunities and/or the reasons to keep pushing, that it can feel at times exhausting and like there isn't necessarily enough time to examine changes in the status quo.  For example a major character from a major Chaonian house dies off page, and normally I'd assume that just means the character isn't really dead, but here it just feels like Elliott didn't have enough time to actually go into that death and what it means for that House.  The book does manage to make this not too big a problem through the use of side character point of views and occasional interludes from the perspectives of one-off characters, which allow Elliott to explore themes of things that come up in the course of this plot, but it does feel like a bit much, especially when there's never really a doubt in my mind that Sun's reckless pushes will work...at least in this part of the story.  

All that said, Furious Heaven is an excellent second novel, even if it's not one of Elliott's all time great works.  I look forward to seeing how the series will conclude: if we're following history, Alexander's life and conquest flames out early, but who knows how Elliott will actually take it from here, and how it will affect her many many excellent side characters.  I have my suspicions but am really curious to see how correct they will be.  
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