The Bone Shard Daughter
The Drowning Empire series, Book 1
Andrea Stewart
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In a world of migratory islands adrift on the Endless Sea, the Phoenix Empire has stood for centuries, lone bulwark against the return of the powerful and destructive mages known as the Alanga. For the price of a sliver of bone from each child, key to the artificial constructs that defend the land and run its bureaucracies, the emperor keeps the people safe. But lately the emperor has turned increasingly inward, neglecting the people, even as disturbing signs of awakening Alanga magic show and islands start to rumble and sink beneath the waves. Rebellion is in the air, and unless a leader steps forward, all may be lost...
Lin, daughter of the emperor, lost her memory to a fever sickness and has never regained her father's love or trust. She secretly steals and copies the many keys he carries, which unlock countless doors and secrets within the mostly-empty palace - but what she discovers may be more devastating than she could ever have imagined.
Smuggler Jovis just wanted to pay off the shady Ioph Carn criminal network and get back to his pursuit of his lost wife: stolen seven years ago by a mysterious ship with sky-blue sails. He had just found a fresh lead on Deerhead Island when a desperate local pays him to steal a child from the trepanning ceremony: it's not uncommon for children to be killed while having their bone sliver tithe extracted, and it puts them forever at risk of sickening and dying when their shard is used to power an imperial construct, burning their life energy as a fire burns wood. When Deerhead Island shakes apart beneath his feet, Jovis is among the few survivors - along with the boy whose rescue will be the beginning of a new chapter in his life, and a strange catlike animal who awakens unusual abilities in the smuggler.
Phalue never wanted to be a governor's daughter, disgusted by her father's excesses, but neither does she understand the plight of the common farmers the man mercilessly works to death in the caro nut groves. Her girlfriend Ranami, a commoner raised from gutter orphan to bookseller, tries to teach her, but Phalue's head is as thick as her sword is sharp... until they become entangled with the rebel group, the Shardless Few, and their enigmatic leader Gio. He has already overthrown one governor - will Phalue's father be next? And will the future the Shardless Few want be any better than the one the empire offers?
And on a distant island, the lady Sand tumbles from a mango tree and suddenly recalls glimpses of another life: a life beyond the island, beyond the mangoes, in a palace with green-tiled rooftops. Suddenly, she starts to question everything she thought she knew... and begins to plot an escape to recover what was stolen from her.
REVIEW: I was in the mood for another epic fantasy, and this one (mostly) hit the spot. The Drowning Empire is an interesting world, where the islands drift across the ocean through years-long dry and wet seasons and where carved slivers of bone power artificial life forms with a language that has hints of computer coding - with similar potential for disastrous results if an unskilled coder messes up the syntax and order of instructions. It's a decently complex setting... and yet, by the end, I felt it was still a bit vague around the edges, with extraneous pieces that never seemed to find a place. Some are clearly left dangling for future installments, but others just seemed forgotten along the way. Likewise, the characters are generally interesting and rarely foolish, though once in a while there was a flatness and obviousness to their actions (or lack thereof) that struck a slightly-off-key note. Overall, it moves well and has some decent turns and setbacks along the way, though the ending is clearly less of a conclusion than a brief pause in a longer arc. Aside from a few niggling issues here and there, I enjoyed it, and will probably read onward when the next installment appears.
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