The Unspoken Name by A K Larkwood
Mar. 20th, 2020 09:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI absolutely adored this fantasy novel, about an orc girl who has mostly convinced herself she's ok being sacrificed to the cold, ancient god of the death cult who raised her, but is understandably quick to jump at the chance to escape and become the minion of a morally ambiguous wizard who says she has more to offer the world.
One thing I knew going in was that the wizard who 'rescues' her is just using her for his own ends, I thought this was going to be a Big Twist but he's open about it from the start. There's just a long journey to her gaining enough self worth to mind.
She has exactly the sort of violent woobie arc usually reserved for male characters, and similarly for her delightfully terrifying nerdy female love interest. There's lots of angst and adventure and humour and Cool Fantasy Stuff, and the f/f romance is somewhat understated but nicely done. It has just the right balance of fun tropes and believable realism for me, and is evocative and atmospheric without relying on purple prose. There's a fair amount of violence and horror, but it's overall a compassionate and optimistic book. (Also it does start with a map and three pages of names, but I skipped past all that and found everything pretty easy to follow)
The author is clearly in love with her characters (See: the really cute character art she drew), including the main antagonists, who are utterly terrible but also often quite delightful. The narrative doesn't forget how terrible they are, but sometimes it did feel a bit too delighted at them when I was more in the mood for focussing on how much they suck. On the other hand I consider this an acceptable price to pay for all the delightfully terrible background m/m that would be missing in a book that thought narrative delight=endorsement. Overall this is a book that has fun playing with and subverting gendered tropes, and tends to make everyone lgb(*), but isn't about gender or sexuality (and it avoids dealing with race by making everyone brown or grey)
I don't think I just like this book because I was mutuals with the author a decade ago when she was a teenager drawing hot vampire girls and talking about how she was going to write a fantasy novel one day. But I am very happy she wrote it :)
She's planning on writing more in a series, and some plot threads are left open, but this book stands pretty well on it's own.
(*)Everyone's cis, afaict, but it feels like the kind of setting where someone could turn out to be trans and it wouldn't be a big deal.
One thing I knew going in was that the wizard who 'rescues' her is just using her for his own ends, I thought this was going to be a Big Twist but he's open about it from the start. There's just a long journey to her gaining enough self worth to mind.
She has exactly the sort of violent woobie arc usually reserved for male characters, and similarly for her delightfully terrifying nerdy female love interest. There's lots of angst and adventure and humour and Cool Fantasy Stuff, and the f/f romance is somewhat understated but nicely done. It has just the right balance of fun tropes and believable realism for me, and is evocative and atmospheric without relying on purple prose. There's a fair amount of violence and horror, but it's overall a compassionate and optimistic book. (Also it does start with a map and three pages of names, but I skipped past all that and found everything pretty easy to follow)
The author is clearly in love with her characters (See: the really cute character art she drew), including the main antagonists, who are utterly terrible but also often quite delightful. The narrative doesn't forget how terrible they are, but sometimes it did feel a bit too delighted at them when I was more in the mood for focussing on how much they suck. On the other hand I consider this an acceptable price to pay for all the delightfully terrible background m/m that would be missing in a book that thought narrative delight=endorsement. Overall this is a book that has fun playing with and subverting gendered tropes, and tends to make everyone lgb(*), but isn't about gender or sexuality (and it avoids dealing with race by making everyone brown or grey)
I don't think I just like this book because I was mutuals with the author a decade ago when she was a teenager drawing hot vampire girls and talking about how she was going to write a fantasy novel one day. But I am very happy she wrote it :)
She's planning on writing more in a series, and some plot threads are left open, but this book stands pretty well on it's own.
(*)Everyone's cis, afaict, but it feels like the kind of setting where someone could turn out to be trans and it wouldn't be a big deal.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-20 02:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-23 03:06 am (UTC)Yes! I'm really looking forward to it.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-21 01:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-23 03:06 am (UTC)They're so cute!