Kingdom of Copper
Apr. 30th, 2019 08:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraThe Kingdom of Copper, S.A. Chakraborty, 2019 sequel to The City of Brass, which I talked about here. I think this one was even better than the first one, there's a lot happening and some interesting character development.
Spoiler cut so I can say more:
So I thought this one mostly did not have the pacing/momentum problems of the first one, with the big exception that I was really, really thrown by the five-year time jump at the beginning. I guess... none of the stuff happening at the end of the last one... was actually urgent in any way... if everyone could just wait five years to do anything about it?? It took me about the first quarter of the book to stop being jarred by that and mentally "catch up" with the present day of the story, and then after that I was fine. I'm still not entirely sure why it needed to be that long - do we actually need five years of training to justify everyone's new skill sets and situations? Maybe it'll turn out to matter for real-world historical time, given the jump back to Cairo, like maybe the five years matters for what Napoleon is up to in Egypt.
It was also a little frustrating for me that during the time jump Ali gets a major new power set, character conflict, and set of emotional connections, and Dara gets a major new power set, character conflict, and set of emotional connections, and Nahri... gets better at healing. On the other hand I thought she had good stuff to do once the book actually got going; I liked "build a hospital and get to work with this awesome shafit doctor lady" as the main goals she was pursuing. (And I'm guessing the shafit doctor is going to be a major player in the de-magicked Daevabad, with the hospital as a major center of stability with the Citadel destroyed and the palace seriously damaged?) I also like, in some ways, that Nahri, as our protagonist, feels more consistent across books, like, it's ultimately her throughline.
I had said before that I thought of her as the ego, Ali as the superego, and Dara as the id; after this book I feel like in many ways Dara and Ali have switched places, with Ali struggling to control his welling-up water powers and Dara weary and feeling the weight of perspective and regret and pleading with Manizheh to consider right and wrong, but Nahri is still the ego, trying to mediate and balance (and getting to make the biggest choice of the plot.) Shipping-wise, that still leaves me wanting a threesome, but wow that seems even less likely than it ever did. Honestly at this point I'm kind of shipping Nahri/Ali and Dara/his eternal rest, like, geez, just let the poor guy chill with his dead sister already. (And honestly I think we need a clean sweep of the older generation - Ghassan is dead and that's something, but there's clearly no hope of peace as long as Kaveh and Manizheh are around, and maybe Dara falls under that too.)
Which brings me around to holy shit, shit went DOWN at the end there. Manizheh and Kaveh with the weapon of mass destruction and Ali rebelling before that and also then revealing his marid powers and Jamshid powered up to full Nahid powers and Muntadhir saved by magic turning off but Ali and Nahri don't know that (dun dun dun) and Nahri fighting Dara, *so* much major action. What the heck is even going to happen now. Most of the secondary characters are dead, Ali and Nahri are in Cairo, there's some whole higher-level conflict going on between the ifrit and marid and djinn that sort of mirrors the conflict between the Geziri and Daevas and shafit, and magic isn't going to turn back on until/unless Ali goes back to Daevabad? I have no idea but I'm loving the complexity of the factions and intrigue. And I cannot help but observe that Muntadhir and Ali for the Geziri, Nahri and Jamshid for the Daevas, and Subha the shafit doctor for the shafit would make a pretty good ruling council with multiple interesting lines of alliance, and I kind of hope we get an extended post-climax where we get to see something like that in operation.
Playing the name-that-sequel game: could be something bigger than a kingdom (as kingdom was bigger than city) and more common/less valuable than copper (as copper was to brass), so, "The Empire of Ash"? Or maybe get out of the literal geography (although that's what I guessed last time) and go for a more metaphorical "bigger than", like something about The People (what's that Muslim word for the community, the ummah? although they're not going to put that in a title) or legacies or something. "The Heritage of Pearl". Ok, I have now looked on Goodreads, and apparently the title is already announced and it's "The Empire of Gold". I was half right! :)
Oh, also, Chakraborty's up for the Campbell, and now that I've read both this and the end of Arden's trilogy I have no idea which of them I'm voting for. But they're probably one and two unless Kuang knocks my socks off.
Spoiler cut so I can say more:
So I thought this one mostly did not have the pacing/momentum problems of the first one, with the big exception that I was really, really thrown by the five-year time jump at the beginning. I guess... none of the stuff happening at the end of the last one... was actually urgent in any way... if everyone could just wait five years to do anything about it?? It took me about the first quarter of the book to stop being jarred by that and mentally "catch up" with the present day of the story, and then after that I was fine. I'm still not entirely sure why it needed to be that long - do we actually need five years of training to justify everyone's new skill sets and situations? Maybe it'll turn out to matter for real-world historical time, given the jump back to Cairo, like maybe the five years matters for what Napoleon is up to in Egypt.
It was also a little frustrating for me that during the time jump Ali gets a major new power set, character conflict, and set of emotional connections, and Dara gets a major new power set, character conflict, and set of emotional connections, and Nahri... gets better at healing. On the other hand I thought she had good stuff to do once the book actually got going; I liked "build a hospital and get to work with this awesome shafit doctor lady" as the main goals she was pursuing. (And I'm guessing the shafit doctor is going to be a major player in the de-magicked Daevabad, with the hospital as a major center of stability with the Citadel destroyed and the palace seriously damaged?) I also like, in some ways, that Nahri, as our protagonist, feels more consistent across books, like, it's ultimately her throughline.
I had said before that I thought of her as the ego, Ali as the superego, and Dara as the id; after this book I feel like in many ways Dara and Ali have switched places, with Ali struggling to control his welling-up water powers and Dara weary and feeling the weight of perspective and regret and pleading with Manizheh to consider right and wrong, but Nahri is still the ego, trying to mediate and balance (and getting to make the biggest choice of the plot.) Shipping-wise, that still leaves me wanting a threesome, but wow that seems even less likely than it ever did. Honestly at this point I'm kind of shipping Nahri/Ali and Dara/his eternal rest, like, geez, just let the poor guy chill with his dead sister already. (And honestly I think we need a clean sweep of the older generation - Ghassan is dead and that's something, but there's clearly no hope of peace as long as Kaveh and Manizheh are around, and maybe Dara falls under that too.)
Which brings me around to holy shit, shit went DOWN at the end there. Manizheh and Kaveh with the weapon of mass destruction and Ali rebelling before that and also then revealing his marid powers and Jamshid powered up to full Nahid powers and Muntadhir saved by magic turning off but Ali and Nahri don't know that (dun dun dun) and Nahri fighting Dara, *so* much major action. What the heck is even going to happen now. Most of the secondary characters are dead, Ali and Nahri are in Cairo, there's some whole higher-level conflict going on between the ifrit and marid and djinn that sort of mirrors the conflict between the Geziri and Daevas and shafit, and magic isn't going to turn back on until/unless Ali goes back to Daevabad? I have no idea but I'm loving the complexity of the factions and intrigue. And I cannot help but observe that Muntadhir and Ali for the Geziri, Nahri and Jamshid for the Daevas, and Subha the shafit doctor for the shafit would make a pretty good ruling council with multiple interesting lines of alliance, and I kind of hope we get an extended post-climax where we get to see something like that in operation.
Playing the name-that-sequel game: could be something bigger than a kingdom (as kingdom was bigger than city) and more common/less valuable than copper (as copper was to brass), so, "The Empire of Ash"? Or maybe get out of the literal geography (although that's what I guessed last time) and go for a more metaphorical "bigger than", like something about The People (what's that Muslim word for the community, the ummah? although they're not going to put that in a title) or legacies or something. "The Heritage of Pearl". Ok, I have now looked on Goodreads, and apparently the title is already announced and it's "The Empire of Gold". I was half right! :)
Oh, also, Chakraborty's up for the Campbell, and now that I've read both this and the end of Arden's trilogy I have no idea which of them I'm voting for. But they're probably one and two unless Kuang knocks my socks off.
