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books, Dark fantasy, Fantasy, Reviews

Dream of Death City (Red Kingdom 1) by P.J. Nwosu

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Stars: 4 out of 5

The Red Kingdom is a fascinating world. It’s dark, brutal, and unforgiving. The caste system is rigid and hopeless, to tell you the truth, and life is hard for anyone who is not a Sun Noble. Resources are scarce, violence is rampant, people are burned at the pyre for the smallest of transgressions, and if you managed to survive that, the black lung will take you to your grave in the end. It should be dark and depressing, right? And it is dark, but it’s strangely beautiful as well. 

You can see that a lot of love went into creating this world. I already had a glimpse of it in A Pale Box on a Distant Shore where we met some of the characters that Thora and Diem encounter in Death City. This book shows us a bigger glimpse of the Red Kingdom and the capital City of Pillars, but you can see that the Frontier and Death city is a favorite of the author’s.

And I can’t complain about it. It’s a wonderfully grotesque city and island where the harsh nature and living conditions, as well as the remoteness from the rest of the Kingdom and its rigid Red Doctrine have created a unique culture seeped in superstition and “low ways”. And it’s hard to blame the citizens of Death City when they have a corpse of a god lying in the waves just offshore, and dead giants walk the sea on hollow moon nights…

I liked the mystery our characters came to unravel as well. What seemed at first glance as a simple kidnaping of a Sun Noble’s daughter led them to uncovering a whole human trafficking ring. And transformed everyone involved in fundamental ways. Nobody left Death City the same as they arrived into it, though some didn’t leave at all.

So why did I give this book 4 stars instead of 5? That’s because I didn’t particularly like Thora, who is one of our main characters. Oh, I understand her motivation and her desire to be more than mere Dust, to prove herself to her masters and have a chance at doing more than scrubbing floors and cleaning bedsheets all her life. What I didn’t like is how selfish she is in her pursuit of that dream and how willing she is to sacrifice everything and everyone to achieve that goal.

Her accusing Diem of taking justice in his own hands and doing things an Investigator shouldn’t sounded very hypocritical when she is the one who planted evidence, obtained false eyewitness statements, and created a diversion that got a lot of people killed. Not to mentioned persuaded a colleague to go against direct orders and do something that she knew could put her in danger. And when it got that colleague killed, she raged at anyone BUT herself. Yes, she didn’t hold her head under the water or hung her from a tree branch afterwards, but Thora was the one who sent her to her death nevertheless. It’s that double standard Thora has towards everyone else that seems hypocritical to me. That self-righteousness when she is definitely in the wrong. 

But this is just a small gripe for what is an excellent book. I am definitely looking forward to reading more book about this world and seeing how things progress in the Red Kingdom and outside its borders.

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

books, Fantasy, Grim Dark, Reviews

A Pale Box on a Distant Shore (Red Kingdom 0.5) by P. J. Nwosu

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Stars: 4.5 out of 5.

This is a fascinating book. It almost reads like a cross between a poem and a fevered dream, but in a good way. Rarely have I been so entranced by the world depicted in a book.

There are character driven books, there are story driven books, there are books that incorporate a bit of both. Then there are books that try to introduce us to a new world or concept more than they care about characters. I am not saying that this book is the later, because there is a solid detective story here, and the characters are engaging enough. But to me, the description of the world in which those characters live is the most important part here.

And that description is so well done! It permeates every page, weaving organically into the story, so that it never appears tedious. It creates an image of a fascinating world of arctic winds and white snow, of gray seas and red bones, of big white motes fluttering against buildings darkened by soot and landing on burning corpses. A world growing on the ruins of an older civilization, where a night can turn hollow, and an inverted moon would rise, and dead giants will stalk the shallow waters off shore. This is a harsh and unforgiving world, but it’s also very beautiful, in a cruel kind of way.

There are so many fascinating little details about the different religions and superstitions, about how different castes of people are living on Death City Island. The bone miners who wear red copper masks and white furs of a long dead animal, and risk their lives to mine the red bones of a giant who died off shore of the Death City. The merchant caste that wears silver masks and drapes themselves in layers of embroidered silks…

I liked Soldier Honnan Skyin and his relentless pursuit of a babe killer. Even when everyone told him to let it go. Even when a deadly epidemic was sweeping the island, killing thousands. Even when they ran out of pale boxes to burn the death at sea and had to resort to communal pyres in the middle of dead villages, Honnan still followed the clues he could find and stubbornly investigated this murder. And I’m really glad he did, because he brought to justice a monster worse than the black lung. 

All in all, this is a successful introduction to a brand new world. Now I definitely want to read the first book in the Red Kingdom series. Because while this book is still part of that universe, Death City Island is at the very outskirt of the Red Kingdom, so the customs and traditions are slightly different and watered down. Some of the details Honnan mentions about mainland are rather intriguing.

PS: I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.