Synopsis
Magic has made the city of Tiran an industrial utopia, but magic has a cost—and the collectors have come calling.
An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant.
What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power.
Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilization in the balance?
Review
I feel like I’m the last person to read this, which is a travesty, to be honest. The Sword of Kaigan is at the top of my list of quality indie fantasy and I was eager to read more from this author. Blood Over Bright Haven is another standalone, different in setting and character but with just the same level of care in terms of character nuance and emotional devastation. ML Wang does not pull punches, and this powerfully written tale is one of the best standalone novels I’ve read in a long time.
The story follows Sciona, a mage determined to make a name for herself despite the systemic injustices that come about in the rigid patriarchal society she’s grown up in. Having clawed her way to her current position via talent and determination, she now finds herself on the brink of finally achieving her goal of being the first female highmage. I often struggle with magical school settings in fiction, as they can easily be rife with cliches of school bullies, mentors, and long-winded infodumps about the workings of the magic system. I also sometimes have a hard time with fictional patriarchies, in which often the female protagonist is the only female character of any significance and the society is one-note with no development or nuance. But I was confident enough in the author’s talents that this wouldn’t be an issue, and sure enough, ML Wang delivers a shockingly hard-hitting narrative of institutional corruption and injustice, all told through the lens of a flawed heroine who comes to realise that the system she’s fighting for a place in is rotten to the core. There’s so much more at work here than a simple tale of a woman rising to prominence in a world set against her. Rather, this a viscerally painful story of one individual’s struggle to make the right choice in a system that is fundamentally unjust.
The setting is a powerful industrial nation protected from the outside lands where terrifying Blight can kill anyone without warning. The mages are in charge of maintaining the barrier that keeps out the Blight, as well as the technology that keeps the city running. It’s Sciona’s goal to be involved in this and to ensure history remembers her name, but when her arrives at her new position, her new colleagues immediately attempt to sabotage her by assigning her a janitor as an assistant. Unbeknownst to her, Sciona’s new assistant turns out to be a survivor from the Blight who now lives as a second-class citizen like many from his homeland. The protagonist’s discovery of the unseen oppression beneath her everyday life goes hand in hand with her discoveries about the nature of the magic on which her world operates. The magic system is clever and complex and blends seamlessly with the narrative’s key themes so that I never felt like the story was slowed down by infodumping.
As with the Sword of Kaigan, I’m in awe of the author’s character work. The characters are morally flawed and complex, and the author has a real gift for layering in the emotion so that you feel everything the protagonist does. Sciona is far from a perfect heroine, being selfish and ambitious and rigid in her thinking, but the author does a spectacular job of making us care for her regardless, and every emotional sucker-punch hits hard when the world starts coming undone around her. The insights we get into the perspective of Thomil, her assistant, add another layer of depth to the story and the cast of side characters are well-drawn despite some falling into roles (such as the mentor or bullying coworker) that could easily have been written as cliche in the hands of a less experienced author.
This is a stunning tale worthy of all the praise it’s received and honestly, I’m not sure I can add anything else to this review that hasn’t already been said. Like The Sword of Kaigen, ML Wang has created a standalone fantasy masterpiece, and a narrative that lingers in the mind long after closing the final page.
Leave a Reply