Review: Shadow in the Empire of Light by Jane Routley

Shadow in the Empire of Light by Jane Routley
Publication Date: August 6, 2020
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Shine Lucheyart may be a granddaughter of the ruling Empress, but as a magic-less mundane with a vanished (some say dead) mother and a pale-skinned foreign father, she's forced to live a quiet life of genteel poverty on an isolated country estate, with little company aside from a giant talking cat and her radical, semi-banished aunt. But when her extended family descends on her home for an annual fertility festival---and a pale-skinned scholar from a neighboring republic who's not supposed to be in the country at all gets dumped in her lap---she finds herself caught up in plots and schemes that threaten everything she holds dear.

Overall I enjoyed this a lot, and I think anyone who likes their fantasy steeped in politics and family drama would do the same. Shine is a character very much caught between: though clever and generally well-intentioned (though in many ways still very much the product of her upbringing), and the beneficiary of a society where her sex and lineage give her special status, her lack of magic keeps her very much at the dregs of her social class, a poor relation who will struggle to ever escape that fate. (Mundane members of mage families get treated a bit like illegitimate children, in that they can't inherit and they can't exercise political power.) Her pale (well . . . paler) skin sets her apart from her peers, a constant reminder of her lack of fully belonging.

I think I'd need to read the next book (this is clearly set up for more books) before commenting further on the racial and social elements at play here. The Empire is a matriarchal, matrilineal society where women hold most of the power, but . . . a feminist utopia, this is not. And the as-yet-unseen neighboring republic, glimpsed through comments by Shadow (the pale-skinned foreigner who finds himself quite literally hiding under Shine's bed . . . don't ask, just read the book!), seems to be a counterpoint in many ways, but without seeing it firsthand, it's hard to really give an analysis. It didn't escape my notice that the dark-skinned empire has an economy based on resource extraction, while the pale-skinned republic seems to have a more capitalist manufacturing-based economy---along with a patriarchal, patrilineal social structure---and I'm curious to see where the author goes there.

A big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

Review: Ballistic (Palladium Wars #2) by Marko Kloos

Ballistic (The Palladium Wars #2) by Marko Kloos
Publication Date: May 26, 2020
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I debated giving this installment 4 stars, because I really like Kloos's writing, but "oh good, the story's finally beginning" is not what a reader should be thinking at the end of Book 2. If Aftershocks read like an extended prologue, Ballistic reads like the first few chapters of the story: we get a lot of quiet background, pieces seem to be moved into place, but just as the main action appears to begin . . . roll credits.

This book and Aftershocks could have been smushed together into a single novel, and I think it still would've read like an extended prologue to the main action. Frankly, I think a reader could easily skip the first book and jump right in here, which isn't what you want to see in a series like this.

I'll pick up Book 3, because again, I really like Kloos's writing. But I'll do so with the stated hope that I'll stop feeling like I'm waiting for the main story to finally begin.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.