Tuesday, 15 July 2025 04:42 pm
Book Review: The Blood Trials
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deckardcanineWhen I picked up N.E. Davenport's 2022 novel, it reminded me a bit of Dragon Pearl: a sci-fi/fantasy combo featuring a young, non-White, female first-person narrator. I wouldn't count it as YA, tho, because it includes a sex scene, gore, and a lot of swearing. Good thing my previous read was so tame.
The story takes place on another planet. I'm not sure whether the humans came there from Earth or turned up separately like in Star Wars. For all the futuristic technology, there's no talk of space travel, and only humans appear sapient -- apart from the invisible but evidently real gods. Perhaps it's best viewed as a high fantasy taken to an unusually late century.
Protagonist Ikenna Amari, 19, has always lived in the Republic of Mareen, but Mareenians don't fully accept her. One glance at her dark brown skin and they see her heritage from the Kingdom of Khanai, an ostensible ally that Mareen hardly respects. They'd be more hostile still if they knew she also could trace her lineage to the Empire of Accacia, whose Blood Emperor fought a war to try to subjugate them and may yet try again.
Although Mareen declares all gods dead, a lifelong blessing from the blood goddess enables anyone of Accacian descent, however unfaithful, to use special powers. Ikenna doesn't normally practice, since she feels obliged to keep the secret even from her closest friends, but she can heal herself rapidly, produce blades from open cuts on her body, and even override free will when blood mingles. These powers exhaust her, at least at first. You just know she's going to push herself to the limits as the plot demands.
When we first meet Ikenna, she has spent the past three months doing far less than her best at a military academy, sad for the untimely death of her grandfather, Mareen's only high-ranking official of Khanaian extraction. (Her parents were already gone.) She no longer feels like joining the elite Praetorian Guard -- until an acquaintance of her grandfather confides that he suspects it was an assassination orchestrated by other officials. For most of the book, she seeks to pass the titular trials to become a Praetorian so that she can determine the conspirators and bring them to justice.
Boy, I thought the training in Starship Troopers was harsh. In terms of casualties, this is more like Blackcliff Academy. Entrants generally agree that the focus on weeding out less suitable soldiers needn't waste so much manpower. The nastiest Praetorians take pleasure in making sure that some of them don't survive. If not for the temporary bionic boost given to entrants, even blood magic probably wouldn't let Ikenna pull through, especially when someone clearly wants her out of the equation along with her grandfather.
This is the angriest fiction I've read since Monsters Born and Made. In a way, it's more so: While MBaM focuses exclusively on the effects of class conflict, TBT throws in racism and a bit of sexism. I'm a little annoyed at how open the bigotry gets; it makes for heavy-handed preaching and doesn't reflect the reality of my lifetime.
Fortunately, the book doesn't go quite where I expected. As righteous as Ikenna's cause is, she learns humility and recognizes her temper as one of several character flaws. She discovers nuances to people, and some enemies become allies. Of course, there's a flip side to that....
Davenport does not take the J.K. Rowling approach to revelation. Ikenna usually suspects twists long before they are confirmed. I'm fine with that, because it tends to happen in RL.
Since TBT doesn't end on a new low point, I'll consider the sequel. I appreciate the tragedy, the choice complication, and not least the action. The rage could be toned down; barring that, I'll just wait a while.
Believe it or not, I still have an appetite for long, dark fantasy. Next up is Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch.
The story takes place on another planet. I'm not sure whether the humans came there from Earth or turned up separately like in Star Wars. For all the futuristic technology, there's no talk of space travel, and only humans appear sapient -- apart from the invisible but evidently real gods. Perhaps it's best viewed as a high fantasy taken to an unusually late century.
Protagonist Ikenna Amari, 19, has always lived in the Republic of Mareen, but Mareenians don't fully accept her. One glance at her dark brown skin and they see her heritage from the Kingdom of Khanai, an ostensible ally that Mareen hardly respects. They'd be more hostile still if they knew she also could trace her lineage to the Empire of Accacia, whose Blood Emperor fought a war to try to subjugate them and may yet try again.
Although Mareen declares all gods dead, a lifelong blessing from the blood goddess enables anyone of Accacian descent, however unfaithful, to use special powers. Ikenna doesn't normally practice, since she feels obliged to keep the secret even from her closest friends, but she can heal herself rapidly, produce blades from open cuts on her body, and even override free will when blood mingles. These powers exhaust her, at least at first. You just know she's going to push herself to the limits as the plot demands.
When we first meet Ikenna, she has spent the past three months doing far less than her best at a military academy, sad for the untimely death of her grandfather, Mareen's only high-ranking official of Khanaian extraction. (Her parents were already gone.) She no longer feels like joining the elite Praetorian Guard -- until an acquaintance of her grandfather confides that he suspects it was an assassination orchestrated by other officials. For most of the book, she seeks to pass the titular trials to become a Praetorian so that she can determine the conspirators and bring them to justice.
Boy, I thought the training in Starship Troopers was harsh. In terms of casualties, this is more like Blackcliff Academy. Entrants generally agree that the focus on weeding out less suitable soldiers needn't waste so much manpower. The nastiest Praetorians take pleasure in making sure that some of them don't survive. If not for the temporary bionic boost given to entrants, even blood magic probably wouldn't let Ikenna pull through, especially when someone clearly wants her out of the equation along with her grandfather.
This is the angriest fiction I've read since Monsters Born and Made. In a way, it's more so: While MBaM focuses exclusively on the effects of class conflict, TBT throws in racism and a bit of sexism. I'm a little annoyed at how open the bigotry gets; it makes for heavy-handed preaching and doesn't reflect the reality of my lifetime.
Fortunately, the book doesn't go quite where I expected. As righteous as Ikenna's cause is, she learns humility and recognizes her temper as one of several character flaws. She discovers nuances to people, and some enemies become allies. Of course, there's a flip side to that....
Davenport does not take the J.K. Rowling approach to revelation. Ikenna usually suspects twists long before they are confirmed. I'm fine with that, because it tends to happen in RL.
Since TBT doesn't end on a new low point, I'll consider the sequel. I appreciate the tragedy, the choice complication, and not least the action. The rage could be toned down; barring that, I'll just wait a while.
Believe it or not, I still have an appetite for long, dark fantasy. Next up is Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch.