Wednesday, 24 December 2025 10:05 pm
Book Review: The Kingdom of Copper
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deckardcanineFor some reason, I thought I'd read The City of Brass much longer than four years ago. I could remember the general outline but none of the character names, nor the circumstances at the very end. An in-book synopsis would have helped, but I settled for the cast pages, plus Wikipedia and a brief browse of the first volume.
Most of the sequel takes place five years later, over the course of many months. It has not been very pleasant for the main players. Nahri has grown in magic, but the closest she's come to claiming her right to a djinn kingdom throne is a marriage of convenience to Emir Muntadhir, son of scheming usurper King Ghassan. Nahri and "Dhiru" rarely get any further than mutual tolerance. His younger brother, Ali, finally returns from exile, but Nahri no longer likes him, because he killed her love interest, Dara, however excusably. Little does she know that Dara has yet again survived death, now with a more ifrit-like body -- in the thrall of her long-lost mother, Manizheh, who has her own usurpation plans.
Manizheh is probably the most important character we didn't meet before. There are several others who play key roles, albeit not quite enough for the above summary paragraph. Most interesting may be Subha, a half-human doctor who can teach Nahri a lot and has no shortage of snark about the ruling elite. Nisreen makes for a politer assistant, if more tragic. Yeah, the Bechdel Test is passed by a wider margin this time.
Among returners, I'll just add Jamshid, a slow-to-heal soldier now serving as more than Dhiru's paramour. Yes, it's now clear to everyone that the elder prince is, to use anachronistic terminology, a bisexual homoromantic. No, nobody reacts as badly as you might expect from an old Islamic culture, if only because he's royalty. Anyway, thinks get complicated between the two men, and Dhiru's personality seems to be in flux, hopefully for the better. He's supposed to succeed Ghassan, after all.
Ali's undergone dramatic changes of a different sort. Having been coerced into a deal with a marid, he now has water-based powers that made him quite popular in the desert. Many wish he'd stay there, not least those who clash with him in his homeland, including Dhiru. The religious pedant has become quite the champion of the half-human residents, who keep getting sold into slavery on the sly and aren't even allowed hospitals. Nahri gradually warms up to him again as he helps on that last front. (Too bad some of the oppressed continue to demonstrate why Ghassan sees fit to keep them down, to avoid a worse level of pandemonium.) I found myself liking Ali most of all, if only for hewing to principles. Even Nahri is more of a jerk than she realizes.
Much of the fun in TCoB was in watching Nahri and Dara interact. Alas, they don't meet again until TKoC is nearly over, and they don't share a scene for long. At least Dara has come to provide a third POV, and we see more of his capacity as a military commander.
As before, every hero is somebody's villain in a land of feuding tribes. This is starting to feel like a pattern in my recent fantasy reads. I'm OK with that. It seems to broaden the characters. (Having them all grow in abilities doesn't hurt either.)
Stakes get quite high at the climax, and the ending promises big developments for The Empire of Gold. I definitely want to know what happens. I'm just not sure how long I should wait.
Nor do I know what I'll read next. Let's see what I get for Christmas.
Most of the sequel takes place five years later, over the course of many months. It has not been very pleasant for the main players. Nahri has grown in magic, but the closest she's come to claiming her right to a djinn kingdom throne is a marriage of convenience to Emir Muntadhir, son of scheming usurper King Ghassan. Nahri and "Dhiru" rarely get any further than mutual tolerance. His younger brother, Ali, finally returns from exile, but Nahri no longer likes him, because he killed her love interest, Dara, however excusably. Little does she know that Dara has yet again survived death, now with a more ifrit-like body -- in the thrall of her long-lost mother, Manizheh, who has her own usurpation plans.
Manizheh is probably the most important character we didn't meet before. There are several others who play key roles, albeit not quite enough for the above summary paragraph. Most interesting may be Subha, a half-human doctor who can teach Nahri a lot and has no shortage of snark about the ruling elite. Nisreen makes for a politer assistant, if more tragic. Yeah, the Bechdel Test is passed by a wider margin this time.
Among returners, I'll just add Jamshid, a slow-to-heal soldier now serving as more than Dhiru's paramour. Yes, it's now clear to everyone that the elder prince is, to use anachronistic terminology, a bisexual homoromantic. No, nobody reacts as badly as you might expect from an old Islamic culture, if only because he's royalty. Anyway, thinks get complicated between the two men, and Dhiru's personality seems to be in flux, hopefully for the better. He's supposed to succeed Ghassan, after all.
Ali's undergone dramatic changes of a different sort. Having been coerced into a deal with a marid, he now has water-based powers that made him quite popular in the desert. Many wish he'd stay there, not least those who clash with him in his homeland, including Dhiru. The religious pedant has become quite the champion of the half-human residents, who keep getting sold into slavery on the sly and aren't even allowed hospitals. Nahri gradually warms up to him again as he helps on that last front. (Too bad some of the oppressed continue to demonstrate why Ghassan sees fit to keep them down, to avoid a worse level of pandemonium.) I found myself liking Ali most of all, if only for hewing to principles. Even Nahri is more of a jerk than she realizes.
Much of the fun in TCoB was in watching Nahri and Dara interact. Alas, they don't meet again until TKoC is nearly over, and they don't share a scene for long. At least Dara has come to provide a third POV, and we see more of his capacity as a military commander.
As before, every hero is somebody's villain in a land of feuding tribes. This is starting to feel like a pattern in my recent fantasy reads. I'm OK with that. It seems to broaden the characters. (Having them all grow in abilities doesn't hurt either.)
Stakes get quite high at the climax, and the ending promises big developments for The Empire of Gold. I definitely want to know what happens. I'm just not sure how long I should wait.
Nor do I know what I'll read next. Let's see what I get for Christmas.