This book review was part of a podcast discussion.
Listen to the episode here.
Ann Leckie’s The Raven Tower is unorthodox fantasy. She writes in the first and second person, one main character addressing the other—who can’t hear it—in a narration that is really for the reader. The focus flows between that narrator, mysteriously knowledgeable until they turn out to be a minor god of a sort common to this world, and their addressee, a rural soldier out of place in the small city. Shifting back and forth between the god’s eons-long history and the soldier’s present, the story transitions from exposition and exploration to sleuthing and a story of a god-driven war.
It is fascinating, easy to read, and hard to put down. It has a flow that draws the reader along without rushing them. It is trans-positive. Every writer of a non-standard fantasy novel who’s afraid they can’t publish without following the formula should read this and take heart: You can write the story you want, if you do it well.
Even so, the ending is the story’s flaw. In contrast with the tight-woven narrative, it is frayed, and some elements are insufficiently heralded. It left me unsure why the narrator made certain decisions, including addressing its entire story to a character who, while important, never hears it and never forms the deeper relationship with the narrator that I expected.
Endings are often the hardest part, and The Raven Tower is a compelling story well told. Anyone interested in the eccentric corners of the fantasy genre should pick this up.
Seattle, WA
Sometimes, Peter Schaefer conceals a puzzle in his bio. Little do lovers of the cryptic know that Peter is an encryption system given life, a cipher grown so complex it attained consciousness, along with a love of games, books, and improv. Everyone who believes they meet Peter only meet its proxy, a husk employed only for its wit. Has anyone seen beyond www.paschaefer.com or www.shoelesspetegames.com in spite of his esoteric calculi? Sadly no. Not a single person, and not any group of people.
