An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors

I've written a lot of four-star reviews recently of books from my obscure Reddit comment rec list. Here's another one.

This series is a perfect example of the difference between 2010s fantasy and 2020s fantasy, if anyone wants to really put a nail on it. It's really much slower-paced than anything that would sell post-covid, but it's not particularly literary, diverse, or topical: it's a straightforward, bright epic fantasy novel that's written patiently and carefully, not with the snap and glamour you see in Sanderson, or the sort of hypermodern fantasy that's trendy on booktube these days. It reminds me most of some finalists I've seen in the SPFBO. I say that as a compliment because what it reminds me most of, The Combat Codes, was a very decent read, and was picked up by a traditional publisher around the same time this series was coming out.

The setting is a really good idea - a western European analogue, focused primarily on Spain and France, except they're floating islands in a sky with steampunk airships. I really like books with an epic feel that avoid sprawl, and this is really one of them. The main characters are Isabelle, the one-handed but intelligent and brave princess - nothing we haven't seen before, and her goofy musketeer, Jean-Claude. Isabelle is deemed powerless at birth and thus, after her best friend essentially gets her soul sucked out of her, is sent to marry the prince of fantasy Spain against her will. Politicking ensues.

And the first half of the book is neverending and extremely slow politicking. It took me about two months to get through the first half of this book, and two hours to get through the second half, which was extremely hectic. This book isn't bad, it's not fresh, but the shift in pace is so jarring that it really comes off worse than it is. And despite the well-managed cast, it feels like we don't actually get to know the characters that well - none of them stuck with me all that much. The plot is intricate and the politics are really well thought-out, and the ending feels rewarding.

This is an objectively high quality, very unglitzy book, the type which I wish were published more these days. I'm not overly attached to this world or characters and it seems the different volumes of this series are pretty independent, so I'll likely return at a later point, but not now.

Rating: 7.5/10