Shadow Magic

I'm kind of in a quandary about this book. On the one hand, it was well-written and enjoyable enough - even if the story was dragged on kind of needlessly and one of the characters, the one I liked the most on first introduction, grated on my nerves before the end of the story.

But...

One of the main characters is casually transphobic, homophobic and sexist. The story itself is very, very low on women, much less important women. Two, maybe three, and that's pushing it, but there are a lot more random men in the world than women. And, okay, this is a story about four men, but, there's not many supporting women. And one of the cultures, the one we spend the most time in? Yeah, it's very heavily Japanese influenced and that...well...There's an imbalance.

The other two subjects...

Well, the transphobia seems to be just from one character, because another main character disguises himself as a woman and...little is made of that. Sure, there was a moment when it seemed a little problematic, but is wasn't made fun of and he didn't really mind.

The homophobia was pretty limited to a single character too, but... Honestly, I don't know how there were enough people to tag this story as LGBT to get it listed as a genre, because there were not even any hints of romance/LGBT+ representation. Unless you consider a guy crossdressing and posing as another man's wife LGBT+ representation, or two guys calling each other ‘dear friend' and ‘my friend' and ‘friend' and touching the other's arm with his hand.

Honestly, it's frustrating. Would that have changed me buying and reading the book? No. Would it have changed my rating? Maybe, because it feels a bit like queerbaiting. Not just the readers tagging it LGBT, but the book itself is rife with moments of ‘you're the most important person in the world to me' and then they have to add ‘my friend' just so the authors don't imply that there's anything more than friends going on. No homo, after all. And I sincerely hope you guys hate that term as much as I do.

Like Havemercy, Shadow Magic captured my attention from the very first page and held it throughout with its character narratives. In this novel, there are two narrators from Xi'an, the prince Mamoru and his servant Kouje, and two from Volstov, the delegates Caius and Alcibiades. After only seeing characters from Volstov in Havemercy, the inclusion of two of the Ke-Han with a broader, more sympathetic look at their culture and how they were affected by the war was very welcome. Mamoru and Kouje were perhaps the more easily likable of the four main protagonists with their good intentions and their story's focus on loyalty and a long-standing friendship.

However, Caius and Alicibiades were the more intriguing with their more humorous voices and propensity to get into trouble. Caius is a magician previously exiled for using his talent to wreak revenge. Alcibiades is a soldier who also has a talent but hates the fact that he has magical ability and does whatever he can to avoid using it. Their observations about each other were quite entertaining - Caius decided that he simply must be friends with Alcibiades, who thought Caius was a pest, and a crazy one at that.

Caius was easily my favorite to read about - he appeared so carefree and easygoing most of the time with his main concerns focusing on fashion, gossip and breaking down the barriers Alcibiades built outside the door between their rooms. Yet he also had this love of danger coupled with the ruthless streak that lead to his infamous exile from Volstov that almost made him eerie.

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