Title: The Fireborne Blade
Author: Charlotte Bond
Publication Date: May 28, 2024 by Tordotcom
Genres: Fantasy
Protagonist Gender: Female
For the most part, The Fireborne Blade is a very simple, straightforward slice of fantasy. It's the story of a knight, her squire, the quest for a sword, and the slaying of a dragon. It embraces all the classic elements, without the weight of prophecy, chosen ones, or the fate of the world hanging in the balance. What makes it stand out is Charlotte Bond's telling of the story, which gives it a freshness I wasn't expecting.
This is a story told in pieces, with the narrative slowly bringing things together as the flashbacks creep closer to the current story, but it's also told in layers, with a series of testimonies and reports of other knights' encounters with dragons. It may sound like too much for a novella that clocks in at under 200 pages, but it's perfectly balanced, and it kept me engaged throughout.
Maddileh is an interesting character, and her seeming simplicity is as deceptive as that of the story. She's a woman in a man's world, an unwanted and unwelcome knight who is unfairly constrained by what patriarchal structures of epic fantasy. And it's not just her - there's a secondary character who plays into this trope as well, a woman with a flair for magic in a world where women can't be mages - and how/why their stories come together is where the hidden heart of this lies.
There is a lot of humor to The Fireborne Blade, but it's the subtle kind that makes you smile rather than laugh out loud. Okay, so perhaps I did laugh aloud at the cowardice of Maddileh's squire in the face of ghosts, but it didn't take me out of the story like the humor of a few recent reads. What Bond does so well is drop the humor in and move on, neither commenting upon it nor dwelling upon it, and while I'm sure some naysayers will protest that it all comes at the expense of men, it's all part of quietly fighting back against that patriarchy.
While I will say nothing more about the plot for fear of even hinting at some of the surprises in store, I will say this is a story that's satisfyingly full of those classic fantasy elements I mentioned earlier. We've got dragons and drakes, ghosts, magical talismans, enchanted swords, and more. It feels so comfortably familiar, and yet it's satisfyingly different in ways that you don't fully appreciate until after it's done. Reading it, I was thinking this was a 3-star tale; upon reaching the climax, I was leaning towards 4 stars; but after thinking about it for a few days, I'm all-in on the 5 stars. Bring on The Bloodless Princes!
Rating: ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀
My sincere thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Comments
Post a Comment