That Which Yields Is Not Always Weak: The Broken Crown by Michelle West

Posted 18th November 2021 by Sia in Fantasy Reviews, Reviews / 0 Comments

The Broken Crown by Michelle West
Genres: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual POV character
ISBN: 0756414121
Goodreads
four-stars

The first novel of the acclaimed Sun Sword series introduces readers to a war-torn world of noble houses divided and demon lords unleashed...

Tor Leonne--the heart of the Dominion of Annagar, where the games of state are about to become a matter of life and death--and where those who seek to seize the crown will be forced to league with a treacherously cunning ally....

Tor Leonne, ancestral seat of power, where Serra Diora Maria di'Marano--the most sought-after beauty in the land, a woman betrayed by all she holds dear--may strike the first blow to change the future of the Dominion and Empire alike....

Averalaan Aramarelas--that most ancient of civilized cities, the home of the Essalieyan Imperial court, has long been a center of magics both dark and bright. And though the Empire won its last war with the Dominion, and survived a devastating, magic-fueled battle with a far deadlier foe, both those victories were not without their cost....

But now the realm is on the brink of a far greater confrontation, faced with an unholy alliance that could spell the end of freedom for all mortalkind.

Highlights

~you don’t have to be the serpent under ‘t to be badass as a flower
~the Dark Chosen One is feral
~don’t fuck with Ospreys
~the sun sword is not a metaphor
~you should be very afraid of three rings

I love the idea of Epic Fantasy – of big, sprawling stories where the fate of all-and-everything is at stake, rich with magic and adventures and people fighting in whatever way they can so others who will never know their names might be able to live in a world with at least a little less suffering in it. But for a long time, I thought I didn’t enjoy Epic Fantasy, since pretty much every title that got recced to me was strongly Do Not Want.

Then someone suggested I try Epic Fantasy that wasn’t written by cishet white guys, and you know what??? That did the trick. (If you love Epic Fantasy but haven’t yet read Kate Elliott’s Crown of Star series??? You need to go read that.)

The Sun Sword series has been on my TBR list for a very long time – years and years – but I kept bouncing off it. In fact, I bounced off it five times. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get past the first few chapters – after an incredible prologue, the first chapters were slow and heavy and very far away from the places and people I was now interested in. But I wanted to read – and like! – this book so badly that I came back for a sixth shot this year, and for whatever reason, this time something clicked. And once I was in, I was completely swept away by the truly epic (in scope and in execution) story West has written here.

In the prologue, a woman with the magical ability to heal is kidnapped and raped to bear the child of the darkest of gods – a pregnancy she doesn’t abort (which her powers would allow her to do) because of a promise that her child might tip the balance in a war that’s coming; the vibe I got was of a dark Chosen One type of thing going on, which definitely got my attention.

But we don’t get to see that child for a while: the first chapter opens in the Dominion, a hot desert land with a, I must be honest, boringly patriarchal society. Women have no legal rights here, men take multiple wives and concubines, and the worth of a man is his worth as a warrior. Etc. That’s not to say there’s nothing original about the worldbuilding here, because there is, but I am capital-t Tired of this kind of nonsense. Which is probably why I struggled with it all those other times I tried to read this book.

The Broken Crown is very much a book about feminine strength – not female strength, feminine strength. The kind of strength that lies in being meek and quiet and biddable and pleasant, and preferably beautiful. The kind that has nothing to do with swords and horses and war. The kind that is often overlooked and almost always undervalued. This isn’t at all the only kind of female strength we see – outside the Dominion, women can be House Lords, warriors, queens, priestesses, and around the halfway mark of Broken Crown we do start to spend some time in these not-so-distant lands with their very different culture. We see a good number of women who are very impressive with swords and soldiers indeed. And they’re important too.

But there’s something very subversive about writing an Epic Fantasy that, at its heart, revolves around the actions of women everyone believes have no power to act. Especially, I think, in 1997, which is when The Broken Crown was first published.

That being said, there’s no way to get around the fact that I found most of this book very slow. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, but readers who are looking for fast-paced, action-heavy stories should probably look elsewhere. The Broken Crown is more about the slow, wary dance of politics, shifting power dynamics and gathering strength and allies to stage a coup – and keep control after it. In practice, this means that the book follows Diora, the daughter of one of the men looking to overthrow the current ruling family of the Dominion and the eventual wife of the man who’s basically the crown prince. She’s far from the only POV character, but I think we spend the most time with her, and it’s inarguably her actions that bring about the events at the end of the book.

I enjoyed the parts with Diora – all the parts set in the Dominion – because of West’s prose and worldbuilding, not because of the actual plot. I spent the first half of the book waiting to hear more about the child of the poor healer from the prologue, and I think I only really became engaged when we did in fact learn more about her. (Spoiler: she’s feral, and I read her as autistic, both of which delight me.) There’s no question that I was a lot more engaged with the parts of the book – and the various plotlines – that take place outside the Dominion, and I wish they’d been introduced sooner. There’s not much that can keep me super interested in such a heavily patriarchal setting and culture as the Dominion: that’s not West’s fault, that’s just not my thing. But where the worldbuilding we saw in the Dominion was interesting, the worldbuilding we saw outside it made me so excited and left me with many passionate questions. God-children! Noble (?) Houses! The Black Ospreys! The seer! I need to know more!

And woven throughout the human plotlines are the workings of what I can only call demons, some of whom are working with – or manipulating – some of the human players. The politics that shake up the Dominion in this book really are just the opening moves in a much bigger game; it’s clear that what I consider the ‘real’ story is just starting as The Broken Crown is wrapping up. In a way, that was disappointing, but I find I don’t really mind too much. The Broken Crown was enjoyable for its own sake; yes, it’s mostly laying the groundwork for a much bigger conflict, but there is enough here to hold your attention – especially if you don’t mind your stories moving more languidly.

I’ve already started the second book, and suspect I’ll keep reading until I hit the last page of the last book. The Broken Crown might be slow, and quite heavy, but I’m hooked. If you love political machinations and aren’t afraid of a lot of made-up fantasy words, then you’ll probably love it too.

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