Criminals – Page 2 – Marked for Plot

Kalyna the Soothsayer – Political Fantasy with a Sense of Humor

One of my favorite things to do is read books nobody is talking about other than a few people who relentlessly hype it. Kalyna the Soothsayer was brought to my attention by u/RheingoldRiver over on the Fantasy subreddit. I’m a bit sad that it took me so long to finally pick this book up, but I really enjoyed it! It’s got a good amount of political intrigue, a delightfully unreliable narrator, and a setting that feels just weird enough to be noticed without distracting from the corruptive nature of power or xenophobic social orders. It’s not a comedy, but it’s got a relentlessly dry sense of humor. It isn’t epic fantasy, but the stakes are high. It’s not a crime novel, but our protagonist’s string of cons and lies were entertaining and filled with tension. It doesn’t quite hit my ‘all time favorites’ list, but it’s good enough that I’ve already put in an order for the sequel.

Elevator Pitch
Kalyna is from everywhere, but belongs nowhere. She is powerless in a family of soothsayers. Her ‘prophecies’ rely on guesswork and rigging the odds. She’s catches the attention of the Prince of Rotfelsen, an underground nation. She and her family find themselves kidnapped and forcibly placed in the Prince’s service right when assassination plots against the King are on the rise. She must figure out how to escape without killing herself, her loving father, or her viper of a grandmother. Until then, she’s got to fake some fortunes for a paranoid prince and hope things don’t go too sideways in the meantime.

Read if Looking for: long cons, a bucket of assassination attempts, characters using nontypical weapons, Jewish-coded protagonists, chaotic bisexuals

Avoid if Looking For: kind and sympathetic nobility, fight scenes with consequences, supportive grandparents, long chapters

Comparable Reads: The Justice of Kings, A Mask of Mirrors, The Blacktongue Thief

The Black Coast

I came for innovative queer worldbuilding, and I stayed for dinosaurs. This book kept coming up on lists of stories with queer worldbuilding elements, came off my shelf because I wanted to read a story about dragons. While I liked the book a lot, it didn’t succeed on either count, and folks coming to this story looking for queer representation will find themselves disappointed, despite a 5/6-gender society and cultural clashes over the morality of homosexuality being major elements of this book. Hopefully that shifts in the sequels, but right now it’s probably better to think about this as a more plot-focused Game of Thrones style story.

The Premise:
There’s two main storylines happening in The Black Coast. The town of Black Keep is visited by raiders (who are fleeing an undead monster on their home islands) who wish to settle the land instead of fight. The stepson of the town’s Thane betrays his own honor to allow them to settle, capturing his stepfather (who has anger issues) and imprisoning him to prevent a bloodbath. They must learn to live together while other raiders hunt them down and convince other Thanes that the raiders shouldn’t be slaughtered. Meanwhile, the sister of the Emperor travels to Alba (a neighboring nation) under her second life as the Queen of the Underworld to arrange the assassination of a family that claims the rightful inheritance of the God-King’s blood that (in theory) was inherited by her brother. In that same city is a thief just trying to survive.

Read if Looking for: Dinosaurs, codes of honor, more POVs than is wise, cultures inspired by Feudal Japan and Scandinavian Vikings

Avoid if Looking For: magic, character-focused stories, travel & journeys

The Devils

I shouldn’t have been surprised at how controversial Joe Abercrombie’s new release would be in parts of the fantasy fandom. The Devils is a departure from Abercrombie’s reputation as a character-focused writer interested in deconstructing classic fantasy tropes, and a popular author straying from their niche invariably invites criticism. At its core, this is a misfit adventure novel with a collection of villain archetypes as major players in an ensemble class. I thought the book was fun, a great audiobook to listen to at the gym, but probably not one that’s going to get recommended by me unless it’s a unique fit to someone’s requests. Had a great time with it though.

The Premise
Brother Diaz is a monk who thought he was destined for greatness when he was granted an audience with the Pope. Instead, he’s put in charge of a ratag group of prisoners to escort the long-lost princess of the Empire to take her throne. He’s got to wrangle a suave vampire, a bloodthirsty werewolf, an elf assassin, an egotistical necromancer, an immortal paladin, and a normal woman who has worked any job you could possibly imagine for at least a few weeks. Together, they must beat the odds – mostly just dead Empress’ four sons, all of whom want the princess dead – and complete their holy quest despite none of them wanting to be there (other than the paladin).

Read if Looking For: villain of the chapter, big personalities, extended fight scenes

Avoid if Looking For: a carbon copy of First Law, historical accuracy, a book impossible to call ‘safe’

The Chromatic Fantasy

I’m all about unapologetically queer books, and The Chromatic Fantasy definitely fits that brief. This book isn’t a tour-de-force on the trans experience, but it’s an extremely fun romp a book with great art that didn’t disappoint in the slightest. I need to wait a week or two to see if this has the emotional staying power to crack my top 10 of the year, but I think it’s got a pretty good shot.

The Premise
Jules hates being a nun, in no small part because he’s not a woman. To escape, he makes a deal with the Devil, gaining immortality and becoming a thief, swordsman, and general troublemaker. When he meets his match a fellow scoundrel, the two figure out what a life together might look like. Turns out, this life mostly looks very, very chaotic. Looming over Jules’ new life though, is the Devil constantly pushing Jules into isolation, depression, and doubt.

Read if Looking For: tricksters and thieves, anachronism and whimsy, more color than a chameleon at a rave

Avoid if Looking For: fully coherent plots, historical accuracy (or even consistency in the intensity of historical inaccuracies), memorable villains, books without nudity

Alien Clay

For someone who reads as much as I do, the fact that I’ve gotten so far through life without reading a single Tchaikovsky novel is astounding. I blame my father in part: he stole Children of Time from me while visiting and never returned it. Alien Clay arrived as part of my never ending processional of Libby Audiobook holds, most of which get shunted back another few months until I have time for it. And I see why Tchaikovsky is so popular. I understand why it was nominated for a Hugo, and why it didn’t win. I liked it, but didn’t love it, and suspect that if I read Tchaikovsky he’ll be a reliably good author when I need a solid page-turner to get me off a reading slump.

The Premise:
Mildly rebellious Xenobiology professor Arton Daghdev has been caught by the Hegemony. As punishment, he is sent to Kiln, a extrasolar planet with the most advanced forms of life yet discovered. While there, he falls in with former rebel contacts, grows fascinated with the interchangable nature of Kilnish biology, and wonders what the point of life is when he’ll never be able to return home.

Read if Looking For: delightful alien ecology, characters with realistic skillsets, hopeless situations, readable prose

Avoid if Looking For: something new to say about fighting hegemony and fascism, books without bloat

Regicide: Saints of Firnus

Every once in a while a book recommendation passes beneath your nose that captures your attention. Regicide was that way. It started with a compelling cover, a blurb that promised grimdark fantasy elements, and a lack of clear romance plotline. It lived up to some of those promises and had some legitimately interesting developments, but was undercut by a dire need for another readthrough and round of proofing and edits.

The Premise:
This is the story of Holt, a member of the ‘vermin’ beastkin whose lands were colonized by the Panthera. He now lives as a beggar, supported only by his partner, whose untimely death pushes Holt. towards new connections with the underground resistance and old traditions of his people. However, this is Holt’s story told after he’s become an infamous legend. An elder shares the ‘real’ story of Holt to others of his kind. They live underground, still firmly under the paw of the Pantheran government, meaning you know from the very beginning that the ending of the story wouldn’t be a happy one.

Read if Looking for: Redwall for adults, morally upright protagonists in dystopian worlds, author-created illustrations, characters who happen to be gay

Avoid if You are Looking for: polished prose, multi-POV stories, deep themes or nuance, romance, books without depictions of intense racism, lots of magic

The Whitefire Crossing

In my eternal quest for queer men represented in non-Romantasy books, I’ve started to look back at books that I likely missed in my childhood. Published in 2011, this book would have come out right as I was transitioning to reading books for adults more regularly, still desperately closeted in a small town, and craving representation in any variety.

I didn’t quite find that in The Whitefire Crossing. Both male leads are entangled with women, though sequels very well reveal bisexual identities or add new lead characters. It’s tagged as LGBTQ+ in Goodreads though, which is a good indication that there’s something there. Time will tell I suppose. It didn’t blow me away, but had a lot of interesting things going for it.

The Premise:
Dev is a seasoned smuggler, who ferries magical goods across the mountains in trade caravans. Kiran is a mage on the run from his master, and will give up anything to escape. Dev takes him on as ‘one last job’, but the journey across the mountains is anything but the routine trip Dev is used to.

Read if Looking For: extended travel sequences, detailed climbing descriptions, all-powerful mages

Avoid if Looking For: dynamic fight scenes, books high quality female representation

Not Even Bones

I’m not a person who can handle gruesome depictions of core when presented with the slow, deliberate pace of a medical show or some darker parts of fantasy. When in the middle of an action scene, sure, but torture is something I struggle with. As I’ve read more horror over the years though, I’ve started to appreciate it more and more. And if you’re interested in a dark story that feels a lot like watching Dexter or You, then Market of Monsters will be right up your alley

The Premise:
Nita is the teenage child of a couple who hunts and kills supernatural creatures. Some are monsters, but others are intelligent people, basically humans with some extra bells and whistle. Nita dissects the bodies, packaging them for sale on the black market. But when her mother brings a live … specimen in, Nita lets him go. And then her mother puts Nita on the black market, to be killed for the highest bidder. Because Nita isn’t totally human either.

Read If Looking For: body horror, fun twists, urban fantasy that goes beyond werewolves and vampires

Avoid if Looking For: bespoke prose, books where characters make smart choices, healthy family dynamics

The Bullet Swallower

The intersection between Speculative Fiction and Westerns is something I’ve been interested in exploring for a while now. I’ve got both American Hippo and Make Me No Grave on my bookshelf right now, waiting for me to find the time to get around to them. This was my first foray into the genre, primarily because the Magical Realism elements were intriguing, as was the parallel storyline in the pitch.

The Premise:
The Bullet Swallower primarily follows the bandit Antonio Sonoro, the descendent of a long line of tyrants and despots. He’s chasing after the score to end all scores, but quickly ends up trapped in a cycle of survival, hunting, and being hunted. Seventy years later, Jaime Sonoro, a movie star, is gifted a book chronicling his family’s cruel history. And lingering above it all is Remedio, a being who knows the men are damned, and can do nothing to escape the twisted fate of the Sonoro family.

Read If Looking For: frank depictions of characters, family sagas, heaps of bravado

Avoid if Looking For: fast paced stories, lots of action scenes

The Scarlet Throne

Fantasy and Science Fiction with unique inspiration points are always interesting to me. So when I heard about a debut novel based on the Living Gods of Nepal, it was easy to make space in my reading life to check it out. It was pretty easily my favorite debut of 2024, and didn’t show any of the shakiness that often plague debut novels.

The Premise:
The Scarlet Throne follows Binsa, a teenager who holds the goddess of wisdom inside her. Only she isn’t actually. Instead, she’s got a demon who gives her enough power to fake it while the actual goddess is … well actually she has no idea where the goddess is, or if the goddess is even real. And with her tenure as host of the ‘goddess’ rapidly coming to a close, Binsa is grasping for any way to avoid being thrown out of the temple to scrape by for the rest of her life. And the demon she hosts whispers in her ear. The future is hers, but grasping it will require sacrifice.

Read If Looking For: villain stories with actual villains, fire breathing goats, toxic family dynamics

Avoid if Looking For: flashy stories, books where villains are simply misunderstood