Fantasy – Page 19 – Marked for Plot

The Tainted Cup

The Tainted Cup was one of my more anticipated reads of the year. I loved Bennett’s Divine Cities, but found Foundryside to be aggressively mediocre despite hitting nearly every trope I enjoyed at the time. I am very appreciative that The Tainted Cup has more in common with the former than the latter.

The Premise:
This book is pretty directly inspired by classic mysteries. Armchair Detectives are the clear reference. Our narrator is an assistant with perfect memory recall who serves an Imperial investigator who generally refuses to leave her house, gets wildly overstimulated to the point where she oftentimes tries to shut out sensory input, and is interested in only the most unique cases. Set in a world where leviathan bodies are used to create grafts to enhance life (human, crops, etc), many people are superhuman, but it always comes at a cost. Anyways, the story starts with a murder caused by someone forcing a tree to grow explosively through a man visiting a Gentry estate, and the Din (the assistant and our lead character) is sent to gather evidence for the investigation.

Read If Looking For: a classic murder mystery book in an epic fantasy world

Avoid if Looking For: you don’t enjoy Sherlock Holmes

The Bone Ships

I came to the Bone Ships as part of r/Fantasy’s bingo project, looking for an interesting book for the ‘Weird Ecology’ square in 2023. This book came with a lot of accolades and, while I didn’t find all of it to my taste, it was good enough for me to read the sequels, which quickly cemented the series as some of my all time favorites.

The Premise:
Joron used to be the captain of a prison ship. A bad captain to be sure, but a captain nevertheless. That changes when Lucky Meas, a legend of the navy, takes his position without a word about why she’s on a prison ship in the first place. She starts whipping the crew into shape for a mission of epic proportions, with Joron trailing resentfully behind. Things are about to change, as the first dragon for many years has been spotted, and its bones will surely promise a naval advantage to whichever country can kill it.

Read If Looking For: dark and gritty stories, secondary worlds that don’t evoke real world cultures, books on ships

Avoid if Looking For: an upbeat read where everything goes well for the main character

The Goblin Emperor

I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person. I was an English major in college. I read lots of fantasy books with invented words in them. I enjoy puzzles. And yet, never have I loved being so utterly lost in the beautiful red tape of titles and ranks in the Elven royal court in The Goblin Emperor.

Elevator Pitch:
The child of a marriage of alliance between an Elven Emperor and a Goblin Princess, Maia has lived his entire life in exile simply for who he is. When his father and siblings all die in a mysterious airship accident, he finds himself thrust into the role of the emperor, and finds himself in a world he is utterly unprepared for. Lost and confused and just trying to be happy, Maia must learn to accept being Emperor, because it is all he will ever know for the rest of his life.

Read if Looking For: the daily life of an unassuming Emperor, hopeful books, baroque invented fantasy language use

Avoid if Looking For: political intrigue as a developed plotline

The Spear Cuts Through Water

I have long been chasing classic epic fantasy stories featuring gay characters, and have been disappointed over and over again. I love romances (and read many of them) but finding stories focused on gay men where romance plot structures don’t dominate is horribly difficult. I put of reading The Spear Cuts Through Water for a long time, out of fear it would not live up to my hopes for it. When I read it, I discovered the best book I’ve ever read.

The Premise:
Jun is a guard. Keema is an outcast. They find themselves on a journey that will shape the fate of worlds as they help a dying god escape from the Empire that has enslaved it, and the Three Terrors who keep the land under the Empire’s control. But it’s also the story of a child hearing the story of Jun and Keema from their grandma. And it’s also the story of a person in the theater of dreams and ocean watching this story performed. These three narratives weave together seamlessly throughout the book, passing the story back and forth often, sometimes within the same sentence.

Read If Looking For: ambitious books, mythic style writing, heartrending and terrifying characters

Avoid if Looking For: a straightforward story

The Sapling Cage

I’ve been on the lookout for epic fantasy debuts, especially since I wasn’t terribly impressed with the early few I read during 2024. The Sapling Cage captured my attention with it’s cover, and earned a purchase with the promise of witchy epic fantasy. I found it a refreshing reset, blending the best parts of classic fantasy with modern sensibilities.

The Premise:
Lorel wants desperately to be a witch, and trades places with her best friend to do so. The only problem: Lorel was born in the body of a boy, and witches only let women in. It doesn’t matter that Lorel thinks of herself as a woman, so she must hide that part of herself. She joins the witches at a turbulent time. Duchess Helte is on the move to grab power, demonizing the witches as a scapegoat. The Knights are more violent than normal, and someone has developed a magic that Blights the land. Nobody knows the culprit, but the witches are suspect number one. Lorel just wants to learn magic, but its a long and winding road to get there.

Read if Looking For: grounded stories, Tamora Pierce for adults, books that wind instead of twist, travel scese

Avoid if Looking For: characters powering up, fast pacing, punchy fight scenes

Mana Mirror

I’ve been a big fan and advocate of Tobias Begley’s previous series (Journals of Evander Tailor) in the progression fantasy space. I appreciated how they balanced small scale magic-school stuff with overarching plots, included quality queer rep, and had a clear grasp on characterization within a breezy writing style. So after binging book 3 in that series and seeing he had a new one coming out, I was overjoyed to see he had a new book coming out! Mana Mirror is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but it was definitely mine.

The Premise:
When Malachi got tested for magic and had the opportunity to pick opposing mana types for his spellcasting, he went with life and death mana. This caught the attention of a morally-questionable magi looking for a successor/experiment subject, and Malachi quickly ended up becoming apprenticed to one of the most powerful spellcasters on the planet. He’ll visit the local quest board often, learn about down payments on buying brooms, and meet a variety of cute folks along the way as he pursues a path towards magic that (among other things) will let him fully transition.

Read if Looking For: side quests, magic systems, wholesome family dynamics

Avoid if Looking For: action heavy, plot driven, or deeply thematic books

Running Close to the Wind

Alexandra Rowland has been one of my favorite authors ever since I read A Conspiracy of Truths, and their writing has never lead me astray since. Their most popular novel (A Taste of Gold and Iron) is also their weakest in my opinion, but still quite excellent. So this book was an easy pick for me for this card, and it met pretty much every expectation I had for it.

The Premise
Avra is many things. He’s a recently retired member of the Arasti military, he’s been (allegedly) blessed by the goddess of luck, he always pays his bills promptly, tips well, is a contented slut, and recently stole the most valuable mercantile secret of the richest country in the world (also his former employer). When he finds himself on the pirate ship of his on-again/off-again ex, he’s dragged back to the pirate isles against his will. While at his home away from home, he must contest with sea serpents, a nosy Ambassador, the annual cake decorating contest, and a ridiculously handsome (and criminally celibate) monk.

Read if Looking For: Raucously funny pirates, unhinged monologues, seagulls, cake decorating contests, sexual language (but very little actual sex)

Avoid if Looking For: a book that takes itself seriously