Political – Page 5 – Marked for Plot

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

The Traitor Baru Cormorant

Sometimes a book comes along that utterly redefines how you view books, reading, or genres. The Traitor Baru Cormorant was like that for me, a book that shook me to my core, and forced me to realize just how powerful Queer Fantasy could be. It remains one of my all time favorites. It isn’t for everyone though, and has a pretty clear style that is different from how most fantasy nowadays is written.

The Premise:
Baru is a genius. A savant at math and numbers, she’s been trained since a young age by the Empire to be of use. She’s also grown up seeing her beloved island home colonized by the soldiers of the Empire: trade, coin, and plumbing. She also happens to be Lesbian, a crime that forces her to repress her desires and live a life of shame. And she wants to rip the Empire to pieces. But to do that, she must first gain power in the Empire. And so she accepts a job to run the Economy of one of the Empire’s many colonies – not her own of course – and suppress their own rebellion so she may grow her own.

Read If Looking For: a book that will rip your heart out, economist lead character, anti-colonial stories

Avoid if Looking For: queer characters living happy lives, quick and/or breezy reads, twists that are complete surprises

The Mask of Mirrors

Tarot Readings and Psychics have never really been my thing. I like the idea of them, the layers of meaning in the cards over time and how they represent core aspects of the human experience. However, I don’t particularly subscribe to the more supernatural aspects of them in real life. In Fantasy however, I find them a delight. And my favorite thing about The Mask of Mirrors (and its sequels) is that the in-universe Tarot analogue, aside from being wonderfully designed, was used by the authors as part of the writing process. Every card reading in the story – with one notable exception – was done in real time in our physical world, and the results were the ones used in-universe, helping to drive narrative beats and character arcs. It shouldn’t work, but M.A. Carrick show their writing chops by turning what could be a disaster, into a really excellently crafted trilogy.

The Premise:
Ren has returned to her home city of Nadežra years after fleeing the criminal gang that raised her. With the help of her sister, she hopes to get herself adopted into a noble household by masquerading as a long-lost niece and make off with their fortunes. Unfortunately, the family turns out to be nearly destitute after a perhaps supernatural string of bad luck, the city’s cultural tensions are about to boil over, and Ren’s past debts to the underworld come knocking.

Read If Looking For: deeply realized cultures and characters, con artists, lavish descriptions of clothing, queernorm worlds

Avoid if Looking For: a fast paced story, or one that prioritizes action scenes

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