Elijah Kinch Spector

Originally posted on Just Geeking by.

Content warnings:
There are scenes of violence, death, torture, emotional abuse and forced imprisonment throughout this book. Racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia and ableism takes place on page and in flashbacks. Homosexuality is encouraged by the military of one kingdom to increase military prowess, but as soon as men leave the military they are ostracised if they remain together as homosexuality is not accepted by society. The persecution of witches and people with gifts is also a recurring theme.

Have you ever finished a book, sat back and wondered what on earth you have just read? That was me after I had finished Kalyna the Soothsayer by Elijah Kinch Spector. There was something about this one that kept me hooked even when I kept looking at the percentage read and realised that what I thought was a huge chunk read was only a measly 20 percent!

I have to admit I went into Kalyna the Soothsayer expecting there to be a point where the main character, Kalyna was revealed to have real soothsaying powers or some other gift. At some points it felt as though that was where Spector was heading, and I thought I read a few hints dropped to that extent. I’m not quite sure if I’m glad that I was wrong about the direction Spector took the book in or not, because while I think that route would have been interesting it was also refreshing to have a protagonist who didn’t have any powers. As a result, Kalyna the Soothsayer is more fantasy with a spy and thriller twist than your usual epic fantasy and I think that is what kept me hooked. I had to know what was going to happen, how things would turn out.

As a main character Kalyna is probably not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Anyone who read Throne of Glass and complained that Celaena was bratty should give this a miss, especially because they missed the fact that Celaena had been through traumatic experiences and was dealing with PTSD. The world of Kalyna the Soothsayer is divided into four kingdoms which eventually banded together to form a “gigantic country” called the Tetrarchia. Kalyna and her family are travelling soothsayers, and as she tells people multiple times throughout the book, she’s not “foreign”; she belongs to every country.

“I have got something from everywhere, and I am exotic to all” is how she explains, “It is useful for business, and also for being dragged out by a mob to be throttled”.

Her grandmother is an extremely toxic person who told her as a child that she killed her mother (she died in childbirth), and has been emotionally abusing her since it became obvious that Kalyna had not inherited their family gift. Being forced into a coach and taken to one of the kingdoms to act as a soothsayer in a prince’s mad scheme is just another traumatic event in a long line for this young woman. Spector does a great job of walking that fine line between exploring Kalyna’s feelings of imprisonment, anxiety of being found out as a fraud, worry about her disabled father while feeling guilty for enjoying luxuries that she has never had before.

I found her likeable and relatable, and a lot of that was to do with Spector’s narrative voice. At one point during Kalyna the Soothsayer a character introduces herself while eating something and Kalyna is too embarrassed to ask her to repeat it because she likes her. She spends an awfully long time calling this woman a random misheard name until someone finally says her name properly, and it was just so relatable. It also brought the whole situation and the character down to earth. She’s running around trying not to get caught, up to her neck in the middle of political conspiracies, risking certain death and there she is worried about embarrassing herself in front of a pretty girl!

While there was enough to keep me hooked, the massive downfall of the Kalyna the Soothsayer is its length. There is just so much waffling on which just isn’t needed. I don’t know whether a map is included in the final edition (there’s no preview available on Amazon and no information on the author’s website), but this is one of those books where one is sorely needed. From the way the kingdoms are described and the etymology of the names Spector has used I would guess that this is one of those fantasy worlds stylised on real world locations and cultures. Sometimes that can be done very well, and sometimes it can feel like I’m reading historical fiction rather than fantasy. In this case, it wasn’t done well. When Kalyna is reading through her captor’s tireless and boring notes, the reader does not need to know all those details as well, for example.

Some things were well done, and it was good to see a disabled character and lots of LGBT representation in a fantasy novel without any negative connotations attached to either. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for what Elijah Kinch Spector does next, but Kalyna the Soothsayer just wasn’t quite the right fit for me.

For more of my reviews please visit my blog!… (mais)

Amusing and light fantasy about Kalyna, who pretends she can see the future. After being kidnapped, she gets caught in a web of spymasters, cults, kings, soldiers, and many many lies. She might even be able to save her country’s government from imploding, even though her fellow countrymen have ever only treated her as an outsider.

Loved the world building, especially the differences in languages. Also has Queer characters, no sexytimes, some trope inversions.

Read an Advanced Reader Copy from NetGalley… (mais)

Kalyna the Soothsayer is a long, meaty read full of political intrigue and dry humor, with a downright cunning strong female protagonist. Kalyna is a formidable main character with smarts and no magic in a fantasy world.

THE PREMISE:

Kalyna is a fake soothsayer descended from a long line of real soothsayers. The gift of seeing the future that runs in her family seems to have skipped her. With an ailing father and abusive grandmother to support, she took to faking soothsayer abilities using observation, deduction, paid informants, and the rarely coherent prophecies of her ailing father. At 27, she’s long since developed a seasoned con artist’s eye for reading people. Her family has always been nomadic because real or fake, seers tend to get run out of town (or worse) if they stick around too long. Apparently, she got a little too good at faking it and made a bit too good of a reputation for herself in travels. One day, she gets recruited (more like drafted or kidnapped) by the Prince to use her soothsaying to stop an assasination plot against the King. That is, the King of one of the four kingdoms that make up Kalyna’s bizarre Tetrarchic country. Kalyna’s supposed to do this before the next regular meeting of the four monarchs in about three months. Unfortunately, her father’s latest prophecy foretold the bloody destruction of their country in about three months too. This leaves Kalyna trying to figure out how she can escape the country with her family before it is destroyed or prevent said destruction. She also has to keep from being revealed as a fraud (which would probably get her executed). The court is full of factions, schemers, and different armies that most certainly do not work together. Pretty soon, Kalyna begins to wonder if it’s possible to save her country or even if she somehow triggers its destruction.

THE MAIN CHARACTER:

Kalyna is a rare strong female protagonist that’s truly cunning and clever without being immoral, sadistic, selfish, or unlikeable.

She survives using her wits, guile, and trusty sickle. She’s crafty and clever and most definitely a liar. She may be a con woman, but she does it for the right reasons. She does it for the sake of her ailing father. She has a healthy sense of self-preservation and looks after her own first and foremost. And yet, she’s still empathetic.

She thinks fast in a crisis. Sometimes she talks her way out of a fight. Sometimes she talks others into a fight. Sometimes she fights for her life. When she does, she fights dirty, not very skillfully, not too incompetently, and with everything she’s got. When she spins lies to talk people into or out of a fight in order to avert catastrophe, she does it with everything she’s got.

Kalyna is cynical, pessimistic, and just a little bit petty in such a relatable and darkly funny way.

“I formulated, and discarded, a hundred different ways to take Lenz hostage, or kill him, during the Ball. None were feasible, but all were satisfying to imagine.”

Now that’s a reaction to being kidnapped and coerced that I can relate to.

Kalyna’s got a trickster’s confidence and guile, the perceptive eyes of a conwoman, the loyalty of a loving daughter, the fighting spirit of a survivor, the fear of someone who wants to live, and the dry, black humor of a cynic who half expects to die.

As a member of a nomadic family, Kalyna has ancestry all over the Tetrarchy and is seen as a foreigner everywhere. She has the empathy of an outsider and a traveler that has seen all walks of life. She’s been desperate and hungry enough of her life to empathize with those in desperate straights. She has the wisdom of someone that’s seen so much of the world, so many people, and paid attention.

She’s smart and shrewd, but not always right. She sometimes misreads people or procrastinates. She makes some things worse while trying to protect herself and her father with clever lies. She struggles with her self worth after a lifetime of abuse from her grandmother, but saving an entire nation might just do wonders for self esteem (if she succeeds). She spends half the book not knowing a character’s name because it was far too late to ask. While her motives for being a con artist are good, she’s not immune to darker impulses: anger, jealousy, spite, the power trip of manipulating others’ with expert skill, etc. She’s not perfect and definitely grows as a person in this story.

I want to see more characters like Kalyna! This story is told in first person and past tense from her POV. Since Kalyna is such an entertaining and cynical character, this book has a great, expressive narrative voice.

“There was also a vine in the center that writhed as though it were trying to escape the palace: at least this vine understood me.”

THE PLOT & WRITING:

This book is perfect if you’re looking for a substantial read full of intricacies, details, fantastic would-building, intricate plots, and mysteries to ponder between sittings. And yet, it still manages to never be confusing, far-fetched, or predictable. If you’re looking for a quick read where you don’t need to think much, this probably isn’t a good choice.

The complicated web of political plots and schemes gets quite convoluted, verging on satire. The story has an odd type of humor and a healthy dose of irony. For example, the Prince in the story goes to great efforts and scheming to stop the king from being assassinated just so he doesn’t have to become king himself and do all that tedious work that comes with the job. That’s an enormous amount of work to avoid work. The prince's specific schemes are both absolutely ridiculous and rather terrifying.

There is fantastic worldbuilding and a richly complicated political landscape and intrigue that skirts the line between realism and parody of both humanity and society. It’s never too confusing. The book is set in Rotfelsen, one of four mostly independent Kingdoms that make up one greater Tetrarchic country. Rotfelsen alone has four separate armies, which all answer to a different part of the Rotfelsen government with a different agenda. Naturally, none of these armies get along or work together peacefully. Each of the four kingdoms fancy themselves the most advanced one and the only thing standing between the Tetrarchy and doom. All of this reflects human nature quite realistically. This is done in a hyperbolically ridiculous fashion that pokes fun at human nature.

There’s a lot of brief bite-sized tangents that give you a sense of the political and cultural setting and are often amusing. These brief word-building tangents sometimes seem like weird digressions, but they’re never boring and usually turn out relevant to the plot. They occasionally slow down the pacing of the story, but only in the beginning of the book.

There’s just a smidgeon of sapphic romance for Kalyna. Blink and you might miss it. In general, this book doesn’t have much romance at all. This book has LGBTQ+ rep with some bi and gay main characters (including the Kayna).

The ending is fairly happy, but not a rose-colored glasses perfect fixall ending.

This is an adult book with adult characters making adult decisions. Well, most of them are making adult decisions, I’m not so sure about the Prince. It’s still largely PG-13 though. It touches on serious issues, like xenophobia and homophobia.

WARNINGS: Child abuse (physical and emotional), homophobia, xenophobia, violence, death, alcohol, kidnapping (but absolutely no stockholm syndrome type creepiness), blackmail

I received a free digital advanced reader copy via NetGalley. I am writing this review completely honestly and voluntarily.… (mais)