This book has been on my list for ages, I don’t remember how it initially came up. It’s an interesting format, the authors go back and forth writing these sections that each focus on different characters and different situations. The sections will reference previous events occasionally but they don’t revisit previous protagonists or anything like that.
The book takes place in Khaim, a city essentially on the verge of collapse. The people used magic in the past and that brought the brambles, a plant that feeds on magic and is brought into existence through its use and then chokes the life out of the ground. The people that touch it get poisoned and if you have too much you fall into an endless sleep. Our first story is about an alchemist that invents a machine to kill bramble. He brings it to the mayor and the chief magician and they are delighted. They then figure out how to repurpose the machine to track down magic users. They can make them glow blue now, and the streets are red with blood of the executed people performing small magics they think they can get away with. The alchemist is locked up to continue working on it, but he eventually escapes with his family.
Khaim is referred to as the Blue City afterwards, and interestingly it’s the ability to completely shut down magic use from fear that gets credited with the city still standing. The next section is about a woman whose father used to be an executioner, and she substitutes for him as he lays dying. While she’s out raiders come, they set her house on fire and kill her husband and father. She goes after them but is defeated by the raiders. However, she’s found by these traders and then joins their caravan. They teach her to fight, she inspires them to recruit women to fight the raiders, and they take the raiders city. However, she is too late to save her kids, who have been indoctrinated into the raiders Way (which is basically that magic is bad because it destroys other people and those that use magic have to be killed or converted) and they have already left on a pilgrimage.
Third story was the hardest for me. It tells the story of Mop and Rain, two kids that are refugees from a city that fell to bramble. They get jobs pulling bramble seeds out of the ground but Rain tragically gets pricked and falls into bramble sleep. Mop doesn’t want to have to kill her but no one is letting him keep her safe so he plans to return for her body that night. He is too late though, so he heads to the brothel to see if she was taken there. She isn’t, so he does a spell and enchants her comb to find her. He’s nearly found by the city, then nearly taken by bramble himself, but a fuss is being made at their overseers house. Turns out that he took her body to do what he wanted with her, but the comb stabbed him in the back killing him. The people then rally together to all take care of Rain, having heard the legend of the girl who protected herself.
Final story is about a blacksmith’s daughter, her family is hired to make armor for the Duke’s son but they aren’t paid enough. They do their best but he isn’t happy. They try to run but are caught up with and the Duke brings in the chief magician who then uses magic to dig a pit, send her parents in there, and cover it with bramble and dirt. The Duke tells the daughter to finish the armor and he’ll free her parents. She instead makes a suit to wear to dig them out but is found out, ends up killing the Duke’s son, and then heading there with the suit. She’s too late, her parents committed suicide when their food ran out, and she goes to bury them. After fighting off guards, she leaves to find a new life.
Alright so the most interesting part of this for me is the use of magic and bramble as an allegory for climate change. The whole idea is that people think that their use is justified and small, but brambles appear randomly in their neighbor’s house or something like that. And as it goes on it’s clear that the upper classes get to do it whenever they want and the lower classes pay for it. The first two sections have more to do with this idea than the latter half, the first story with the fact that those in power are more interested in punishing music users than clearing the bramble really speaks to this. It reflects how people today don’t want to clean up the CO2 and would rather put the blame on someone else. The second story with the raiders and their cult is also really interesting as it’s revealed that their violence is a response to brambles. Same violence, different side of the coin where they want to kill the magic users to stop the bramble from impacting them.
The other major theme that comes through from all of the sections is this class warfare, how the upper classes profit and the lower classes suffer. There are small victories, but all of the stories are just so sad. These people are being constantly taken advantage of because the upper classes know that they can do that. Does it ever get better? Is it worth it? I’m not sure, there are endings to the sections that are vaguely hopeful but it’s hard to say. That’s partially why I felt the third section so strongly, the community coming together at the end feels much more hopeful to me than anything else.
My main issue is that the bramble sleep in some ways is essentially a plot device. The protagonist in the second section falls into bramble when the raiders beat her and she wakes up after a few weeks. Yet Rain is doomed pretty quickly in the third section. It isn’t the most consistent, which is maybe realistic, but it feels as though people wake up when we decide we want them to and don’t if we don’t.
So this is not the most light hearted read, but I think
sections are very thought provoking. I do wish that there was a little more
discussion relating magic to climate change, that essentially disappears after
the first half of the book, but it’s the main interesting point to me. But
there are ideas that emerge from these stories that are very applicable to life
right now.
