The Tangled Lands: a review

In my mind, one of the requirements for fantasy to work is that magic has to come with a consistent and heavy price. In the Tangled Lands, the magic does just that. Every time you perform magic, it causes “bramble” to grow. The bramble can take over and choke out everything else. It is poisonous. If you are pricked with any of the fine thorns you will get sleepy. Get pricked with a few of them and you may never wake up. I saw the parallels to Sleeping Beauty, and thought it was going to be a variation of that story. But it is not. The similarity ends there.

The book is made up of four stories that all take place in the same world in and around Khaim, the last surviving city of a once great empire. This city has survived by the dictatorial enforcement of a death sentence on anyone who practices magic. Two of the stories were written by Paolo Bacigalupi and two of the stories were written by Tobias S. Buckell. They are seamlessly interwoven together and into their world.

Being the last remaining city, Khaim, has become the refugee center for whoever is left of the empire. Some of these people were on the highest rungs of society in their former city, but now find themselves among the lowest. It is somewhat reminiscent of doctors and lawyers and such who fled from some South American country to get out of the clutches of a dictator. They came to America only to discover that their advanced degrees were worthless here and they had to make do as a busboy or a dishwasher. Being a refugee sucks no matter where you flee to. But in this case the power mongers of Khaim have little love for the refugees. They blame the refugees for causing their own problems because they were too reliant on magic. The leaders of Khaim do everything they can to discover magic users among them (and execute them).

The four stories let us see the point of view from four different characters. The four characters are very different with very different situations, but all striving to overcome the hand they have been dealt. There is some resolution to each story, but if I had any complaint of the book, it is that I wanted to find out what happens next to some of these characters. I was anticipating more, only to be shifted to a new story. The writing styles of the two authors are similar enough and the situations intertwined enough that had I not known there were two different authors, I would not have guessed it. This is one of the better fantasies I have read in a while.

Star Liner

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