Okay. OKAY. So I fucking love this book, ok? Like. A lot. Back during the years where I was really too disabled to actually sit down and read books and was only listening to audiobooks, this was one of the books that I read several times. There’s a great deal about the story to enjoy.
As is frequently true with Megan Derr’s fantasy books, there are very few white people. Alan is on the lighter side of things, but I think that the only true white people are those in Benta? And, hey, another thing to enjoy is that the white people don’t live in the North (where it’s also snowy or whatever the fuck).
Another feature I particularly enjoyed is the gender stuff. I have zero fucking clue as to how reproduction works in this world and it makes me very happy. We have ‘women’ siring children and ‘men’ bearing kids. Now, I’m only using disquotation in the previous sentence because while these people are referred to with normally gendered words (Queen so and so sired…), these words aren’t necessarily gendered in the same way in this story. We only know about the genitals of the two people who have sex in the book and no one else. This is happy making (and people making assumptions about genitals based on gendered words are missing out on one of the most refreshing aspects of the world Derr builds for us). It works for me since none of this is belaboured, its simply the way the world works.
Regarding the plot… Perhaps the most interesting thing about it is how central the communication theme is to the story. Prince Alan is a polyglot – notable because he can read/write/speak in all the languages of the empire (plus a few more). His chief quality as High Consort Presumptive is this ability to translate and, thus, iron out the many administrative wrinkles caused miscommunication. This ability to smooth goes beyond just language, since Prince Alan is also the culturally competent foil to High King Serrica’s rougher soldier. So, of course, miscommunication (or a lack of direct communication) plays a significant role in causing no end of romantic conflict.
Perhaps the weakest part of the plot is actually the romance. Our two protagonists don’t spend a lot of time together. They spend a lot of time thinking about the other, but not that much time actually together. They also don’t spend a lot of time together where they aren’t fighting or upset. Of course, this sort of somewhat antagonistic road to romance is fairly common in Derr’s stories, so it isn’t unexpected. Nonetheless, despite the lack of time straining the reader’s verisimilitude, it does make their eventual coming together very satisfying.
Considering the audiobook, we are lucky that Michael Stellman drops his rather terrible British accent in his narration. As such, he does his usual competent job. So there’s no disappointment here and while his voice doesn’t necessarily add much to the book, it also doesn’t detract from it either.