Book Review: Executioness by Tobias Buckell

aarmau@gmail.comMay 20, 2011book review

Product Description

Magic has a price. But someone else will pay. Every time a spell is cast, a bit of bramble sprouts, sending up tangling vines, bloody thorns, and threatening a poisonous sleep. It sprouts in tilled fields and in neighbors’ roof beams, thrusts up from between street cobbles, and bursts forth from sacks of powdered spice. A bit of magic, and bramble follows. A little at first, and then more–until whole cities are dragged down under tangling vines and empires lie dead, ruins choked by bramble forest. Monuments to people who loved magic too much.

In paired novellas, award-winning authors Tobias Buckell and Paolo Bacigalupi explore a shared world where magic is forbidden and its use is rewarded with the axe. A world of glittering memories and a desperate present, where everyone uses a little magic, and someone else always pays the price.

Magic has a price.

In Khaim, that price is your head if you’re found using it. For the use of magic comes with a side effect: it creates bramble. The bramble is a creeping, choking menace that has covered majestic ancient cities, and felled civilizations. In order to prevent the spread of the bramble, many lose their heads to the cloaked executioners of Khaim.

Tana is one of these executioners, taking the job over from her ailing father in secret, desperate to keep her family from starvation. But now her family has been captured by raiders, and taken to a foreign city.

So Khaim’s only female executioner begins a quest to bring her family back together. A bloody quest that will change lives, cities, and even an entire land, forever. A quest that will create the legend of The Executioness.

My Thoughts

Author Site: http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/

Tobias Buckell you have just grabbed a new fan. I read this book/novella the other day. I loved it. This was fantastic. I wish it was longer. I hope it will be expanded. I love the idea of a mother in her mid life being a tough main character. I read an interview with him(I cannot find it anymore to share a link), but they were talking about how the idea started.

I know the book is short at only 104 pages, but loved every page. I have plans to read his work after I finish Game of Thrones. The action was good. The storyline was great. I cannot wait to read Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi to read another story in this universe.

What I liked about the book was that the main character was someone new and different. It was not some orphan boy or a wizard with a love that was lost in their past. Tana has no choice but to take on the work of her father to keep the house and her boys alive. This just leads to all the adventures that ensue. It was refreshing to me. It was a different set up and it worked for me.

I don’t know what the Alchemist is about, but I look forward to comparing and hopefully a full length novel will come out by Tobias. In the meantime, check this short read out. It is well worth it.

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