A Brutally Honest Review of The Stygian Blades
By Joanne Budzien on Goodreads
Bottom Line Upfront
The Stygian Blades is a unique mix of everything I loved about the Doomsday Recon trilogy, The Widow’s Son, and Doors to the Stars with action, adventure, small group dynamics, the need to protect one's people, and well-developed realistic characters while adding the archaic bawdy language and explicit sex scenes. Some of the themes are dark and yet the vibe is a fun heist mystery aſſaſſination plot with 10 feet of pole stuffed in a large codpiece.
What Works in this Book
It’s rare to have so many of my interests accommodated all in one book: action, heists, magic, Nanny Ogg-like single entendres and proud of it (rare to be bluſhing at my age, yet here we are), mystery, puzzles, classics, and wordplay that lets me nerd out.
Kit gets called many things in the broadsides. While I’m tickled by the wicked freckled trull when she’s only freckled (not intentionally wicked and still a maiden, not a trull), “a lean scrawny frame, unfit for honest labor” makes clear Kit is not only not a person of value (i.e. a lady), but she’s not even a good peasant because they can do honest labor all day long.
The introduction to Sebastian is “I've penned better couplets on the walls of jakes”. Sebastian seems to be trying for shock value at every turn, yet what would be shocking in a parlor to produce to bluſhes in all the ladies present is just Tuesday at the Velvet Sheath. I love a good rake fashioned after Oscar Wilde and this is so witty and clever.
Cannon is a gun enthusiast in a time when guns are new enough another character tells Cannon that guns will never catch on for battle. Cannon can use a sword and other weaponry (Puddlewrench is a supplier of many things), but he loves his guns and names them as is right and proper.
Thrain is an enigma as a tattooed barbarian from foreign lands, yet he is reading thick tomes at every turn. Don’t cross a man who can keep his vow of chastity while living in the trullhouse surrounded by friendly trulls.
The trulls entertain me and occasionally sadden me. They are each a unique person and have various reasons for how they ended up in service to Madame de La Rue. No one, though, made a purposeful career choice with a vibrant "it’s a trull’s life for me!" Reba McEntire’s song Fancy comes to mind, although that song has a happier ending than what the trulls are expecting for their lives.
Chaucer’s The Miller’s Tale has nothing on The Stygian Blades in terms of body descriptions at every turn (I don’t know if I’ve ever read so many mentions of various terms for breasts and genitals; sex ed in school was more restrained) and yet the vibe is mostly the soldiers’ Hand-Solo-style goofing from Doomsday Recon. The trulls are having sex for money and not always sex they want to have--Rose at one point says, if that’s the worst you can imagine, then you’re lucky. Williamson is unflinching in implications of being a groat-a-poke trull, yet never resorts to the obscene details one gets in de Sade’s writings. Williamson’s well-written explicit sex scenes have enthusiastic participants who want to be in those moments.
I'm reminded of reading the first book of Armistead Maupin’s Tales from the City in early 1990s. Kit comes into a close-knit group of people immersed in sex, just like TFTC's Mary Ann. TFTC, though, had some heavy-handed lectures. Williamson relies on the story showing the consequences of having very constrained options. I particularly loved seeing Kit find her place in the crew of cutthroats while also falling in love with trull Rose. "I ain't no trull... not that there's anything wrong with that". One of many good pop culture references that works in context.
No one is a caricature in The Stygian Blades; these are realistic-people who have talents but are often compartmentalizing for now (much like the soldiers in Doomsday Recon) to get through the bloomtide because that’s their only choice. They can’t escape their circumstances, and no one here is a hero (although I did go read Marlowe’s Hero and Leander since I was in that mood while reading The Stygian Blades).
Why Only 4 Stars
This story is satisfying as it stands; the plot is resolved with a great ending. Even my typical comparison with Williamson’s Born in Battle has The Stygian Bladesholding its own. The first read of most chapters was total immersion and even rereading to write this review often left me having to remind myself to take a note of what I want to share with prospective readers instead of going on to the next section. Even the comparison to classic literature stands and reminds me of books I love I should reread in the near future. So why only 4 stars for this great book?
- Kit tells a curate she loves long stories. Me, too, Kit. Me, too. The previously last great jinn story I read was a trilogy of novels each at 700+ pages. This is the first time in a long time I wish the author had written longer or given prequels, short stories, or something so I could stay in the company of these characters. Other novels I've read recently give teaser chapters at the end or a short story about a side character. I have so many questions about the lives the characters led before this tentide (Zahra especially). I want to buy most characters a drink in a quiet kitchen and listen to their stories.
- With explicit sex scenes this well written, I would have liked a few more.
- I love cyphers, puzzles, and mysteries. I love it more when I can play along, and I sometimes couldn't do that with The Stygian Blades. Vincent’s language pedantry was a delight; his lecturing on a cypher I couldn’t see was not.
- Most of the book is standard modern spellings. The entr’acte material leans into the archaic and is special while not being overwhelming. The broadside chapter likewise is special and just enough. However, the sections or at least the acts could have had period appropriate teasers of events also with the archaic language.
- Puddlewrench is great and she could have been in more scenes.
What Prospective Readers May Want to Know
Williamson is a master at blending genres & making them all work together. The Stygian Blades goes hard with ninjas, jinn, magic, action, intrigue, and pop culture references (pop culture from hundreds of years, not just our youth) in a Shakespearean five-act structure.
The Stygian Blades reminds me of Burton’s original Arabian Nights, filled with sex, violence, and betrayal along with the magic instead of being the sanitized-for-children versions. Zahra is not Disney’s version of genies. While she may not be a trull, she ain’t no lady either, with her very memorable (in a good way) explicit sex scene.
Fans of Epasotl from Doomsday Recon will want to meet Puddlewrench—a minor character, but here as comic relief as a tinkerer with tech/magic who doesn’t usually get it right on the first try. I enjoyed every appearance. Everyone else in the story has some tragedy; Puddlewench's worst problem is folks assign her the wrong race (definitely not a brownie, thankee very much!).
Williamson’s novels use real-world languages to great effect for cultures and The Stygian Blades is no exception. The well-developed characters are creatures of their culture and often use a relevant language to express their thoughts, yet the language is so well blended all the ideas come through for the reader. Much like Nahuatl in Doomsday Recon or the conlangs of good fantasy/science fiction, the Elizabethan language is easy to follow and gives flavor with the main text being in modern English.
Worth the price of admission for the word play. Many folks don't know how filthy Shakespeare is and that’s one reason his plays were popular at the time. Williamson knows and dials it up to 11. Williamson uses the archaic language to great effect while giving an original story that’s modern yet appropriate to the style of the time. Sebastian breaks the fourth wall in delightful ways to point out absurdities.
The Stygian Blades
Katherine Tarlton is a traveling player on the lam for stabbing a randy nobleman’s son in his poxed stones. When her sticky fingers filch a shiny puzzle tube, she implicates herself and her companions in treason. Now the Stygian Blades must race to stop a regicide to clear their names (they couldn’t give a clipped farthing about the queen).
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