"Blood Over Bright Haven" by M.L. Wang (2023)

**A story about the magic that create a bright and shining haven, and the cost we don't always realize is being paid for it**

M.L. Wang is an author to watch, for sure.  Her first few YA novels were, well, let me just say that it was very obvious that they were indie-published, in that they were in need of a good editor.  And yet she hit on something truly special with "The Sword of Kaigen", an absolute stunner of a sword and sorcery novel with great characters ("She hadn’t broken quietly like porcelain. She had broken like black glass and ice—jagged and more dangerous than ever."), some badass swordfights (sorry, no spoilers), and absolute haymaker punches of line that made me put the book down for a minute ("What the world would never know . . .").  Great book.  And whatever it is she found in writing Sword, it's clear she kept it for "Blood Over Bright Haven"

It's hard to explain this book, simply because the less you know about it the better.  I will say that it starts with the solid premise of a young woman (one of our two main characters, Sciona Freynan), who is a brilliant mage with one problem--her world doesn't respect female mages, expecting them to simply marry a male mage and support him.  And honestly, that could have been a good book on its own, especially coupled with the very unique magic system:  Spells are entered via a specialized typewriter, as the mage drafts a script to map out the "Otherrealm" from which we siphon magical energy; writes a separate script to source that energy; and then finally adds the script that determines how that energy will be used in our real world, anything from heating water for tea to powering the machines that make the city run.  Neat, right?

Sciona is a prodigy of mapping, and she's quick-witted and clever.  As I said, if that's all this book were about it would be a fun read:  

["How are things working out, Miss Freynan?"]

“Highmage,” Sciona snapped.

“Yes?” 

“I meant—it’s not Miss Freynan. It’s Highmage Freynan.”

Renthorn’s smile soured slightly. “You know, arrogance never made a woman more attractive.”

“When I care how attractive you find me, I’ll let you know.”

But that premise is quickly set aside, as you realize that no, this book is going to be about so much more than that.  Not just our main character and her struggles, but all the ways her entire world works (or doesn't work, or does work but at terrible cost).  She is partnered with Thomil, a janitor given to her as an assistant as a "prank" by her coworkers.  As member of the Kwen race, subjugated and forced into menial jobs, he has a lot to tell her, a lot of things she never for one second thought about: “'I can be civil, ma’am, or I can be honest. You can’t have both in their entirety.'”

Thomil's story is a very different one from Sciona's, and the chapters told from his perspective are often heartbreaking.  His musings on the choices he's made raising his niece brought tears to my eyes, forced to decide whether he should push her to be "Tiranish" (the city in which they live) or to allow her to hold on to her "Caldonn" and "Kwen" heritage.  I got little misty as I think of the same choices so many immigrants in our world make:

Ultimately, selfishness had governed Thomil’s entire relationship with his niece—beginning with the way he had raised her: wildly, defiantly Caldonn. He told himself it was how her parents would have wanted it. They would have wanted the last of their line to remember their names, feel their absence, sing their songs, and speak their language. There was probably some truth to the assumption, but the deeper truth was that Thomil couldn’t bear to be the very last of his people. A selfless guardian would have let Carra be Tiranish. Let her put her hair up and fuss over dresses like a Tiranish girl, let her grow up to speak without an accent, then come to resent her uncle for his poor manner of speaking and the dirty Kwen habits no amount of time could break.

I apologize in advance for being blunt, when Wang does her best not to proselytize overmuch.  Sorry if I'm letting her down by saying outright what she's trying to say in allegory (though don't worry, it's not that subtle).  But yes, the society in this book has a lot in common with our own, and the key similarity is in its and our axiomatic determination that everything done for to further their society is, by definition, self-justifying.  The society is good because it enables impressive works, and these impressive works are good because they create the society.  In the book, this is taken further by having the society be justified religiously, ordained by god.  But even our nominally secular societies often have a worship of progress and efficiency and capitalism that is nearly as dogmatic as any religion

The problem, of course, comes when this need for progress becomes so self-justifying that it doesn't care for the blood and sacrifice that comes as the cost of progress.  In fact, I think that Wang is arguing that marginalization--and bigotry that goes hand in hand with it--is inherent in such a system.  Because while not every transaction in an uber-capitalist society needs to be zero-sum, while there are certainly plenty of opportunities for a win-win . . . you have to admit, zero-sum solutions are a lot easier.  I win because you lose, I make money because you lose it.  Or even the standard solution of any corporation, we make money because our workers produce more value than we pay them in salary

And if we've resigned ourselves to having losers . . . well, it's a whole lot easier to swallow that if we explain away these groups as "lesser".  The world of "Bright Haven" is guilty of this, but it's not like our world is innocent, a straight line drawn from the explicit Social Darwinism of the past to the more modern "lazy welfare queen" stereotypes.  Or simply the Bootstrap narrative, the idea that the rich are rich because they deserve it and the poor are poor because they didn't work hard enough.  It sure is a lot easier to sleep at night if you can think of things that way.  But M.L. Wang, with this book, doesn't want her readers sleeping that easily

"We suffered. You benefited. Your guilt is useless to us.”

“But—I wasn’t trying to—” 

“I know you Tiranish aren’t used to being told you can’t have things, but you won’t have our forgiveness for this. No matter how much crying and complaining you do.”

I loved this book because of just how much the author had to say, and the fantastic world she created in order to say it.  When you first start reading this book, as I said above it looks like it's going to be a straightforward dark academia story about a woman trying to make it as a mage in a man's world.  But it doesn't stay in that plotline for long.  The biggest twists are not the ones within the text (although there are some good ones) but more meta twists within our own heads, as we realize this book isn't at all about what we thought it was

But also, yeah, it's still a pretty badass dark academia story with a very cool magic system.  Start it for that.  Find out where else this book can go

I loved this book

“Oh, God have mercy!” 

“God favors the merciless. He always has.”