I have had to take a breather from Hugo award voting for a while, but I thought I’d jump back into it this year. Only to have this doorstopper from an author I had not come across before dropped on my feet. Thankfully, The Raven Scholar turned out to be an absolute page turner, a bit of a kitchen sink of fantasy tropes, and a lot more playful than I expected. An absolute joy to race though.
Now to those fantasy tropes: one of the things that gave me some trepidation when I first picked up the book was the initial set up. This is a tournament story; a fight for the throne. The upper echelons of Orrun society are split into eight different animal-themed factions based on the eight gods who saved the kingdom in the past. Amusingly for this kind of setting, the proletariat are far less divided and some of the characters could be considered agnostics. The Emperor of Orrun serves a 24 year term, and when that time draws to a close, the monasteries for the eight gods all send a champion to the capital in order to vie from the crown.
Our protagonist, Neema Kaas, is the titular Raven Scholar, serves as an advisor to the outgoing emperor, Bersun. In contrast to many others in the capital, Neema comes from an impoverished background and has had to pull herself up by her bootstraps, in a fashion. Neema is not there to contest the throne, her job is to help organize the trials. She would much rather spend times reading books and collecting poetry than pick a fight.
But then one of the contestants is found dead and Neema is tasked by Bersun to investigate the murder. Complicating matters, Neema is also seen by some as the prime suspect. Additionally, the Raven fraction now has an opening that they need to fill; guess who they’ve looking at as a replacement? And to top it off, her maybe-boyfriend or ex-boyfriend (it’s all complicated) is one of the other contenders? Poor, Neema, it all escalated so quickly.
At this point, The Raven Scholar really was following the premise of a young adult fantasy novel, and in some ways, that feeling is never quite shaken; the set up is convoluted in a manner that is very familiar to the genre, and the characters, while they are meant to be in their mid twenties at least and often older, regularly read as younger. This is especially so for Neema, who, after her early-chapter determination, sometimes slipped into the role of a pinball-protagonist. But the humor here is gold; what grumpy, bookish Neema goes through above would be tough to deal with at the best of times, but Neema was not having the best of times; the night before the murder, someone drugged her bath water and our girl spent the evening running around the inner sanctum barefoot, tripping balls in full view of her crush, and trying to wash the ornamental fish she accidentally poisoned.* Those fish are dead, girl.
But where Hogdson really shines though is with the plot weaving and the murder-mystery elements; this is what kept my eyes glued to the page. Every character is distinct; usually with such an expansive cast I would get one or two of the characters mixed up on occasion, but I never ran into difficulties here. The writing is sharp and tight, and Hodgson deftly weaves through the various mystery beats. There are still multiple elements of the book that are heavily buttressed buy some very familiar tropes, but everything else was so enjoyable that I didn’t mind. There are also some plot threads near the end that I am uncertain about, and some things that never quite make sense, but since this doorstopper is part of a series, I will reserve judgement; I suspect many of my perceived gaps will be filled in later installments.
One thing I would have preferred though was more of the third person narrator. This is something I really wish Hogdson leaned into this more. Maybe she was worried about too much of a good thing, but I loved it when they jumped in and were explicit about the narrative being from their point of view. They really had some of the best lines:
Respect, that’s all we demand. Recognition of our magnificence. Offerings. Love. Fear. Trembling awe. Worship. Shiny things. Blood sacrifice, some of us very much enjoy blood sacrifice. Truly, we ask for so little.
And off course I cannot mention our third person narrator without mentioning Sol, who is very dear to me. I love my little Eeyore-drama queen, even if no one else does. I wouldn’t be able to help myself; if I ever met Sol I would be give in immediately and let him sit resplendent on my shoulder and provide him with shiny things. Blood sacrifice may be a bit on the nose though.
The book is not 100% perfect, but if you’re willing to just throw yourself into it and go along for the ride is is very, very enjoyable. One of the more flat-out fun books I have read this year.
For cbr18bingo, this one is Bird. Why? Because Ravens!
