Remember how I have no impulse control? Yeah, I wandered into a Barnes and Noble and bought three books AND ONE OF THEM WAS THIS.
No lie, kiddos, Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff might legitimately be the best book I’ve read all year. Have I read the rest of the series? NO I HAVE NOT, because I blew through this thing over the course of like six hours today (I mean…I slept for two of those hours) and I have not shut up about it long enough to buy the next two in the trilogy. My parents are going to tape my mouth shut if I keep going, so I’m foisting all my need to rant onto you lot.
Okay, so, here’s my pitch. First off, yes it is just as badass as the cover suggests. But seriously
THE ‘VERSE: a futuristic steampunk universe based on feudal Japan (and it’s not that standard steampunk isn’t fun, but my God it was nice to get the fuck out of Victorian England), comprised of four clans (Dragon, Fox, Phoenix, and Tiger) on the islands of Shima, ruled by the Shogun, Tora Yoritomo. Shima runs on the blood lotus, which provides everything from the drug of choice to the chemical used to power their engines (called chi), and the blood lotus (and the chi) is controlled by the Lotus Guild, which is…hella sketchy. Their dependence on the lotus has turned their lands black, their skies red, their rains acidic, and their air so thick with exhaust that anyone too poor to afford a pricey respirator dies slowly of blacklung. The worldbuilding is goddamn beautiful, everyone, and the mythos is so gorgeous.
OUR HEROINE: Yukiko of the Kitsune (Fox) clan, the daughter of the Shogun’s Hunt Master, the Black Fox of Shima, who is yokai-kin, able to speak to animals with her mind. This talent, rare and powerful, makes her one of the Impure, according to the zealots in the Lotus Guild, who will burn her alive in the city square if it comes to light. She is fierce and grieving and the perfect combination of the open hand and the hidden knife–she cries and screams and loves and fights and I am in love. I would like to officially request ten thousand more kick-ass stubborn girls of color with messy morals and more determination than training as my novel heroes. Yukiko is everything to me, guys, she’s so much to me.
THE PLOT: Everyone on Shima knows that, once, arashitora, thunder tigers (half eagle, half tiger), flew in their skies, and sea dragons swam in their oceans. But the lotus that poisons their lands has choked out the great beasts of myth, too, and now it’s been generations since one was seen. When the Shogun dreams of himself riding an arashitora into battle like the stormdancers of old lore and summons his Hunt Master to make it a reality, no one expects them to succeed–not the Black Fox, not his two comrades at arms, not the crew of the sky-ship they hire, and not his daughter, Yukiko. So you can imagine their shock when they manage to capture an arashitora in the middle of a thunderstorm. The situation goes from baffling to life-threatening when creature’s struggles and the storm wreck the ship, stranding Yukiko alone on a mountainside with herself, the clothes on her back…and a crippled arashitora who wants her dead. And that’s just the first hundred pages.
TL;DR: this book has it all. Badass women of every flavor. Revolution. Magic. Demons. Found family feelings. Women getting to do vengeance quests. POC as far as the eye can see. The writing style–ugh. *claps hands to chest* Fucking slays me. Radically original take on the steampunk vibe, with worldbuilding that is just beautifully intricate. And the arashitora. I’m not telling you anything about him, but the arashitora is A MASTERPIECE of a character.
Read this and come talk to me about it because I am howling.
Reblog for the morning crowd, because!!! This book!!!!
