Bone Palace (Necromancer Chronicles 2) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I didn't get into Amanda Downum's first book, The Drowning City (Necromancer Chronicles, Bk 1), the first time I tried it. I loved her second, The Bone Palace, from the moment I picked it up. I think part of the difference is the setting. Bone Palace opens in Isyllt-the-protagonist's home city of Erisín, child of the archetype of Ancient, Elaborate, Secret-Filled City along with Tai-tastigon, Mélusine, London, and New York City. This is possibly my favourite fantasy setting ever, and also affords Downum an emotional advantage. In Drowning City, Isyllt enters as a stranger with 2 bodyguards, entering a new place, whereas Bone Palace opens with emotion-filled operatic drama, as Isyllt's home ground affords her tons of messy, decades-long emotional involvements to fascinate and draw the reader in. Isyllt is a necromancer, the protegé and former lover of the king's spymaster Kiril, a civil servant who investigates murders and has souls trapped or at home in her dark diamond ring. When an anonymous prostitute is murdered, Isyllt investigates, and continues investigating after others are satisfied, not out of a sense of honour - as she says later in the book, honour is often directly opposed to expediency - but out of a need for self-respect, a probable mix of curiosity and conspiracy instinct, and I think a submerged wish for justice for young, indigent, immigrant women such as she once was.

Besides its rich setting and vivid, complex relationships, the novel is an example of what progressive writers are trying to do that works. There are characters of many races (the most common being brown-skinned, although Isyllt is a white northerner), hetero, bi, and homosexual characters, trans characters, intersexual characters, and all of it is absorbed into the complex setting and none of it seems out of place. There are also many, many women characters, which at one point looked odd to me for a moment (as 4 female characters physically adventured their way to a female sorcerer's lair) but then I thought, how many fantasy novels have exactly the same gender ratio, only with males being more common? If you count the king as a significant presence, Bone Palace has 5 major male characters (Mathiros, Kiril, Varis, Nikos, Spider) and 2 prominent male minor characters (Ciaran and Mekaran). If there are also 5 major female characters (Isyllt, Savedra, Ashlin, Phaedra, Khelséa) and 6 prominent female minor characters (Captain Denaris, Azarné, Forsythia, Tenebris, Nadesda, Ginevra) - why not? It's a question not enough authors successfully ask.

One possible flaw I did find in the book is I'm not sure it has enough tragedy... I was expecting more characters to die/stop existing in the living world, leaving desolated characters, whereas Isyllt and others end up desolated mainly by tragedic relationships. I haven't decided whether this works or not yet.

This is a wonderful sophomore work from Amanda Downum, a fairly new name who, by the evidence here, is an author to watch. It's especially nice to see that it's better than her good previous novel, The Drowning City. The two make the beginnings of a loosely connected series, The Necromancer Chronicles, but there's absolutely no need to read the previous book first; only one on-page character, Isyllt, carries over, and no knowledge of what happens is required; everything gets explained again here. Even better, this one doesn't really spoil the previous work, either, aside from the protagonist's survival to turn up here.

The plot has aspects of the mystery, and begins with the discovery by the police of a dead prostitute with a royal ring sewn into her clothing and vampire bites on her body. Isyllt, a necromancer and investigator for the Crown, suspects reasons more complex than the typical, and so it proves. During the course of her inquiries, she talks to the Crown Prince, who in turn tells his wife and mistress; it's the latter, Savedra, who becomes the second major viewpoint character as she independently investigates the mystery from a completely different direction.

The characterization here is the best part; both Isyllt and Savedra are fascinating viewpoints with very different inner voices and insights into the world they inhabit. Isyllt is just the kind of driven, stubborn, insufficiently-concerned-about-self-preservation woman that a plot like this needs to advance. Her life is one that's gone off course, and there's not that much she can do about it; she needs a purpose, and finds one, and hangs onto it like a terrier until she's done. Her flaws are organic to her character, and nicely done.

Savedra is the best treatment of a transsexual in fantasy that I've read, and Downum avoids making it an easy matter of magical transformation; it rings much truer for that. Savedra's nature is also surprisingly, happily angst-free; sure, she wishes she was more accepted, but her family and her Prince love her, and the things she's worried about don't include her transsexuality. Rather, it's the assassins, the plots and the deadly politics that surround her inescapably. It's a good thing she was brought up in that world, and learned to survive and thrive in it.

It's a fast-paced book, and there's always something going on, so it's very suited to those with little patience for wordy fantasy. My only complaint, really, is that I could have read so much more of these characters. I was disappointed to reach the end.

I think this would work well for someone used to the so-called "paranormal romance" genre (paranormal urban fantasy with some romantic elements, in most cases, but I digress) ; it has a similar dark feel to most of them, a similar focus on the relationships between people, and it's paced similarly.

Overall, a very strong recommendation from me. Very readable, very fun, deliciously dark, and a set of characters I like a lot. What's not to love?

The Bone Palace is a well written romp through the underbelly of a classic medieval metropolitan city. The death of a prostitute leads Isyllt, a necromancer/investigator for the crown, on a fascinating adventure through the bars, sewers, and castles of the capital city of Erisin. I was unaware this was the second in a series until I was well into the 22 chapters. Along the way, we encounter vampires, ghosts, mages, and other interesting folk. There is reference to what I now assume to be references to the first book, but this novel is very enjoyable as a standalone story if you are accustomed to fantasy terms.
My complaints for the book are two. First off, Ms. Downum appears to be a lover of crosswords, because the complex words are too long to fit on a scrabble board. The dictionary feature of the Kindle was put to a lot of use during the reading of The Bone Palace. I am not sure why the author seems to think it necessary to use such complex terms, but I found it interesting as well as annoying. Second, there is a large cast of characters to figure out. Some are street people, some are royalty, and some are a bit of both. It took a while to straighten them out.
Bottom line, a very good book if you're accustomed to reading fantasy novels with odd names and terminology and you have a love of expanding your vocabulary. I look forward to reading The Drowning City, and look forward to the next novel.