The Melancholy of Untold History
By Minsoo Kang
Horace Walpole wrote that “history is a romance that is believed; romance, a history that is not believed.” Minsoo Kang’s THE MELANCHOLY OF UNTOLD HISTORY (Morrow, 228 pp., $28) engages with that tension, unfolding in three distinct registers: a horror-inflected narrative of a raconteur about to be killed by his emperor, a mythic tale of discord between the gods, and a story of a recently bereaved present-day history professor. The braiding of these narrative strands invites us to question who, in the grand scheme of things, is telling stories about whom.
The result is delightful and spellbinding. In the face of well-worn advice that writers should show, not tell, it’s wonderful to be reminded that we call it storytelling, not storyshowing. “The Melancholy of Untold History,” title notwithstanding, is a book that is thoroughly told from beginning to end. The thoughtful aloofness of Kang’s narration allows him to punctuate quiet, heartfelt meditations on the nature of grief with fart jokes, and include sections in which a god named Red Bear Fat Butt wields a sword he calls Red Bear Penis. I can’t remember the last time a book made me laugh so immediately after making me cry.
The Sapling Cage
By Margaret Killjoy
Margaret Killjoy’s THE SAPLING CAGE (The Feminist Press, 329 pp., paperback, $17.95), the first volume of a trilogy, is an atmospheric medieval fantasy set in a world gripped by ecological crises, as an uncanny arboreal plague called the cold blight fells entire forests. Those in power blame witches, but Lorel, who has always wanted to be a witch, doesn’t believe they could be responsible. Her best friend, Lane, has been promised to the witches since birth, but would rather be a knight. Lorel offers to pretend to be her when the witches arrive, and joins them in Lane’s stead — despite worries that she will be kicked out if the coven learns she lived as a boy before joining them.
As Lorel travels with the witches, she learns about “ley,” a life energy animating all things, and how magic works in balance with it. The cold blight, meanwhile, is caused by imbalance: the invention of a new magical technology which extracts and stores ley in a way that destroys what it’s taken from — but allows for workings of much greater power. The question of who’s responsible — and whether or not such exploitative innovations can be used for good — creates dangerous divisions among the witches, who can’t afford to be anything but united in the face of supernatural and geopolitical threats.
Killjoy’s approach shows that a fantasy novel can thrive in evocation and gesture. This isn’t a world built up fiber by fiber through economics and material conditions, nor is this a book interested in examining the underpinnings of empire or the granular minutiae of a magic system; we’re given just enough to know that witches and knights exist in tension with each other, and that a great deal’s at stake.
The book is more concerned with Lorel’s coming-of-gender story, as she gives herself permission to think of herself as a girl among girls, and Killjoy’s exploration of the witches’ social dynamics is honest and lovely. A beautiful and moving start to a promising series.
The Mercy of Gods
By James S.A. Corey
James S.A. Corey, the shared pseudonym of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (“The Expanse”), launches a new series with THE MERCY OF GODS (Orbit, 422 pp., $30), an epic first-contact story that crosses the campus novel with the science fiction thriller. On Anjiin, a planet colonized by humans by ways and means “lost in the fog of time and history,” an elite team of biologists celebrates a research triumph: They’ve succeeded in bridging the difference between the evolutionary tree of humankind and that of indigenous life on the planet. But their celebration is short-lived: An alien empire of giant lobster-like creatures called the Carryx descends on Anjiin, slaughtering an eighth of the population instantly and abducting the planet’s elites to test them for “usefulness” on other worlds.
Interspersed with excerpts from a final testament, suggesting that the Carryx empire will fall at some point in the series, “The Mercy of Gods” unfolds from the perspective of different researchers and their loved ones. These include Dafyd Alkhor, better at reading people than complex proteins; Tonner Freis, the brilliant lead researcher; Else Yannin, Tonner’s team lead and romantic partner, with whom Dafyd is infatuated; and Jessyn, a researcher whose brain is trying to kill her, and whose lifesaving medication is running out. Among them hides an alien intelligence, a “swarm” masquerading as a member of the team, with its own agenda.
To survive, the abducted researchers must complete the impossible task of determining their own utility to the aliens holding them captive. Perfectly paced and smoothly written, this is a book that digs into who people are at their core, when trauma and pressure strip everything else away.
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