The Winged Histories, by Sofia Samatar. Also, some brief self-promotion

Sofia Samatar’s first book, A Stranger in Olondria, was terrific, I thought, but it didn’t have much of a plot.  Her second book, The Winged Histories, is even better, and it does have a plot.  (That’s only one of the reasons it’s better, though.)  We meet four women, each of whom has a part to play in a devastating war.  Tavis’s one desire is to become a swordswoman, and she runs away from her aristocratic family and joins a school for soldiers.  Meanwhile her father is selling his estate piece by piece because of his addiction to a narcotic called bolma.  Tialon’s father Ivrom is a religious fanatic whose faith is undergirded by a desire for power and a deep dislike of women, though he hides these feelings from everyone, including himself.  Tialon lives in his shadow, ignored because she’s a girl and not powerful — and Samatar does something very tricky here, because despite the fact that neither of these characters understands Ivrom’s motivations, the reader sees exactly who he is and how he thinks.  Tavis rides into Seren’s camp while fighting in the wars and discovers a nomadic people very different from her own.  She becomes intrigued with their customs, and falls in love with Seren, a singer and poet.  Siski, Tavis’s sister, has been in love with her cousin Dasya, the prince, from when she was young, and both families assume that they will marry — but then there’s a rift between the two, and neither one will explain to their puzzled relatives what has happened.

The Winged Histories has a wider canvas than A Stranger in Olondria.  There are cities and nomads, palaces and hovels, different customs, clashing cultures, an almost inexhaustible invention.  In one place the women tear their flesh when their husbands die in war: “My grandmother had scars on the sides of her face where she had torn the skin with her nails.  Most old women have these scars, it’s normal.”  And this astonishing custom, mentioned only in passing: “Horses have dreams, for they are the only animals to possess souls, and this is why they are buried in cemeteries like men.”

And the poetic writing of the first book is back.  “You will have noticed that all the great songs are sad…. Fathers and brothers fallen, horses slain, bereft women everywhere.  Ruined country.  Whole lineages snuffed out: this is the greatest horror…. Everyone dies, their blood flies away like scarlet crows.”  Or: “And down at Sarenha the overstuffed chairs, as if knowing they are soon to be abandoned, split their seams for grief, and the mirrors give back images in tumbling disorder, panicked by a rumor of death.”  Or this: “The villages are laid out like games of cards.”

There’s a question hanging over everything, aside from the mystery of why Saski and Dasya broke apart.  Why did Dasya start a war against his father the king, when he could just wait until his father dies to take the throne?  But you’ll have to read the book to find out.

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An e-book of my collection, Travellers in Magic, is priced at $1.99 for today only.  Check it out at:
https://openroadmedia.com/ebook/travellers-in-magic/9781497673649
(I love their description of the book, I have to say.)