Dream with Our Eyes Open

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi is one of the nominees for the Not-a-Hugo Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book. It's a gripping page turner with a lively and rich African fantasy setting, but I'm not sure how original it is. On the other hand, I'm certainly not of the opinion of the (young, I presume) reviewer on Amazon who claimed irately that the story was completely ripped off from Avatar: The Last Airbender. One hopes that Irate Young Reviewer will eventually learn of the concept of fictional tropes and that Airbender itself was not completely original.

Nevertheless, I can see the similarities. In the land of Orïsha, King Saran has done his best to wipe out all magic-users, known as the maji. In fact, as far as Zelie knows, he has been successful. All that's left are diviners like herself, who have the potential to wield magic but are not actually able to do so. Maji are marked out by unnatural white hair and come in for a lot of daily harassment, as well as more deadly attacks.

In the palace, Saran's son Inan always fears that he won't live up to his father's high standards, while Saran's daughter Amari is devoted to her maji maidservant, who ends up dead after an incident with a mysterious magic scroll. In short order, Zelie, her athletic and good-hearted brother Tzain, and Amari are fleeing across the land with the scroll, hoping to find the mystical (and perhaps mythical) temple of the maji, Chândomblé. This journey grows into a brief plot-coupon quest (fortunately, only two more artifacts are needed), and then the trio are headed for a mysterious island. On their heels are Inan, eager to prove himself to his father, and one of Saran's most trusted military officers, the admiral Kaea. Inan turns out to be a surprisingly engaging character and provide ones of the three viewpoints (along with Zelie and Amari).

Adeyemi is not afraid to be hard on her characters. Readers should note that there is a lot of combat, with realistic injuries, and one fairly graphic torture scene. Interestingly, the only type of violence that really doesn't come up is sexual, and I certainly didn't miss it.

The ending is so blunt and bare that I was convinced at first that my e-copy was defective. I don't usually feel that I can fix professional writing, but I did find myself trying out ideas for how I would have made the last page better.

All in all, a good book, especially for a first novel. A sequel, Children of Virtue and Vengeance, is due out in December.