Read Along with Faye is a new series of book reviews and commentary by Faye Bi on the Sirens communications staff, in which she attempts to read 25 books and complete the 2016 Sirens Reading Challenge. The series will consist mostly of required “theme” books and will post monthly. We invite you to read along and discuss! Light spoilers ahead.

Upon discovering Zen Cho’s Sorcerer to the Crown, I essentially flailed my arms in excitement. Magic in 19th century England with two charming protagonists and the wit and manners of a Jane Austen novel? It’s like the book fairy left me a package stamped FAYE on it.

Zacharias Wythe is the adopted African son of Sir Stephen, the Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers (a Royal Society of magicians if you will), but under mysterious circumstances, Sir Stephen dies and Zacharias is thrust into power. Magic is dwindling in England and other magicians are quick to point fingers at Zacharias as the cause. Meanwhile, at Mrs. Daubeney’s School for Gentlewitches, where women are taught to suppress their magic because they don’t have the brains to be sorcerers, Prunella Gentleman makes the magical discovery of the century, and thus her and Zacharias’s paths cross, and mayhem ensues.

Other reviewers have put Sorcerer to the Crown in conversation with Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, though in this reviewer’s humble opinion, Sorcerer to the Crown handles systemic racism, sexism and oppression in ways that the latter doesn’t even begin to touch. The fact that the other magicians constantly blame Zacharias for all of England’s magical troubles and suspect seediness in Sir Stephen’s death, yet still must treat him with outward civility as demanded by the social requirements of the time, will resonate with anyone familiar with American politics in the last eight years. A black man, no matter that he occupies the most powerful magical role in the land, will always need to be better, more exemplary and more polite than his white counterparts, despite the countless microaggresssions lobbied at him each day at each moment, from ill-wishing colleagues to his own mother. It is no wonder he is read as cold or unreadable, unwilling to betray his emotions.

Prunella, whose parallel path puts her into the care of Mrs. Daubeney, is the daughter of an Indian woman and an English gentleman. She’s been taught all her life that her huge potential for magic is shameful and unladylike, but she kind of gives the middle finger to all her naysayers with a cheeky smile and wave. When Zacharias makes an appearance at Mrs. Daubeney’s school, she manages to convince him to take her with him to London and make a society debut. Prunella is the bright shining star of the book, a nosy, master manipulator with zero inhibitions who gets shit done. Her experience is intersectional: with mixed parentage, she’s light enough to travel in London’s fashionable circles, but brown enough to not be a society gentleman’s respectable wife. But the difference between her and Zacharias is that she isn’t afraid to stomp on toes. (“Your amoral ingenuity in the pursuit of your interest is perfectly shocking,” said Zacharias severely. “Yes, isn’t it?” said Prunella, pleased. Lulz.)

It’s no surprise that Prunella is the one who moves the plot, which I won’t comment on too much because of spoilers and in the interest of time, but because I just want to talk about voice. The voice of Sorcerer to the Crown is just so delightful. Take “A female may be poor or delicate or a spinster, but it does seem ill-advised of Miss Liddiard to combine all three” or “He was a typical specimen of the younger son in avid pursuit of medicority with which the Theurgist’s teemed…” Cho herself cites Georgette Heyer as one of her influences, along with Susanna Clarke. But what she’s done with Sorcerer is what I hope more authors will do: be influenced by the great works of the past and with similar wit and style, create new, original stories for all.

Sorcerer to the Crown is also a 2016 Books and Breakfast book. 

Next Month: Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

Faye Bi works as a book publicist in New York City, and is a member of the Sirens communications team. She’s yet to read an immigrant story she hasn’t cried over, and is happiest planning nerdy parties, capping off a long run with brunch, and cycling along the East River.

The Sirens Review Squad is made up of Sirens volunteers, who submit short reviews of books (often fantasy literature by women authors) they’ve read and enjoyed. If you’re interested in sending us a review to run on the blog, please email us! Today, we welcome a review from Sharon K. Goetz on Molly Tanzer’s Vermilion. 

Long before I was asked to review a book in this venue, Molly Tanzer’s Vermilion caught my interest. Its cover uses neutral browns, greys, greens, and blues to depict a figure swinging a medical-style bag while crossing windy grassland. Like the almost garish brush-strokes of the title, the figure’s goggle lenses are picked out in bright cinnabar tones. The synopsis is good, too, since I don’t usually twig to cover art: “Gunslinging, chain smoking, Stetson-wearing Taoist psychopomp Elouise ‘Lou’ Merriwether might not be a normal 19-year-old, but she’s too busy keeping San Francisco safe from ghosts, shades, and geung si to care much about that.” Steampunk-era San Francisco (“weird Western”) with an embrace of the city’s Chinese traditions? Yes, please.

The unitary Lou whom we see on the cover comes apart once the narrative begins. Lou, who dresses male both for work and for reasons that Lou doesn’t quite examine, has been contracted to exorcise the spirit of an unpleasant Army lieutenant’s dead wife. Naturally, the lieutenant has lied about how long ago his wife died and by which means; Lou’s pragmatic concern is to avoid being overpowered by the spirit. The exorcism’s physical and psychological depletion sets an agreeable tone of an alt-San Francisco with better texture than some, and with the intriguing inclusion of sentient bears and sea-lions. Lou’s mother, a herbalist, soon steps forward despite estrangement to ask Lou to investigate rumors of a ghostly railroad and the disappearance of young Chinese men: “I am inclined to believe something more earthly is stealing away the sons of the Middle Kingdom, but I do not know what it might be” (p. 45). Between the earthly and unearthly stands Lou, whose sympathy and righteousness are engaged as she learns what little may be learned about the case in San Francisco.

In Part Two, Lou carries her investigation by train to Cheyenne; she shares tobacco with a bear, then is picked up unexpectedly by a polite, ruthless person named Shai. Having the wit to offer guest-right to the bear is the last clever, thoughtful, or even selfishly savvy thing Lou does for most of Part Two. You will have readerly expectations different from mine, whoever you are, and you may enjoy how the narrative overtakes any given character’s subjectivity for the sake of crafting a whiz-bang adventure featuring treachery, a gender range wider than binary, and an immortal with unusual employees. Many other reviewers have (e.g., NPR)! To be clear, I love those things, too, and gender in particular is handled with a care and vibrancy that would be belied by any reviewer’s attempt to match specific characters with labels.

Two things detract somewhat from my enjoyment of Vermilion as a whole. For me, it’s all right that Lou’s various partial memberships—neither comfortably female nor male, neither white nor yellow, neither fully in the earthly world nor out of it—come with certain shorthand tags. A narrative needs to make a story of recognizable things or risk bogging down. Thus, the invocation of the common topos of the ungrateful daughter and misunderstanding mother is acceptable; that Lou manages the odd feat of passing as Chinese to every single non-Chinese character, including one who I’d thought would know better, yet also passing as white till choosing to out herself two ways at the brothel, is acceptable. (In real life, double-passing is rare to non-existent.) What I hadn’t expected is for Part One’s worldbuilding mode to come with careful characterization and Part Two’s action mode to flatten it, at times sacrificing character to plot. To put it another way, Lou of Part One is proactive; Lou of Part Two is much more reactive. Part One does its job too well, in a way!

The aspect of the book’s final chapters which cements my sense of flattened characters is extremely spoilery, so I can’t describe it in detail. It involves bears, and it involves them in a peculiarly typed way that evokes stereotypical descriptions of Native Americans. Since no Native characters appear here in what is otherwise a strongly built US Western setting, it would be encouraging to learn more about them in Lou’s world, to see more of the bears and sea-lions, and to journey again with Lou, should Tanzer decide to continue Lou’s adventures.

Sharon K. Goetz works for a print-and-digital project that creates critical editions. Too fond of textuality for her own good, she has also written software manuals and completed a PhD investigating medieval English chronicles amidst their manuscript contexts. As time permits, she reads widely and plays computer games.