The Sword of Kaigen

Emotionally devastating, action packed, and chock full of commentary, this was a fantastic exploration into a fresh, fascinating fantasy world. Despite minor annoyances, I was shocked with how this lived up to its lofty reputation.

On the coast of the large, fictional country of Kaigen sits the "Sword of Kaigen," a series of mountainous islands where old, noble families with powerful blood reside as a barrier between the rival country of Ranga. Atop one of these houses is Misaki, a woman with a mysterious past, married to the second brother of the head of the Matsuda clan, a family known for its immense martial prowess and pure bloodline, creating the most fearsome, dangerous warriors. Like many natives of Kaigen, the Matsuda clan can control water and ice, but martial prowess allows them to control it with exceptional ability. Not being born into this clan, Masaki's own family is known more for their ability to control blood, resulting in her birthing four extremely powerful sons, the oldest being Mamoru. At 14, Mamoru is still coming into his abilities, but the high expectations of his cold father mounts pressure on him. Unable to master the keystone ability his clan is known for, he's unsure he'll ever measure up. When a transfer student from the mainland comes to his school, Mamoru's world is further rocked as it becomes apparent that some of the history he's taught in school may not necessarily be true. Additional, mysterious discrepencies become more apparent as he notices recycled footage about "natural disasters" and known lies being perpetuated by Kaigenese government, but it is the sworn duty of all of the old clans to unquestionaly serve the Kaigenese Emperor. All of this comes to a head with an explosive confrontation with the neighboring countries military, comprised of soldiers who can control the air itself. Mamoru must rely on all of his training to make sure he and his family survive, but not without his mother's help. Despite her place as a woman, considered lesser in Kaigenese society, Misaki shirks convention to lend her own deep knowledege of martial arts to her son to help him, and the rest of the village, survive against all odds. But Misaki must face many more battles against both war and tradition if she is also going to survive.

Wow, where to begin. I was expecting a lot walking into this book because it has such a stellar reputation, but I had a decent amount of apprehension too. All too often I dislike very popular books and I frequently enjoy widely derided books. But this delivered on everything that was promised. Starting with the characters, most characters here were super dynamic and very deep with complexities and interesting flaws. Most everyone had some sort of redeeming qualities, but the reader never agrees with them 100% of the time, which I think is good character writing. Despite spending most of the book with either Misaki or Mamoru, most characters were treated with a healthy level of dynamicism, with a few exceptions of characters either being irredeemingly bad (Misaki's father-in-law), or extremely likable (Mikaki's sister-in-law) throughout.

The pacing of the story was unique, but not bad. There are moments of action sprinkled around one LARGE chunk of action around the middle of the book, but otherwise much of the book is focused around dialogue, and while there were moments where these parts dragged, they did not drag nearly as much as I expected them to. But these were really offset by the extremely well written action sequences, which had me constantly on the edge of my seat. They had a way of exhausting you as a warrior would in the thick of battle, and it really built up the atmosphere of the book.

There were areas that I think could be improved upon however. The writing was accessible, but nothing spectacular. Dialogue wasn't very realistic, and felt trope-y at times. Content warning for sexual assault: there were some story beats that I really felt were unnecessary for what the book was trying to accomplish, namely the rape, pregnancy, and suicide of one of the characters that I actually think harmed some of the messaging that the book was trying to drive home. Including content like this in a book can be done, but it has to be in service of a strong message, and this did the opposite. I also thought the ending was fairly weak, dragging more often and being tonally different in a jarring way.

There's a lot of allegory here, which I always like. It gives me ample stuff to reflect on and explore, I'm excited to read other's thoughts on this. I think any fantasy lover will enjoy this book immensely and I can't recommend it enough. Be sure to read the content warnings though before diving in.