C. L. Clark

Utterly Phenomenal!

This was an absolute revelation to read and the performance was superb!

Knowing that this was a debut novel left me open-mouthed and learning it is a series made me overjoyed.

Fantasy is a genre filled with cishet white guys who are largely oblivious to the amount of politics and colonialism they include in their works without thinking about it. It's the entire foundation of much of the genre and TTRPG offshoots like D&D. But this takes the existing tropes and analogues to history and includes them purposely to great effect, weaving a beautiful, heartbreaking, and exciting tale filled with realised complex and flawed characters and concepts and tensions so often ignorantly and clumsily included and/ or offensively handwaved that are handled deftly with care and understanding. The book isn't just politics either, I'm just saying it handles them well.

Genuinely one of the best books I've ever read.… (mere)

This sophomore installment of Magic of the Lost absolutely blew my mind. It's rare for the middle book to outshine the debut, but this one does, in spades. Clark flushed out all those juicy bits of character depth I was waiting for in book one, and upped the stakes AND the spice level considerable... which makes my queer little heart downright giddy.

One of the things I've always felt makes a successful fantasy series is the ability to span and flesh out the geography of world, to keep the characters relevant and the plot from becoming stagnant. With its roots in the complicated history and theology surrounding colonialism, this book does that in ways that do the HARD work double and triple time. The prose is wonderful and the struggle to understand the lines between colonizer/colonized are vivid and thought provoking.

And did I mention we finally got some of that queer SPICE I've been hankerin' for? Yum!

Definitely read it!… (mere)

This one started out a bit slow but picked up pace quickly and kept me entertained and invested throughout. Loving the gender queer themes throughout, which are seamless in that they just exist and aren't exclaimed upon by every character in the novel. Aside from the pacing problem, I'd like to see more character depth, but the end of the book satisfied me in that dept and I look forward to seeing how the "relationship" between Luka and Touraine grows in the next installment.

Awesome world-building in a non-typical fantasy setting. Definitely give it a read!… (mere)