Silk Fire was an ambitious undertaking for a debut novel. I believe if it was refined more it could be a groundbreaking novel, however, as it stands.... it is everything but.

The world-building has immense potential, the concept of taking the brightness from someone and how it can alter your appearance. The fact that our main character is a sex worker and closely follows the lives of him and his comrades. Kore's thirst and plan for revenge. An ancient ward of the city once thought lost, and a god that was thought long dead. SO much that could've made an amazing novel if the author had only focused on one aspect. I think the biggest pitfall of this novel is the author had multiple ideas of what would make a cool and new sci-fi novel and instead of whittling it down to a solid like four core ideas, the author decided to mash it all together. As I was reading the arc, I had gotten 6 chapters in and had hit like 3 climaxes that would've made up 3 other novels. At times, it's almost incomprehensible, a book that takes unbelievable amounts of brain energy to follow the plot and cast of characters who are there in a whirlwind and gone just as quick.

I do think the novel needs heavy editing to reach it's true potential.

dnf @ 9%. rtc !

edit: [ mar. 19 ]

<i>ty to netgalley for a free copy of this arc in exchange for an honest review.</i>

i really wanted to love this book but there was just too much preventing me from truly becoming immersed in this world. firstly, the premise sounds excellent but i think we wrote more than we planned in a sense. that's not to bash the author, but to articulate my point i mean that this reads as though there was a lot of thought dumping of good concepts that could've been made great with better planning and even sounding ideas off of other people.

a lot of sff novels dump the reader in the middle of the world the author has created and then supplement the confusion with excellent worldbuilding without it becoming overwhelming. there was a frank lack of that in this novel, and i kept reading in the hopes that it would become better but it never did? in fact, that was the main reason i stopped reading because there wasn't enough explanation for me to be sure of the plot and the world that i was trying to be sold.

the use of a created language would've been amazing if it wasn't used like we all knew what the hell was going on. the characters were also not impactful or amazing to me. characterization fell flat and 9% into the book i still felt as though there were other characters more established than our main one. <i>silk fire</i> reads like a book two in a series rather than a book one and that's unfortunate because i think it really could be great if it was workshopped.

one thing i did appreciate was the destigmatization of sex work and the way it was written. the author did clear research there and handed it sensitively and properly. props to that.

I approached this book with eagerness and anticipation at the concept. Queer representation and a blend of old-world magic and science with dragons and dinosaurs? This book has so much potential!

Unfortunately, I really struggled making my way through it. The characters were loveable and the plot was interesting, but I think this novel could do with a good edit by fresh eyes, before going to print. At times, it was often difficult to follow. We would often be part of the way through a scene before we were given some important descriptive piece of context to the location or characters, but by that point, I’d already had time to picture it myself, so was often take out of the story.

The world is quite complex, which is definitely not a bad thing, but the story could do with more world-building and context setting at the start of the story.

I think that this book goes to my dfn collections

Is a sff novel det if a plant sized matriarchal city where magic and technology freely bleed together

In this story we join Koré, a male courtesan, on his quest for vengeance against his aristocratic father.
The book is has a lot of genre bending - it had queer main characters, and it also features a polyamofoud relationship. Sounds nice, right? Trying to involve everything in one book. In addition to the gorgeous cover and intriguing blurb - I was fully fascinated
But alas!

Believe me I have tried. I tried a lot. I tried hard. No one is more upset than me for starting and not finishing a book.
But the writing was so very dry and the plot so hard to follow, the character dull and two dimensional
The plot was so complex and eventful I literally had no idea about what was going on - everything started happening all at one

The names of characters, cities, places and traditions were really difficult to wrap my head around and remember who is who and what is what

I love the idea of world Zebé Ellor had in his mind, but the book just fails to execute it - the world building could have been much more active and done with patience
It feels rushed in every single aspect of the story. A lot of information and events are crammed and uneven chunks very ungratefully writen. Turing the book into one hot mess

I understand that this is a debut adult fantasy, but I think it might have been too ambitious, but maybe with a bit of polishing it could be brillian. As for now, all I can say is that it wanted to do so many things, that if failed to do everything
But saying that, don't get discouraged by my opinion, and it a go if you like to!

I did not finish this book.

The opening pages of name pronunciations and other definitions was a big turn off. The names of everyone and everything are very complicated and hard to keep straight.

Didn’t enjoy the story enough to sort through all that and continue reading.

I don't really know what to say about this book since I decided to DNF it quite early. As someone who's in a reading slump, it's safe to say that it didn't really entice me enough to get me out of it. I put off reading this book for a while because of the controversy surrounding the author, but after a while, I realized that it was high time for me to just get it over with. As it turns out, I couldn't even make it through half of the book.

Two of the things that had me curious about this book was its cover and the blurb. I found them really interesting, but I made surer not to come in with the highest expectations considering my previous experience with previous books that I've read, especially in the fantasy genre. So, I shouldn't have been surprised when during the first chapter alone, I was already lost. There were too many things happening all at once that it was hard to keep up to the point that I made an effort to read some parts repeatedly until I just gave up. I'm a big pacing police so after this shenanigans, I barely had any strength left in me to get through the entire thing. There was also an attempt made writing-wise, which I would applaud if the author had succeeded, but I think not. Some parts just felt incoherent and messy to me that the character's thoughts barely made any sense whatsoever. And in the span of time that I spent tolerating this book, I never felt any connection towards its characters, the world building, or anything at all, really. Lastly, as someone who has trouble with names and memorization, the guide provided at the beginning of the novel did nothing to help me get to know any of the characters. Some of them were simply too complicated and unnecessarily complex.

This is, in many ways, a challenging read. The world building and politics aren't very clearly explained, and basically you just have to go with it and figure it all out along the way. Which means it took me longer than usual to read this book, but I'm not mad at that AT ALL, because it was so worth it and it was so engaging. At first I felt like I wasn't quite big brained enough to grasp the story, but it felt really satisfying when things clicked into place, not to mention that even if you don't get it, the vibes are immaculate

I think this is a book people are either going to adore or hate with a passion, just like with May the Best Man Win, but I'm firmly in the former group, and I can't wait to see what the author is going to do next.

I thought that I was going to absolutely LOVE this book. But surprisingly I had a hard time getting into it. It has different norms for gender roles, aka gender role reversal instead of the cis-centered patriarchy. It has intrigue, political rivals, revenge, dragons, assassins, magic, reluctant hero/chosen one. It’s love interests have you guessing, the lovers-to-enemies engages you from the start, all the while the unlikely allies keep popping up.

The opening paragraphs grab you by the face and has you cringing with the spit dripping down the protagonist’s face. There is a bit of a struggle keeping track of who is who and going back and rereading. Which is par for the course at the beginning of many fantasy novels. I didn’t connect with the cast of characters right away. Between that and being a mood reader, I struggled with this book. And eventually DNF it for now. I will go back at some point and finish it.

I enjoyed aspects of the book. And I’m going to guess that it gets better the farther along you read. It isn’t for me right now. I will pick up this book again in the future when the mood strikes.

Koreshiza Brightstar's world is unlike any other fictional world we've ever seen. His life as a courtesan of the War District in the deeply sexist matriarchal world is riddled with political schemes and injustices imparted by his abusive but powerful father. In order to win and pursue his vengeance, he has to forge the most advantageous alliances in a world where already he is at a disadvantage but after a chance encounter with a dying god, he is imbued with a unique power that can help him change the world but, of course, at great risk.

Ellor's Silk Fire does a wonderful job of highlighting the gruesome reality of gender inequality by flipping the roles in an attempt to display the inappropriate treatment one sex inflicts on another and for that, Silk Fire is an ambitious book that seeks to explore territories barely charted before and does so successfully.

It is an ambitious book brimming with imaginative and unique ideas. Ellor mixes a colourful palette of concepts in order to paint a rich and vibrant lore. It is incredibly difficult not to fall in love with the characters and the world that they live in. The way in which the plot advances and weaves through winding paths of twists and surprises at each turn is what makes this a page-turner whilst the complex political intrigue begs you to slow down and digest every piece of information that is fed to you.

Silk Fire is definitely one of 2022's must-reads.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free eARC of Silk Fire.

dnf @ 24%

1.5 stars

Let me preface this with the fact that this was one of my most-anticipated spec fic novels this year. As a concept it sounds soooo good: a queer MC, a complex high SFF world, political intrigue and mechinations -- at a glance it should hit so many of my fav qualities in a book. But boy howdy, it just didn't deliver on any of them.

Personally, my favourite part of spec fic novels is well-executed world-building. Unfortunately, the world-building in this book was pretty unintelligable, try as I might. Ostensibly, it's set on a city-planet with different districts which I <i>think</i> are internally ruled by different competing factions? There's this thing called "essence" which makes you super hot & strong and you obtain it by having sex but also sometimes not? (I am both terribly confused on the specifics, and also I just kept thinking of Dr Strangelove every time I read that word.) I also have no idea how the non-essence magic works in this world, and I only have a bare idea of how gravity works. (Yes, you heard that right.) Also, the glossary at the beginning was more confusing than helpful; the names resembled long key-smashes, which made it hard to differentiate characters from one another, and straight up forget any efforts to pronounce them. I'm fine with learning the world as you read, but for the life of me, I could not figure out how this world & society work, let alone what they look like. (Also there are dinosaurs and people eat them?? Why? who can say.)

I also thought to make a misandrist spec fic culture that just read like a genderbent copy/paste of the irl patriarchy was....certainly a choice. What precisely is being explored or commented on here? that women can be discriminatory? that power structures can cause people to treat those below them as lesser? Idk, I feel like we already know that; there's nothing new here, & it really turned me off.

Additionally, I was pretty unimpressed with the characters. All of them, aside from Kore, felt incredibly shallow. By the time I dnf-ed (a quarter into the book!), I knew barely anything factual or emotional about the other characters. And if you're trying to read a political drama, you <i>need</i> to have understanding of the characters' motivations & emotions -- and I truly just got none of that!

Also, the pacing felt very off to me. We open the novel in the middle of a wedding & reception, a lot of world-building is tossed in our face, and then a lost civilization shows up before we're ever able to gain a proper appreciation for what that would even mean in this world. Then we're rushed through sexcapades and a murder (of a character I <i>think</i> we're meant to care about, but who can say, because the main character certainly barely does), before we're pushed back into political scheming that I just...don't believe. It was just so clunky and disjointed.

Unfortunately, this novel feels very rushed and half-baked. I think it needed much more work from both the author and its editor. I really, really wanted to enjoy this book, and unfortunately, I really, really did not. Don't recommend.

Ok, so I'm going to be honest here. I did not have the slightest clue what this was about for quite a while. This was pretty unclear to me. Honestly that might just be me but idk. After I got into this and the author seemed to pull together more, I enjoyed it. Didn't love it but am glad I read it.

Not gonna Lie, I was really excited about this book. A sci-fi-fantasy about a male courtesan in a matriarchal society enters a polyamorous relationship along with a high stakes and fast pace plot. Seems like it would be a perfect book for me.

But honestly I felt the writing style felt very abrupt yet unclear at moments that should have been more understandable. I know some people make this book out as completely unreadable, and I just don't see that. I felt I understood quite a lot about the world and plot, I was simply uninterested because information about the world and plot only became clear after we needed to know them.

This book has so munch potential, and parts of it land very well. Other times I felt genuinely bored. And that's not the fault of the author. The story itself is really good and the emotional beats land hard. With more experience writing high fantasy I think this could have been really good. I'd definitely continue reading from the author because these are things that improve over time. It's impressive for a first fantasy sci-fi novel for the best moments to land hard and the weak moments to be just alright. Overall I'd recommend reading this with some patience and an open mind.

I really wanted to love this book because it is definitely different from your typical European-centered type of fantasy. This has a very different feel and it was genuinely refreshing.

However, it also did not click with me. I felt like the concept of "essence" was not explained in enough detail for me to grasp its power and limitations. It felt too abstract a concept for me, personally, especially with the concepts of things like "dull" and "bright" characters. To be fair, I may have missed it due to the fact that I was bored by the politics to the point of skimming whole sections of the book.

I didn't go into this book expecting that the plot was going to revolve around nothing but the characters' political aspirations. Even based on the description, I expected some focus on character growth and other things. I felt so bogged down by trying to keep all the politics in order in my mind that I ended up skimming entire sections of chapters because I was bored and tired of politics. I wanted more of what makes life normal for the other people living in this world. I was especially unhappy to see the main characters constantly choosing their political machinations over the people they claim to love over and over again.

This book might be for someone truly into deep political intrigue books with a touch of unique magic and an unsatisfying love story, but it wasn't for me. I really wish it had been because I would love to see more fantasy outside the usual European-Middle Ages-focus.

So let me start of with saying that was one hell of a ride for a epic fantasy book!!!

I was so confused at the start with learning all the names and things to go with the world building. But if you just let the book take you for a ride and everything honestly starts to make sense and click into place and you learn more about the characters as you go along.

I love a great political fantasy that has so much going for it!! Koré was honestly an amazing character to have as the Point of View for this book. I love a good messy flawed character and I loved watching the growth of him as it progressed as well as seeing that he is not perfect but that won't let it stop him.
The book is set in a world sized city called Jadzia, where science and magic and technology are so interwoven together to make this a truly darn and magnificent book. The city is Matriarchal and I loved how the way sexism was shown throughtout was so amazingly done.

Koré is a male courtesan who is consumed by the politics, power, anger, sex and vengeance. He is willing to anything to stop his father from gaining power and seizing the imperial throne of the War District.

Once the first parts started clicking into place i knew this would be an excellent read. But there were dinosaurs and dragons and I was just sold.

I grew to love the characters Koré, Ria and Feziz, I wish i could give them all the hugs in the world.

I am not one for adult fantasy usually but this was just eloquently done and made me fall for this world.

I’m used to reading fantasy books and getting very confused at the world building for the first few chapters. Heavy description is not what comes to me the easiest as a reader, but not only do I not usually let that affect my rating for a novel, it often doesn’t even faze me. Despite the complex politics or descriptions, I still manage to connect with the characters and that makes the book very enjoyable to me.

Therein, however, lies the problem with Silk Fire. The world building was so deeply confusing, I was barely able to connect to the main character, let alone anyone else in the story. I wanted to root for the MC, but I had such a weak grasp on what his goals were that I simply could not relate to him.

There were certain elements that I felt had potential: the matriarchal system, the gender reversal, the way that sexuality and sex work was thus handled in this society. I even thought the main character had a lot of potential, as well as the polyamorous relationship that was developing throughout the story. But I felt so disengaged from the MC, that his character development was almost completely lost on me. Even once I got through the big chunk of world building at the beginning of the novel, I grasped so little of the characters and their motivations that it was very hard for me to understand and empathize with their relationships.

I was really looking forward to this book and I had certain expectations for it, but I was sadly disappointed overall. I’m sure that there are people who could enjoy this novel, but I can’t think of a person to whom I would recommend it.

This is my second time attempting to read from this author, and although I will continue to support him on other platforms, I just don’t his writing style is for me. This book has good creative bones but the world is unexplained, complicated, and unfleshed out. The plot feels dry, and the characters aren’t memorable. It’s messy to put it bluntly, and could go through a few more rounds of editing before it’s released.

I was very intrigued by the blurb - a sci-fi fantasy story, with political intrigue and a queer love story?? Sign me up! I don’t read enough SFF these days. Alas, this was a stinker, and I had to DNF.

This is actually pretty hard to review, because I was so incredibly lost the entire time.

1. The names

Right off the bat, we get a pronunciation guide on names. Just names, no context. Who are these people? Are these titles? How do they relate to each other? Knowing how to pronounce these doesn’t help me at all.

On top of that, they are impossible to keep straight. Fantasy character names always end up a bit goofy, but these are long and complex to the point of my eyes glazing over. They don’t register, they’re too much. This is not what you want to have happen to your readers. As a result, I had no idea who was who or how they were related, because it was all just…keyboard smash.

This goes not only for character names (and possibly titles?), but also for world details.

"Phfigezava, Readers of Knowledge. One of the many lines within the sprawling, knotted Dzaxashigé family tree. I recalled my childhood history lessons. “The Phfigezava fought alongside Varjthosheri the Dragon-Blessed in the Warmwater–Scholars War.”"

…


2. The world building

Continuing on into the biggest issue, the world building, or attempt to do so. This book tried to do far too much, and explained none of it. There are districts? Are they like city-states? They kind of sound like it. One is called War. I think. Is Engineer one too? Or is that a job designation? Some random titles and street names. I have no idea how they tie together. Despite the intense overload of details, I cannot picture any of this. I have no idea what’s happening.

There’s a lost …city? It’s been lost for ten thousand years? And they just pop up suddenly, and all that happens is someone throws a parade and they go to a brothel I think. ???

I was interested in the matriarchal society setup, but as far as I can tell, it was just a heavy handed inversion of the patriarchal society we currently have. No nuance or interesting exploration.

There’s also just casually dinosaur.

3. The characters, or at least the MC

The main character didn’t make much sense to me, and was also a bit of a sad sack. He was very flat, all his feelings were told to us rather than shown. We’re told he’s a lot of things, and shown none of it.

He’s a high born bastard…but known by his father (isn’t this a matriarchal society? shouldn’t his mother be the important one?), he’s also a prostitute…and owns a brothel…and yet is sort of politically connected? Somehow? But also not that much. ???

It’s also hard for me to buy into political intrigue if the MC is telling everyone his plans left and right. He’s been working to take revenge against his father for like 8 years I think, why is he suddenly showing all his cards?

4. The writing

On top of all the confusion I was suffering, I found the writing style to be dry and confusing when it tried to be fanciful. This is from a fight scene:

"Ria moved like a hero. Bolder than the crushing world. Fire flashed."

Choppy and out of place, and doesn’t really illustrate the actual fight at all to me.

Overall, the premise was intriguing and very ambitious. Too ambitious. Unfortunately the execution left much to be desired on all counts. The cover is pretty though.

I guess some people will like this book, but it was really not for me. On paper it looks good, but the execution was clearly not it. Their is not enough explanation of what is happening, so I was reading but didn’t understand anything.

This book was... really not it.

The writing was quite repetitive, which was annoying. Mostly, it was clunky as hell and sometimes awkward, making it even harder to understand the already messy worldbuilding.

The worldbuilding was all over the place with no cohesion at all and a the info dumping made it very hard to understand. The epic fantasy aspect of the book really failed to deliver on the promises it initially set. You simply cannot add every single piece of supernatural ever written (dragons, zombies, dinonaurs, etc) and smash it all up in a single book and expect it to be coherent. It was way too much, it was almost ridiculous.

The reverse sexism was like an interesting way to point out things that are wrong in our society but it (again) failed to point out social issues with any depth and it almost seemed to mock real life situations.

Finally, the characters themselves were not very interesting. The main character has absolutely no character development, which coincides with the repetitive writing.

This books really tried to hard but it failed to deliver. It was a pain to go through, I feel like I should be given a medal for even finishing it.

This book started off really strong for me. I loved the atmosphere, loved the characters and their haughty conversations. But then, everything that made me love to this book in the beginning became a little too much.

At times, I felt there was so much going on. The writing of the book did not help. Though, it is not by any means author's fault. It's just not the kind of writing or story that resonates with me.

To cap off, what I enjoyed reading this book : sci-fi setting, dragons & dinosaurs.