When the citizens of Black Keep see ships on the horizon, terror takes them because they know who is coming: for generations, the keep has been raided by the fearsome clanspeople of Tjakorsha. Saddling their war dragons, Black Keep’s warriors rush to defend their home only to discover that the clanspeople have not come to pillage at all. Driven from their own land by a daemonic despot who prophesises the end of the world, the raiders come in search of a new home . . .
Meanwhile the wider continent of Narida is lurching toward war. Black Keep is about to be caught in the crossfire of the coming war for the world – if only its new mismatched society can survive.
Aright. Okay. I’m gonna be up front from the start and say that I fucking loved this book.
What we have here is basically an epic fantasy that involves two cultures coming together in a way that strives to make both better. A Tjakorshi clan has arrived at the Black Keep not to raid, as they may have done in the past, but to settle. Not everyone is thrilled with this idea, of course, but important figures from sides work with each other to find a common ground.
The Black Coast is the book that I didn’t know I needed. Not only do we have decent people working towards something better, but there’s so many little nuances about what that work involves that really spoke to me. This can involve sons speaking out against powerful and violent fathers. Or ordinary people calling out bullshit within their own cultures — misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia — even when the consequences for speaking out might be dire.
It’s these numerous little things that make The Black Coast seem more real, and its message seem more powerful. It doesn’t shy away from difficult topics. It doesn’t absolve anyone of responsibility for their horrible beliefs or behaviours, and doesn’t paint any one person or any culture as without flaws. This book does the work, leading to more natural and rewarding character growth as a result.
There are a few POV characters, but two of these share the majority of the page-time. There is Daimon Blackcreek, adopted son of Lord Asrel Blackcreek, who is forced in the first few chapters to challenge his father and brother in order to do what he thinks is right. Then there is Saana Sattistutuar, head of the Tjakorshi clan that has been forced to flee their homeland in the face of a seemingly-immortal daemonic tyrant. Both have their own people to speak for. Both have their own internal and familial struggles, and their own ingrained prejudices.
There is also Tila, sister to the god-king, and Jeya, a young thief. Their chapters are more sporadic, seeming to set up the foundations for story arcs that may come in later books in the series.
The language of this book also deserves a shout-out. The prose is fairly clear and accessible, but Brooks does some very clever things with the dialogue that I feel deserve praise. Much like some real-world languages, the languages spoken by the characters in this book require some sense of identity. Rather than a simple “I” or “you”, the characters can communicate their stature or their gender, depending on the language they speak.
For example, a Naridian may refer to themselves as “this man/woman”, “this servant”, “this lord”, etc, depending on who they are speaking to. The Alaban language, on the other hand, has the capacity for five or six genders — high and low masculine/feminine, neutral, and agender — which is represented by diacritics on the vowels of their pronouns. This can take a little while to get used to. Naridian, for example, can seem excessively formal at first. But I really appreciated how cultural differences were represented by differences in language. Brooks takes advantages of this on numerous occasions, allowing for the quirks of his languages to serve as a source of conflict or to indicate bigotry.
I’ve said it before, but I loved this book. It was wonderful to read about flawed people challenging themselves, making each other better, and working towards something great. It was exciting to read about armoured warriors riding into battle on the back of dragons. The Black Coast offers everything that a fantasy novel could offer.
I really, really can’t recommend this one enough.
We received a copy of this book from the publisher, Orbit Books UK, in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thank you Orbit for the review copy!
The Black Coast releases on the 25th of February, 2021.
That conveying of social information that English is not built to convey – brilliant. (I will never cease to regret that English has only one word for “we”.)