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413 pages, Paperback
First published August 2, 2016
The Bad– I have the sneaking suspicion Wagers created this entire universe to showcase Emmory and his hubby
– A very bad execution of a matriarchy
– Supporting cast was weak, shallow, half-assed
– A perfect example of "show, don't tell" done very wrong
– Internal monologue hell
– Pacing hell
– Flashback hell
Story—★★☆☆☆ (1.5 Stars)
To start: I have a hard time classifying this as Science Fiction and it only barely qualifies as a Space Opera. I think a much more accurate description would be "Political Fantasy set in Space." The Magical Healing Space Elves already come built right in. It's fifteen minutes with the "Find and Replace" button on a word processor away from being categorized as "Indian-inspired Political Fantasy."
The plot suffers a lack of direction and critical revision. Wagers flashes back to waaay too many relevant elements instead of incorporating a natural way. It would take a bit of hefting, but a single additional chapter at the beginning—possibly showing Hail's relationship with Portis before his death, or dealing with a crew member with AVI flutters (drug-related tremors)—creates room for smoother world-building elements, strengthens her grief for Portis' death, and adds weight to events later on.
The pacing is an absolute mess. Hail's barely been at the palace for a day around the 35%/40% mark and then it's suddenly three weeks later and Pratimas. The events in the book are only halfheartedly connected. Hail drifts through political meetings and spats with her mother, occasionally interrupted by random assassination attempts. There is no "web of plots and assassination attempts"—it's a few strings tied together with a limp knot. And no, attempting to lampshade it with "I suspect that's part of why the attempts on your life since your return have seemed desperate and disjointed," does not change the fact that so many plot elements are a disconnected mess. Don't get me wrong, I love the concept—the criminal princess unwillingly dragged home to the court life she hates, only to rally and come to stand strong for her people—but when it came to the execution, Wagers focused on too many flimsy and irreverent components.
Characters—★★☆☆☆
Outside of her unending internal dialogue, I did like Hail as a character, and her character arc was decent, if nothing special. I loved how we got a character in her late 30s whose narrative didn't revolve around romance.
I hated Emory—he was an arrogant bully, and I hated how Wagers set him up to be "right" in these matters. (It doesn't help that Emmory is very clearly Wagers' precious darling favourite.) He emotionally manipulates Hail on multiple occasions. He dismisses her protests when his actions make her uncomfortable. Example: during the first third, when Emmory grabs Hail's arm when she enters a room.
Nal and Zin went in. I started to follow, only to be brought up short by Emmory's hand on my arm.
"You really want to find out what happens when you grab me again?" I asked dryly.
"When you learn to wait, I won't have to do it anymore. I'm your Ekam, and I'll grab you if it means keeping you safe. You're a princess, not a gunrunner," he countered. "Let your BodyGuards check it out first, Highness."
"They're my rooms!" I stared at him in shock. "If I'm not safe here—"
"Your sisters were murdered, Highness, one of them potentially in her rooms. Right now our job is to assume nothing is safe." He cut me off with a wave of his gloved hand. "Now will you stop arguing with me so I can listen?"
Every single one of his actions, including Wagers' crappy excuses for them, trouble me. Emmory might be dedicated to keeping Hail alive, but he doesn't respect her.
The rest of the cast suffered from weak, one-sided characterization. Characters like Ganda, Nal and Laabh were more caricatures than proper characters. Empty, predicable, boring.
Writing Style—★★★☆☆ (2.5 Stars)
Behind the Throne is told in first person, past tense, from Hail's point of view.
The writing suffers from the same lack of critical revision as the plot. It's not necessarily raw or amateurish, but it lacks the grace, precision and efficiency of a practiced hand. Hail's narrative rambled around. Paragraphs lacked diversity and were often short and composed of only one or two overlong sentences. Wagers' use of vocabulary was decent, but not used to its full effect. There was tons of exposition, awkwardly delivered by Hail, and often after the fact—too many opportunities for hints and foreshadowing were missed entirely. Hail notices her mother's tremors and then immediately has a flashback—and oh, god, is Hail prone to flashbacks—which "helpfully" points out her revelation to readers.
The biggest problem is Wagers didn't know when to say nothing at all. So much of their writing is pure bloat. It is the worst combination of showing vs telling gone wrong. Example: Hail's grief. Instead of showing Hail's grief through her actions or with efficient, visceral descriptions, Wagers opts for Hail rambling on and on and on about her grief and anger. They describe Hail's grief like hot metal piercing her heart, or more dramatically—where her heart will fall out of her chest and shatter on the floor. Or the baffling time Hail's nerves crawled into a corner and die. If the reader needs to stop and think about a specific sensation (needle in heart, nerves in corner) instead of a common, relatable one (throat closing, shaking, weight on chest) it pulls them out of the narrative and divorces them from the character's experience.
In contrast, there are much too many useless scenes and descriptions Wagers labours through that they could've easily summed up in a concise sentence or two. Even in the last chapter, we have to read a useless paragraph of Hail putting pants and shirt on, and how easily they flowed on her. What did that contribute to the story? (Nothing. It contributed nothing. Axe it. Kill your darlings. Wake your editor up.)
Themes and Representation—★★☆☆☆
Behind the Throne's culture is rooted in South Asian culture, specifically Indian culture. I do not know if Wagers is Indian or even South Asian. While I love the idea of a Sci-Fi civilization focused on Indian culture as opposed to a Euro-Centric one, I am white and most of my knowledge comes from high school world religion and culture courses, so I admittedly cannot judge how honestly or accurately these elements were conveyed.
However, I will comment at length on Behind the Throne's matriarchal society and Wagers' attempt at subverted gender discrimination! For starters: it adds nothing meaningful to the plot. It feels like a half-assed inclusion. While it should be interesting to explore a matriarchy born from a time when most male settlers succumbed to space madness, Behind the Throne just doesn't. What it has is a couple of snide comments about Emmory as her Ekam and Hail thinking things like, "The inequality, the absolutism that bred contempt and hatred for a whole group of people simply because of the accident of their birth." In truth, it seems like Wagers hasn't done enough research on matriarchies, nor do they fully understand the depths and nuances of systematic gender-based discrimination and oppression necessary for a believable and functional matriarchy.
Behind the Throne's matriarchy makes no statement on the social climate unless that statement is, "ANY kind of gender discrimination is wrong!" which is a bunch of watery bullshit that offers no relevant insight regarding sexism or misogyny. Indeed, since Wagers never explores any nuances or microaggressions, they instead accidentally reinforce current gender roles and discrimination. Behind the Throne does not exist in a vacuum, and by trying to defy convention within the narrative, when Emmory takes a position traditionally held by a woman, Wager only succeeds in replicating reality. Furthermore, it doesn't help that Emmory selects only men for Hail's primary BodyGuard team and defends it with "I'm choosing the heir's Guards based on their qualifications, not their gender," because in real life, women are overlooked in favour of men with identical or fewer qualifications than them every day.
(Also, if Wagers isn't Indian and is attempting weak commentary on the issue when patriarchal standards and the oppression of women and girls is a real, concerning issue in India? Poor taste.)
While I loved, loved, loved the queernorm world and casual inclusion of gay characters, the representation was kind of messy. Of Hail's childhood BodyGuards—Tefiz and Ofa—Ofa is dead, and Tefiz only makes a sad, brief appearance. (Seriously? The world did not need more dead lesbians.)
Overall—★★☆☆☆
Recommended For...
Readers who don't mind pushing through a messy execution for a good concept; readers interested in protagonists in their late 30s.
"Spoken like a consummate politician, Highness. One would think you've been doing this for years."Whatever your expectations may be, I suspect Behind the Throne will probably defy them. When I first started reading, misled by the flowery descriptions of eye colors and muscle definition, the careful note of each time the characters touched, and the derogative-yet-highly-descriptive portraits of the protagonist's beautiful clothing, I was quite worried that I had picked up a romance. However, for those of you who are also not fans of that genre, never fear: while the flowery description may occasionally give you pause, the book is absolutely devoid of love triangles and passionate glances. In fact, thematically, it's a thoroughly enjoyable mix of space opera and worldbuilding scifi flavored with a taste of mystery. I'm a huge fan of detective fiction, and even when they're less "whodunnit" than "whatyagonnadoaboutit," I still love the structure and focus on character that I think a mystery component brings to a story.
"I have, Caspel. It just involved more guns."
The nitty-gritty: A story with lots of potential that fell short with a less-than-interesting plot and awkward writing.
(Apologies for this longer-than-normal review, but apparently I have a lot to say about this book!)
There’s always going to be the “next” book after you read something amazing, and for me, Behind the Throne will always be the book that I read immediately after The Obelisk Gate. I’m not sure if my reaction would have been different had I read it at a different time, but I know I probably wouldn’t have read with such a critical eye. I fell in love with this cover, and the story blurb promised “action-packed space opera exploits,” but for me, the story just didn’t deliver. The idea of a princess-turned-gunrunner who is forced to come home and take over as Empress was an appealing idea, but the lack of actual action made this a slow, and dare I say, boring read for me. But there are plenty of readers who loved this book—just check out the Goodreads ratings and see for yourself—and clearly it wasn’t all bad, as you can tell from my three-star rating.
Hailimi Mercedes Jaya Bristol left home twenty years ago in order to track down her father’s killer. Since then she’s been a gunrunner alongside her partner—and lover—Portis. When the story begins, Portis has just been killed and Hailimi has been discovered by an Imperial Tracker named Emmory who has been sent to find her and bring her back home. Hailimi, it turns out, is actually the daughter of the Empress and is next in line to take over the throne, and Emmory and his partner Zin are determined to fulfill their duty, despite Hailimi’s protests. When Emmory explains that both of Hail’s sisters have been murdered and she is the only heir left, she reluctantly agrees to accompany them back to the palace.
But when she arrives, Hail discovers that her mother the Empress is gravely ill, and before she knows it, Hail is being groomed to take over the throne. But a group of radical dissenters is determined to keep her from ruling, and Hail finds herself caught up in a plot that will bring down the Empire that her family worked so hard to build. With assassination attempts around every corner, Hail must navigate the dangerous world that she left behind many years ago and try to figure out who is loyal to the royal family, and who is not.
I want to start off on a positive note, because there are some really great elements to this story. First of all, I loved that Hail is an older protagonist, and not the twenty-something princess that you usually encounter in fantasy stories. Hail is thirty-eight—nearly forty!—having left home at eighteen in order to avenge her father’s death. Now, twenty years later, she’s made a satisfying life for herself as a gunrunner and even fallen in love. The fact that she does not want anything to do with being a princess proves that she’s happy with her new life away from the palace. For the most part, she’s a confident woman who has been taking care of herself for the past twenty years and is reluctant to start wearing royal clothing and taking orders from her mother.
I also loved the idea that this is an Indian-based world. The colonists of the planet have brought the culture and beliefs of their ancestors to their new planet, and I loved the sprinkling of Indian words and descriptions of Indian foods. Hailimi is forced to wear saris in the palace, a wonderful nod to Indian culture. I even imagined that the palace was similar to the Taj Mahal, as Wagers describes the architecture as being ornate with turrets and archways.
Other futuristic world-building elements fascinated me, like the idea of a “smati,” an implanted device that allows people access to an internet-like world of information and communication. We're also given glimpses that this world is huge, a multi-planet system where space travel is the norm. Unfortunately, most of the action (and I use that term lightly) takes place in the palace, and so we don't get to see the breadth of Wagers' world.
Hail starts out as a kick-ass woman who deliberately puts herself in dangerous situations, but once she gets to the palace, her can-do attitude turns into nothing more than bluster. Sure, she can swear up a storm and order people around, but I found myself annoyed that she needed so many people to take care of her. She requires maids to help her get dressed, BodyGuards to remind her to eat and tell her she ought to be taking a nap, and a “chamberlain” to organize her hectic schedule of going to various meetings and events. She also tends to injure herself and faint a lot, all which led to the steadfast Emmory having to pick her up and carry her like a damsel in distress.
As for the other characters, I was surprised how much I loved Hail’s mother the queen. She starts off as an evil stepmother-like figure, treating Hailimi like the ungrateful daughter who ran away from her duties as princess, but later in the story their relationship grew in depth, and it ended up being my favorite relationship in the book. I was also curious about Trackers Emmory and Zin, a “bonded” pair who have been together for years. Wagers doesn’t give us much information about just what “bonded” means, but there are hints that they might be romantically involved. I really wanted to know more about their relationship, and I hope the author delves more deeply into it in the next book.
After reading N.K. Jemisin’s lovely prose, I have to say Wagers' writing style just didn’t work for me. Many of her sentences are awkwardly written, and because this story is told in first person through Hailimi’s voice, we’re subjected to her constant use of slang and melodramatic exclamations. By the second chapter, I was seriously tired of the phrase “Bugger me!”, which Hail spouts non-stop throughout the book. Some of the expressions she uses are ridiculously overwrought, like “A meteorite crashed into my chest and lodged itself there, burning me up from the inside.” And “I lost a piece of my nerve, and watched it skitter over the floor, where it curled into the corner and died.” Ummm…
Although I normal enjoy court intrigue and mystery, I just couldn’t get excited about the plot of Behind the Throne. This was very much a “talky” story, in which the characters spend a great deal of time sitting around talking about what they are going to do, and trying to figure out who is behind the plot to bring down the Empire. The action scenes are few and far between, and the majority of the story takes place in the palace, as Hailimi and her BodyGuards go from one room to the other, discussing this or that. Hail spends an inordinate amount of time changing clothes and drinking her favorite drink, blue chai tea. These endless discussions are punctuated with attempts at killing Hailimi, but even these welcome action scenes felt forced and didn’t flow with the rest of the story.
In fact, I realized early on that the story that should have been told was the one that had already happened. Hail remembers her times on the ship with Portis in flashbacks, and I would much rather have read a story about the two of them, in space, on gunrunning adventures. Although Portis is dead when the story opens, he felt more real to me than some of the actual living characters.
After listing all the issues I had with Behind the Throne, you may be surprised that I plan on continuing with this series. This is K.B. Wagers’ first published book, and although it could use some polishing and editing (in my opinion), I think this series has a lot of potential. There is so much more I want to know about this world, and I hope that After the Crown, which comes out this December, delivers on the action and adventure missing from this story.
Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy. This review originally appeared on Books, Bones & Buffy
"Poor [redacted], you need to keep up." I spread my hands wide. "You didn't think this through. You really should've killed me first. Leaving me to the end..." I tsked and shook my head. "Obviously that wasn't a wise decision."
-p374