The Nine Lands

by Marie Brennan

A young woman with an unreliable prophetic gift. A street musician searching for the magic she lost. A king whose voice is too dangerous for ordinary people to hear. This collection of short stories explores the Nine Lands, a realm created by award-winning author Marie Brennan. From the spirit-haunted jungle of the Nahele Peninsula to the cold archipelago of Kagesedo, from the occupied lands of Sahasrara to the decadent courts of Quilíbria, the Nine Lands offer you visions of fantasy, peril, and wonder.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories

118 pages, Paperback

Published December 11, 2022

About the author

Marie Brennan a.k.a. M.A. Carrick

Marie Brennan is a former anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for material. She recently misapplied her professors' hard work to Turning Darkness Into Light, a sequel to the Hugo Award-nominated series The Memoirs of Lady Trent. As half of M.A. Carrick, she is also the author of The Mask of Mirrors, first in the Rook and Rose trilogy. For more information, visit swantower.com, Twitter @swan_tower, or her Patreon.

Reviews

[Tyler Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this e-book. I appreciated the flexibility in format that the e-book allowed. I’m the type of reader who likes to read the story and then immediately read the authors note on that story before continuing and the e-book suited this reading style perfectly.

Overall, I really enjoyed the world of Nine Lands and this collection just really made me hungry to learn more. I want to know more about the different histories and the religious systems within each culture. You can really tell that Brennan is a natural historian and anthropologist, you could feel the love and care that went into to all these stories. And we just scratched the surface of them, I’m really looking forward to digging deeper and honestly, I hope that Brennan puts out more works from this realm. I would literally love to read like a history textbook from the Nine Lands that goes into culture, history, and the religious systems.

Here are my thoughts and ratings for each individual story, as is natural with anthologies or collections there are some real stand outs and then some that didn’t speak to me.

“Calling into Silence†(4 stars) a coming of age ritual fails but why? I was hooked into this story from the begging. I really wanted to know what was going to happen. Spirit possession and spiritual rituals I find very interesting. Then ending was a twist I did not see coming.

“Kingspeaker†(2 stars) When you speak for another how to handle the responsibility of power. So, this story was hard for me to rate. I enjoyed it, but I feel like I’m left with a lot of questions. This was the only story where I felt like I didn’t really get a lot about the culture. I also felt like our main character didn’t really deliberate, or her internal struggle seemed to be over pretty quick and we didn’t get to witness her thought process too much.

“Sing for Me†(2 stars) A prophetic gift that comes with a price I enjoyed the strong female character the prophet becomes, but I felt like her transition and how she got there wasn’t really explored. The time jumps felt too large and like we were missing too much, I felt like I needed more information to connect with this story.

“Execution Morning†(4 stars) Treason and fear lead to death, but where is the moral line? I felt like the time jumps were handled much better in this story. The moral quandary felt real and the characters exploration of their feelings felt honest and explained. I wanted to learn more about the Kagi.
“The Legend of Anahata†(2 stars) Not all victorious rebellions look the same. This was a cool premise, I like the ending message, but I did not really care about the main character. I was not invested in him at all. I found myself more draw to the gods and goddesses and really want to know more about how the religious system is structured and what they represent.

“Lost Soul†(5 stars) A Musician struggling to connect. My favorite of the entire collection. I love the characters, I felt so connected to them, I loved the premise the exploration of soul and meaning and magic in art, I really loved this story. It was magical and there were so many pull quotes I kept highlighting. This felt like the strongest piece to me and I would honestly say maybe buy this collection for this story and then just enjoy reading the rest. I almost wish there was a bit of romance that happened but honestly the story is just super satisfying as it is that I wasn’t disappointed that there weren’t romantic sparks.

“White Shadow†(3 stars) A Coming of age ritual gone right, if not quite what we expected. The beginning of this dragged a bit. The character was noticing everything which just slowed the story down, maybe she could have noticed just things that were relevant to the story, but part of it is that it’s all relevant soo…. But once I adjusted to the different style of this piece I appreciated all the test and the ending. I really liked this concept of the Kagi naming/choosing right. I want to know more about their culture and the Other. Star

{I received an ARC of this in exchange for an honest review}

[Jain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before getting to the content, I'd like to praise the ebook formatting. This is a collection of short stories, and Brennan has written story notes to accompany each of them. If you prefer to read author's commentaries before beginning the collection, you can jump to the Afterword and/or Story Notes sections from the Table of Contents. If you prefer to read them after you've read all the stories (or to skip them entirely), you can progress through the book in the usual fashion and encounter them all at the end. So far, so normal.

But if you, like me, prefer to read a story and its commentary, followed by the next story and its commentary, then this ebook does something special. At the end of each story is a link to its story notes. Follow the link and read the notes, and at the end are two further links: one to the beginning of the story you just read, and one to the beginning of the next story in the collection. It's quite neatly done, and made for a very smooth and pleasant reading experience.

The actual stories I found enjoyable overall but not hugely impressive. Brennan applies her background in anthropology and folklore to good effect, and the worldbuilding is by far the best part of the book. However, few of the characters felt fully realized to me--they exist primarily to move the plot forward--and the plots themselves are often predictable. Though if Brennan ever writes a novel set in the world of the Nine Lands, I'm definitely interested.

"Calling Into Silence" (**) A coming of age ritual goes awry. There's a mystery at the heart of this story with a good premise but a sloppy execution, and the characters are thinly drawn.

"Kingspeaker" (***) Politics and war; the power of speech; a young king and the servant who acts as his voice. Predictable yet satisfying.

"Sing for Me" (**) The dangers of prophecy. I found this story frustrating in a way that was likely intended: namely, I wanted it to have a different protagonist. Though admittedly the protagonist it does have is one of the better drawn characters in the book. I admire the skill that went into creating him and am annoyed by his central role at the same time.

"Execution Morning" (****) Xenophobia and fear of magic (in the form of shapechangers); a career soldier faces a dangerous and unpleasant duty. The plotline doesn't offer many surprises, but in this story that actually feels like a strength, as though every scene follows seamlessly and inevitably from the previous one.

"The Legend of Anahata" (****) A king in exile seeks to regain his kingdom. Nicely nuanced, with some striking imagery.

"Lost Soul" (**) A skilled young musician is looking for something she can't name. Unsubtle. The descriptions of music are quite well done, though.

"White Shadow" (***) Another coming of age ritual. This one has a more interesting protagonist than "Calling into Silence," and after reading about the shapechanging Kagi from the POV of their enemies in "Execution Morning," it was good to get a story from a Kage's POV.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read.

As Ms. Brennan will tell you, if you read the additional notes, that there are only seven tales and they don't comprise all nine lands. I wouldn't mind seeing more, including the hinted epic fantasy with a wandering minstrel. The magic systems are varied, and culture-dependent, as they should be (I'm looking at you, fantasy worlds where people the world over still speak a language 3,000 years old, it's mostly mutually intelligible outside of accents, and there's one "religion" the world over); this is more like later installments of Tamora Pierce's Tortall novels in that regard. There isn't a lot of time to get attached to the characters because they're in short stories and some of them made more of an impact than others, like the shape-shifting Kagi.

It would have been nice to have non-spoiler warnings, perhaps in a story-by-story list at the back of the book, regarding violence such as a beheading since I wasn't mentally prepared for it, and came out of that story a little nonplussed. And by non-spoiler warnings, I mean that I could have read the author's notes on each story before the story and missed out on the thrill of deducing things for myself based on what foreshadowing I could pick up, but I didn't. Dear modern publishers, please adopt this practice!

I'd also prefer to know what "African tribe" the author borrowed elements from for one of the early stories; there are some contextual items that give me pause because overall it feels very colonialist to use these things without crediting the people one gets them from. My educational background is somewhat similar to the author's and I recall discussions of armchair ethnography. I know I've done similar things myself, so it's a good reminder to try to do better.

And now, since I'm a picky reader whose editor brain doesn't turn off at all, the flaws: I found two typos, which is pretty good, though one looked like an autocorrect fail from the proto-constructed language to a genuine Japanese word in context (Kagi as Kage). There are a few lines that just don't make grammatical sense to me or have word choices that aren't quite what I think the author meant.

Four stars for some entertaining stories in a world I'd happily read more of. I have other stories of hers in my "want to read" list here so this was an easily digested introduction to the writing style.

[N.B.: I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review out of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. This review also appears on LibraryThing.]

[Lindsey Stirling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick Review:
I give this book 5 out of 5 stars because it was a great collection of short stories, each enjoyable in its own right, but also all connected in a subtle way.

Plot Summary:
This book was a collection of seven short stories all set in The Nine Lands (a fictional continent). Despite apparently sharing the same setting there is a wide variety in the stories because each is set in a different culture within the lands.

My Thoughts on the Book:
I really enjoyed this collection of stories and the anthropological feel to them. Many were based loosely on rites of passage or rituals but others were just stories of people living in other lands (both like and unlike to us). My favourite story was Lost Soul, which was simply about a musician who has lost the joy of music and was helped to find it again. I also really liked Kingspeaker because of the interesting premise of the King only being able to speak through the mouth and words of another. Although none of the stories were directly connected, they all felt part of a whole, with the stories making reference to the cultures of the other lands.

Content Guidance (while trying to be as spoiler free as possible):
Violence: some battles/fighting/executions but nothing particularly gory
Spiritual: some of the stories deal with things like spirit quests

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Nine Lands is an anthology of stories linked by the fact that they're set in the same secondary world. Some of these I've read before, I think; there's something very familiar about several of them, at least. The stories aren't really otherwise linked, with different themes and characters in each one. Each works well as a short story, giving a little glimpse of the world around whatever plot or character is at the centre.

I do have some... qualms, I guess; I know Brennan is an anthropologist, and I do trust her to be generally respectful, but it feels a little weird to see shamanism and other religious practices and cultural traditions in what feels like a fairly typical fantasy setting in other ways. I don't really know enough or come from the right background to know how well it's done and whether it feels right, so I can't really comment any further on this, but it is worth knowing that it's definitely in play in these stories.

[Myra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun collection of short stories. Very short collection in all. Some minor connection between the stories as they take place in the same world. It would be fun to see this turn into something bigger.

[Maegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this short story collection. Each story had me entrapped, and I loved to see the connections between each one because they are all set in the same world.