Book Review: The Daughter’s War
Hello Dear Readers!
Today I want to talk about some books by Christopher Buehlman, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. Just this past week The Daughter’s War came out. Needless to say I had preordered it the moment I finished it’s prequel/sequel and read it over the weekend.
** I’m pretty sure I managed to avoid any Spoilers, this should be safe to read. **
The Daughter’s War (DW) is told from the perspective of Galva, who is a character introduced in the first book in the series The Blacktongue Thief (BT). Release date wise, BT came out a couple years ago, but chronologically DW happens first. In reading it, Galva kind of sounds like she assumes you know the events of BT but you could easily read the books in any order with minimal to no spoilers. Before we get into Galva’s story, we need to backtrack just a tiny bit to talk about the first book. Be forewarned, there will probably be swearing involved.
The Blacktongue Thief is told from the perspective of Kinch Na Shannon, who is, surprise, a thief. The world that Buehlman introduces in this book is one of the most interesting, gritty, dark fantasy worlds I’ve read about. Buehlman weaves a special kind of magic that just makes this world feel so heavy and dark at times. Allow me to give some examples.
In this world kynd (humankind, elfkind, etc.) are fighting goblins. The goblins in these books are bastards. Miserable, evil, godforsaken bastards. There was some cataclysmic event called The Knock which brought them into the world, and ever since then they’ve been fighting humans. There are three main wars that Kinch tells us about. The Knight’s War, in which all the knights went to war, and we won against the goblins, kynd were bigger, stronger, better armored, and we kicked their butt thanks in large part to cavalry units.
Then came the Thresher’s War. The goblins are malicious, crafty little fuckers, and they created a disease or a magical sickness of sorts which kynd call the Stumbles. This essentially wiped out horses. There are maybe a handful left in the entire world, only mares that were pregnant when the Stumbles swept through the lands survived. So any mare that managed to survive is now over 30 years old and barely holding onto life at this point, and there are no stallions left. The second war was called the Thresher’s War because without horses the Knights couldn’t defeat the numbers of the goblins, so they sent all the men to fight, even all the way down to the farmers in the field. Kynd won the second war. Barely. Pretty much all men of fighting age were killed or maimed in this war.
Then, just five short years later came The Daughter’s War. The goblins had multiplied, regrouped, and came back with a vengeance. There were no more men left to fight, so kynd sent their daughters. Oof. I cannot even imagine that kind of devastation, that so many of the men have died you have to send your women off to war. And it’s not like they did it lightly, the fate of being under goblin Hordelaw is a much worse alternative than sending your daughters to war.
“My sisters were ready. If the bravos hated us because we were here to halve their plunder, the dams of my lanza hated them for their wealth. Not just the wealth of the officers, which was clearly great, but for the rarer wealth of such a gathering of fighting-age men. All of these dams had lost fathers, uncles, grandfathers, or husbands to the biters. All of their hearths had been robbed of low voices and heavy treads. Whatever these scavenging bearded boys had done to keep their skins, it did not speak of honor. ”
So we have this world where there are no horses, which Buelhman weaves into the story so well, we feel their loss keenly though the characters, and that has seen so many wars that 95% of the men of a certain age group, say like 30 to 60 are missing from society, and all the women in their 20s and 30s are also just missing, because they all went to war and died. Now you have something of an idea of the tone of the world. It is not a happy place.
But for all that, Buelhman also does a fantastic job of capturing really small beautiful moments in his writing in almost a Miyazaki like way. We get these tiny flashes of these perfect ordinary moments, some children playing in puddles or some such, that remind us life is worth living and there is still beauty left in the world. There is one moment at the end of Blacktongue Thief that was so beautiful and so full of hope it just made me cry. I reeeeally don’t want to ruin it, but if you’ve read the book, I’m sure you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Kinch is a thief who dodged the draft and is basically trying to avoid the Thieves guild killing him for not paying back the medieval equivalent of hist student loans. (Feel relatable?) On his travels he encounters Galva who is an honorable Veteran from the Daugher’s War and she is a very stark contrast to his smart-talking, lying, stealing, nature.
It is from her perspective the Daughter’s War is told. Believe me when I tell you, this book absolutely devastated me. I have had books bring tears to my eyes because I was either sad, or happy. I’ve sniffled as some of those tears even crept down my cheeks. Never, in my life, have I had a book make me straight up ugly cry the way this book did at least once. I bawled. For probably a solid five minutes. Other times I just cried.
This book is not a happy book. This book is not the emotional roller coaster of highs and lows. This book is an absolute emotional beat down. But it was so good, and it is so worth the read.
“I begrudge no one their superstitions—we climb out of despair by whatever rungs we have at hand.”
Kynd are losing the battle with goblins, so they have enlisted the help of one of the most powerful wizards in the world. He created magical giant war corvids (crows) to try to help replace horses. As the only daughter of a powerful Duke in Ispanthia, against her father’s wishes Galva signs up to be in the experimental corvid unit and ships off to war.
One of the things that absolutely delighted me about this book is how much of a contrast the narration was from BT. Kinch and Galva have very distinct styles and reading each books feels very much like you’re having a conversation with each respective character who is a good friend. You’re chatting over dinner and they’re catching you up on their life. I feel like this is first person narration done right, even if it breaks the fourth wall, which I feel like can be difficult to do well.
Galva is a fascinating character. Buehlman’s word is a very many shades of grey, and Galva is much closer to black and white in terms of her values and morals. She is what would be known in D&D terms as a“lawful” character. To my mind, she’s probably the closest thing I’ve ever read and said to myself, here is an example of a Paladin. A real Paladin with human flaws who is simply doing the best they can in a very dark, very dangerous, very sad and lived-in world. By contrast I find characters like Superman or Captain America too archetypical for them to feel relatable or even likable as Paladin type characters. They’re almost too perfect and they lack depth. (At least in the way they’re usually portrayed in modern day media.) Galva feels like the genuine thing. There’s something very understated about her. Her values just seem sort of hardwired into her in a way that is believable, relatable, and likable.
We follow Galva as she enters the The Daughter’s War and her unit of Corvid Knights is attempting to turn the tide of the war. The hope of all kynd rest on her unit’s success, but she and her sister knights are beset by tragedy at every turn, even from those closest to her. The book even takes time to explore the complicated relationship between family. Galva has three brothers, all of whom are also fighting in the war and all of whom she has very different relationships with.
“Drink stalks all of us in my household, but it seemed to have marked Migaéd, as a wolf marks a sick deer.”
I really, really, don’t want to spoil anything for you on the chance that you’re going to read this book, so I’m going to hold off from talking about some of the more emotionally devastating parts of the book.
Buelhman is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors for his complex and endearing characters, the raw, gritty, lived-in feel of his world building, the tiny moments of magic and wonder he weaves into stories filled with such despair and darkness, and his wonderful prose. I feel like we are slowly becoming more and more accustomed to gruesome acts of violence. At some point in other books or movie series you sort of get to the point where you shrug it off, but Buelhman manages to make us feel continually outraged, angry, and sickened by the atrocities the goblins commit against kynd.
Right now we are three for three of his books that I’ve read that brought me to physical tears. Both Between Two Fires and Blacktongue Thief made me cry, but as I said before, Daughter’s War made me weep with great sorrow.
Till next time dear reader, go check out Buelhman’s exceptional writing, and make sure you have some tissues handy. <3 Tiff
