Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

I've been meaning to read Amanda Downum's debut novel The Drowning City for a while but, for some slightly odd reason, it wasn't available as an ebook, even though it's sequel The Bone Palace was. Fortunately, that minor irritation now seems to have been corrected.

The necromancer Isyllt Iskaldur has been dispatched to Symir, the drowning city of the title, to incite the local Sivahran population to overthrow their colonial masters, the Assari Empire, in order to divert Imperial ambition away from her homeland of Selafai. Assisted by two mercenaries, on of whom left Sivahra at a young age after her family were killed, Isyllt joins forces with Zhirin Laii, the daughter of a powerful trading clan, whose boyfriend just happens to be the leader of the local political opposition. Inevitably, events quickly start to spin out of control. The moderate Jade Tigers find themselves outflanked by the radical Dai Tranh, who don't scruple to recruit the ghosts of the dead to their cause. The various rebel actions uncover a murky political deal between the Emperor and his viceroy, forcing Asheris, the mysterious and charming imperial inquisitor, to take direct action.

Although I really enjoyed The Drowning City and thought its setting was particularly well realised — think of a fantasy version of Paulo Bacigalupi's Thailand — and the lead characters were well draw, I thought it suffered slightly from a lack of focus in places. I felt that some of the plot lines might have been been more tightly coupled — there were a couple of occasions when the focus shifted back to Xinai's narrative after a prolonged gap and it took me a while to remind myself of her motives. I also felt that some of the minor characters weren't perhaps as well realised as they might have been: poor Adam doesn't really do much beyond stand around, look menacing and, occasional, help a drunken Isyllt back to her inn.

Despite these minor quibbles, I enjoyed the book and I'm rather looking forward to reading the sequel.