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tilly_wizard's reviews
209 reviews
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang
adventurous
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Wow, this was unexpectedly rough going. I think we all wanted this book to be the hero that emerged from the Cait Corrain scandal, but sadly it hasn't delivered.
Since this is Book 1 of a trilogy, I want to withhold full judgement until the proper end of the story, and I will be deeply disappointed if Molly Chang is pressured into changing the trajectory of the sequels because of the backlash against the (barely existent) enemies-to-lovers "romance", which is never portrayed as a good or right thing for the heroine to pursue, and doesn't even last to the end of the book. This could have been written almost exactly the same without the romantic angle and it would have changed nothing about the story. Towards the end there is, jarringly, one single chapter written from Antony's point of view wherein he clearly has much stronger feelings and far fewer reservations about being (dubiously) "in love" with Ruying, so my best guess is that he's going to spend the next book fruitlessly pining after the heroine who has absconded with her far less compelling childhood friend, who is mostly toxic on a personal level, as opposed to being a war criminal (like Siege & Storm, lmao, the irony).
Chang is strangely determined to market this as Zutara AU fanfic, but aside from having an Asian-inspired setting and both of the main characters being young adults, Darklina is the more obvious comparison (and the scene where Antony asks Ruying to join him in overthrowing the current order of both world powers to replace them with something better is distinctly Reylo).
Chang does succeed in making her villain actually seem villainous in a number of ways that Leigh failed - the Darkling can't bring himself to kill his abusive mother for hundreds of years, even after she starts actively plotting his downfall and ruins his chance at true love, whereas this guy Antonymurdered his parents to prove himself worthy to be adopted by the Roman emperor ; attacking Genya with the nichevo'ya is usually exhibited as one of the Darkling's worst and most unforgivable crimes, but it falls flat because Genya was a soldier and trusted secret operative who shot him and deserted his army; flogging, branding and execution were standard punishments for deserters throughout real-world history, and it is confirmed in the text that execution is indeed the punishment for otkazat'sya who desert the First Army. By comparison, Antony's roughly equivalent evil deed is to promise Ruying that her best friend Taohua (who has been captured by the Romans) will be safely released, but he nonetheless allows Taohua to be experimented on and killed in a horribly gruesome way.
Aside from the romance, I did really like Ruying's character arc so far! Her worst flaw is that she is utterly incapable of understanding or empathising with any suffering that is not happening right in front of her eyes and affecting her personally. The fact that the Roman world is apparentlyon the brink of a global extinction event, and billions of people will die as a result of centuries of environmental exploitation by the ruling classes doesn't faze her at all, and even though she is already aware at the beginning of the story that the Romans abduct and "experiment" on people, she has the gall to act shocked when her best friend is killed in such an "experiment" , and the fact that Antony allowed this to happen and lied to her about it is the thing which finally makes her decide that he's irredeemably evil. A heroine who is willing to relinquish her own morals and be complicit in the oppression of her own people to ensure the survival of herself and her own family felt much more realistic than YA is usually willing to be.
And make no mistake, this is YA. There seems to be some confusion about this, but I bought it from the YA shelf, and everywhere outside of the US PRH website and the author's social media labels it as YA. The characters are typical YA archetypes, albeit painted less sympathetically than usual - the impoverished girl with special secret magical powers (this is the third book I have read this year where the heroine is traumatised by having accidentally killed someone with her powers as a child); the dark prince with a tragic backstory who is a champion gaslighter, willing to do terrible things for power and (allegedly) the greater good; the childhood friend turned edgy who has been carrying a torch for the heroine his whole life, to which she remains oblivious. Although Ruying is initially less altruistic than the typical heroine, Chang gave herself an easy escape from needing to sustain this moral conflict any longer by having Ruying's grandmother, sister and friends all be part of the insurgence movement and willing to die for the cause, so once Ruying accepts this by the end of the book, the only thing she has to lose by turning against the Romans is the temporary safety afforded to her as long as she remains useful to Antony, since we are assured (over and over again) that, even if she isn't killed by his brother or the insurgents, Antony will kill her as soon as she ceases to be useful, or else she will eventually die from overusing her powers anyway.
The setting and the political/military conflict is also stock-standard YA and completely lacking in nuance so far - pre-occupation fantasy-China is mythologised as a magical, self-sustainable environmental paradise ruled by the descendants of benevolent gods (hopefully this will be debunked in the next books); the one wrinkle is the culture of patriarchy and filial piety which is starting to crack as a result of the Roman conquest. I would have liked a lot more focus on gender roles in both societies, which seems to have been intended as a secondary theme but completely failed in the execution (it never gets much further than mentioning that gender roles exist, which is not "commentary"). Meanwhile the only thing we have learned so far about the world of the Romans (which we never get to visit) is that it is dying after centuries of industrial pollution and climate change and Evil Science (which so far is the only type of science in the story).
I don't really understand why, of all the many things to criticise, there are so very, very many people complaining about the villains being called the Roman Empire (as opposed to a fantasy name) but I get the sense that Known Star Wars and AtLA Fan Molly X Chang would have just called them "the British Empire" or "the American Empire" if the publisher and the market would let her get away with it. The ancient Romans, for obvious reasons, are a soft target.
Really the premise of a magical fantasy world being invaded by a high-tech civilisation from another dimension/planet Earth has a very 20th-century vibe to it - late 70s to early 90s SFF was full to brimming with this sort of thing before Science Fiction and Fantasy were segregated into distinct genres, and I am here for that era of SFF to make a comeback.
Predictions for Book 2:
Unfortunately the ending of this first book, wherethe heroine drops all pretense of co-existing with the Romans, swears revenge on Prince Antony and the Roman Empire and joins the insurgence movement with her childhood friend , like every other YA fantasy/dystopia protagonist ever, feels extremely safe and boring. The main 'mystery' left for the next book is the youngest of the Roman princes, who has never left the Roman world and thus doesn't appear in this book at all. The only other character who is introduced but not explored is a princess from Ruying's world who has surrendered herself as a hostage to the Romans. The aspect of the setting that could turn interesting is the religion. Ruying is generally quite cynical about the myths, legends and prophecies of her world, but as the story goes on she seems to want to believe in them more (out of spite as much as anything, after Antony explains Clarke's Third Law almost verbatim), and she is particularly insistent that the royal family really are descended from the gods. The five colored stones of Nuwa (representing the five elements in real Chinese mythology) are introduced near the end as macguffins for the next book, and my prediction here is that the "gods" are going to turn out to have been invaders from yet another different dimension, and the stones are some sort of technology.
It seems inevitable that “the Phantom”, leader of the rebellion, is going to turn out to bethe Blue Spirit Antony in a mask.
Since this is Book 1 of a trilogy, I want to withhold full judgement until the proper end of the story, and I will be deeply disappointed if Molly Chang is pressured into changing the trajectory of the sequels because of the backlash against the (barely existent) enemies-to-lovers "romance", which is never portrayed as a good or right thing for the heroine to pursue, and doesn't even last to the end of the book. This could have been written almost exactly the same without the romantic angle and it would have changed nothing about the story. Towards the end there is, jarringly, one single chapter written from Antony's point of view wherein he clearly has much stronger feelings and far fewer reservations about being (dubiously) "in love" with Ruying, so my best guess is that he's going to spend the next book fruitlessly pining after the heroine who has absconded with her far less compelling childhood friend, who is mostly toxic on a personal level, as opposed to being a war criminal (like Siege & Storm, lmao, the irony).
Chang is strangely determined to market this as Zutara AU fanfic, but aside from having an Asian-inspired setting and both of the main characters being young adults, Darklina is the more obvious comparison (and the scene where Antony asks Ruying to join him in overthrowing the current order of both world powers to replace them with something better is distinctly Reylo).
Chang does succeed in making her villain actually seem villainous in a number of ways that Leigh failed - the Darkling can't bring himself to kill his abusive mother for hundreds of years, even after she starts actively plotting his downfall and ruins his chance at true love, whereas this guy Antony
Aside from the romance, I did really like Ruying's character arc so far! Her worst flaw is that she is utterly incapable of understanding or empathising with any suffering that is not happening right in front of her eyes and affecting her personally. The fact that the Roman world is apparently
And make no mistake, this is YA. There seems to be some confusion about this, but I bought it from the YA shelf, and everywhere outside of the US PRH website and the author's social media labels it as YA. The characters are typical YA archetypes, albeit painted less sympathetically than usual - the impoverished girl with special secret magical powers (this is the third book I have read this year where the heroine is traumatised by having accidentally killed someone with her powers as a child); the dark prince with a tragic backstory who is a champion gaslighter, willing to do terrible things for power and (allegedly) the greater good; the childhood friend turned edgy who has been carrying a torch for the heroine his whole life, to which she remains oblivious. Although Ruying is initially less altruistic than the typical heroine, Chang gave herself an easy escape from needing to sustain this moral conflict any longer by having Ruying's grandmother, sister and friends all be part of the insurgence movement and willing to die for the cause, so once Ruying accepts this by the end of the book, the only thing she has to lose by turning against the Romans is the temporary safety afforded to her as long as she remains useful to Antony, since we are assured (over and over again) that, even if she isn't killed by his brother or the insurgents, Antony will kill her as soon as she ceases to be useful, or else she will eventually die from overusing her powers anyway.
The setting and the political/military conflict is also stock-standard YA and completely lacking in nuance so far - pre-occupation fantasy-China is mythologised as a magical, self-sustainable environmental paradise ruled by the descendants of benevolent gods (hopefully this will be debunked in the next books); the one wrinkle is the culture of patriarchy and filial piety which is starting to crack as a result of the Roman conquest. I would have liked a lot more focus on gender roles in both societies, which seems to have been intended as a secondary theme but completely failed in the execution (it never gets much further than mentioning that gender roles exist, which is not "commentary"). Meanwhile the only thing we have learned so far about the world of the Romans (which we never get to visit) is that it is dying after centuries of industrial pollution and climate change and Evil Science (which so far is the only type of science in the story).
I don't really understand why, of all the many things to criticise, there are so very, very many people complaining about the villains being called the Roman Empire (as opposed to a fantasy name) but I get the sense that Known Star Wars and AtLA Fan Molly X Chang would have just called them "the British Empire" or "the American Empire" if the publisher and the market would let her get away with it. The ancient Romans, for obvious reasons, are a soft target.
Really the premise of a magical fantasy world being invaded by a high-tech civilisation from another dimension/planet Earth has a very 20th-century vibe to it - late 70s to early 90s SFF was full to brimming with this sort of thing before Science Fiction and Fantasy were segregated into distinct genres, and I am here for that era of SFF to make a comeback.
Predictions for Book 2:
Unfortunately the ending of this first book, where
It seems inevitable that “the Phantom”, leader of the rebellion, is going to turn out to be
The Hemlock Queen by Hannah Whitten
Hannah Whitten interview with Hiba Tahir, 4 April 2024:
I'm trying to be open-minded and hoping Hannah Whitten can salvage this story in book 3, but this trilogy seems to be turning into a checklist of tropes I generally hate, and so far I'm not buying what she's trying to sell me.
If anything, she seems to be trying to go for a subversion of the usual dualistic, symbiotic dynamic of characters with elemental powers - Apollius and Nyxara started as humans without any apparent special destiny, and then usurped the natural powers of Light and Darkness. The characters of the other gods aren't developed enough to say whether their elemental powers reflect their personalities, but she doesn't do the obvious thing and pair up the fire god with the water goddess, either. Basically the gods (and their modern counterparts) are people who have chanced into elemental powers, but not the elemental symbolism that usually accompanies such powers. I suppose that's a valid choice for a story where the theme is characters denying the destinies they've inherited from their previous incarnations, but that's just not a theme I'm personally interested in reading about.
The 21st-century-American style of the dialogue is even more obnoxious here than it was in the first book, because in the flashback sequences taking place hundreds of years ago, the gods still speak in the same register as the modern day characters.
Hannah Whitten:
You don't say. The problem is not the foreshadowing; the problem is that every time something is foreshadowed, when the foreshadowed event occurs several hundred pages later, the text goes out of its way to make sure the reader notices that this was foreshadowed (which is to say, to make sure the reader notices how very clever and skilled the author is). Frequently Lore's inner monologue also tells us exactly how to interpret the words of other characters (for example, by taking note of when Bastian refers to Gabe by his surname instead of his first name), rather than just letting the dialogue speak for itself. I always take this sort of self-commentary inserted into the text as an indication that an author (or editor) is either insecure about the quality of the writing, or insulting the intelligence of their readers, and I find it's one of the most immersion-breaking thing an author can do.
In my review of book 1 I was very annoyed about how Lore and Bastian were very obvious Rey/Kylo analogues, which inevitably left me feeling mean-spirited towards Gabe. The addition of a love triangle is the only thing that could have made TRoS worse than it already was.
My feelings toward him have not improved, because this book is overly preoccupied with this love triangle situation (really more of a "lust" triangle because Lore's attraction to both men seems to be primarily physical) to the detriment of every other aspect of the plot and characters; neither the plot nor the characters develop enough to justify this many pages of nothing interesting happening. The one minor character who is the most elaborated upon is, of course, the one who dies.
Lore and Gabe barely interact for the first half of the book, but Lore expends a lot of words whining about how it's just so unfair that she has to marry Bastian for the sake of appearances when she wants to be with both men, a complaint which comes off as supremely selfish in a pseudo-historical setting where both of the other most prominent female characters are pushed into unwanted arranged marriages. Supposedly Bastian and Gabe are yearning for each other, although this might only be in Lore's imagination because they hardly ever so much as occupy the same physical space. In general I came away with the distinct impression of double standards of the unironic girlboss/"women's wrongs" variety. This whole polyamory shitshow got started when,hundreds of years ago when the gods were still mortals, Nyxara cheated on Apollius with one of their friends while he was away on a journey. Near the end when Lore is planning to make her escape from the palace, she has unplanned sex with Bastian because she can't control her lust, and then she chloroforms him unconscious. Can you just imagine a male love interest doing that to a female character?
Those elements of the plot which have the potential to be interesting are always relegated to the background - although there are several flashbacks and dream sequences of the previous age when the gods were mortal, we learn nothing about what the setting was like in this ancient era; the raison d'etre of the Kirythean Empire is to unite the known world in anticipation of the return of Apollius, and the current Emperor unexpectedly seems to be a man of genuine faith who is willing to hand control of the Empire over to the reincarnated god, but also isn't a complete villain; as a devout monk (thanks to Lore's obsession with sex in the midst of all these assassinations, terrorist attacks and imminent wars that are going on, we are repeatedly told that Gabe is the only one of the monks who actually abides by his vows of celibacy), Gabe should be having an all-consuming crisis of faith, but his feelings about the return of the gods are only mentioned in a couple of chapters and not from his POV. As is typical with these types of stories about evil fantasy-Christianity, by having the protagonist be someone who never had any faith in the god(s) in the first place, Whitten has given herself an easy escape from needing to write the type of thorough, meaningful, applicable introspection that you would expect from a novel about religious trauma, such as the POV character working through their emotional response to the betrayal of the god(s) and the realisation that the beliefs that have shaped their life were founded upon lies perpetuated by the people they trusted most. The question of whether the good that has come from the institution of the religion (e.g. political stability, education, sublime art) outweighs the bad doesn't arise because Lore has only negative opinions and experiences of religion and religious people. She also doesn't have to make a choice about whether to cut herself off from friends and family and suffer from the resulting guilt and isolation, because by happy coincidence all her friends share her predicament of being possessed by divine powers, and are all immediately willing to disavow the supreme god as evil and flee the country with her (even the monks!).
I'm not even sure what I want from book 3, but I'm certainly not rooting for Lore, Gabe and Bastian to live happily ever after as a throuple because at this point in the story I don't really like any of them as individuals, let alone in combination.
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
2.0
Hannah Whitten interview with Hiba Tahir, 4 April 2024:
I knew I wanted to do the theme of not necessarily resurrection but like rebirthing ...and the idea that where you are born to be with this person but it's wrong for whatever reason, or you're like "I actually don't want that..."
I'm trying to be open-minded and hoping Hannah Whitten can salvage this story in book 3, but this trilogy seems to be turning into a checklist of tropes I generally hate, and so far I'm not buying what she's trying to sell me.
If anything, she seems to be trying to go for a subversion of the usual dualistic, symbiotic dynamic of characters with elemental powers - Apollius and Nyxara started as humans without any apparent special destiny, and then usurped the natural powers of Light and Darkness. The characters of the other gods aren't developed enough to say whether their elemental powers reflect their personalities, but she doesn't do the obvious thing and pair up the fire god with the water goddess, either. Basically the gods (and their modern counterparts) are people who have chanced into elemental powers, but not the elemental symbolism that usually accompanies such powers. I suppose that's a valid choice for a story where the theme is characters denying the destinies they've inherited from their previous incarnations, but that's just not a theme I'm personally interested in reading about.
The 21st-century-American style of the dialogue is even more obnoxious here than it was in the first book, because in the flashback sequences taking place hundreds of years ago, the gods still speak in the same register as the modern day characters.
Hannah Whitten:
I love a foreshadow so I love to like stick stuff in there and I'm always like, "I'm gonna be way too heavy-handed."
You don't say. The problem is not the foreshadowing; the problem is that every time something is foreshadowed, when the foreshadowed event occurs several hundred pages later, the text goes out of its way to make sure the reader notices that this was foreshadowed (which is to say, to make sure the reader notices how very clever and skilled the author is). Frequently Lore's inner monologue also tells us exactly how to interpret the words of other characters (for example, by taking note of when Bastian refers to Gabe by his surname instead of his first name), rather than just letting the dialogue speak for itself. I always take this sort of self-commentary inserted into the text as an indication that an author (or editor) is either insecure about the quality of the writing, or insulting the intelligence of their readers, and I find it's one of the most immersion-breaking thing an author can do.
Hiba Tahir: Tell me how the trilogy came to be. What was the initial spark that led to the premise?
Hannah Whitten: So the initial spark of the trilogy was me going to see The Rise of Skywalker and hating it a lot. Um, mostly because - for many reasons, but the one that most led into this trilogy was the whole Rey Palpatine thing, and having conversations with friends who had also seen the movie about how that could have been an effective twist if it had been set up properly, and if it had any cost and any payoff instead of just being like, "Here you go, we heard you guys like Palpatine, so we got you a Palpatine."...So it made me think a lot about what that story would be, of a girl from nowhere who doesn't seem important at the outset, but it turns out that she is the linchpin of this world domination plan and is the heir to this dark awful power that people have been working for years to try to keep suppressed...
In my review of book 1 I was very annoyed about how Lore and Bastian were very obvious Rey/Kylo analogues, which inevitably left me feeling mean-spirited towards Gabe. The addition of a love triangle is the only thing that could have made TRoS worse than it already was.
My feelings toward him have not improved, because this book is overly preoccupied with this love triangle situation (really more of a "lust" triangle because Lore's attraction to both men seems to be primarily physical) to the detriment of every other aspect of the plot and characters; neither the plot nor the characters develop enough to justify this many pages of nothing interesting happening. The one minor character who is the most elaborated upon is, of course, the one who dies.
Lore and Gabe barely interact for the first half of the book, but Lore expends a lot of words whining about how it's just so unfair that she has to marry Bastian for the sake of appearances when she wants to be with both men, a complaint which comes off as supremely selfish in a pseudo-historical setting where both of the other most prominent female characters are pushed into unwanted arranged marriages. Supposedly Bastian and Gabe are yearning for each other, although this might only be in Lore's imagination because they hardly ever so much as occupy the same physical space. In general I came away with the distinct impression of double standards of the unironic girlboss/"women's wrongs" variety. This whole polyamory shitshow got started when,
Those elements of the plot which have the potential to be interesting are always relegated to the background - although there are several flashbacks and dream sequences of the previous age when the gods were mortal, we learn nothing about what the setting was like in this ancient era; the raison d'etre of the Kirythean Empire is to unite the known world in anticipation of the return of Apollius, and the current Emperor unexpectedly seems to be a man of genuine faith who is willing to hand control of the Empire over to the reincarnated god, but also isn't a complete villain; as a devout monk (thanks to Lore's obsession with sex in the midst of all these assassinations, terrorist attacks and imminent wars that are going on, we are repeatedly told that Gabe is the only one of the monks who actually abides by his vows of celibacy), Gabe should be having an all-consuming crisis of faith, but his feelings about the return of the gods are only mentioned in a couple of chapters and not from his POV. As is typical with these types of stories about evil fantasy-Christianity, by having the protagonist be someone who never had any faith in the god(s) in the first place, Whitten has given herself an easy escape from needing to write the type of thorough, meaningful, applicable introspection that you would expect from a novel about religious trauma, such as the POV character working through their emotional response to the betrayal of the god(s) and the realisation that the beliefs that have shaped their life were founded upon lies perpetuated by the people they trusted most. The question of whether the good that has come from the institution of the religion (e.g. political stability, education, sublime art) outweighs the bad doesn't arise because Lore has only negative opinions and experiences of religion and religious people. She also doesn't have to make a choice about whether to cut herself off from friends and family and suffer from the resulting guilt and isolation, because by happy coincidence all her friends share her predicament of being possessed by divine powers, and are all immediately willing to disavow the supreme god as evil and flee the country with her (even the monks!).
I'm not even sure what I want from book 3, but I'm certainly not rooting for Lore, Gabe and Bastian to live happily ever after as a throuple because at this point in the story I don't really like any of them as individuals, let alone in combination.