The Manticore's Vow and Other Stories by Cassandra Rose Clarke

The Manticore's Vow and Other Stories by Cassandra Rose Clarke contains three short stories set in the world of The Assassin's Curse books, recently repackaged as The Magic of Blood and Sea. Although I have read both of the novels in this world, it was several years ago and my memory of them is quite hazy. This means that I was effectively coming to these stories from a stand-alone perspective.

A vain assassin takes an assignment with dire consequences. An aristocratic lady fleeing her past is besieged by pirates. And a manticore princess sets out on a life-changing adventure . . .

The Manticore’s Vow collects three stories set in the world of Magic of Blood and Sea, all exploring the origins of some of its most memorable characters: Naji, the scarred assassin, Marjani, the pirate queen, and Ongraygeeomryn, the man-eating manticore. Explore a world of dangerous magic and thrilling adventures with this trio of gorgeous, swashbuckling tales.

Overall, I found these stories stood alone fine, especially the first two. My favourite story was, without a doubt, “The Automaton’s Treasure”, which hooked me most quickly and kept my attention the best, even though there were times when very little was happening in the story (granted the boring parts of the long sea voyage were skipped over). For the other two stories, I didn’t connect with the protagonists as well and hence did not find myself especially invested in them. My thoughts on each story are given at the end of this review, as per usual.

This book works well as a companion to the longer works set in the same universe while also working alone well. In fact, I suspect a reader unfamiliar with the larger world might not immediately realise that the stories are connected to each other since they take place in different regions of the world. This collection serves as a sampler of the author’s work, but not exactly a good introduction to the novels, since they are about tangential characters. I think it will appeal most to readers who want more from the world after having read the novels.

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The Manticore’s Vow — Narrated in first person by a manticore, this story follows a young manticore, her human servant and some friends as she misadventures in her father’s kingdom. I enjoyed it well enough, particularly towards the end of the story.

The Automaton’s Treasure — A sea voyage interrupted by pirates and a sentient automaton made this story quite the exciting adventure. I enjoyed it more than the first story in its collection.

The Witch’s Betrayal — An assassin with a difficult kill and an obstruction from someone he had considered a friend. It was OK but nothing special. I think the most strongly linked to the novels in the same world (based on my vague memories).

3.5 / 5 stars

First published: June 2019, Interstellar Flight Press
Series: Same world as The Assassin's Curse books / The Magic of Blood and Sea
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

#ReadShortStories all over the place (76–80)

I'm still making my way through the Hugo Novelette shortlist, as evidenced by only one of those novelettes appearing in this batch of reading. I also started a new collection: The Manticore's Vow by Cassandra Rose Clarke. It's very short — only three stories — so expect to see either the rest of the stories soon or the review of the whole thing imminently.

It is almost interesting to note that all five stories in this batch came from different sources. (Although I put in the Uncanny link for the Aliette de Bodard story, I actually got it from the Hugo voter packet.) Unfortunately Emma Newman's story is currently not accessible to people who don't subscribe to her newsletter, but she has promised that the stories will be collected together in a book eventually.



Remember by A J Lee — An OK flash piece. A predictable twist and an insufficiently dramatic ending, perhaps. Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01507-w

What Travis Built by Emma Newman — A short piece filling in an off-page moment set after After Atlas. A sweet vignette about the romantic relationship between two characters and also a farm-sim game. Source: Emma Newman’s newsletter

The Thing About Ghost Stories by Naomi Kritzer — The story opens like a nonfiction essay but then settles into the lived experience of the narrator, who is a ghost-story collecting anthropologist. As well as discussing different types of ghost stories, the story gives us a glimpse into the narrators life with her ageing mother. I quite enjoy this story, for its discussion of ghost stories as well as the main story. I guess I had enough of a scientist to enjoy such categorisations. Source: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/the-thing-about-ghost-stories/

The Dragon That Flew Out of the Sun by Aliette de Bodard — A story of racial tensions arising from one group destroying the planet of another (well, rendering it uninhabitable). I liked both the idea and the execution. Source: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/the-dragon-that-flew-out-of-the-sun/

The Manticore’s Vow by Cassandra Rose Clarke — Narrated in first person by a manticore, this story follows a young manticore, her human servant and some friends as she misadventures in her father’s kingdom. I enjoyed it well enough, particularly towards the end of the story. Source: The Manticore’s Vow By Cassandra Rose Clarke

The Wizard's Promise by Cassandra Rose Clarke

The Wizard's Promise by Cassandra Rose Clarke is a new story arc set in the same world as The Assassin's Curse and The Pirate's Wish. The main character is the daughter of a friend of Annana from those books and is even named after her.

All Hanna Euli wants is to become a proper witch – but unfortunately, she’s stuck as an apprentice to a grumpy fisherman. When their boat gets caught up in a mysterious storm and blown wildly off course, Hanna finds herself further away from home than she’s ever been before.

As she tries to get back, she learns there may be more to her apprentice master than she realized, especially when a mysterious, beautiful, and very non-human boy begins following her through the ocean, claiming that he needs Hanna’s help.

I enjoyed The Wizard's Promise. I don't think it was as ground-breaking as the earlier two books, but it was a pleasant read. It can be summarised as "girl who wants to be a witch is stuck being a fisherwoman and a three-day fishing trip goes exceedingly awry."

One of the things I like about this world is how equal women are. It's not unusual that Hanna is a) a fisherwoman and b) has magic. When, later in the book, she finds herself alone in a strange place, she finds work on a (different, larger) fishing boat to make enough money to get by. No one ever questions her ability to do things because of her gender (a little bit because of her age, but even then, not very much).

One of the things that bugged me in the earlier books was Annana's accent/dialect, emphasised by the first-person narrative. That was absent in The Wizard's Promise, which made it an easier read, I think. But on the other hand, there wasn't the element of amusing banter between the two leads. Hanna spends a lot of time more or less alone. She makes friends and is never completely isolated, but most of the time she is alone in her mission. On the other hand, it was refreshing to read a book with such a self-sufficient heroine. She doesn't break down when things go wrong and she is stranded alone, but rather takes the most practical steps she can to work towards getting back home.

Also, there isn't a romantic storyline (although there might be in the sequel), despite what the blurb implies. Isolfr, the boy mentioned in the blurb, is more of an enigma than a love interest. Mind you, his magical abilities do lead to some amusing interactions, which I won't spoil. Overall, this possibly could have been a bit more fast-paced, but I was never bored, there were just a few slower bits. Thinking about it more, it's probably more a case of the plot not building up to a save-the-world-type event, but rather a more sustained level of excitement with a few peaks before the climax.

As I said, The Wizard's Promise was a fun read. I would recommend it to fans of adventure stories, YA or otherwise. It's not the most exciting read ever, but not everything has to be. I will definitely be picking up any sequels and will probably keep on reading everything the author writes.

4 / 5 stars

First published: May 2014, Strange Chemistry
Series: yes? Book 1 of 2 and also part of an on-going universe
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The Pirate's Wish by Cassandra Rose Clarke

The Pirate's Wish by Cassandra Rose Clarke is the concluding volume of the story started in The Assassin's Curse, a book I loved when I read it last August. The Pirate's Wish does not disappoint on the pay-off that was set up in the first book.

The Pirate's Wish picks up not long after The Assassin's Curse ended.  Given that these were originally one volume, the second book can't really be read without reading the first beforehand. This review contains some spoilers for the first book. Blurb:

After setting out to break the curse that binds them together, the pirate Ananna and the assassin Naji find themselves stranded on an enchanted island in the north with nothing but a sword, their wits, and the secret to breaking the curse: complete three impossible tasks. With the help of their friend Marjani and a rather unusual ally, Ananna and Naji make their way south again, seeking what seems to be beyond their reach.

Unfortunately, Naji has enemies from the shadowy world known as the Mists, and Ananna must still face the repercussions of going up against the Pirate Confederation. Together, Naji and Ananna must break the curse, escape their enemies — and come to terms with their growing romantic attraction.

At the end of book one, we learnt what Naji must do to break the curse that binds him to Ananna. Now the two of them, plus Marjani and a new character I don't want to spoil, need to complete Naji's three impossible tasks. The story is full of action and adventure and Ananna kicking arse. Quite frankly, it's a fun read.

My biggest qualm with book one was Ananna's voice — first person pirate speak — which took me a while to get used to. I had a similar issue in The Pirate's Wish but I got used to it much more quickly. I enjoyed the dialogue, however, between all the characters. And the new characters, most notably the one that features somewhere on the cover. Ahem. The other semi-issue I had with it was that one of the impossible tasks Naji must complete had a possible unsavoury resolution and I spent some time worrying about how it was going to come to pass. It didn't go that way, but ultimately I didn't like that it could have. (Although for some reason this didn't occur to me when the tasks were given out at the end of the first book.)

Awesome female characters continue to be a strong point of the story. We learn more about Marjani and see Naji learn more leadership skills which I enjoyed. There is also a bit about the realities of piracy, which I thought was nice, instead of romanticising it too much. Not that it's really gritty or particularly dark, but the reader does confront the fact that piracy involves stealing things and killing people.

Overall, The Pirate's Wish (and The Assassin's Curse) is an enjoyable, quick read. I recommend the series to any fantasy fans that like adventure and great female protagonists. And if you haven't already, read my review of The Assassin's Curse, in which I wax lyrical about navigation. And then go read the book.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: June 2013, Strange Chemistry (Angry Robot)
Series: The Assassin's Curse, book 2 or 2
Format read: eARC on my Kobo
Source: Courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley

The Mad Scientist's Daughter by Cassandra Rose Clarke

The Mad Scientist's Daughter by Cassandra Rose Clarke was an excellent read. It was very different to the author's début novel, The Assassin's Curse (my review), which I also enjoyed and which caused me to expect more of an adventure novel, possibly with steampunk elements (apparently, steampunk is where mad scientists belong, these days). The Mad Scientist's Daughter is not an adventure novel. It's set in the near future and, as the cover proclaims, it is "A tale of Love, Loss and Robots".

Cat, the titular character, is the daughter of two cyberneticists. When she's quite young, her father acquires Finn, a sophisticated android designed to look and act human. When her parents decide to homeschool her until highschool, they make Finn her tutor. Growing up with a robot, Cat does not hold the same prejudices and fears some elements of society do and isolated in a small town until she goes to college, she does not encounter them very often until she leaves. The Mad Scientist's Daughter is the story of Cat's life from childhood until her late thirties (I think). It is the story of a girl who fell in love with a robot.

The Mad Scientist's Daughter is a beautiful read. It explores the nature of sentience and humanity. Cat's father always treated Finn with respect and more or less like a person even when the law didn't require him to. This is wonderfully contrasted by a boyfriend of Cat's whose life mission seems to be getting around sentience laws by building AIs that are just dumb enough to not be granted any rights.

It was a bit of a depressing read. The tone reminded me most of The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (not just because of the title similarity) except where The Time Traveller's Wife made me angry with the extent to which the main character's entire life revolved around her husband, The Mad Scientist's Daughter did not. Cat's life is her own. It's not perfect, but it certainly doesn't completely revolve around Finn; Finn just happens to be the person she loves and is of course important to her. Also Finn is a proper science fictional robot, not just a literary construct to make Cat's life harder/more depressing as the pseudo-scientifically time-travelling husband in The Time Traveller's Wife was.

The Mad Scientist's Daughter is a literary novel. (Recall my definition of "literary" is a story with an internal journey rather than an external (going on an adventure) journey.) Despite that, it paints a bleak but not hopeless image of the future. Cat lives in a time after a series of climate disasters caused much destruction, but society has mostly recovered, even if the weather occasionally still does strange things. When I grow up, I want to write a book like this. This is the first book that has made me want to be able to write something literary.

I highly recommend The Mad Scientist's Daughter to fans of near future science fiction and/or robots. I think non-SF readers will also enjoy it as the science fictional elements are relatively minor (yes, despite the presence of the robot). It was an excellent read and I encourage everyone to give it a try (unless they can't cope with novels not filled with action and adventure).

5 / 5 stars

First published: February 2013, Angry Robot
Series: Nope.
Format read: eARC on iPad
Source: the publisher, via NetGalley

The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke

The Assassin’s Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke is the author’s debut novel, out on October 2nd from Strange Chemistry, the new YA imprint of Angry Robot Books. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of this novel from the publisher for review purposes.

The (slightly truncated because spoilers) blurb from the publisher:

Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an allying pirate clan. But that only prompts the scorned clan to send an assassin after her. And when Ananna faces him down one night, armed with magic she doesn’t really know how to use, she accidentally activates a curse binding them together. 

First things first: this is a great book. The blurb ticks a lot of boxes of awesome (pirates, assassins, hilarious curses) and the book itself did not disappoint.

Annana is a 17 year old pirate, born and raised by her parents on a pirate ship. When she runs away from a marriage to a stupid pretty boy, her plan is to eventually get herself a ship (or a place on one to start) and return to her normal life. Instead, she’s stuck with Naji, an assassin, protecting her when she can look after herself well enough. If she wanders too far from him or gets into any danger, even the sort she can no trouble getting out of, he feels physical pain.

The interplay between the two characters was very interesting. They both end up protecting each other. Naji, particularly, needs more help from Annana than one might expect from a member of a secret order of magical assassins. Annana is mostly happy to fend for herself but is stuck with Naji and doesn’t actually wish him harm since he’s stopped trying to assassinate her. I liked that Annana can fight with a sword or knife competently and that this makes perfect sense (because she’s a pirate).

One thing in this book that really made me happy was Annana wanting to be captain of her own ship one day. I mean, on the face of it, it’s not unusual, but in the story world it is unusual for a woman to captain a ship. Better yet, she is keen to learn navigation and maths and she’s competent at these things when she learns them and enjoys them and this made me squee. Far too often, especially in non-SF books, characters (and, quite frankly, real people) say things like “oh, I don’t like/understand/know maths!” without considering the implications. Maths is useful and important and, as delightfully emphasised by Clarke, essential to certain tasks, like navigating a ship across the sea/ocean. <3

The Assassin’s Curse is set in a fantasy land, partly in a sort of deserty Arabian area, partly on a ship and partly on a northern island. The settings are broad and given the context, I was glad to see that the people were mostly shades of brown (as opposed to white people in the desert for no logical reason).

The only thing that I didn’t love about this book was that it took a little while for Annana’s voice to feel natural. Written in first person, there were a few times near the start where it felt a little bit awkward, but not for any definite reason I could put my finger on. She talks like a pirate (think Mal from Firefly or Jack Sparrow with less “Yarr!”) and by about half way through, I felt like her voice had settled into a rhythm and I didn’t notice it anymore. In any case, it definitely didn’t detract from the story itself.

This is an excellent debut and a great YA novel. I recommend it to all lovers of fantasy, YA and adult. Although it’s on the short side for an adult book, I still feel adult fantasy readers would enjoy it. It’s also a good place to start if you’re looking for a less conventional setting.

4.5 / 5 stars