Throne of the Crescent Moon (Crescent Moon Kingdoms, #1)

by Saladin Ahmed

The Crescent Moon Kingdoms, land of djenn and ghuls, holy warriors and heretics, Khalifs and killers, is at boiling point. A power struggle between the iron-fisted Khalif and the mysterious master thief known as the Falcon Prince is reaching its climax. In the midst of this brewing rebellion, a series of brutal supernatural murders strikes at the heart of the Kingdoms. Only a handful of reluctant heroes can learn the truth, and stop the killing. Doctor Adoulla Makhslood just wants a quiet cup of tea. Three score and more years old, he has grown weary of hunting monsters and saving lives, and is more than ready to retire from his dangerous and demanding vocation. But when an old flame's family is murdered, Adoulla is drawn back to the hunter's path. Raseed bas Raseed, Adoulla's young assistant, a hidebound holy warrior whose prowess is matched only by his piety, is eager to deliver God's justice. Zamia Badawi has been gifted with the near-mythical power of the Lion-Shape, but shunned by her people for daring to take up a man's title. She lives only to avenge her father's death. Until she learns that Adoulla and his allies also hunt her father's killer.
Until she meets Raseed.

• ISBN10: 0575132914
• ISBN13: 9780575132917
• Publish Date: 17 January 2013 (first published 1 February 2012)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 20 February 2015
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Gollancz
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[sa090]

I feel like I somewhat went into this expecting a different kind of story, but it’s surely not a bad one.

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Was hoping to get this one out yesterday, but no matter :)

I find middle eastern inspired stories to be extremely fascinating, however, not all of them end up being extremely rewarding to read. Now Throne of the Crescent Moon follows a more action oriented plot line with a mystery surrounding it before it gets wrapped up, the journey in doing all of this was longer than I expected it to be and would’ve probably been boring to follow, if the characters weren’t interesting for me to care. Thankfully, I didn’t have to suffer through this book in that regard. Every single character of them was entertaining or fascinating to watch in their own way, either through their occupation, their way of speech, their purpose in the story or the abilities they were blessed with.

Now I do believe that this is very loosely based on said middle eastern mythology since it deals with Djinn and Ghouls, but the heavy reliance on religion makes me think that the before mentioned is where the similarities end when taking in the added culture. I could be wrong of course, but certain passages and dialogues didn’t strike me as something a real middle eastern devotee would be saying when taking in religion as a companionable point. Furthermore, I honestly didn’t expect the book to be so heavy on the religious aspects or views of the people in Dhamswaat. Was it off-putting? Somewhat at first, but I think I got to a point where I didn’t care all that much about it later on.

The book also deals with some issues in regards to races, corruption and power struggles which made it interesting in its own way, but the thing that pulled it all together were the characters and what each was required to do in the end. The book doesn’t really lack much, but I feel like the story had very basic elements throughout of its structure that made it seem good, but not good enough that I would be blown away. Characters can only do so much with a somewhat weaker foundation.

The only real bit of criticism I would have here is the romance between the young ones, or rather how Zamia thinks in regards to relationships and marriage. There is something so incredibly weird about her way of thinking that it makes it really strange to think that a girl who lived in a Bedouin society with her very specific tasks would ever have, I could see a reason for said way of thinking if Zamia was raised differently, but with what I can see and have read about her situation it’s not as “accurate” as I believe it could’ve been. But it might be my own way of thinking in that one and the lack of knowledge on how this particular group works in Saladin Ahmed’s world.

Speaking of world, I do hope that we get a bigger look on the cultures at some point whenever the sequel of this book gets published. We met different ones this time around for sure, but I want a much deeper look on how it will expand from here. I’m definitely interested to see where some characters will end with the decisions they made in this book, and if my information about the sequel is correct, I don’t think I’ll wait long.

Final rating: 3/5

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

Source: ARC from Goodreads First Reads

Throne of the Crescent Moon was an interesting, character-driven fantasy with more personal reflection than plot. The story is not an action-packed fight to death against ghuls, as one might glean from the official summary, but rather a painstakingly planned battle against a mysterious ghul-raiser that involves more books and research than it does swords. Funnily enough, even a few of the characters are a bit annoyed by this.

But they are not only impatient with the pacing, they are impatient with each other—and this is another area where the reader can probably agree. Just about every character has a single thing on which he or she likes to harp: the Doctor is old and tired and does not want this responsibility anymore, Raseed wants to be a better dervish more focuses on God and will quote endless amounts of their sacred Scriptures to prove it, and Zamia just wants revenge, NOW. Their distinct personalities are great, and in the end they and the more minor characters form a beautiful raggedy family, but it would have been refreshing if they each had more than one thing they liked to talk/think about.

Ahmed’s main concern seems to have been to make his characters are human as possible by giving them such glaring flaws. He also frequently employs rather familiar and vulgar language*. The Doctor is called an “old fart” numerous times, sometimes in reference to himself, and there are a decent amount of references to excrement and whores. Overall, this type of dialogue was a bit jarring and detracted from the fantasy aspect.

In the same vein, the official summary’s claim that this book has the magic of the Arabian Nights is a bit of a stretch. There is not much magic, and what magic there is does not happen to be very flashy. The other aspects of the book are not particularly magical either. The world may be foreign to most readers, but it is gritty, crowded, and smelly. Not much comes across as an exotic dream here, particularly since the characters are not even well off enough to live in the nice part of the city.

These shortcomings were somewhat discouraging, particularly with all the critical praise being heaped on this book. However, completely unexpectedly, the last quarter of the book was completely enthralling. Previously I had been reading a chapter a day, skipping days in between chapters. I read the end in a single sitting, staying up to the wee hours of the morning. There was action, excitement, and more than one fantastic plot twist. It was amazing. The characters even got over their woes. If Ahmed can continue to write the way he wrote this conclusion, he will release a gripping and imaginative sequel, and I could actually recommend the series.


*To clarify, the book started coming closer to realism than fantasy for me when characters walked up to each other and greeted them as “you old fart” or “you fat son of a goat” (not an actual quote, but it captures the spirit of some of the characters’ exchanges). By vulgar language, I mean that in the middle of their quest to save the city, they would suddenly say things like, “I just farted” or “This street smells like piss.” Not my idea of magical.

I am also not attempting to make any value judgment about realism. I intended merely to express my surprise at how realistic this book is, as the official summary, the cover, the title, or even other reviews never gave me this impression.

Further, by describing the book as realistic, I did not mean to discourage anyone from reading it, including “sensitive” readers. While I maintain that frequent references to bodily functions do not add joy to my day and are not common in polite conversation, I acknowledge that this book is relatively clean. Anyone who is a bit particular about the books they read should be aware there are no sex scenes in this book, which I think would be a much larger deterrent than a reference to the fact humans do not process their food 100% efficiently.