Johnston has a cool, progressive cast of characters... A squad of female knights? Awesome! Racial, gender and sexual diversity? Great. Does it do a lot to validate the existence and successful lives of LBTQA+? Absolutely! It's a world where all that exists, despite its low-fantasy feel. Which is great. When people attribute low-fantasy to Medieval real-world church ideals, it always feels like a waste in calling it fantasy. Especially if you can say more about the existence of marginalized people by holding them up in your story. So, I applaud Johnston for providing that. And I'm sure that's why this story must mean something to others. With that said...
Pacing, clean editing, consistent prose? Not quite. I think Johnston was attempting to do something different with the way the story is told, but what it left me with was having to backtrack quite a bit to understand where I am in the story and who I'm with. I'll explain.
The Structure
The prologue explains the gist: There was a crew that took down the ruthless Old God, then some stuff about the godsgem. Won't go too deep into it. Point is, you get a dumping of 'here's a little lore-esque stuff to start you off.' I was down with it. Problem is, it was just a two-page brief on the situation. So that leads me to believe the story will delve further into it. Does it? Yessss, but it takes a while. Which can be a structural choice, but it felt very imbalanced in execution.
The first chapter or so starts in third person limited, following around Olsa, a thief. There wasn't a ton of world-building to be had here, but Johnston did enough to set the scene. Then we have this Peter Pan type of setup where Olsa is in these kids' bedroom (because she gets distracted when trying to steal from the kids' father, who is a gem somethingorother). Olsa sits in front of a fire, and we're told that they're telling the kids the tales from the prologue, but from Olsa's perspective: the thief that was part of the crew. However, there isn't a lot of additional explanation. Instead of telling the story and showing you the adventure - which this setup made me believe would be how this happens - she dumps a bunch of character references on you and sorta glides over the subtext in the prologue. So now I have a handful of characters I've only been told exist, but haven't been shown. And as they get referenced later on the story, I'm finding it easy to confuse them.
One of the biggest struggles I have with stories is when they tell you something, but they don't show you it. And if the setup for this book will have flashbacks to prior events, dumping tons of references on me before actually telling me the story doesn't help guide me through the rest of the book. It only makes it easier for me to forget half the names.
That's when we get the first flashback. And for a book that was already in third person limited, for some reason we flip to first person. Which is more or less the same thing, but now there's I's in it. And it takes at least two paragraphs in before you realize whose perspective you're reading in. There's a thing to writing where repetition and mention of the person's name at least once every few lines helps your audience stay on track. For all I knew, until the narrator was talking about Olsa, I could have just as easily thought for some reason we were in Olsa's head. At that point, it could have been anyone.
Not to mention, because I had some confusion about which character was which, I got confused when they were describing Ironheart, but I had convinced myself they were talking about another mage or knight. It got a little hairy there for a bit. By the next chapter, we're back in the present with the third person limited again. And I'm tired. This happens regularly, and it's a little strange how choppy and out of place it always feels - it's arrhythmic in a way that tells you nothing about a change in tempo of the story.
The Characters
I'll just briefly mention again that the characters are tight, and I do think that if they were in a different story, I would love them more.
The story that was being told about Kalanthe and Olsa felt rushed during some of the chapters. Other than maybe trying to show that Olsa is a sweetheart despite her thievery, it was strange that after a small conversation between the two that Kalanthe would return to her tent with a rose waiting inside. It seemed like they were trying to show that little gestures were how they came together, but it was a gesture that felt out of place because the conversation about roses felt completely insignificant and just like a passing thing.
Also... Olsa complaining that prison was awful in the beginning when the only awful thing we saw happen to her was she was uncomfortable (because low-fantasy, stone, piss-stained prison setting), and a guard told her to shut up, was so strange to read. Yeah, prison is the worst, but you haven't shown me that she's actually having a rough go of it other than being uncomfortable. It felt like teenage exaggeration. And maybe it was supposed to be read that way, but I haven't been given any indication I'm supposed to perceive her character that way so early on. Or that I was supposed to relate to her plight in the prison. I'm sure it was awful girl, but you haven't exactly been tortured or anything yet.
The Writing
Okay, this is going to be harsh, but it ties into the scene I just mentioned. There's a moment there where Olsa says something that's not even worth mentioning - to me - as clever, but it apparently tickles someone in the group:
Ahead of us, Sir Terriam began to laugh, her massive shoulders shaking with mirth.
And this happens a lot. Where a thing that we were told was funny makes everyone else laugh but me. And not just kinda chuckle or do a little anime *humph* with a smirk. It's a real laugh. But it felt really ham-fisted in there as attempted cleverness or humor. It felt more like a sitcom audience laughing at something on cue so that I'll laugh, but instead I was just sat there like, "I guess that was funny?"
Which isn't so much that the line was awful or it was unfunny. I'm not some comedic genius here. But there are plenty of things that are said in conversation that have a funniness to them, but they're funnier when there's less attention drawn to them. Johnston felt like she was shoving it in my face so I'd laugh with the characters, instead of just acknowledging the line and moving on.
The writing also involves many long sentences in the beginning of each chapter. Which could so easily have been tightened with splitting the sentences or a variety of punctuation to change the pacing of how they read. Even eliminating the passive voice that elongates them would help.
Additionally, more than once there were sentences punctuated between dialogue that I think were supposed to mean something, but it happened so early on I was just confused as to why it was there. It may have been that the initial lead into the line was removed. But sometimes it felt again like "we told you these characters exist so we're going to reference them still without showing you them," which ultimately makes those sentences useless. An example:
"Don't be foolish, Ildy," Mina said. "Everyone knows that the king had given instruction to let Sir Erris make her own decisions, and that meant picking her companions, and she picked the ones she thought it would [be] the hardest for the Old God to tempt."
"You don't know the half of it," Olsa said. It wasn't Kalanthe's soul she was thinking of.
What is that supposed to mean? I don't know Kalanthe. You haven't shown me Kalanthe yet. What connection am I supposed to make about Kalanthe from that cryptic observation? Who else was Olsa supposed to be thinking of? It felt like this was an "Easter egg" I'd be expected to find later upon a re-read. But that's just not happening.
Again, I know this book offers a lot for some people because of the representation, but I'm just looking for something more I can sink my teeth into, I think.
But if Johnston ever reads this, and I don't know that they will, please know that I do sincerely like the concept, and when I started to meet some of the characters, I had no qualms. And I think at the end of the day, if other people feel a deep connection with these characters, that's awesome that it touched someone else.