Reading – The Executioness

Following The Alchemist (reading post here) I tackled the novella’s companion book, The Executioness*, written by Tobias Buckell. Unlike Bacigalupi, author of The Alchemist, I was unfamiliar with Buckell’s earlier works so this was all new to me. The Executioness* tells a second story of the land of Khaim and the magic-hungry bramble, and this story is dramatically different in tone than Bacigalupi’s book . . . though no less enjoyable.

The Tale of Tana

Tana, the executioness of the story’s title, is a middle-aged mother of two boys, wife of a drunkard, and daughter of one of the Mayor of Khaim’s executioners. When the magical bell summons Tana’s father for work she answers the call, taking the place of her dying father and entering the city to slaughter one who used magic without the Mayor’s permission. It is here that Buckell caught my imagination; his writing — very much his own and not like Bacigalupi’s — is engaging and the way in which he described Tana shielding herself in the clothes and hood of the executioner and her first slaughter is masterfully-written. Yes, I will be tracking down more work by Tobias Buckell.

The Raiders Shatter Life

Tana, on her return to her home following the execution, discovers that a band of raiders has attacked. Her husband slaughtered, forced to put an end to her own father’s life, and her children captured, Tana sets off in pursuit of the raiders in an attempt to save the children. She is felled in her first fight and falls ill to the bramble (see my review of The Alchemist for more about this strange plant) . . . but it is this battle that earns her the title “executioness” and starts a reputation on which remainder of The Executioness* is built.

Awakening in the Caravan

Tana is found and saved by a merchant caravan, soon put into service as a guard and trained by Bodjdan, one of the caravan’s guards. Buckell spends a very small number of the novella’s 102-pages on the training, but it is enough to set up Tana’s trial in battle and a scene which only helps build her reputation. It seems that the story of her fight against the raiders has spread, and when she faces a group of armed men who recognizes she takes three prisoner after killing two. Again, Buckell’s writing goes into the details in an enjoyable way and makes me want to order another one of his books right away.

The Fall of the Caravan

The raiders Tana is intent on finding are merely part of a much larger force from the city of Paika and it is there army which overwhelms the caravan and shatters Tana’s new life. But from that she takes even more strength, and soon turns her growing reputation into a tool with which she helps build an army of mothers . . . an army she leads, with a bandit force, to Paika.

An Excellent Companion

The Executioness*, a companion to Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Alchemist, is a fun read, and even though it deals less with the bramble of the land it is still part of that shared world that Buckell and Bacigalupi constructed together. The book is a few pages longer than its sibling, but part of that is because Bacigalupi’s introduction runs longer than Buckell’s introduction to The Alchemist. Both works are effectively of the same length, and both are recommended to any who are fans of fantasy fiction.

Excellent work, and I can thank the two books for entertaining me on a long flight. And now it is time I buy another book by Tobias Buckell. I hope that it’s as fun a read as The Executioness*.