innowen's review
4.0
Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book through netgalley in exchange for this review.
Victoria Strauss’s The Burning Lands is book one of a two book series on what it means to have faith, influence the corse of humanity, and love. In this book we are introduced to two societies: one who harnesses the uses of Shaping (the magical system employed in this series) and allows those who own it to be free from restraint and another who carefully uses the Shapers to craft a religious tradition built with restraint.
In this book, we meet Brother Gyalo, a devout monk of the Âratist order from the second society. He has been charged with the honor of going out into sacred land to discover whether or not a secular group of Âratists survived the oppression of the Caryaxt who ruled his country for almost three generations.
His travels take him and his entourage deep into the Burning Lands, a vast desert that cannot sustain people well. Misfortune hits and Brother Gyalo is forced to use his powers of shaping to help him and a few of his crew survive, an act that causes his order to cast him out as an apostate. He arrives, along with 2 other survivors to a huge underground cavern where the secular Âratists live. As their beliefs forked off from the main branch for 3 generations, they aren’t sure what to think of these outsiders. This is where we meet Axane, a girl who has the powers of Dreaming. She becomes entranced by Gyalo and his stories of the outside and declares her desire to help him escape.
The last part of the book returns Axane, Gyalo, and the others back to society where they are met with resistance and vitriol. Gyalo is banished as an apostate for having used his powers and in failing to bring the lost Âratists back to the modern ways, the Brethren take it upon themselves to destroy them themselves by using any means necessary.
This book is a triumph of storytelling, world building, and restraint of using magical powers. Yes, it’s fantasy, but it has this strange undercurrent of what it really means to be alive, to be given gifts of miraculous powers, and which side of the fence is greener.
Bottom Line: If you enjoy epic fantasies with lots of world building that will have you questioning what it means to have faith, then Strauss’s The Burning Lands is for you.
Victoria Strauss’s The Burning Lands is book one of a two book series on what it means to have faith, influence the corse of humanity, and love. In this book we are introduced to two societies: one who harnesses the uses of Shaping (the magical system employed in this series) and allows those who own it to be free from restraint and another who carefully uses the Shapers to craft a religious tradition built with restraint.
In this book, we meet Brother Gyalo, a devout monk of the Âratist order from the second society. He has been charged with the honor of going out into sacred land to discover whether or not a secular group of Âratists survived the oppression of the Caryaxt who ruled his country for almost three generations.
His travels take him and his entourage deep into the Burning Lands, a vast desert that cannot sustain people well. Misfortune hits and Brother Gyalo is forced to use his powers of shaping to help him and a few of his crew survive, an act that causes his order to cast him out as an apostate. He arrives, along with 2 other survivors to a huge underground cavern where the secular Âratists live. As their beliefs forked off from the main branch for 3 generations, they aren’t sure what to think of these outsiders. This is where we meet Axane, a girl who has the powers of Dreaming. She becomes entranced by Gyalo and his stories of the outside and declares her desire to help him escape.
The last part of the book returns Axane, Gyalo, and the others back to society where they are met with resistance and vitriol. Gyalo is banished as an apostate for having used his powers and in failing to bring the lost Âratists back to the modern ways, the Brethren take it upon themselves to destroy them themselves by using any means necessary.
This book is a triumph of storytelling, world building, and restraint of using magical powers. Yes, it’s fantasy, but it has this strange undercurrent of what it really means to be alive, to be given gifts of miraculous powers, and which side of the fence is greener.
Bottom Line: If you enjoy epic fantasies with lots of world building that will have you questioning what it means to have faith, then Strauss’s The Burning Lands is for you.
metaphorosis's review
3.0
reviews.metaphorosis.com
3 stars
After eighty years of atheist government, the church of Arata is slowly recovering its traditional place. Talented and powerful young monk Gyalo is sent to investigate rumours of an uncontrolled community far across the desert Burning Land, only to uncover truths about himself and his world that shake the foundation of his faith.
I first encountered Strauss' writing many years ago via her Arm of the Stone books, which I enjoyed, and which brought me to this duology. I'm sorry to say that I enjoyed The Burning Land less on re-reading than memory suggested.
The Burning Land is fundamentally about faith and devotion - a thoughtful exploration of belief and temptation. It approaches the subject from an essentially religious viewpoint, examining the emotional impact of doubt on a true believer, without really questioning whether belief is valuable overall. The result is, like Christian rock music, interesting, but slightly alien.
Strauss draws heavily on Christianity in this story - there are clear parallels in the religious storyline, just as the atheist Caryaxist government is a thinly disguised proxy for a Communist regime. It feels like a setup for a heavy-handed Message - and yet there isn't really one. The book is surprisingly entertaining despite its leanings.
While the book is focused largely on analysis of the feelings of Gyalo and Axane, a young woman he meets, there's a distance between us and them that makes the experience tend more toward intellectual than emotional. Gyalo is unflinching in confronting challenges to his beliefs, but he largely stays within that belief system - considering issues of heresy and apostasy. He touches only tangentially on larger questions about whether faith is warranted at all, making the book less substantive and engaging than it could have been. Strauss does better with his emotional responses, which feel both genuine and intriguing. She keeps a strict focus on religious and story-present-day elements - there's clearly an interesting backstory about Gyalo's youth, but he himself barely considers it.
The book starts with a formal religious structure that frankly is not interesting until it fits into the structure of the story. You're best off skipping the prologue and coming back to it after reading a chapter or two. The mythic/religious structure is in fact interesting, but only in context. Despite the story's foundation in religion, and Gyalo's constant consideration of it, the 'heresy' at the book's core never really hits home. We have to rely on Strauss' cues to know just how 'odious' it is. Given that this tension is a linchpin of the plot, the detail seemed surprisingly unimportant.
The story takes place soon after great political struggles, but references to the past are clumsy. Unlike, for example, Tamar Siler Jones' books, set in the aftermath of great battles but focused on the present, Strauss spends quite a lot of time setting out past events that are mildly interesting but substantially slow the story's progress. In the first third of the book, it seems as if every chapter has a long pseudo-flashback or info dump that should have been trimmed and blended in instead.
All in all, an interesting an unusual-for-fantasy direct look at faith and belief. If the story doesn't delve as deep as it might, it's still interesting, and a fairly solid adventure romance besides.
NB: Received free copy from Net Galley.
errantdreams's review
3.0
The reputation of the Burning Land as a place that has no sustaining resources, and that kills everyone who enters it, was too easily thrust aside once the expedition entered the lands. It made sense that most people wouldn’t be aware of the hidden resources of the desert, but for a while it came across as “everyone who enters this land dies… except that much of it is actually really easy to survive.” I expected at least a little bit of difficulty as they entered the area. That said, the Burning Land does eventually show its harsher side.
I enjoyed the basic core of characters in the book, including Gyalo and Axane, a Dreamer he meets while on his expedition. Gyalo is unusually firm in his faith without falling prey to many of the potential tropes in that area. Axane helped to keep me glued to the pages because I cared about what happened to her. A couple of the soldiers who accompanied Gyalo also show a surprising side of themselves. That said, some of the side characters are highly predictable and lack dimension. There’s never any question about how the order will treat Gyalo (or his companions) after he returns with his revelations. Nothing in that section was surprising, which made that portion of the book rather depressing.
There’s some great material in here exploring religion in interesting ways. The rules and strictures, the taboos, the heresies and outlooks… the main characters explore these things in thoughtful and interesting detail. With respect to dream interpretations, prophecies, etc. the book doesn’t make anything easy. There are plenty of things which are open to interpretation in all sorts of ways, and watching different characters come to different conclusions fascinated me. All of this added up to some great world-building.
Despite the occasional down-side, I very much liked The Burning Lands. It is not a fast-paced or action-filled book, and I found that to be just fine. The details of civilization, religion, and so on pulled me in until the very end, and I’d be interested to read the follow-on.
NOTE: Review book provided by publisher
For longer review including premise, visit my site: http://www.errantdreams.com/2015/02/review-the-burning-land-victoria-strauss/
I enjoyed the basic core of characters in the book, including Gyalo and Axane, a Dreamer he meets while on his expedition. Gyalo is unusually firm in his faith without falling prey to many of the potential tropes in that area. Axane helped to keep me glued to the pages because I cared about what happened to her. A couple of the soldiers who accompanied Gyalo also show a surprising side of themselves. That said, some of the side characters are highly predictable and lack dimension. There’s never any question about how the order will treat Gyalo (or his companions) after he returns with his revelations. Nothing in that section was surprising, which made that portion of the book rather depressing.
There’s some great material in here exploring religion in interesting ways. The rules and strictures, the taboos, the heresies and outlooks… the main characters explore these things in thoughtful and interesting detail. With respect to dream interpretations, prophecies, etc. the book doesn’t make anything easy. There are plenty of things which are open to interpretation in all sorts of ways, and watching different characters come to different conclusions fascinated me. All of this added up to some great world-building.
Despite the occasional down-side, I very much liked The Burning Lands. It is not a fast-paced or action-filled book, and I found that to be just fine. The details of civilization, religion, and so on pulled me in until the very end, and I’d be interested to read the follow-on.
NOTE: Review book provided by publisher
For longer review including premise, visit my site: http://www.errantdreams.com/2015/02/review-the-burning-land-victoria-strauss/
fortifiedbybooks's review
5.0
When I read the synopsis and then began reading the book itself, I was reminded of the kinds of stories that N.K. Jemisin is known for. That made me a little skeptical as to whether or not I would enjoy the book, since the two N.K. Jemisin books I’ve read were a bit boring to me. I don’t know how Victoria Strauss did it, but, with the exception of a couple slow points, her writing, story craft, and world building kept me engaged throughout the book. Also, towards the beginning of the book there were some details that led me to make a few predictions for how the story would turn out. However, every single one of them was wrong. Perhaps my research paper addled brain missed some signs and foreshadowing, but I can’t even remember the last time a book wasn’t at least a little predictable. Despite the unpredictability, the plot still made perfect sense. There was never anything that was confusing or made me turn back a page to reread and see if I missed something.
I recommend this book to everyone who loves Fantasy, especially if you happen to be a fan of N.K. Jemisin, or if you enjoyed her stories but found the telling to be lackluster. Though it didn’t bother me, I feel obligated to mention that The Burning Land does contain a rape scene. It’s towards the end of the book and, though it’s necessary to the story and not too graphic, may be an issue for some readers. In that case, I would still give the book a chance, since there’s enough “warning” before the scene, and it only takes up about a paragraph, so it’s easily skippable. Normally, I’d recommend otherwise, but this book is truly great and shouldn’t be missed.
I recommend this book to everyone who loves Fantasy, especially if you happen to be a fan of N.K. Jemisin, or if you enjoyed her stories but found the telling to be lackluster. Though it didn’t bother me, I feel obligated to mention that The Burning Land does contain a rape scene. It’s towards the end of the book and, though it’s necessary to the story and not too graphic, may be an issue for some readers. In that case, I would still give the book a chance, since there’s enough “warning” before the scene, and it only takes up about a paragraph, so it’s easily skippable. Normally, I’d recommend otherwise, but this book is truly great and shouldn’t be missed.
bookadventurer's review
Not interesting enough... may come back to it. Seems a complex, savoring book. I am way short on time to savor books.
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