Also known as the Dark Gifts trilogy. I bought the first while at the recent BSFA meeting where Vic James and Lucy Hounsom, another fantasy author, interviewed each other. I enjoyed their conversation so much that I bought the first book in each of their trilogies.
I donât read fantasy much, and I donât really care for dystopias in SF, as Iâve mentioned before. So this being a fantasy dystopia, it shouldnât really appeal to me.
But it turns out itâs great.
Apparently it was pitched in jest as âDownton Abbey meets Game of Thrones in a world where Voldemort won.â And… yeah, I guess. I havenât read or seen Game of Thrones, and the time period is more-or-less present day. And none of the magical people (or Skilled âEqualsâ) is as out-and-out evil as Voldemort. But itâs not a bad description of the setup.
The idea is that there are people with magical abilities â referred to as âSkillâ â and they are the aristocracy and rule the country. Or at least they have since Charles the First and Last was killed by one of the Skilled, and they â also known as âEquals,â ironically â took over running the country. Britain is an âEqual Republic.â One thing that annoyed me at first is that there is no mention of what happened to Scotland. It appears to be part of Britain in the present day, but Charles the First (in our reality) was before the Acts of Union. Although not before the Union of the Crowns, so I suppose the Equals just took over Scotland too, by getting rid of the monarchy.1
Anyway, the worst part about the rule of these magical Equals is âSlavedays,â wherein everyone is required to spend ten years of their lives as slaves. They get some choice in when they do it, but while youâre doing it youâre a slave, with everything that implies.
I found it hard to cope with the idea that people would just quietly accept this state of affairs. But I suppose if itâs been that way all your life, and itâs the law of the land… But I couldnât help but think, wouldnât people revolt against it?
Not surprisingly, of course, a trilogy like this is not about the maintenance of the status quo.
Itâs really good. Well worth a read.
- Something of which under normal circumstances I would heartily approve, of course. But not the way itâs described here. [↩]