Like an alchemist, Sofia Samatar spins golden landscapes and dazzling sentences. The Winged Histories, a sequel to the World Fantasy Award-winning A Stranger in Olondria, is set amid an empire-spanning civil war, with vampires and mythical beasts adding a layer of luster. But the real sheen of this novel is its author's skill as a builder--of worlds, of characters as rounded as they are flawed, and of sentences with the elaborate construction of cathedrals.
As in the best fantasy novels, Samatar's inventive details ultimately serve to further her characters. The Winged Histories is set in Olondria, and populated by fantastical phenomena, like the winged bird that adorns the cover: it reeks of death, but can carry passengers through the sky. This world contains more familiar elements, too: neglectful and abusive parents; stigma against same-sex relationships; power struggles fueled by religious divisions. The story is divided into sections narrated by four women: a female army captain, Tav; her lover, a tribal girl from the plains; Tav's socialite sister; and the imprisoned daughter of a cult priest. Nearly every detail in this narrative exists in service of asking how is history written and by whom?
The Winged Histories is a fantasy novel for those who take their sentences with the same slow, unfolding beauty as a cup of jasmine tea, and for adventurers like Tav, who are willing to charge ahead into the unknown. --Linnie Greene, freelance writer