Saint Death's Daughter

A charming book but it took 50 pages of patience to get some traction. Is this the best fantasy novel I have ever read? No. Is this the best fantasy novel have read in a good long while: yes (like since The Bright Sword). It’s a big long soap opera about a necromancer, a girl necromancer named Miscellaneous “Lanie” Stones, a girl necromancer who likes to wear pink, orange and enjoys reanimating mice into cute little mouse skeletons. Its not all fun and games though, in the course of the novel Lanie’s sister (Amanita Muscaria Stones) is murdered by magical assassins sent by the Blackbird queen and then Lanie’s niece, Datu, is threatened and Lanie must go into hiding to learn more powerful magic and plot her revenge.

This is not your daddy’s necromancer! (For me, 45 years ago, my first necromancer was Elric of Melnibone and there is no comparison.)

The prose is fine is littered with rhyming couplets. Additionally there is the long running gag around the names of Lanie’s relatives, for example her sister, Amanita Muscaria, is very appropriately named for a mushroom that has allegedly been used to create viking berserker warriors. I mentioned that it took some pages to get traction in part that is because the prose engages in word play and it part it is because the story revolves around an extensive magical mythos that takes some time, as a reader, to absorb. Besides the magical background there are quite a few well defined characters that make the story and dialog easy to follow. Mostly the prose rolls along at a pleasant pace there was one stretch of about two chapters where the author seemed to dwell on, to revel in, her very gender fluid characters and I thought this could have been streamlined. (but the overall gender fluidity of the milieu is a large part of the novel so who am I to bitch. )

Anyway, this is the first book of a duology and I am pretty sure I will read the sequel when I gather a little energy.