Four destinies collide in a unique fantasy world of war and wonders, where empire is won with enchanted steel and magical animal companions fight alongside their masters in battle.NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • Tordotcom • Kirkus Reviews A soldier with a curse Tala lost her family to the empress’s army and has spent her life avenging them in battle. But the empress’s crimes … life avenging them in battle. But the empress’s crimes don’t haunt her half as much as the crimes Tala has committed against the laws of magic . . . and against her own flesh and blood.
A prince with a debt
Jimuro has inherited the ashes of an empire. Now that the revolution has brought down his kingdom, he must depend on Tala to bring him home safe. But it was his army who murdered her family. Now Tala will be his redemption—or his downfall.
A detective with a grudge
Xiulan is an eccentric, pipe-smoking detective who can solve any mystery—but the biggest mystery of all is her true identity. She’s a princess in disguise, and she plans to secure her throne by presenting her father with the ultimate prize: the world’s most wanted prince.
A thief with a broken heart
Lee is a small-time criminal who lives by only one law: Leave them before they leave you. But when Princess Xiulan asks her to be her partner in crime—and offers her a magical animal companion as a reward—she can’t say no, and she soon finds she doesn’t want to leave the princess behind.
This band of rogues and royals should all be enemies, but they unite for a common purpose: to defeat an unstoppable killer who defies the laws of magic. In this battle, they will forge unexpected bonds of friendship and love that will change their lives—and begin to change the world.
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It’s only Paul Krueger’s second book and already he’s writing fantasy like a master. Steel Crow Saga is fun, funny, thrilling, heartbreaking, and, above all else, something only Krueger could’ve written.
Inventive, action-packed, and set in an Asian-inspired world that feels both fresh and familiar: This is a book I’ve always wanted but never had until now.
You’re going to love cheering for these characters as they fight for honor, love, family, and country. This world of steel and souls completely transported me. It’s a hexbolt to the heart.
The review that got me interested in this book was: “A love letter to adventure anime.” And it was so right. This was definitely an adult book (I see it recced as YA a lot, which?), but it brought back a lot of what I loved about watching anime and cartoons as a kid: the larger-than-life characters, the immense magical powers, and the great settings. I’m not the only one to liken it to Avatar: The Last Airbender or Pokemon, but really those are the two most accurate comparisons, and because they are two massive phenomenons that have imprinted themselves on our cultural consciousness, Steel Crow Saga feels like coming home.
Paul Krueger has done such a great job creating a three-dimensional world, heavily inspired by Asia and its various cultures. Each kingdom in this book has a detailed history, with each of them having a detailed language, culture, and type of magical ability. The novel deals a lot with post-war fallout between countries, and how nations can begin to rebuild themselves after being destroyed, and with this theme comes a conversation about international and individual forgiveness. The novel revolved entirely around breaking the cycle of abuse and choosing to be better than ones forebearers, and when our characters include a prince and a soldier, this theme can have resounding consequences. The Asian-inspired fantasy also has a great queer cast, with a f/f romance that is written with so much love its impossible not to root for the unlikely couple.
My only issue with the book is that is feels like its much longer than it needs to be. There are admittedly four different POVs that all need development, but the beginning of the novel feels like it took a really long time to find its footing. Once things got going, it was fine, but you do have to wait for the payoff a little longer than was probably necessary. But the ending is definitely worth it.
Much thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me a digital copy of this book.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy. I voluntarily reviewed this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
Steel Crow Saga
By: Paul Krueger
*REVIEW*
I’ve been on a run lately of okay books, but nothing I really love. Steel Crow Saga is yet another in this pile. Actually, if I had read that it was like Pokemon meets Airbender beforehand, I never would have requested it. That’s not my thing at all. I could not connect with this story or the characters. It’s long winded and too introspective with numerous characters to keep track of everywhere. There is a large audience, I know, for this exact type of story, and I do believe it will be wildly successful with those readers. I’m the wrong audience, however, and I found the whole thing flat.
A rollicking adventure that wears its heart on its sleeve, and a joyful ode to its anime influences.
An incredible voice, an amazing conflict, and a hot mess of emotions… Krueger has taken one earth-shattering step and a thousand stories will grow in his footprint.
Pokémon combined with Avatar: The Last Airbender . . . clever, stylish, and gloriously fun.
I voluntarily offered to review this book with no obligations and my opinions are honest!
This was a great book !
For Tala + Jimuro + Xiulan + Lee, each has their own demons.
For this book, we delve into their world and their common purpose.
They should have been enemies, but a greater good will band them together.
It has all the ingredients that you need for a great book!
I can’t wait for the next book in this series.
I like this book . . . I wanted to LOVE it, but it was slow moving for me with excessively overwritten scenes making it unnecessarily long. I felt myself skipping pages (which is paramount to sacrilegious to me) because I just wanted something to happen. While the characters were well thought-out and complex and the storyline was intriguing enough to get me reading, its overly padded pages had me I struggling to continue to the end.
I read a lot of books, short and long in length, so I have no problem with length. But I get frustrated when words aren’t used to convey their point, whether it be descriptive for a scene or narrative for a character. This book suffers from superfluous wordage and scenes.
**I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.**
I have noticed a couple of themes in the books that I have been reading lately. The first one is that I saw is the plenty of strong female characters. The second is that Japanese/Chinese based fantasy is becoming more popular. Both caught my attention when I read the blurb for Steel Crow Saga. I am happy to say that I loved Steel Crow Saga!! It was a fantastic read.
Steel Crow Saga has four separate plotlines. Usually, that would be an issue for me. I lose focus on many plotlines. But, in this book, it wasn’t an issue. The author was able to keep all four plotlines separated. I had no problem keeping them straight. I also loved that while the plotlines did get merged towards the end of the book, they were still separate.
The characters in Steel Crow Saga were well written and well fleshed out. That made the book so much more enjoyable for me to read. I did have my favorite characters in the book. I loved Lee and Xiulan, separately and together. I also did like Tala and Jimuro, but Lee and Xiulan captured my heart.
The fantasy angle of the book was amazing!! I loved how shadepacting worked. To have an animal bond that close to you must be amazing. But I also could see why it was done with only animals and not humans. I thought having the bad guy having hundreds of shades was great. I also liked that the characters could steal the shades from other people. I liked it.
Another part of the book that I loved was the LGBT representation in the book. Xiulan and Lee had feelings for each other. Jimuro’s oldest friend was a transgender man. Mang, Tala’s brother, was gay. Lee, and I believe Jimuro, were bisexual. I loved it!!
I have read reviews where this book was compared to The Last Airbender and Pokemon. I did get the Pokemon vibe while reading it but I didn’t get The Last Airbender vibe. Shrugs.
I also liked that each race was a different Asian country. China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and India were represented. Doing that added more depth to the book. There also could be more countries that I didn’t pick up on.
There was a lot of violence and death in Steel Crow Saga. It didn’t bother me (violence in books usually don’t). But some people are bothered by violence. Unfortunately, this book couldn’t be told without the violence.
Tala and Mang’s relationship was one of the saddest ones that I have read to date. My heart broke several times whenever their relationship came up. The author also explains how he became a shade. Again, talk about my poor heartbreaking. I was in tears. What Mang asked Tala to do was awful, and it shaped her for the rest of her life.
The end of Steel Crow Saga was interesting. It was interesting because while the main storylines ended, the author left room for another book. I am curious to see what will happen with Tala and Jimuro, especially after what was revealed. I am also interested to see where Lee and Xiulan’s relationship will go. Also, I want to know what will happen with the different countries now that the war is over. I can’t wait for book 2 to come out!!
OMG WHAT DID I JUST READ???
If you’re looking through these reviews wondering whether you should pick up & read this book, here’s your sign: FUCK YES PICK IT UP AND READ IT!!!
I just finished reading it 2 seconds ago and came RIGHT to review it while I still have tears in my eyes from the ending, so if my thoughts are completely jumbled please forgive me!!
So let me break it down for you, try to make this understandable because there are a LOT of moving parts in this story. We are dealing with 5 ASIAN INSPIRED nations/races:
1. Tomoda – METAL PACTING, any metal or steel moves, bends, warms & cools, at their will. Metal control is their “superpower”
2. Shang and Sanbuna – both separate nations with separate cultures, but both ANIMAL PACT. They pair with an animal and then the animal is like a cross over between a companion & slave. The animal is at the person’s will, but also still keeps its individual personality if that makes sense.
3. Dahal – INTERNAL PACTING, makes them faster and better fighters and healers. Very merchant based country. We don’t get too much of them in this novel, but I have a strong feeling we will see a lot more of them later on in the series.
4. Jeongson -the minority, the underdogs. They can technically animal pact but their people were stripped of that privilege. They are sort of the scapegoat for the other countries, it seems everyone kinda hates them for no reason other than racism.
The Tomodese hate Shang & Sanbuna because they believe animal pacting is slavery and evil (which I honestly kind of see their point, even though the animal pacters we meet aren’t inherently evil, there is something very dark about a living thing being at your will). So the Tomodese invade Shang & Sanbuna and try to squash their culture and heritages while stealing all of their metal resources. They win the first wars and occupy for a little while, but then a revolution comes and Shang & Sanbuna free themselves of Tomoda. And that’s about where the story starts, the negotiations between the nations after those two wars.
Alright so then where do the characters fit into this setting?
Tala and Mang -Sanbunas, both animal pacters. Brother & sister. This isn’t a spoiler bc you find out within the first 10% of the story: but Mang dies and Tala, in order to save him, does something very bad and pacts with him as if he was an animal (so now he’s more or less at her will). Tala is a respected Sanbuna soldier & Sergeant and HATES the Tomodanese, but is ironically sent on a mission to deliver the Tomoda Iron King, Jimuro, safely back to Tomoda for peace negotiations between their nations.
I personally loved the two of them.
“At the end of the world, there would be the cockroaches, and there would be Tala, their fearsome warrior-queen.”
Tala was a favorite, she is a warrior at heart, she loves the fight and she lives FOR the fight. She blurs the lines between good & bad, her hate for Tomoda and love of violence often blurs her vision, but throughout the novel we can see that she’s genuinely trying her best not to be a force of evil. You grow to really like her despite the shades of grey she shows morally, and she was just a fascinating and REAL character to follow.
Jimuro – prince of Tomoda, next in line as the Iron King. His ruling family gets murdered, he’s the last royal bloodline member of Tomoda, and he gets captured by Sanbuna after the revolution. He’s put on a ship under Tala’s command to return home for negotiations for peace.
Jimuro is the most important piece of the game board in this story.
“‘You’re the most valuable beating heart on this shitheap of an island,’ Lee said. ‘I could take you to any street corner in the country, start the bidding at ten thousand masu, and someone would offer me twenty.’”
Jimuro has the BIGGEST FUCKING CHARACTER ARC EVER!! When I first started reading this story I HATED HIM, I thought he was an annoying little shit. But his character grows SO damn much that by the end of the book he was genuinely one of my favorite characters and rulers of all time. I love that at the beginning of the book he constantly throws himself in dangerous situations and you’re led to believe that it’s because he thinks his royal ass is invisible, but you later learn that there’s just so much more to him:
“I thought a dead hero would be worth more to the people of Tomoda than a living fool. I thought the world would be better off without me.”
He truly cares about his people, he’s truly open minded; and i loved his vulnerability and how hard he tries to overcome his fears, his past, and his losses to be the ruler that he dreams of being.
“I never even got to say goodbye to my family, and now I have to carry on their legacy all by myself. And if I fail, my whole country pays the price for it. What if I can’t be the Steel Lord they need? What if everyone at these peace talks is just setting me up to fail?”
Xiulan: princess of Shang, animal pacter. She wants her sister’s throne, so she sets out on a personal mission to capture the Iron King Jimuro to deliver to her father so that she gets bumped up the line of succession.
I identified most with Xiulan of all the characters, she’s the one I hold closest to my heart. Not only because she absolutely loathes mushrooms as I do, but because I truly relate to her. She reads a lot, and she dreams of going out and being like the characters in her books, which is how she becomes entangled in the book. She’s very hard on herself, she sets very high expectations for herself and often curses & degrades herself when things just don’t go her way. She talks a LOT… me too Xiulan. She always plans out how conversations might go, (I call them “scripts”) like one talks to themselves in the shower and plans out arguments, same.
I just love her. She’s the least well equipped of all the characters, not particularly strong or powerful, but she keeps her wits about her the entire book and claws through every problem she faces.
“This was merely something else to be overcome, just as she’d clawed through everything else in her way.”
I also like that Xiulan is not inherently a GOOD person, but tries her hardest to be.
“Xiulan had already worked so hard to undo her prejudices just by taking the woman on as her partner, and this choice had rewarded her in all the best ways. She refused to regress now.”
I really related to this as well, I sometimes have my own prejudices & not so nice thinking, but I try my hardest to undo them. It feels good to read of someone fighting like I am to be a force of good, despite everything.
Lee – Jeongsonese, thief & criminal. She gets tangled up with Xiulan, in which the two of them embark on the journey to capture Iron King Jimuro from Tala & Mang.
Lee was very entertaining, though she was my least favorite character of the bunch. I didn’t NOT like her, she was funny and witty and brought good diversity in the story. She’s Jeongsonese, part of the oppressed nation I’ve mentioned, and everybody treats her like shit.
“‘Jeongsonese? I thought you people killed all those dogfuckers.’”
But, she doesn’t use this as self pity, she uses it to her advantage. She’s very dynamic and is constantly fighting the part of herself that is telling her to just run away from the problems at hand and hide, but she always ends up staying to help Xiulan (who, bless Xiulan’s heart, refuses to back down). I love that she felt real, not everybody is keen on fighting and being in the middle of things, but her loyalty abides all else.
This is really like an Asian Game of Thrones, but with hella lot more magical aspects to it. You get these characters, all different races and countries and powers, all with motives and goals, and their storylines interweave PERFECTLY and EPICLY.
I loved the writing style as well!! I always think of myself too picky when it comes to writing style because I love metaphors and imagery, but in a careful balance. Stories with TOO many details jumble my brain; and that’s why I enjoy metaphors & comparisons, not only because they’re beautiful but they make descriptions short and to the point.
“And while Xiulan bobbed and bounced like the lid on a boiling pot of rice, Ruomei moved through the world with the calculated grace of a surgeon’s knife parting flesh.”
There is such BEAUTIFUL imagery throughout this story, such thorough descriptions it feels as if you’re rolling in the grass of Tomoda. Each character has their distinct thoughts and views on the world that you always know which point of view you’re in.
I’m truly fangirling over this because even though you have so many moving parts in the story, you still have AMAZING characters and writing! They are all unique, all flawed, all distinct, and I loved/hated all of them. You really get to see this new world from a bunch of different eyes: the oppressed Jeongsonese, the self righteous Shangs, the rebel Sanbunas, the power hungry Tomodanese. It was sooooOooOo epic from start to finish!!!!
Highly recommend, CANNOT EFFING WAIT FOR THE SEQUEL!!!!