Magic is poisonous, especially in the once-great city of Khaim where a thick toxic bramble springs up every time a spell is cast, threatening the lives of the citizens and crumbling their buildings into dust. That is why anyone who is caught using magic is publicly executed by edict of the tyrannical Jolly Mayor (even though he continues to use magic for his own sinister purposes). But still, the ferocious brambles keep on spreading…
The Tangled Lands is comprised of four short stories – The Alchemist and The Children of Khaim written by Paolo Bacigalupi, and The Executioness and The Blacksmith’s Daughter written by Tobias S. Buckell. The only connection between the novellas is that they take place within the same universe and occasionally touch upon shared events and characters, but in every other respect they are almost completely independent of each other.
The Alchemist, whose daughter is slowly dying from an infection caused by the seeds of the bramble, has developed a device to kill the bramble and make magic safe again. The Executioness, who has been forced to continue in her executioner father’s footsteps, is pursuing the raiders who took her children. The harrowing outcome of both these stories is explored in The Children of Khaim, when a young man is forced to take increasingly more desperate action if he is going to save his ailing sister from the comatose-like near-death caused by the brambles, and then – in The Blacksmith’s Daughter – a young woman risks everything to rescue her parents when a deal concerning a new suit of armour goes badly wrong.
From that extremely brief synopsis of all four short stories, it’s easy to see where The Tangled Lands biggest problem lies. Although the opening novella – The Alchemist – neatly sets the scene and lays out all the rules of the city and its magic, the other three stories don’t really add very much to the mix. In fact, there’s nothing here we haven’t read (or seen) before. The Executioness tries hard to explore loss and motherhood but gets derailed once the protagonist learns that her executioner’s axe comes in pretty handy during a fight, and The Children of Khaim starts off well but is ultimately too brief for its own good. As for The Blacksmith’s Daughter – although it’s the best (and grimmest) of the four stories, it doesn’t feel as if it belongs in this collection. It’s dark and complex and it’s a shame that the authors didn’t jettison the first three tales and concentrate on developing this one into a novel instead.
Ultimately, like many short story collections, The Tangled Lands doesn’t quite add up to the sum of its parts but it’s always well-written and at least two of those parts – The Alchemist and The Blacksmith’s Daughter – are well worth taking a closer look at. Recommended, but with some knotty reservations.
THE TANGLED LANDS / AUTHOR: PAOLO BACIGALUPI, TOBIAS S. BUCKELL / PUBLISHER: SAGA PRESS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
