This is a brutal book. It does not pull any punches, and it does not sugar-coat the pain and suffering contained within its pages. But that is exactly how it should be: for a fantasy that explores the horrors of colonialism and racism, this story hits all the right notes. You will feel things. And you won't always know exactly what those feelings are, because everything about this book--especially the portrayal of its characters--is fraught with realistic flaws and complexity. Throw in an asexual main character and an insistence on making characters face consequences for their bad decisions, and it should be obvious why I enjoyed the book so much.

My only quibble is that I would have appreciated if the narration alternated between Sigourney and Loren, rather than just showing Loren's telepathic understanding of Sigourney's mind. I think the narrative would have flowed a little better that way.

Oh, and one more thing. That ending? Damn. It was so good, but it HURT. I'm sure it will be polarizing and generate a lot of discussion going forward. But in my opinion, it was the right choice.

Kacen Callender is such a talented writer. I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

3.5

Thank you Orbit books and Caffeine Tours for providing me with an ARC.

This was much easier to read once I got over the visceral shock I had from the first book. It is once again a brutal read with characters that are perhaps too cruel (or naturally cruel, given the nightmares they endured) or too merciful and idealistic to lead a revolution, both of which make several fatal mistakes on the path to find freedom. Or perhaps the take away is the futility of matyrs for revolutions.

This should be read in companion with The Wretched of The Earth (which I haven't read yet but now will after seeing twitter posts which puts this book in context):

“in colonial countries only the peasantry is revolutionary. It has nothing to lose and everything to gain. The underprivileged and starving peasant is the exploited who very soon discovers that only violence pays. For him there is no compromise, no possibility of concession.”

“In its raw state this nonviolence conveys to the colonized intellectual and business elite that their interests are identical to those of the colonialist bourgeoisie and it is therefore indispensable, a matter of urgency, to reach an agreement for the common good.”

In this tale Callendar posits these two groups against each other and we see how their actions unfold in a revolution, the latter group becoming "surrogate oppressors" as established by the main oppressors, to paraphrase what Fanon said. The former group not being romanticised as is usually the case with fictional stories involving revolutions, being ready to die for a revolution, only accepting freedom when everybody is free. This is also not to say that the revolutionaries are pure. Curtains are pulled back on many characters and we see how war changes them, or rather how their true character is finally revealed, the deep effects of slavery and colonization on the mental psyche.

The writing style and world building is more of the same from the first and as a mystery I would have preferred a multiple POV that showed a cleverly woven plan rather than a rushed soliloquy at the end where all is revealed. However, this is a good book to be entered in a critical race theory reading list.

Let me preface this by saying that this is NOT for the faint at heart. Trigger and content warnings for this book are as follows: racism, slavery, death, torture, violence, rape and sexual assault. If you are not a fan of those in your book then don't read it. However, if you are not turned off by it I'd say it's an excellent book to read!

I had never gotten the chance to read the first book when it came out so I had to binge read both back to back and let me just say it wrecked me. I listened to the audiobook of Queen of the Conquered and I had feelings so I was expecting to feel all the feels and be wrecked. I was.

I adored that even though this wasn't a fast paced read, it read as if it were. The writing was easy to get into, the political drama added to the world and violence. I enjoyed the intensity of the drama and brutal experiences each of the characters had to go through. This made me feel so many feels from beginning to end. The struggles of each character felt authentic. The relationships and issues between characters felt real.

The dynamic between Sigourney and Loren continued to wreck me as the story progressed. There positions have changed, but they continue in this "dance" of emotions. I love that both are neither right nor wrong. They are morally grey characters trying to change things.

This duology is one that I truly enjoyed and has made me interested in reading more from Callender. The writing was superb, the world was amazing, the characters are dynamic. I highly recommend this book!

Freedom from slavery has a cost, not just in human lives but in the internal torture of mind and morality brought on by lifetimes spent in forced repudiation of one’s language, culture, religion and self-esteem. For an ex-slave to have a position of privilege in the midst of this history of oppression is all the more problematic. This is the reality permeating the powerful, riveting and brave novel King of the Rising, the second part of Kacen Callender’s brilliant Islands of Blood and Storm duology.


Like its predecessor, Queen of the Conquered, this Caribbean-inspired fantasy is told from a single point of view. In the first book it was that of Sigourney Rose, a mixed blood daughter of a well to do islander family who had managed to make herself a candidate to lead the Fjern dominated islands. The Fjern are a white skinned people who enslaved the native dark skinned inhabitants, taking from them everything, language, culture, even their name, referring to them only as slaves or islanders.

In King of the Rising we are inside the mind of Løren, the bastard son of a Fjern lord and an islander mother. This world becomes real to us primarily through his thoughts rather than through external description. That is because the two most important elements of his island world relate to internal struggles.

First, kraft or the mental magic a few people can exert, takes Løren inside the minds of most of the people he meets. That’s how we learn what is really at stake for each character. During a confrontation early in King of the Rising, Løren uses his power to try to calm an angry young man, all without saying a word or taking any outer action:

“I scoop my hands into the anger. It’s wet like white clay, molding in my hands and draining between my fingers until I’m only left with the sharp glass of his pain. I push the glass into my palms, wincing as I try to absorb the emotion. I can’t take all of it. His pain is inconsolable, with the depths of the sea. But I do take some of the burden from Georg.”
King of the Rising, ARC Kindle edition, location 268

Second, he, like most of the other characters, is always dealing with the internalized effects of a slave society. Løren has always had a somewhat privileged position as a mixed blood slave, but a slave nonetheless. He can never forget the way he was used, forced to kill on command, to abuse his own people or to allow himself to be raped by his masters. This is the twisted history that has filled the islanders with hate but also distorted the way each of them sees the possibilities of life.

Queen of the Conquered used a mystery trope to build suspense. The question was who is killing off prominent members of the Fjern? In King of the Rising there is a similar but less central device as the rebel islanders try to identify a secret informant who is revealing their plans ahead of time to the Fjern.

But the most intense drama is the struggle of the narrator in each book to find acceptance among the islanders. For Sigourney Rose that place was leadership in terms she understood from the Fjern, making herself queen over all the islands. For Løren, it is a more tortured journey to find a form of leadership that respects the truth of each person and shows understanding and mercy toward everyone.

The great question is whether or not either form of leadership will be accepted by the mass of the islanders. Løren has to navigate his way through a scheming world that suspects him of treachery every time he shows his humanity and disappoints those who want a decisive and ruthless leader.

To find his way, Løren uses his two-fold kraft. He can not only step inside the minds of others and hear their thoughts, giving him great understanding and empathy for what they are going through, even his enemies. He can also absorb the kraft of others, though he cannot use it as effectively as they do. He has taken on a shadow of Sigourney’s power to take control of people’s minds, even to the point of having them kill their allies or themselves. He has some of the healing kraft of another islander and the power to strategize of yet another.

These abilities could make him extremely powerful, but they just as often make his efforts to lead all the more complicated. His wish for the rebellion is that it offer true, inner freedom to all, while Sigourney is focused more on gaining power for herself.

It’s a powerful tension that leads to a wrenching climax. Much of this tension plays out in mental dialogues as Sigourney uses her power to get into Løren’s mind to convince him to help her. Their starkly different world views come out in one of these confrontations early in King of the Rising. As Løren summarizes the contrast to Sigourney in one of her intrusions into his mind:

“The only way you understand how to live in this world is how you’ve survived the Fjern. They are willing to steal and enslave and kill to fulfill their greed. That’s where we differ. We don’t need to take advantage of others to live. We rely on one another. Everyone is able to live because no one person prospers over another. There is no throne, there is no crown. There’s only our community and our people.”
King of the Rising, ARC Kindle edition, location 723

That might sound a bit didactic for a novel, but this story is anything but preachy. There is plenty of action, a lot of violence, intrigue among competing groups and suspense about the outcome that keep the pace going.

King of the Rising drew me in for the power of the fundamental drama it poses of how or whether a compassionate man can play a leading role in a bloody rebellion. Callender invests scenes of battle with the same intensity as the tortured inner confrontations Løren endures through the action of his kraft and his conscience. It’s a brilliant book. Hopefully it will be issued in compendium form with Queen of the Rising. Each can be enjoyed separately, but they really should be read together to get the full scope of this unforgettable story.

Originally published on SciFi Mind

While Queen of the Conquered was Sigourney’s story, King of the Rising is all Loren’s. There is a total shift in voice and perspective between the two, not fully making it books able to stand on their own, but making them distinct stories. And while Sigourney is still present for large parts of the book, she is not the one telling the story, which I think makes the book all the much stronger for it. I find her an incredibly interesting character, but I noticed that I prefer her particular brand of protagonist to be relegated to a side character as she starts grating on me over time. She is incredibly self-righteous and lacks a moral struggle aspect that is very present with Loren, and I think that is a large part of why I preferred having him at the centre of the narrative. I liked Queen of the Conquered, but I felt like I enjoyed King of the Rising more.

The tension is constantly kept high and there are no boring passages in the book. There is always something interesting happening, some kind of intrigue, some mystery among the islanders or the Fjern. These books are so well-written and unique, and I feel like they truly do the morally grey protagonist trope justice. I am constantly in awe of how good of an author Kacen Callender is – and I was very close to giving King of the Rising a rare five-star rating. Ultimately, I personally disliked the ending, but I also found it satisfying in some ways, and I’m not sure how it could have gone in different ways.

This duology – the ending of King of the Rising seems final and as far as I’m aware no further books have been announced – is not an easy read, as it deals with a lot of heavy subjects such as slavery, abuse and violence, but ultimately, despite addressing many bleak topics is a gripping and thought-inducing book, rather than one that makes readers shy away. However, do have a look at the content warnings above to see whether this is a book that is suitable for you.

King of the Rising begins shortly after Queen of the Conquered ends; however we are seeing the events through a new set of eyes: those of Løren. The story follows the rebel efforts of liberation from the oppressive Fjern presence of Hans Lollik after the islanders’ successful overthrowing of Hans Lollik Helle. The story unfolds at a leisurely pace as we follow attempts to grow forces and gain the upper hand, all while struggling with limited resources, and finding trustworthy proponents.
This series is a stellar commentary on slavery, its effects, and the fight for liberation. While the first book in the series dealt with Sigourney trying to rise up in the hierarchal ranks of the Kongelig while being viewed as lesser by the Fjern she held all the same rights as, and as a traitor by the other islanders, this book deals more with the plight of the islanders. Løren is an islander, though he too has Fjern blood and has suffered with being cast out by both the other islanders and his Fjern family, he has the lived experience of being an islander and slave unlike Sigourney. We see him struggle to make decisions that will allow his people their freedom without falling prey to the same tactics the Fjern employ – a similar issue Sigourney faced in Queen of the Conquered. Both stories focus on the different ways in which two people have fought for their freedom and rights, one through power, and the other through empathy and community.
I think my favourite aspect of King of the Rising is the characterisation. We get to meet and know more characters, spending more time with them and learning more about their history, and as a result being allowed a peek into the history of the different islands of Hans Lollik. This is mostly due to Løren being a more engaged and empathetic character than Sigourney. These two characters are foils of each other, and we are granted a comparison between the actions Sigourney took and the ones Løren takes with regards to leadership, power, and beliefs.
Along with excellent characterisation, the worldbuilding is expanded upon in this book. While we had a glimpse of some worldbuilding through Sigourney’s callbacks in book 1, there are some exciting and daunting travel scenes in book 2 that allow us a deeper insight into how the rest of this world allows the slavery and mistreatment of the islanders of Hans Lollik to thrive.
Callender masterfully weaves suspense and mystery into both instalments of this series - with Sigourney’s nightmares in Queen of the Conquered, and in a different yet just as unnerving way in King of the Rising. There are moments where you can feel the unease, but you aren’t sure if it’s a true fear to be held or the workings of Kraft and illusions. I really enjoyed these small moments in the story, they kept me on my toes while the story dives deeper into the bigger plot. Queen of the Conquered felt like a closed door (closed island?) mystery, but in King of the Rising the threats and mysteries are far-reaching.
I truly enjoyed this instalment – it held a lot of the most enjoyable aspects of the first book, while also upping the ante and being a more intense and engaging read. The Islands of Blood and Storm series by Kacen Callender tells a story of survival, fear, war, and oppression. It is a stunning tale of the lengths one will go to for power, and freedom, the ways in which oppression can forever alter the makeup of a society, complicit behaviour, and deftly handles the idea that there is no easy and gentle way to hold a revolution.

King of the Rising picks up after the fall of the island and is told from Løren’s point of view, Sigourney’s captor and ex-bodyguard, as the resistance begins to build. Where Sigourney is prideful and hate-fueled, Løren is idealistic and sympathetic. His powers act as a mirror, feeding off of the kraft of others, which allows him a special connection to he, and the book opens with him sparing her life, a decision that continues to spiral through the rest of the book.

“How can we claim to be different from Sigourney Rose? How can we claim to be different from the kongelig, or any of the Fjern, if we torture and kill without mercy, just as they’ve done to us?”
“We aren’t claiming to be different,” Malthe tells me. “We’re only claiming our freedom.”

Callender’s writing is, as always, wonderfully descriptive and sharp. I’ve read a few of Callender’s other books, but this series is completely unlike the joyful celebration in Felix Ever After, and instead leaves you with a dark, gritty feeling that packs such a punch in Callender’s first adult novels. The pacing leaves a bit to be desired, as there is a lot of introspection that does drag on at times (which was my biggest gripe with the first book), but it offers the reader a clear view into the characters’ minds and motivations. Both Sigourney and Løren are deeply flawed and painful characters who believe deeply in what they’re doing, and Callender fleshes them both out beautifully.

“Do you believe that the Fjern should be in power, then?” She asked. “Do you believe your only purpose in life should be to serve them?”
“No,” he told her. “We were meant to have our freedom. The Fjern stole that from us.”

The ending left me speechless, and is something I’ll probably have to ruminate on for a while. Compared to the first book, I felt that this was slower and more focused on the politics of the uprising, which really makes you think. This is not a fairy tale. It is brutal and cruel and uncomfortable, but also brilliant and fierce. Ultimately, they are both tragedies, and Callender notes that they are intended to spark conversation, saying “While Queen of the Conquered was a reflection on assimilation, asking questions about what it means to be oppressed while seeking power and privilege, King of the Rising asks what it will take to begin again, and whether we need to burn everything to the ground.”

Enjoyment: 3.5/5
Execution: 4/5
Final Rating: 3.75/5

King of the Rising is the second book in Kacen Callender's "Islands of Blood and Storm" duology, which began with last year's "Queen of the Conquered. Queen of the Conquered was my pick for best SF/F book of 2019 and it recently picked up the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. It was a tremendously (brutal to read) novel about a black woman in an enslaved/colonized group of islands (inspired by Callender's home of the US Virgin Islands) who uses her magic (mind controlling) and wits not to free her people, but to obtain power and vengeance instead, no matter the cost. Not to spoil anything before the jump, but it concluded with an absolutely devastating ending that made me both excited and terrified to see what Callender would do with a sequel that switched protagonists from someone so morally gray (to be generous) to someone actually good.

And King of the Rising delivers, with a continuation of the story that is just as tremendously powerful, but in a very different way. The story shift's focus to the perspective of Løren, the young man whose approval the last book's protag Sigourney tried to obtain...even as she held his reins as her slave. Løren is a very different protagonist in that he's somehow an idealist - having experienced the pains of slavery and seen all its horrors, he's determined that the result of their revolution will be a better world not constrained by the ruling attitudes of the Fjern slave masters...but as with the last book, this is not a series about the triumph of the good, and things do not go easily for him despite his good intentions. Add in a well done setting that shows us the perspectives of the various enslaved and formerly enslaved people on the Islands, and you wind up with another devastating novel, even if it has a few more flaws than its predecessor.

-----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------------
The revolution has begun, and the islanders have risen up against their Fjern masters on the Islands of Hans Lollik, with the capital island of Hans Lollik Helle falling to the islanders along with a few others as planned. But the Fjern have managed to get word of and fight back much of the uprising on at least a few of the islands, and still pose a formidable force in opposition...one whose response to revolution has been killing both guilty and innocent islander slaves alike, and who will show no mercy upon the revolution's leaders if they get their hands on them.

Løren finds himself now one of those leaders after the events on Hans Lollik Helle, even though he does not want to be. He's determined that their people's new way of governing, of living, will not be anything like the Fjern's, and that they will have no more masters. But his fellow leaders of the revolution don't all quite agree, and he finds himself in conflict with them over how to organize and run their forces....as the military and food situation becomes all the more dire, and the Fjern become more and more emboldened in their attacks.

Løren will soon be forced to trust the one woman he absolutely cannot: Sigourney Rose, the black woman with the dangerous Kraft of controlling the mind who tried to rise up to the head of the Kongelig, the Fjern's noble class, and who cared not for her own people, but only for her own power and vengeance. Løren's own Kraft has given him a connection with Sigourney, and tied their powers and together and, when he releases Sigourney to act as a spy on their enemy, he finds that not only their powers, but their fates will be tied together as well......
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King of the Rising is similar book in mood to Queen of the Conquered - this is not a happy or optimistic story in any sense - but is also a very very different book in how it works. Part of that is the big different in attitudes between Løren and Sigourney - sure Løren has a white parent, but he was never allowed to think - by his father or brother - that he was one of the Fjern, through beatings and worse, whereas Sigourney was raised by a family who tried to claim that she and them were Fjern themselves, despite the color of their skin. As a result, Løren not only knows himself to be an Islander, a black man, rather than a Fjern, but also believes that there has to be a difference between the two for that distinction to matter. Sigourney felt that she deserved a superior station, because that was the Fjern mindset, but Løren believes that no one deserves such, and that there has to be another way - a way where people can live and work together in kindness, rather than out of compulsion and cruelty.

But that's not the whole way that King of the Rising differs, because Løren's ability allows him, and thus the reader, to see not just the way he sees the world, but those around him as well. Løren possesses the ability to borrow or interfere with another's Kraft (magic) - and that ability has strengthened thanks to all that time around Sigourney's mind controlling Kraft, allowing him to read the minds of those around him. As a result, Løren, and thus the reader, gets to see inside the minds of the other Islanders fighting for freedom and their differing views of the sort...and why they have that - why they might borrow the Fjern's methods of enforcing loyalty through force, why they might desperately seek help from outsiders, why they may keep the gods of their captors - or for those not on the side of the rebellion, why they might try to continue to work for their masters, even as they hate them, and might curse the rebellion at the very same time. It's a fascinating look at the setting and the characters and the people who are so emblematic of the real history these books draw from, and it furthers the plot and Løren along from beginning to end as he discovers more (and as he sees occasional non-Islanders through the same power, in one notable sequence).

This all helps guide a tremendously powerful, albeit quite frequently depressing, plot. Løren seeks to lead his people through good, through kindness and caring, but the world is not set up to reward such behavior, and things do not go necessarily well as a result. People with the same overall goals demand he go further, and sometimes try to force his hand, and that's to say nothing of people without the same goal, whether or not they be Islanders. And while their rebellion may be a just cause, it relied heavily upon the element of surprise allowing for a quick takeover of all the islands...something that was not wholly successful, leaving them in dire straits to a certain extent. Add in a potential traitor among the revolt's leadership, to say nothing of honest disagreements about methods, and you have a compelling plot that shows the perils, danger, deaths, and horrors of a rebellion against a powerful evil force in a world that is realistic rather than idealistic. Whereas Queen of the Conquered featured a protagonist whose goals might've been achievable but would have been ultimately meaningless once achieved, King of the Rising features a protagonist and supporters whose goals would mean everything but just might not be achievable. And it's tremendous almost from beginning to end as a result.

The book has some issues which I think knock it down a slight notch from its predecessor. For the second straight book, the book includes a mystery subplot - in this case involving a mysterious traitor who the reader knows (but Løren doesn't) is somehow wiping Løren's memory of seeing him. And for the second straight book, this subplot is more distracting from the far more interesting remainder - except unlike the last book, which makes the mystery pay off in the end, King of the Rising really doesn't, with the reveal coming as little more than a whimper than a bang. Also, I'm not sure if one aspect of the ending really comes forth logically from the setup, with it seeming to jump from point A to point C without covering point B in between, due to Løren's perspective keeping us away from the events in between. I'm also not sure if the thematic resonance of that ending works....but it bears thinking about.*

*Spoiler in ROT13: V'z gnyxvat urer bs pbhefr, nobhg Fvtbhearl'f sngr. Fur tbrf sebz orvat xabjvatyl znavchyngrq ol gur srne Xensg bs n Swrea aboyr naq va qver fgenvgf, pbaivapvat urefrys gung ure bayl pubvpr vf gb orgenl gur vfynaqref ol yrnqvat gur Swrea sbeprf ntnvafg gurz...gb orvat va cbyr cbfvgvba jvgu ure arjyl-nyyvrq obqlthneq gb xvyy gur pheerag yrnqre bs gur Swrea sbeprf naq gb gura hfr ure Xensg naq vasyhrapr gb ertnva n cbfvgvba va cbjre whfg nf fur'q bevtvanyyl vagraqrq ng gur raq bs gur svefg obbx. Gur whzc whfg frrzf noehcg orpnhfr jr qba'g frr Fvtbhearl'f bja zvaq nf fur chyyf vg bss.

Naq gura gurer'f gur dhrfgvba bs jurgure guvf npghnyyl jbexf, fvapr vg xvaq bs haqbrf gur erfhyg bs gur svefg obbx - gung Fvtbhearl qbrfa'g trg gur cbjre fur penirf, n cbjre fur pna arire ernyyl unir orpnhfr gur Swrea jvyy arire gehfg ure qhr gb ure Oynpxarff, naq ure bja Oynpx crbcyr jvyy erwrpg ure sbe gelvat gb or bar bs gur znfgref vafgrnq bs gelvat gb fnir gurz. Urer Fvtbhearl QBRF jvaq hc jvgu gur cbjre - rira vs fur qbrf nyfb unir gung ernyvmngvba gung zhpu bs vg vf zrnavatyrff. Jvgubhg Fvtbhearl'f cbvag bs ivrj gb fubj ubj rzcgl vg nyy vf, V'z abg fher vg ernyyl jbexf sbe zr.

In short, however, King of the Rising is an absolutely tremendous novel, one which made me scream in so many feelings upon its conclusion. Both it and its predecessor make up one hell of a must read of a duology, even if not one for the faint of heart.

I didn't love KING OF THE RISING as much as book 1, QUEEN OF THE CONQUERED. I'm really sad, because the writing is great as always, but some of the plot threads didn't resolve in an entirely satisfactorily way. :(