The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
Publisher – Hodderscape
Published – Out now
Price – £10.99 paperback £5.99 ebook
Win the throne or destroy an empire. Either way, it begins with murder.
After twenty-four years, the Emperor of Orrun's reign is at an end. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven exceptional warriors, trained at rival monasteries, will compete to replace him.
Then one of them is murdered.
It falls to the brilliant but idiosyncratic scholar Neema Kraa to investigate. But as she hunts for a killer, darker forces are gathering . . .
I quite like to want to turn the page when reading. It suggests the story is working. When I get fully immersed into a story you can get totally immersed and then sometimes you can get stuck. Reading Antonia Hodgson’s epic fantasy novel, The Raven Scholar was a very mixed bag of a story delivering huge amounts of fun, twists and turns but occasionally pushing the limits of my belief to be suspended. It’s a reading experience I would say worth a go but with a huge number of caveats.
Orrun is run by an all-powerful Emperor and after the accustomed twenty-four years on the throne its is time for Bergun to relinquish his power and a a new leader to be appointed. Among the eight power groups of the world a champion is put forward. They gather in the capital and will go through a series of tasks devised by each champion to test their wits, strength and fitness to lead. Neema Kraa is one of the Raven group, that is known for their love of knowledge. She is very much an outsider even to her own people and works quietly for the Emperor putting together his banquet to welcome the guests. But the Raven’s champion is found murdered and suddenly Neema has only a few days to uncover the culprit or else she remains the prime suspect. The Emperor suddenly announcing that she also will represent the Ravens in the contest too then only makes her day worse. Neema is also unaware bigger moves are underway that could very much destroy the world as she knows it.
The prologue for this book sets a shocking tone as we meet a character, get a neat summary of the world and then things go massively wrong for the character we may initially had thought is going to be our main character in the story. It is played beautifully and I very much dare you to stop reading after that. It exemplifies the things I enjoyed about the story. The intricacy of the plotting, the way charvers here have a lot of surprises and an ability to turn the tables at a moment’s notice. It also helps Neema enter the story as simply down to her excellent handwriting she is about to do something at the indirect cost of someone’s life to advance. This is another theme of the book - ambition and how far people go for power. Neema is simply looking though for a chance to get out of the low tier she is stuck in rather than a grimdark take no prisoners so fear not. All of this sets up the main events nearly a quarter century later but as an opening to story I think you’ll enjoy this.
What then follows is a story confined mainly to the Emperor’s location for the contest and is unusually for fantasy more intrigue than huge armies and battles for the most part. There are eight different groups against one another, and each is presented by an animal god that captures a sense of the people hence ravens are about knowledge, fixes tend to be chaos, hounds are loyal etc etc. There are hence lots of rivalries and focused on a group of thirtysomething challengers like Neema all trying to win the throne. Hodgson makes this work through the act of narration and unusually the reader starts to realise that the voice of our narrator is not one of the main characters but this is a reveal too far but the ultimate revelation again is highly unusual and will keep you interested t see how this actually works within the story.
I do like Neema an unusually heavily introverted main character and who loves finding things out and also telling everyone what she knows too. She is socially awkward yet sympathetic and perhaps now sees ambition is not the most important thing in town. Suddenly thon into an investigator role she is actually good at working through clues but also not a warrior. She is finally reunited with her former lover Cain who fell out with Neema about her and now they have a very spiky frenemy feels about their interactions (you may shout just kiss you fools).
On the one hand I think there is a lot to enjoy. This is very much a big intricate dramatic story - imagine a big anime show where all the main characters have special skills, factions, secrets and alliances and hatreds to investigate but thrown in gods, big magic and Champions of Gods. It all leads to a big reveal tying a lot of the plotlines together and sets up the two books to come. Ultimately though I do think it is perhaps a little too intricate.
There are eight houses, eight main characters then on top of that various leaders, family members and confidants. That’s a lot to pull together and even though the hardback is nearly 650 pages I felt the story struggle to really make the characters not just fall into think archetypes. Yes, everyone has a secret side to them but little depth. Ultimately this is a very complicated way to rule a country, and I can help think universal suffrage would be a better thing for everyone and that’s when I just start thinking this all feels plot devices more than a realistic world that people actually consider how it works as an actual country. It is very glossy and yet for me feels very weighted down. Here is something else, then another and then another and ultimately it feels a little over engineered, and I felt a little weary at yet another revelation to take note of. It’s a bit like a eating a large meringue very ornate but perhaps a little too much sugar rush in huge bites for my tastes.
I think The Raven Scholar is worth your attention, but I don’t think it will work for everyone and I would say its more for those seeking fun and twists more than something a bit deeper at exploring power as this is a very weird way to find a leader. Ultimately, I did not feel enough to eagerly await book 2 but I think others will eat this up with a grin.
