I’m reading my Cybils nominations far faster than I’m able to blog them, but here are two recent reads that I really enjoyed, both classic epic fantasies with unconventional twists.

Abeni’s Song by P. Djèlí Clark. Starscape, 2023. ISBN 978-1250825827. Read from a library copy.

Abeni has grown up content in her quiet village in the jungle, secure in her family. She’s looking forward to the harvest festival on her birthday – the day the story opens – and her coming of age the following year.  The only sign that things might be changing is that she and all the other children she knows have woken up from dreams of a song. But this year the normal excitement is shattered – first by the old woman the village calls a witch, who comes in telling the village elders – the elders! – that they have ignored her warning for too long and danger is upon them.  Before Abeni knows what’s happening, a group of strangely fierce women warriors invade the village, striking down all the strong warriors of the village, the children have run away following a man in a goat mask playing a beautiful song on a pipe, and the village itself has been set on fire.  The last thing her mother did before going to defend the village was to give Abeni to the witch.  This means that Abeni survives – but is stuck living with the witch. 

Abeni decides to do whatever it takes to find her parents and the other children in the village.  Everything she has thought about the world and herself is expanded as she learns more of what she can do and the world and the struggles outside her village.  There’s a deep grounding in African folklore, with echoes of the Pied Piper, modern guerilla warfare, and the slave trade mythologized.  It’s a rich, absorbing story that is clearly not wrapped up in this first book. I will have to wait for Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold, due out in August 2024. Children of the Quicksands and Ikenga are other recent books set in Africa, though they are clearly modern-day, while Abeni lives in an unidentified past.

Sir Callie and the Champions of Helston by Esme Symes-Smith. ISBN 978-0593485774. Labyrinth, 2022. 

In a classic fantasy medieval setting, a nonbinary child yearns to be knight of Helston, like their father.  But Helston has strict traditions involving gender roles – girls only do magic, the gentler art, while boys do fighting without magic.  Callie left their mother and her expectations behind years ago, living with their father and his new partner in a camp for similar outcasts.  When Callie’s dad is summoned back to court to help train the prince, Callie is determined to go with him and become a knight themself.  On the way, they cross paths with a dragon and learn of a fearsome witch who lives in the wilds outside the main city of Helston.

Once there, though, Callie’s ambitions are immediately and forcefully stalled by the chancellor, Lord Peran, who effectively runs the kingdom.  Lord Peran is determined to make Callie into a proper girl, while forcing their father to teach magical Prince Will to be properly manly and violent.  Callie befriends Lord Peran’s daughter, Elowen, who knows how to blend in as well as how to use her magic in truly powerful ways.  Together, perhaps they can help the prince and the kingdom embrace all their strengths to help Helston fend off impending attackers. Even though Callie is confident in who they are, they grow a lot over the course of learning how to work through this powerful opposition. This is a book with a message, and it doesn’t shy away from that message either for the reader or in the dialog between characters.  I found I did not mind this, as I still believed in the characters and their mission, and it was just so much fun overall.  Usually I’m very picky about modern touches in my medieval fantasy, and this had a couple, including frequent uses of “kid” and “kiddo” and some eating of potatoes.  I was willing to forgive the use of “kid”, though, as modern readers would no longer be familiar with any Middle English words with the same shades of meaning, and perhaps this not-quite-European setting had native potatoes.  I’m currently on hold for the second book, Sir Callie and the Dragon’s Roost, and hope that our main characters will be allowed to just go on being their own fabulous, unconventional selves while confronting the further enemies of the realm. This is a good one to give to fans of Tamora Pierce.