Babylon Steel by Gaie Sebold
Jan. 18th, 2012 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
A heroine who really gets up close and personal!
Babylon Steel, ex-sword-for-hire, ex … other things, runs The Red Lantern, the best brothel in the city. She’s got elves using sex magic upstairs, S&M in the basement and a large green troll cooking breakfast in the kitchen, and she’d love you to visit, except …
She’s not having a good week. The Vessels of Purity are protesting against brothels, girls are disappearing, and if she can’t pay her taxes, Babylon’s going to lose the Lantern. She’d given up the mercenary life, but when the mysterious Darask Fain pays her to find a missing heiress, she has to take the job. And then her past starts to catch up with her in other, more dangerous ways.
Witty and fresh, Sebold delivers the most exciting fantasy debut in years.
Babylon Steel, former sword-for-hire and prostitute, runs a brothel called The Red Lantern in Scalentine, a hub city containing portals to different lands. Unfortunately, business hasn’t been great and with a massive tax bill looming, Babylon needs money fast. Salvation comes from Darask Fain in the Diplomatic Section, who commissions her to find a missing Guidain heiress who’s presumed to have been kidnapped just before her important political betrothal to another Gudain family.
But this is a bad time for an investigation. The approaching Two-Moon (when both of Scalentine’s moons are full), means there’s a lot of craziness about. A religious order called the Vessels of Purity are campaigning against prostitution and threatening the Lantern and someone’s brutally beating up prostitutes. Worse is the arrival of a group of people from Babylon’s past, a past that she thought she’d escaped for good, and which threatens to destroy everything she’s worked so hard for …
Gaie Sebold’s debut novel is an epic fantasy featuring a strong, sexually confident woman who controls her own destiny.
Babylon’s chatty, first-person voice carries you through the various plot strands. It’s refreshing to read fantasy with a female character who knows what she wants and what she likes and while Babylon might not be great at asking for help, she understands when she’s outgunned and is competent at what she does. I enjoyed her relationship with her brothel’s crew, particularly with Previous, an ex-mercenary who works as a guard, and Precious, the huge, scaly cook. I also liked the way Sebold mixes in Babylon’s backstory, as an abandoned orphan on Tiresana, a dying land under the control of ruthless Avatars.
There’s a lot of plot, perhaps too much as the last quarter rushes to tie up all of the loose ends. There are also a lot of side characters and at times, I did find it a little difficult to keep the names straight – a character list would really help.
The world-building is great, with Sebold creating a vivid impression of Scalentine, its various quarters, its diverse, multi-species population and the portals that are so important to its existence. If I have one plea it’s for a city map in the next book, so you can see the scale more visually.
In conclusion, this is an assured epic fantasy debut novel offering strong storytelling and stronger female characters and as such is well worth a look.
The Verdict:
Gaie Sebold’s debut novel is an assured epic fantasy that revolves around a strong, sexually confident woman who controls her own destiny. It’s got great world-building, strong story-telling and a lot of plot for your money. As such, I think that it’s well worth a look and I’m really looking forward to the sequel.
Babylon Steel, ex-sword-for-hire, ex … other things, runs The Red Lantern, the best brothel in the city. She’s got elves using sex magic upstairs, S&M in the basement and a large green troll cooking breakfast in the kitchen, and she’d love you to visit, except …
She’s not having a good week. The Vessels of Purity are protesting against brothels, girls are disappearing, and if she can’t pay her taxes, Babylon’s going to lose the Lantern. She’d given up the mercenary life, but when the mysterious Darask Fain pays her to find a missing heiress, she has to take the job. And then her past starts to catch up with her in other, more dangerous ways.
Witty and fresh, Sebold delivers the most exciting fantasy debut in years.
Babylon Steel, former sword-for-hire and prostitute, runs a brothel called The Red Lantern in Scalentine, a hub city containing portals to different lands. Unfortunately, business hasn’t been great and with a massive tax bill looming, Babylon needs money fast. Salvation comes from Darask Fain in the Diplomatic Section, who commissions her to find a missing Guidain heiress who’s presumed to have been kidnapped just before her important political betrothal to another Gudain family.
But this is a bad time for an investigation. The approaching Two-Moon (when both of Scalentine’s moons are full), means there’s a lot of craziness about. A religious order called the Vessels of Purity are campaigning against prostitution and threatening the Lantern and someone’s brutally beating up prostitutes. Worse is the arrival of a group of people from Babylon’s past, a past that she thought she’d escaped for good, and which threatens to destroy everything she’s worked so hard for …
Gaie Sebold’s debut novel is an epic fantasy featuring a strong, sexually confident woman who controls her own destiny.
Babylon’s chatty, first-person voice carries you through the various plot strands. It’s refreshing to read fantasy with a female character who knows what she wants and what she likes and while Babylon might not be great at asking for help, she understands when she’s outgunned and is competent at what she does. I enjoyed her relationship with her brothel’s crew, particularly with Previous, an ex-mercenary who works as a guard, and Precious, the huge, scaly cook. I also liked the way Sebold mixes in Babylon’s backstory, as an abandoned orphan on Tiresana, a dying land under the control of ruthless Avatars.
There’s a lot of plot, perhaps too much as the last quarter rushes to tie up all of the loose ends. There are also a lot of side characters and at times, I did find it a little difficult to keep the names straight – a character list would really help.
The world-building is great, with Sebold creating a vivid impression of Scalentine, its various quarters, its diverse, multi-species population and the portals that are so important to its existence. If I have one plea it’s for a city map in the next book, so you can see the scale more visually.
In conclusion, this is an assured epic fantasy debut novel offering strong storytelling and stronger female characters and as such is well worth a look.
The Verdict:
Gaie Sebold’s debut novel is an assured epic fantasy that revolves around a strong, sexually confident woman who controls her own destiny. It’s got great world-building, strong story-telling and a lot of plot for your money. As such, I think that it’s well worth a look and I’m really looking forward to the sequel.
