The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

I must preface this with the fact that I am a notoriously slow reader with poor "stamina" and this felt like three books instead of one to me. Turning over the final page, I felt more exhausted than satisfied. But the fact that I'm still rating it as I am should signal how well the strengths of this book still manage to outweigh my (entirely subjective) misgivings.

Cover art notwithstanding, I somehow convinced myself that this was gonna be more historical fiction with some magical realism elements floating in the background. And for the first half of the book that certainly was the case; going into this I was loosely aware of the long history of the Indian Ocean and all the cultures on it that interacted with each other. Long before Vasco da Gama showed up on the scene and changed everything, there was this whole other cultural sphere going on during the Islamic Golden Age that often gets neglected in favor of imagery of desert palaces and caravans of camels linking cities from Persia to Al Andalus. And I'm glad that I finally came across some fictional media that dove into this neglected historical period.

The "gang of past-their-prime adventurers coming out of retirement for one last job" is something I've seen done before, but to date this is the best iteration of it that I've come across. I really enjoyed the side cast of supporting pirates, but I wish they had had more time in the spotlight before the second half of the story turned to hard fantasy and the magical threats quickly became too dangerous for them to be relevant. For a story that seemed to initially be leaning hard into a theme of relying on the power of friendship, our protagonist sure ended up doing a lot on her own.

I had issues with the pacing and tone shift in the latter part of the book where we went from swashbuckling hijinks to high stakes sword and sorcery, and there was a strange bait-and-switch with a side villain who was initially painted as a great and terrible evil but ended up being completely overshadowed by the actual antagonist. But overall the strong opening just about counterbalanced the unexpected ending for me.

To be a woman is to have your story misremembered. 

This book is a perfect combination of some of my very favorite fantasy tropes. Coming out of retirement for one last job! Getting the gang back together! A badass older protagonist who is also a parent! Naval adventure! Female pirate captain! I seriously adore all these, so of course I had to read this book and, quite predictably, I liked it a lot. 

Admittedly, it wasn't super easy to get into; I think the first 100-120 pages took me longer than the rest of the book combined. The prose here is rich and evocative and voicey, but in a way that took me some getting used to (might be an ESL thing?), especially combined with the historical Arabian peninsula/Indian ocean setting. It's a part of the world I admit I know little about, and what I do know is filtered through the lens of European history. Yes, that's something I certainly want to rectify! But for now, figuring out the feel of the historical period + all the fantasy elements + the prose made for a combination that stalled me a bit. I think that maybe, a bit counterintuitively, it would be easier for me to get immersed if the action started earlier and I could absorb everything else through it. But the set-up here certainly took a long time. Fortunately, eventually the pacing picked up and when I got all the promised adventure, I couldn't stop reading.

There's a great balance of characterization, plot, and worldbuilding to be found here. All the elements blend together to create a truly exciting fantasy story. I loved Amina in particular as the protagonist: she has the kind of dominating presence I would expect from a woman in her position. Her struggles to balance her past and her present, her history and her burning love for her daughter, her womanhood and being in the position of leadership in a cutthroat man-dominated world, her religion and the kind of things she does/lets others do as a pirate and the people she surrounds herself with—all of that was super well-crafted and never turned overdramatic. I adored her crewmates, as well, in particular Dalila and Majed. Especially Dalila. She's my venomous favorite.

I also appreciated how gradually the secrets of the past resurfaced, adding to the plot one by one and merging together, and all the quests within quests that formed the larger adventure. In some ways, the plot reminded me of a well-crafted tabletop campaign, and that's definitely a compliment. 

I do feel that the beginning could be made a bit tighter for a better effect, but overall, this definitely goes on my list of my favorite 2024 reads!

Now this was the sort of pirate queen adventure I was expecting when I had read Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea. (That book is historical pirate politics and internal musings about power and this book is more fantasy adventure; I liked them both, they're just different.)

Amina al-Sarafi is a middle-aged pirate queen who gets blackmailed out of retirement into "one last job", gets the criminal gang back together, and ultimately faces off against a sorcerer and his sea monster (as if the cover doesn't give you this hint). (Also, gender stuff! You love to see it.)

It's set in the same world as her Daevabad trilogy although you don't need to have read those books at all. (You might appreciate a single character briefly appearing as well as the lawyer parrots, but that's about the extent of it.) My opinion here is that this is a fantasy pirate heist book and so is a bit more accessible than a fantasy djinn politics book (even if here it means that the world feels more like a stage and the side characters get a little bit less air time).

All in all great fun, highly recommend especially if you liked SA Chakraborty's previous work.