The Ashfire King by Chelsea Abdullah
The Ashfire King is Chelsea Abdullah’s follow-up to the highly enjoyable The Stardust Thief, picking up pretty immediately after the events of that book, which ended on a pretty sizable cliffhanger. While the new novel doesn’t attain the heights of its predecessor, which I called “one of the most enjoyable and captivating books” I’d read that year, despite some issues it moves the story along, deepens several of the characters, and fleshes out more of the world’s workings. (Fair warning: unavoidable spoilers for The Stardust Thief to follow)
After a brief recap in the form of the several stories-within-the-story that run throughout, we turn to our main group of characters, who have been separated by the plot occurrences at the end of book one. Loulie al-Nazari, Prince Mazen bin Malek (who goes by his storyteller name Yousef), and the Jinn king of the lamp Rijah end up in the Jinn realm, sunk below the great desert ages ago by Loulie’s companion/bodyguard/Jinn king Qadir and the other six great Jinn kings. There they get entangled in a war amongst the Jinn and become part of the quest to stop the Jinn world from sinking further (thus being wholly destroyed) and perhaps even to return it to the above world of home. Meanwhile, Aisha (kept alive only by dint of being possessed by a Jinn known as the Resurrectionist), remains above to try and thwart the plots of Omar, Mazen’s villainous brother, the current sultan. Joined by Mazen’s other brother, Hakim, the two set out to free Qadir, currently held by Omar in a seemingly unimpregnable prison. Eventually, as one might imagine, separate storylines converge.
As noted, we open up with a story-within-a-story (a clever way of doing the recap btw). We saw these interlude chapters of digressive stories put to good use in The Stardust Thief, and it remains a strength here, with some of my favorite writing appearing in these stories. Structurally, this choice makes a lot of sense in a universe at least somewhat inspired by The Thousand and One Nights stories. It’s also a way to highlight various themes, including most overtly, the power of stories and how they can shape reality and behavior (it’s no accident that Mazen’s alter ego is a storyteller).
Another positive is the description of the physical Jinn world below, with its tall graceful structures, its cities lit by “ashfire,” the way it is permeated with magic, and more wonderfully original elements I don’t want to spoil here. All of this wonder made more poignantly tragic by the accelerating threat of it all disappearing. A tragic possibility highlighted by some moving depictions of refugees, a theme more than a little topical in our current time.
Amongst the characters, my favorite here is Aisha, mostly due to her several layers of internal struggle: her betrayal by and of her former leader Omar, her past acts of violence, and most predominately her attempt to deal with the constant presence in her head and body of the Resurrectionist, a presence that is necessary if she is to live, though it means giving up some range of sovereignty of her own body and mind. I also enjoyed Mazen’s quiet, gentle nature; his growing sense of confidence and courage, and his relationship to a bird (yes, you read that right).
Finally, in the positives category, there are several good action scenes, including a sea battle, that are well done but that I won’t detail so as to avoid spoilers.
As I mentioned in the intro, The Ashfire King is a more flawed novel than its predecessor, and those issues did mar the reading experience. The pacing was more uneven here, with the book at times feeling like it bogged down in several spots and at other times feeling like it was rushing through things a bit too quickly. While I liked the physical description of the Jinn world, the Jinn themselves remain a bit cloudy to me. I never could quite pin down their use of magic, their system of allegiance/hierarchy, their differences, and other societal elements. And they rarely feel like truly ancient beings, a frequent pet peeve of mine for presentation of immortal/near-immortal characters, so this point is not limited to Abdullah’s work. Characterization was solid, but I can’t say the development beyond Aisha was particularly compelling, and a romance angle while fine felt a bit perfunctory and flat. Qadir’s absence through most of the novel, and one somewhat flat villain didn’t help in this area. And finally, the plotting had its issues as well, but I don’t want to give examples here or get too specific so as to not ruin it for those who hate to know what happens.
These issues did as I say mar my enjoyment, but I never considered not reading, never skimmed or skipped, nor did they have any effect on whether I’ll read the next book in the series. I will, however, hope for a return to the level of The Stardust Thief. Recommended with the above caveats.
Well, now I want to read The Stardust Thief and then this one! Two more on the TBR Tower—*thanks*, Bill!