“The Bone Shard Daughter”, reviewed: Progressive, Asian-inspired fantasy with the punchiest of plots

TL;DR: First book of an extremely promising fantasy series, featuring a highly original, Asian-inspired fantasy world, the punchiest of plots, animal companions, queer protagonists, and adventure on the high seas, all while probing difficult philosophical questions about artificial intelligence and moral responsibility.

Read if you like: Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series, Samantha Shannon’s Priory of the Orange Tree, Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, SA Chakraborty’s Davebad trilogy.

The Bone Shard Daughter is a compelling fantasy adventure for adults, the first book of a trilogy that I am sure will continue to surprise and delight for its originality, superb worldbuilding and progressive ideals.

The series follows five main characters — Lin, Jovis, Sand, Phalue and Ranami. They are all inhabitants of an empire of islands, strung together across The Endless Ocean. The Imperial family is privy to the secrets of a dark and mysterious power known as Bone Shard magic, which is used to create Constructs — magic-fueled beings that carry out the will of the Imperial family. The Empire has been peaceful for many years, and the story opens as the usual peacetime seeds of dissatisfaction with the social order are emerging. The Emperor, whose prime, sworn purpose is to protect the populace from an ancient evil known as the Alanga, does little but but sit in the palace maintaining his army of Constructs, with no threats from the Alanga witnessed in the Empire for generations. The story follows the plights of our five heroes as stability begins to falter — in more ways than one.

All five characters are of vastly different stations in the world. Lin, daughter of the Emperor is striving to prove her worth to inherit her family’s magic. Jovis is a silver-tongue smuggler searching for something long-lost. Sand is perhaps the most mysterious character — a servant living on an island far from civilisation, doomed to a life of servitude. And Phalue and Ranami are a couple desperate to bridge the gaps between them: Phalue is a governor’s daughter and Ranami is an ex-gutter orphan fighting to bring about a better world order for all. And yes: Phalue and Ranami are both women. This book is about as queer-normalising as you can get, which is just one more reason to love it.

The Bone Shard Daughter is unabashedly a fantasy novel, but one that avoids the tropey staleness of a lot of fantasy by a wide berth. Everything from the characters, to the magic, to the world feel like a breath of fresh air. One reason for this, is the depth of the philosophical questions this book sets out to explore. While clearly a fantasy story, The Bone Shard Daughter probes big questions about the nature of sentience, moral responsibility, and artificial intelligence; questions usually reserved for science fiction stories.

The Bone Shard Daughter clearly draws much of its inspiration from Asian cultures; an old woman is making dumplings as street food, ‘auntie’ is a polite way to greet older women, and names such as Lin Sukai and Ranami . As a Chinese-American author, Stewart does a far better job of translating Western culture into a believable fantasy world than many of her fantasy writing forebears. I’ve studied Japanese for a long time and completed an Asian Studies degree at university and while this doesn't equip me to speak for these cultures, it does make it easy to distinguish tropey Asia-inspired fantasy from something truly original. Stewart’s work has nothing of the awkwardness of writers like Lian Hearn or Raymond Feist and Janny Wurtz. These novels edge awkwardly around cultural appropriation and it makes their writing feel disingenuous, despite what I’m sure were good intentions to respect the cultures they were inspired by. Stewart’s writing has none of this self consciousness and shines off the page for it.

The plot twists of The Bone Shard Daughter are clever and surprising. While I was able to make a few sly guesses about what was to come, other revelations left me exclaiming wordlessly at my e-reader in shock and surprise.

Rarely have I read the first book in a fantasy trilogy that makes you so absolutely sure that the books that follow will be just as brilliant. The intricacy of the world-building is really what does it. Stewart’s world is so complex and interesting in its construction, it bursts off the page into your imagination — every passing piece of prose an invitation to lives and mysteries that you can’t wait to read more about. Stuff like this:

The door creaked as I opened it, scraping a well-worn path along the wooden floorboards. This early in the morning, it should have been empty. Instead, Imperial guards lurked in dusty corners, dried fish hanging from the ceiling. I made my way to the back, my shoulder against the wall, my wrist hidden by my thigh, my head down. If I’d been a better planner, I’d have wrapped the tattoo. Ah well, My face was the bigger problem, and I couldn’t wrap that.

A woman stood behind the counter, her broad back to me, hair tied up in a handkerchief with a few loose strands stuck to her neck. She hunched over a wooden cutting board, her fingers nimbly pleating dumplings.

“Auntie,” I said to her, deferential.

She didn’t turn around. “Don’t call me that,” she said. “I’m not old enough to be anyone’s auntie except to children.” She wiped her floured hands on her apron, sighed. “What can I get for you?”

“I wanted to talk,” I said.

She turned around then and gave my uniform a long look. I don’t think she even glanced at my face. “I sent my nephew along to the square already. The census takers would have marked him by now. Is that what you’re here for?”

“You’re Danila, right? I have questions about your foster daughter,” I said.

— The Bone Shard Daughter, p19 — 20

I loved every part of The Bone Shard Daughter. The pacing is punchy, the world-building is fantastic, the characters are interesting in their flaws and relationships, and their development is full of introspection and challenges. This book reads like the first act of a much bigger story and I cannot wait to see what comes in the next installment, which is scheduled for release November 2021.

Rating: 5/5

Content warnings: violence described in moderate graphic detail, claustrophobia, drowning, mutilation, child abuse.