Review: Nettle & Bone, by T. Kingfisher

[Russ Allbery]

Nettle & Bone
by T. Kingfisher

Publisher: Tor
Copyright: 2022
ISBN:      1-250-24403-X
Format:    Kindle
Pages:     242

Nettle & Bone is a standalone fantasy novel with fairy tale vibes. T.
Kingfisher is a pen name for Ursula Vernon.

As the book opens, Marra is giving herself a blood infection by wiring
together dog bones out of a charnel pit. This is the second of three
impossible tasks that she was given by the dust-wife. Completing all
three will give her the tools to kill a prince.

I am a little cautious of which T. Kingfisher books I read since she
sometimes writes fantasy and sometimes writes horror and I don't get
along with horror. This one seemed a bit horrific in the marketing, so
I held off on reading it despite the Hugo nomination. It turns out to
be just on the safe side of my horror tolerance, with only a couple of
parts that I read a bit quickly.

One of those is the opening, which I am happy to report does not set
the tone for the rest of the book. Marra starts the story in a
wasteland full of disease, madmen, and cannibals (who, in typical
Ursula Vernon fashion, turn out to be nicer than the judgmental
assholes outside of the blistered land). She doesn't stay there long.
By chapter two, the story moves on to flashbacks explaining how Marra
ended up there, alternating with further (and less horrific) steps in
her quest to kill the prince of the Northern Kingdom.

Marra is a princess of a small, relatively poor coastal kingdom with a
good harbor and acquisitive neighbors. Her mother, the queen, has
protected the kingdom through arranged marriage of her daughters to the
prince of the Northern Kingdom, who rules it in all but name given the
mental deterioration of his father the king. Marra's eldest sister
Damia was first, but she died suddenly and mysteriously in a fall. (If
you're thinking about the way women are injured by "accident," you have
the right idea.) Kania, the middle sister, is next to marry; she lives,
but not without cost. Meanwhile, Marra is sent off to a convent to
ensure that there are no complicating potential heirs, and to keep her
on hand as a spare.

I won't spoil the entire backstory, but you do learn it all. Marra is a
typical Kingfisher protagonist: a woman who is way out of her depth who
persists with stubbornness, curiosity, and innate decency because what
else is there to do? She accumulates the typical group of misfits and
oddballs common in Kingfisher's quest fantasies, characters that in the
Chosen One male fantasy would be supporting characters at best. The
bone-wife is a delight; her chicken is even better. There are fairy
godmothers and a goblin market and a tooth extraction that was one of
the creepiest things I've read without actually being horror. It is, in
short, a Kingfisher fantasy novel, with a touch more horror than
average but not enough to push it out of the fantasy genre.

I think my favorite part of this book was not the main quest. It was
the flashback scenes set in the convent, where Marra has the space (and
the mentorship) to develop her sense of self.

  "We're a mystery religion," said the abbess, when she'd had a bit
  more wine than usual, "for people who have too much work to do to
  bother with mysteries. So we simply get along as best we can.
  Occasionally someone has a vision, but [the goddess] doesn't seem to
  want anything much, and so we try to return the favor."

If you have read any other Kingfisher novels, much of this will be
familiar: the speculative asides, the dogged determination, the
slightly askew nature of the world, the vibes-based world-building that
feels more like a fairy tale than a carefully constructed magic system,
and the sense that the main characters (and nearly all of the
supporting characters) are average people trying to play the hands they
were dealt as ethically as they can. You will know that the tentative
and woman-initiated romance is coming as soon as the party meets the
paladin type who is almost always the romantic interest in one of these
books. The emotional tone of the book is a bit predictable for regular
readers, but Ursula Vernon's brain is such a delightful place to spend
some time that I don't mind.

  Marra had not managed to be pale and willowy and consumptive at any
  point in eighteen years of life and did not think she could achieve
  it before she died.

Nettle & Bone won the Hugo for Best Novel in 2023. I'm not sure why
this specific T. Kingfisher novel won and not any of the half-dozen
earlier novels she's written in a similar style, but sure, I have no
objections. I'm glad one of them won; they're all worth reading and
hopefully that will help more people discover this delightful style of
fantasy that doesn't feel like what anyone else is doing. Recommended,
although be prepared for a few more horror touches than normal and a
rather grim first chapter.

Content warnings: domestic abuse. The dog... lives? Is equally as alive
at the end of the book as it was at the end of the first chapter? The
dog does not die; I'll just leave it at that. (Neither does the
chicken.)

Rating: 8 out of 10

Reviewed: 2023-12-27

URL: https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/1-250-24403-X.html

-- 
Russ Allbery (eagle at eyrie.org)             <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>