Review: The Faithless, by C.L. Clark

[Russ Allbery]

The Faithless
by C.L. Clark

Series:    Magic of the Lost #2
Publisher: Orbit
Copyright: March 2023
ISBN:      0-316-54283-0
Format:    Kindle
Pages:     527

The Faithless is the second book in a political fantasy series that
seems likely to be a trilogy. It is a direct sequel to The Unbroken,
which you should read first. As usual, Orbit made it unnecessarily hard
to get re-immersed in the world by refusing to provide memory aids for
readers who read books as they come out instead of only when the series
is complete, but this is not the fault of Clark or the book and you've
heard me rant about this before.

The Unbroken was set in Qazāl (not-Algeria). The Faithless, as readers
of the first book might guess from the title, is set in Balladaire
(not-France). This is the palace intrigue book. Princess Luca is
fighting for her throne against her uncle, the regent. Touraine is
trying to represent her people. Whether and to what extent those
interests are aligned is much of the meat of this book.

Normally I enjoy palace intrigue novels for the competence porn:
watching someone navigate a complex political situation with skill and
cunning, or upend the entire system by building unlikely coalitions or
using unexpected routes to power. If you are similar, be warned that
this is not what you're going to get. Touraine is a fish out of water
with no idea how to navigate the Balladairan court, and does not
magically become an expert in the course of this novel. Luca has the
knowledge, but she's unsure, conflicted, and largely out-maneuvered.
That means you will have to brace for some painful scenes of some of
the worst people apparently getting what they want.

Despite that, I could not put this down. It was infuriating,
frustrating, and a much slower burn than I prefer, but the layers of
complex motivations that Clark builds up provided a different sort of
payoff.

Two books in, the shape of this series is becoming clearer. This series
is about empire and colonialism, but with considerably more complexity
than fantasy normally brings to that topic. Power does not loosen its
grasp easily, and it has numerous tools for subtle punishment after
apparent upstart victories. Righteous causes rarely call banners to
your side; instead, they create opportunities for other people to
maneuver to their own advantage. Touraine has some amount of power now,
but it's far from obvious how to use it. Her life's training tells her
that exercising power will only cause trouble, and her enemies are more
than happy to reinforce that message at every opportunity.

Most notable to me is Clark's bitingly honest portrayal of the supposed
allies within the colonial power. It is clear that Luca is attempting
to take the most ethical actions as she defines them, but it's
remarkable how those efforts inevitably imply that Touraine should help
Luca now in exchange for Luca's tenuous and less-defined possible
future aid. This is not even a lie; it may be an accurate summary of
Balladairan politics. And yet, somehow what Balladaire needs always
matters more than the needs of their abused colony.

Underscoring this, Clark introduces another faction in the form of a
populist movement against the Balladairan monarchy. The details of that
setup in another fantasy novel would make them allies of the Qazāl.
Here, as is so often the case in real life, a substantial portion of
the populists are even more xenophobic and racist than the nobility.
There are no easy alliances.

The trump card that Qazāl holds is magic. They have it, and (for
reasons explored in The Unbroken) Balladaire needs it, although that is
a position held by Luca's faction and not by her uncle. But even Luca
wants to reduce that magic to a manageable technology, like any other
element of the Balladairan state. She wants to understand it, harness
it, and bring it under local control. Touraine, trained by Balladaire
and facing Balladairan political problems, has the same tendency. The
magic, at least in this book, refuses — not in the flashy, rebellious
way that it would in most fantasy, but in a frustrating and
incomprehensible lack of predictable or convenient rules. I think this
will feel like a plot device to some readers, and that is to some
extent true, but I think I see glimmers of Clark setting up a conflict
of world views that will play out in the third book.

I think some people are going to bounce off this book. It's
frustrating, enraging, at times melodramatic, and does not offer the
cathartic payoff typically offered in fantasy novels of this type.
Usually these are things I would be complaining about as well. And yet,
I found it satisfyingly challenging, engrossing, and memorable. I spent
a lot of the book yelling "just kill him already" at the characters,
but I think one of Clark's points is that overcoming colonial
relationships requires a lot more than just killing one evil man. The
characters profoundly fail to execute some clever and victorious
strategy. Instead, as in the first book, they muddle through, making
the best choice that they can see in each moment, making lots of
mistakes, and paying heavy prices. It's realistic in a way that has
nothing to do with blood or violence or grittiness. (Although I did
appreciate having the thin thread of Pruett's story and its highly
satisfying conclusion.)

This is also a slow-burn romance, and there too I think opinions will
differ. Touraine and Luca keep circling back to the same arguments and
the same frustrations, and there were times that this felt repetitive.
It also adds a lot of personal drama to the politics in a way that
occasionally made me dubious. But here too, I think Clark is partly
using the romance to illustrate the deeper political points.

Luca is often insufferable, cruel and ambitious in ways she doesn't
realize, and only vaguely able to understand the Qazāl perspective; in
short, she's the pragmatic centrist reformer. I am dubious that her
ethics would lead her to anything other than endless compromise without
Touraine to push her. To Luca's credit, she also realizes that and
wants to be a better person, but struggles to have the courage to act
on it. Touraine both does and does not want to manipulate her; she
wants Luca's help (and more), but it's not clear Luca will give it
under acceptable terms, or even understand how much she's demanding.
It's that foundational conflict that turns the romance into a slow burn
by pushing them apart. Apparently I have more patience for this type of
on-again, off-again relationship than one based on artificial
miscommunication.

The more I noticed the political subtext, the more engaging I found the
romance on the surface.

I picked this up because I'd read several books about black characters
written by white authors, and while there was nothing that wrong with
those books, the politics felt a little too reductionist and
simplified. I wanted a book that was going to force me out of
comfortable political assumptions. The Faithless did exactly what I was
looking for, and I am definitely here for the rest of the series. In
that sense, recommended, although do not go into this book hoping for
adroit court maneuvering and competence porn.

Followed by The Sovereign, which does not yet have a release date.

Content warnings: Child death, attempted cultural genocide.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Reviewed: 2024-01-07

URL: https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-316-54283-0.html

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