Kindling

After one hundred years, the war is over. The peninsula has been united under the Queen Commander and Amerand has wiped Vedra from the map, bringing peace to the war ravaged land once more. However, for many that peace is an illusion. The magical child soldiers who fought for years have all be released from their military service to do as they please. Not all are happy with peace, and many still feel the wounds of their war years well after it has now ended. The Kindlings are adrift in a world where the people they were are useless, and now they must find their way in the world. For seven of them, this may include one last battle. This is Traci Chee’s Kindling.

Written in the vein of old Western’s or the samurai dramas, like most famously The Seven Samurai upon which some of this story is based, Chee has written a love letter to that drama of a disparate band of heroes arrive somewhere to solve a problem. In this case the lovely old stand by of ruthless bandits bent on driving a village to starvation. This time, with magic involved. Sometimes you really don’t need to reinvent the wheel to tell a good story!

One note for readers is that it is written completely in the second person narrative. Rather unique, but getting into it, it does create some minor confusion. The chapter headers let you know whose head you’re supposed to be, but you might be confused at first until you fully immerse yourself in the story.

Taking place a few years after the end of a century long war on the Kindar Peninsula, the Kingdom of Amerand emerged victorious, but the scars of the war remain. Mostly in the form of poverty, bandits, and orphans wandering the land. The now rudderless Kindling soldiers however, are a greater problem. Abandoned by the government that made them, they have little choice but to eke out whatever meagre existence that they can. Most wander, while others try to leave the peninsula itself and simply leave the whole mess behind them.

Leum is one of those, and when she wanders into the Northlands to try and get away she unexpectedly runs across the trouble of the village of Camas in the form of the young woman Tana. Hearing of her plight, she joins forces with a famous Kindling, Amity, who moves to recruit seven Kindling in total to help defend the village. Along the way they pick up Ket, the mysterious knife master Ben, the gregarious former enemy Emara, the broken Kanver whose wounds from the war are largely internal, and the eternal Kindling hopeful, Siddie, too young to have participated in the war, having been let go just as she was drafted. This colorful band of former warriors will ride to defend Camas from the ferocious bandit leader Adren.

This cast of characters is all incredibly well rounded. The interpersonal struggles and camaraderie (as forced as it sometimes is) between the cast was so well done and extremely well plotted. I enjoyed their internal struggles, those who failed at things – something all heroes need to be allowed to do for character growth in my opinion – alongside their willingness to tolerate each other’s different views. The heavy lifting that some of that have to do in order to accept that they must go to war again, even in what might be a doomed last stand. It made for very heavy reading, but when the moment’s were light, made them that much brighter!

Chee then does a very good job at describing the trauma of war. Kanver in particular is scarred by it, being an alcoholic to survive. When reading about the trauma and PTSD that these characters endured, there were so many moments I had the dark realisation that I’m not reading about grizzled veterans in their 30s or even 20s, but literally former child soldiers who are in their late to early teens that had no chance to be children and grew up expected to die! What a burden for a child to bear! The character of Onna, the mother of Tana and leader of Camas, is something of a surrogate parent figure here and there for these poor veterans. It makes for a few honestly heart melting scenes. That was deeply moving for me. Then setting up Camas as something of an idyllic place for them to both imagine growing old in, and then having to defend, was written well.

That said, Camas as a place was very flat. Aside from Onna and Tana, and the Old Man, the village had little depth to it. We don’t spend too much time getting to know the villagers, with their names sort of flitting in and out of the narrative, and I couldn’t even tell you how many people lived in the village, which did offset the sense of stakes in the battle. I knew how many bandits there were supposed to be, but how many villagers were dying? I sadly couldn’t tell you. This did, for me, somewhat ruin the stakes of the grander narrative as outside the protagonists I couldn’t wholly say who they were fighting for, and when the few named villagers died I felt more of an emptiness than a sense the characters lost friends. A bit of a missed opportunity.

I also found the magic was less fleshed out and largely a background issue. The cast use it sparingly because it can kill them, but when the point of hiring Kindlings is because they are, well, magical warriors, then the lack of explanation or its overall use in the battle becomes a bit pointless. Some of them are skilled warriors, but not all of them are blooded veterans. The judicious use of their powers would have been useful, but it didn’t come up as often as I hoped. Though it did make for good tension during fights as there’s the very real ‘do I fight like a warrior or use my magic and take years off my life’ dilemma that is rarely well done in stories.

The final battle is well written, suitably chaotic, and with some very real stakes. It was a bit of a shame that we only got one viewpoint chapter from the villain Adren, as they were quite intriguing as a bandit leader, and with some more work could have made for quite a few exciting chapters to raise the stakes. That said, it was written well for the finale, and I felt that it was done as appropriately as bands of ragged former soldiers and bandits fighting to the death could be. The loss of war was very real, and the happy ending was very much earned.

Kindling is an exciting tale of camaraderie and trauma, but also heroism and loss. It played my emotions quite brilliantly, establishing a clever setting and rounding up an eccentric cast of characters. Weaving the elements towards an action packed climax I could not put the book down and just devoured my way through it! Genuinely recommend this one as a fun read!