This is not a non-fiction book, there definitely is a protagonist and her name is Alys. But in a real way, this novel (and I am going to venture, the entire series) really has the city of Kithamar as its real protagonist and telling Alys’ story is a way to tell part of the story of Kithamar.
In all, The Dead Cat Tail Assassins is a lean and mean novella that goes down like liquid fire and leaps through the reader’s mind like dancing across rooftops in Tal Abisi.
I started out only able to read this book in small bites, taking time for digestion, but by the end, I was eating it up eagerly, hungry for the meanings that were emerging and the inspirations I could take from it.
If you don’t already know, The Daughters’ War is a follow-up that is not a sequel, but a prequel. Book 0 in the Blacktongue series, Buehlman’s new novel tells the backstory of Galva, as if she were relating it to Kinch.
… So, once things do kick off, we get a lot of fun action sequences, a main character learning to do better and learning to adapt her city and courtly ways to the wild frontier, to tackle a problem far bigger and dangerous than she imagined, and torn between wanting to stick it out and wanting to decamp for other climes. …
This Southern-flavored steampunk fantasy is as easy to sink into as a hammock, with a nice breezy tone most of the time, narrated by a sympathetic protagonist with a wry point of view, relating an exciting plot that moves around a bayou town, up and down, and eventually strikes out into the wilderness, with a cataclysmic confrontation at the climax.
