THE LUNEFABLE REVIEW
My Professions Have Too Much Personality
Two Killers at the Door, and His Magic Would Like to Reconsider
Su Chen needs one letter to get through the academy gates. Before he can reach it, his sponsor collapses and two strangers begin discussing what the police should find.
THE SHORT TAKE
A clever, occasionally vicious progression fantasy for readers who like a fight they can reason through and a hero who asks to see the terms in writing.
The letter on the side table
The first thing Su Chen wants in Southwind City is a piece of paper. He wakes in restraints, in a body whose memories are still arriving, and the tutor who releases him rests a finger on a letter edged in gold. For the refugee whose life he has inherited, that letter was worth an appalling bargain. Su Chen looks at the same paper and has the rather sensible impulse to get dressed and leave.
Then his hostess drops her wineglass. Two intruders close the door, and one has already worked out the scandal investigators will be invited to believe. It is a particularly nasty advantage to give an enemy. He can hurt Su Chen twice, first in the room and then in the account of what happened there. By the time magic offers a way out, a reader has plenty of reasons to care which details Su Chen manages to notice.
Two careers size up the emergency
Most heroes with a floating character sheet can at least count on it to want their survival. Su Chen has to deal with professional differences. One prospective magical career considers his peril and becomes more particular about its entrance requirements. Another sees the same danger and offers him an advance on credit. He can have power now, provided he makes good on the rest of the training later. The reader knows exactly why he might sign a bad deal.
The joke works because the information comes through conversation he has every reason to hear. Jiang He needles one intruder by praising the other, and an insult supplies a clue about how a Warrior trains. A bit of skill from Su Chen’s previous life suddenly looks valuable. Watching him put those pieces together is more exciting than the resulting figures on his panel. Two trained killers have brought the facts he needs into the room and barely bothered to keep him from overhearing.
Get that promise in writing
Jiang He makes an excellent person to survive a siege with and a terrifying person to owe afterward. She can signal with her eyes when an enemy has a hand over her mouth. She can also let a desperate applicant spend an entire evening misunderstanding what sort of admission she can arrange. Neither ability disappears when she needs his help. Their conversation after the fight has nearly as much tension as the fight itself.
My favorite detail is what Su Chen does when she offers a magical oath. He asks for the book. Then he spends precious minutes checking an unfamiliar design against the one on the page before he will complete it. It is an oddly intimate picture of two people negotiating mutual suspicion. Her life may depend on his continuing to breathe, yet she still has excellent reasons to keep him where she can see him. I wanted to watch them have to work together again.
A coat that works on the guards
A borrowed black coat gives the city a chance to make its own impression. On the wealthy streets, Su Chen can feel patrolmen looking at him. His clothes pass inspection. At the edge of town, exactly the same outfit attracts people who want a share of whatever he has earned. The aerial tracks and artificial sun are striking sights, but the coat tells you more about how it feels to walk home in this city.
At home a visitor has hidden tins of food under her clothes. Xiao Gezi has a chance to leave the district herself, and she is worried about the person she may have to leave behind. A meal is a small fortune in a place that hands out just enough to survive. Her gift does more for Su Chen than an admirer congratulating him on his new power could have done. By morning he is hungry enough to need it.
Even the rope has its pride
The title earns its keep when Su Chen takes a dim view of the Rope Master profession. He has good practical reasons for his opinion. Unfortunately for him, there is a difference between privately ranking your options and insulting a prospective colleague who can hear you think. The response is petty, startling and wonderfully in character for a line of work he has barely considered. Discovering the consequence is a good reason to go into this part unspoiled.
Those personalities also make the more mechanical passages easier to spot. There are stretches of reading requirements from a panel, having them explained by a tutor, and reading a revised set of requirements. I liked hearing Jiang He describe what practitioners have discovered by trial and error. The numerical recap can take its time getting back to her. The story is liveliest when somebody has an interest in the answer and a reason to give Su Chen only part of it.
How much does it cost to get to school?
For all the wonderful things that coat and letter can buy, neither puts change in his pocket. A teacher who has been waiting a very long time wants to know why he did not take the train. His answer lands beautifully after the scale of the preceding night's dangers. The walk matters again at the admissions desk, where an ordinary clerk can pull up a file and find something more frightening than the tuition bill.
That is the promise I would follow beyond these eight chapters. Power has given Su Chen enough leverage to get himself into a room. Inside, the people who control the paperwork already have their own plans for him. Start with that gold-edged letter and see how long you would let it sit on the table before asking precisely what it says.
Based on chapters 1–8 of the English edition. This is an opening impression, not a full-series verdict. No later plot developments are discussed.
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