An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant.
What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power.
Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilization in the balance?
Summary
Blood Over Bright Haven is a dark academia fantasy novel by author M. L. Wang. I first learned about the book from this video by “lexi aka newlynova”. The story follows Sciona, who becomes the first female high mage in the city of Tiran, where magic is paramount for both convenience and survival. The entire infrastructure of Tiran revolves around the utility provided by magic, which can be more or less compared to a more powerful version of computer programming. In contrast, the wild, untamed lands beyond its magical barrier are being ravaged by a deadly disease, leading to heavy prejudice towards the refugees seeking asylum in the city. Sciona quickly learns that being a female high mage is not all sunshine and rainbows and has to confront her culture and beliefs, lest she end up buried by its traditions.
I’m probably doing the book a disservice with my summary, so I highly recommend watching the timestamped video above. In this review, I’ll try to stay spoiler-free, but if the book sounds interesting to you, I’d still recommend reading it without any external biases.
Review
M. L. Wang’s allegories of real-world otherisms have the subtlety of a brick thrown at your face, especially when it comes to the topics of racism and sexism. The author leaves very little room for you to form your own thoughts on the state of Tiran’s society - characters will pretty much outright state their distaste for foreigners or women in positions of power. These dialogues can sometimes feel one-dimensional if you are not particularly invested in feminist literature, but they are not entirely unfounded. I have a review coming up soon on a non-fiction book which underlines this point nicely, but for now, all I will say is that I definitely drew some parallels, but if I hadn’t, I might have found the characterisations unrealistic.
Tiran is a flawed society from the onset. What’s interesting is that these flaws also translate to the main character, Sciona, who is herself somewhat marginalised due to being a woman, but has little qualms looking down on the city’s immigrants, the less intellectually gifted among her own ranks, and men in general. She also just has a very large ego, warranted as it may be due to her exceptional abilities. While some of her beliefs change over the course of the book, it’s nevertheless a very interesting aspect of her character that never fully dissipates. Naturally, as she is the protagonist, you spend most of the time rooting for her plans, ambitions, and dreams, just to every so often be reminded that she, too, has her own flawed outlook on the world. Some of her thoughts are misguided, and some of her plans fail to come to fruition, but I often still caught myself blindly following her viewpoint until the book dragged me back to reality. I think it’s a pretty good example of unreliable narration as a storytelling tool.
In my opinion, your ability to enjoy this book will heavily depend on your view of these types of social injustice, delivered more like a wrecking ball than a fine dining plate. I personally believe the book stops short of overselling any particular agenda. Though, depending on who you ask, I’ve seen criticisms of overly blatant feminism and “men-hating”, but also of hints of a white saviour theme from the other side of the aisle. I suppose the author is setting themselves up for this type of discourse with how heavy-handed the book can be with its themes, but in my opinion, the story is best enjoyed without overthinking the author’s intentions or world views, and evaluating any parallels to real-life experiences on an individual basis.
Blunt theming aside, or maybe because of it, the story is really extremely gripping. In other books I’ve read, and that I’ve yet to review, I’ve noticed exhausting stretches of pages, or even chapters, that are devoid of any story progression. In Blood Over Bright Haven, I’ve never had that feeling. There was a purpose in every chapter and every page. The story in Blood Over Bright Haven progresses very naturally, whether it’s world-building and exposition delivered as part of a dialogue or an action sequence described in minute detail, everything has its place. However, it’s not a particularly complex story. Even as someone who hasn’t read many books in the last few years, it didn’t exactly take a stroke of genius to put pieces of the puzzle together before the characters themselves do. This doesn’t diminish the experience by a lot, but I can understand why experienced readers may find the combination of blatant themes and predictable stereotypes underwhelming.
In terms of pacing, the story builds up to several big bang moments that were often delivered with a “hype moments and aura” type one-liner that served both as a payoff for the previous chapter(s) and an appetizer for the next. I spent a lot of time in this review driving home the point about real-world parallels, because I think you really have to approach this story with an open mind to enjoy it, but if you can lose yourself in the picture painted for you by M. L. Wang, the story unfolds in such interesting and beautiful ways that I can’t help but recommend this book.
Final Review
I rate Blood Over Bright Haven 4.5 out of 5 stars. I really enjoyed this book from start to finish, and I thought about it for weeks after finishing it. Maybe it’s the satisfying descriptions of the magic process being so similar to my own profession, maybe it’s the parallels I’ve been drawing to real-world events and other books, maybe it’s just that I’m happy to actually have finished a fantasy novel for once, but at the end of the day, I can’t help but be fond of Blood Over Bright Haven and its cast of over-the-top characters.
I listened to this book in the audiobook version, read by Moira Quirk. I believe her narration further increased my enjoyment of the story, due to her excellent voice acting for each character and the forceful intonations with which she delivers important story moments in contrast to her regular, relaxed storytelling. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for her narrations in the future.