Tasha Suri's Burning Kingdoms Trilogy

[chestnut_pod]

The Jasmine Throne, The Oleander Sword, and The Lotus Empire

The Burning Kingdoms is an ambitious high-fantasy saga set in an India-inspired secondary world, in which an orphan priestess from an oppressed client state seeking personal and national independence, and the disgraced princess seeking support for her rebellion against her insane brother the emperor, must make common cause. This is a proper epic fantasy with court politics, battles, a doomed (or is it?) romance, dozens of side characters, multiple POVs, the lot.

There is much to like here, though I don’t think it all fully pays off in the end. In part, this is because, in my opinion, the most interesting, developed, and unique character is actually neither Priya (priestess) or Malini (princess), the nominal joint protagonists, but Bhumika, who was herself a priestess in Priya’s order, but during the final submission of their state, married into the new governing nobility. She has a kind of bone-deep pragmatism which expresses itself both in mercilessness and in mercy, and Suri maps her journey over the trilogy towards becoming a leader for a world in which all sides are able to live together with a precise, insightful hand. Meanwhile, as individuals, Priya and Malini have great moments, and their individual storylines (which spend a lot of time apart) are quite convincing as stories and as psychological portraits, but their relationship, which is nominally the core of the series, gets less persuasive with every book. Malini especially gets increasingly flattened as the series goes on, because she has to be a genius commander/coldhearted empress type while also hitting some pretty strained romance beats, and that doesn’t fit together well, particularly compared to Priya, who has more narrative space to grow without messing up the plot-engine, and Bhumika, who basically has the hero’s journey. The whole thing felt like it got a little less expansive with each book, like Suri had bitten off more than she could chew.

However, what she did manage was great. As its own thing, The Jasmine Throne is an enormously successful introductory novel for the trilogy. I loved the way religion exists in this world and in the story. You could say Malini is an atheist or anti-theist, even, while Priya and Bhumika have far more complicated relationships to their gods and the role religion can play as a tool of nationalism and in-group solidarity. Suri takes religious ritual and belief seriously in a way that is rare in SFF, and in that seriousness, she manages to use it to drive a fantastic set of emotional journeys and plot elements. You also get to see so many parts and aspects of this rich world, all described very beautifully, and while I can see how it would be confusing, I enjoy the multiple POVs scattered throughout the book which take us, sometimes very briefly, into the heads of many significant and insignificant individuals throughout the empire.

I am sad that it didn’t quite soar, but it was definitely worth the read.

Comments

[aurumcalendula]

This reminds me I need to need to read the final part of the trilogy (I liked the first two, although I think I preferred the first one a bit more).

[pauraque]

Suri takes religious ritual and belief seriously in a way that is rare in SFF

Ooh. I really like it when SFF can pull this off, so now I'm tempted.

[chestnut_pod]

I thought The Jasmine Throne, which nearly stands on its own, was a fantastic book in its own right. There was much substance to the subsequent two as well, though I didn't think they quite fulfilled its promise.

[chestnut_pod]

Yes, I really liked the different religions people followed, the different ways they thought about them, and how we almost always got more than one (and sometimes more than two!) perspectives on each tradition. It's fantasy, so the gods are There, but I think most of the character work is about religion the human institution, not about the supernatural powers per se.

[cesy]

Ooh, this sounds interesting

[rmc28]

I have only read the first one, though I have bought the subsequent two ...

I "just" need to find the time to read them.

[chestnut_pod]

It definitely is that!

[rocky41_7]

Fully support this review. I read "The Lotus Empire" right after it came out, because I had been waiting for it since finishing "The Oleander Sword" and I've been trying to put my finger on why it didn't really land for me ever since. It's not that it was bad (and I didn't really think the two earlier books were anything extraordinary, but I enjoyed them), but it really didn't hit as hard as I expected. I think you're right about the flattening of Malini's character--I absolutely loved her in the first book, but in TLE I found her POV chapters relatively dull.

There are a lot of things I do like about these, but they aren't as effective as I hoped. I did really enjoy the yaksa and their relationship with humanity as a whole as well as their priests and representatives.

I almost feel like it could have benefited from being four books rather than three, to give TLE more time to breathe. Then again, I found Rao's storyline in TLE uninteresting and unnecessary, so maybe it's not that the story needed more space, but more depth.

[chestnut_pod]

Makes sense to me! I liked Rao and his story, but I agree that to really pay off (rather than being a pleasant diversion), it needed to have greater depth. Perhaps overall! And maybe trimming would have helped, actually, to let the good parts shine and maybe have a greater impact?