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Anxiety as Magic: A Review of Empire of Exiles [1]

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Date: 2022-12-12

I am not precious about spoilers, so while there isn't anything too detailed below, reader beware.

I read about two chapters of Empire of Exiles, by Erin M. Evans, and was afraid I was not going to like it. I primarily purchased the book because I liked the author form a podcast I listened to. The promotional material promised two tropes that I did not enjoy -- mind control and shape changing into duplicates of real people. These tropes always feel like a cheat to me -- people should do things because they have reasons for doing them, not because they are controlled into doing them. And a perfect disguise is just lazy writing, in my opinion. It's not a great plan to have a perfect duplicate of someone infiltrate a group/organization/etc. And the villains in this book make extensive use of both.

However.

In this book, it generally works. The focus is not really on the tropes, though they are present. They are used in a more interesting way than usual. More importantly, since the changelings, as the shapeshifters are called, destroyed most of the civilizations in the world prior to the start of the book, the society that remains is aware of them and has procedures and tools for detecting and dealing with them. They are therefore less of a crutch than they usually are. And the mind control is used once or twice and is easy to detect. Tension comes from plot and plot comes from character, giving the book not only a sense of propulsion but a cast that you care about and want to follow. But what really makes the book interesting is the world building and magic system. One, though, works better than the other.

The world building is more interesting than effective. As mentioned, at the time the story takes place, a century has passed since the changelings destroyed most civilizations in the world, driving the remaining eleven into one peninsula. One the one hand, it presents an interesting picture of multiculturalism without the baggage of colonialism and imperialism. On the other hand, it doesn't feel like a group fo cultures that have been thrust on top of one another under terrible circumstances. Part of this is that our primary protagonists are all dedicated to the preservation of the society. But we don't get much sense in their interactions outside those confines of prejudice, resentment, or even basic incompatibility of beliefs. Evans is, I think, aware of this as she mentions one society that was thrown out, essentially, because of one such incompatibility. And the plot is put into motion by a coup started by a clique in one society. But that is not generally presented as a problem of cultural incompatibility but of politics. Overall, it feels a touch pollyannish and somewhat unbelievable.

The magic system, however, is brilliant. People have an affinity for working material. They can manipulate and learn from the material they have an affinity for to varying degrees, depending on the strength of their affinity. However, that affinity can overwhelm you and cause you to lose all sense of yourself and let the material literally consume you. Evans states explicitly in her acknowledgments that the system is meant to model anxiety. I have family members who struggle with anxiety attacks, and I can tell you that Evans' descriptions of an affinity spiral remind me very much of dealing with their attacks. But she handles such events with an enormous amount of compassion for the characters. Many writers end up treating characters with mental health issues as exotic, as if their health issues makes them somehow a different class of person. This especially happens in genre books where the mental health issues are used as triggers for powers or skills of some kind. Evans never falls into this trap. She never loses the basic humanity of her characters, their good and bad, in the middle of these spirals. It is a welcome and heartening aspect of the book.

Overall, I would recommend the book. The characters as compelling, the plot is fast and fun and flows from believable character motivations. Evans has a little too much faith in the police for my taste, and as mentioned, the worldbuilding misses some opportunities to dig into some really interesting areas. But Evans also handles the mechanics of the world building very well. She never stops to lecture you on the history of the world or what you are seeing. Things merely are and she gives you enough information in the flow of the story for you to understand enough of the world to keep you engaged in the story. Her writing is fun to read and while the book is the first of a series, the story stands by itself. A definite buy in my mind.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/12/2141197/-Anxiety-as-Magic-A-Review-of-Empire-of-Exiles

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