I left this review sitting in drafts for months because it inadequately expressed my like for the book, but since the book is currently on sale for $1.99 in preparation for the sequel’s release, perhaps the price can do much of the persuasion with minimal help from me.
Notorious Sorcerer by Davinia Evans
The Burnished City Book 1
Published by Orbit
Released September 2022
Genre: Fantasy
Notorious Sorcerer takes place in Bezim, the only city in the world where alchemy is possible, for reasons that have little to do with the high level of privilege required by its practitioners. Alchemists need the time to study and practice, the money to send underlings to other planes to fetch ingredients, and the social standing to get off with a slap on the wrist because alchemy has been technically illegal since that time it destroyed half the city a few hundred years ago. The alchemists have been able to feel for a while that the planes are out of whack, but the imbalance has now become severe enough to cause earthquakes everyone can feel. The Inquisitors who police everyone even remotely involved with alchemy are getting fidgety.
Siyon is an underling who delves to other planes to fetch ingredients for Bezim’s alchemists. He crashes at his gang’s hangout but is otherwise homeless.¹ He’s trying to scrape together an exorbitant sum of money so he can properly study alchemy. He’s picked up some knowledge during the course of his hustle but craves more. During a planar delve gone awry, he accidentally acquires an item of immense value.
One of the noble alchemists for whom Siyon fetches agrees to include access to his library as part of the price for that item of immense value. Surprisingly, he keeps that promise even after an unrelated transaction causes Siyon to become a fugitive. Hiding from Inquisitors gives one plenty of time to study, after all.
Zagiri is a 16-year-old noble running with Siyon’s gang and chafing against the expectation that she will be presented to society and snag a husband. As the Inquisitors begin squeezing from the bottom of the alchemy hierarchy, she becomes increasingly aware of social injustice and that she might use the privilege she was born into for good. First, however, she has to rally the gangs to do some good during the immediate crisis.
Anahid is Zagiri’s older sister and the wife of the aforementioned noble alchemist. She gladly took on the role expected of her but is chafing now because her husband has no interest in her and his lover lives in her house. She’s outwardly prim and proper but doesn’t hesitate to shelter fugitives when it’s the right thing to do. She has already done everything expected of her, isn’t impressed with the results, and is on a mission to find something for herself. The turmoil dumped into her household gives her ample opportunity to strengthen her voice.²
Izmirlian is the adventurous but superfluous middle son of a noble family. He’s been trying to get an alchemist to send him beyond the planes, but they’ve either told him that’s impossible or taken his money and failed. He hopes Siyon’s daring and lack of academic rigidity will produce an outside-the-box solution.
Just setting up the major characters, there’s obviously a lot going on. I cannot emphasize enough that it’s all related (the gangs, the alchemists, the class structure, the problem with the planes) and deftly balanced. This is not segmented worldbuilding in which what happens in one bubble has no effect on bubbles nearby. For example, when the Inquisitors move against the alchemists, they also shut down everyone known to supply materials to alchemists, including the apothecaries who supply non-alchemists with things like burn ointment and birth control. This is a lived-in story, and even the extras in the background have to deal with the consequences.
It’s explicitly asked at one point why something was done, and the answer was “There was a need.” There was a need is a recurring motif in this book, which is full of characters rising to meet needs when they will gain nothing and often must risk a great deal, from holding a tether to averting a planar cataclysm and all points in between. Mutual aid as a default response is extremely endearing.
A need that manifests again and again is freedom. Magic wants to be free. Non-nobles want to be as free as the nobles. Noble women want to be as free as their male counterparts. Izmirlian, for all his noble male privilege, wants to be free of the Mundane. The prisoners and refugees, most acutely, want to be free. Freedom requires release from whatever holds one captive. Some releases are hard won and painful. And then, of course, one must survive those who don’t want you to be free, or even alive.
I don’t read many series past the first book, but I’d love to spend more time with these characters in their world. I would enthusiastically read the sequel (Shadow Baron) coming out in November 2023.
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¹ The Scruffy Rebel is often antagonistic to everyone, creating most of his own problems, but Siyon is well liked. He has existing bonds and forges new ones during the story. He negotiates for what he wants. He accepts help. He’s aware when he’s on the wrong end of a power differential and rarely attempts to swagger his way through it. Other than the universe shaking apart and fascists instituting a pogrom, the overall atmosphere was refreshingly pleasant and well-adjusted.
² Anahid is my favorite character in this book. Apart from “I did everything I was supposed to, where’s the reward that was supposed to be at the end of this path?” being excruciatingly familiar to me, her straight line from learning an inappropriate card game for fun to blackmailing a peer to save a friend is delicious. Furthermore, she notices how nice it is when a man actually listens to her but doesn’t “fall in love” with him for slithering over that incredibly low bar. More Basic Human Decency Isn’t Romance, please.