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Title | The Executioness
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Author | Tobias S. Buckell
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | ---
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First Printing | ---
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Title | The Alchemist
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Author | Paolo Bacigalupi
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Cover Art | J.K. Drummond
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Publisher | Subterranean Press - 2011
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First Printing | Subterranean Press - 2011
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Category | Fantasy
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Warnings | None
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Main Characters | Jeoz, Jiala, Pila, Scacz
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Main Elements | Wizards, alchemists
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Website | windupstories.com
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 The Alchemist
Magic has a price. But someone else will pay. Every time a spell is cast, a bit of bramble sprouts, sending up tangling vines, bloody thorns, and threatening a poisonous sleep. It sprouts in tilled fields and in neighbors' roof beams, thrusts up from between street cobbles, and bursts forth from sacks of powdered spice. A bit of magic, and bramble follows. A little at first, and then more--until whole cities are dragged down under tangling vines and empires lie dead, ruins choked by bramble forest. Monuments to people who loved magic too much.
In paired novellas, award-winning authors Tobias Buckell and Paolo Bacigalupi explore a shared world where magic is forbidden and its use is rewarded with the axe. A world of glittering memories and a desperate present, where everyone uses a little magic, and someone else always pays the price.
In the beleageured city of Khaim, a lone alchemist seeks a solution to a deadly threat. The bramble, a plant that feeds upon magic, now presses upon Khaim, nourished by the furtive spellcasting of its inhabitants and
threatening to strangle the city under poisonous vines. Driven by desperation and genius, the alchemist constructs a device that transcends magic, unlocking the mysteries of bramble s essential nature. But the power of his newly-built balanthast is even greater than he dreamed. Where he sought to save a city
and its people, the balanthast has the potential to save the world entire--if it doesn t destroy him and his family first.
I picked this book up at the library on a whim, mainly because it was short, but I found myself really enjoying it. Wonderful worldbuilding, though it took me some time to pick up on the middle-eastern vibe but I enjoyed it all the more after that. At the time I didn't realize it was the second novella in a duology but I didn't feel like I was missing anything by not having read the first. In fact now I want to hunt down the first, but for some reason my library doesn't have The Executioness.
It's a tale of the consequences of using magic, every time a spell is cast a little bit of deadly bramble sprouts. This leads to the executions of anyone caught using magic...except of course if your the most important wizard around, and you're even in the process of building a magical bridge. *That* magic is apparantly ok, and if everyone *else* stopped then the bramble problem wouldn't be that bad. But everyone has a good reason, save a child's life here, stop a house collapse there. But every little bit adds up.
And what if you created a device that could destroy the bramble once and for all? Something even fire couldn't do. But what if that device could also detect magic users? What would you use it for?
Some of the characters are a little two dimensional but this is a novella so not much time for character building, and perhaps the moral is a little heavy handed. But on the whole I liked it and will want to read more of Bacigalupi's work.
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