City of Bastards: 3 reasons you’ll dig this YA fantasy
While Andrew Shvarts’ Royal Bastards made for a strong debut, City of Bastards improves on the good parts. Here’s why this YA fantasy will draw you in.
It’s been about a year since yours truly introduced Andrew Shvarts and Royal Bastards right here on Culturess. Well, he’s back this year with City of Bastards, the sequel, and Hyperion sent this novel along my way as well.
Simply put, if you liked Royal Bastards, you’ll probably like this one, too, but for newcomers to the series, here’s why City of Bastards and its preceding novel should make it onto your reading list this summer.
Big world-building
When I reviewed Royal Bastards, I pointed out that readers “[learn] just enough to be dangerous” when it comes to Tilla’s world. That changes in a big way in City of Bastards. Now, it’d be wrong to spoil the story completely, but suffice it to say that a reader’s understanding of the world gets fundamentally altered because the whole book moves things to Lightspire. That’d be the capital, and it’s where Tilla, Lyriana, Ellarion, and Zell all now reside in different capacities.
This is also where Shvarts gets to indulge a little more in the use of magical technology. I won’t go so far as to say that the book is flat-out steampunk, because that calls up a very specific aesthetic. However, it does remind me of some fantasy RPGs … well, that and Zell’s name do, anyway.
He does lean in to Tilla’s fish-out-of-water status as well; she’s from the West, and she is not welcome to a large bit of the population because of her father’s behavior. It makes for a good combination.
Embracing the espionage
Because the book takes place entirely in Lightspire, Shvarts doesn’t have the luxury of physical movement to help the plot along. That means an increase in the moves and countermoves. Parts of this book read more like a murder mystery (but with magic) or a spy thriller instead. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sure, the world-building comes back in and reminds us that this is a fantasy, but all in all, the book feels pretty balanced in this respect.
Where it does not feel balanced is the same place it didn’t feel balanced in Royal Bastards. Shvarts’ style and diction for Tilla sounds really off, even though the whole point is that she’s not quite as high-class as the other characters. The juxtaposition of her diction with others’ only makes the disparity more glaring. It actually makes the book a little harder to enjoy.
No love triangles
But what I did enjoy — although I was very concerned that I would not enjoy it — is that the book does not lean into a love triangle. It’s awfully close for a bit there, and if it had dipped down to a true triangle, that would have made the book lose some points with me. As it is, things don’t seem quite as open to it by the end of the novel that there’s probably nothing to worry about in a sequel.
Next: The Dresden Files: Ranking the stories of Brief Cases
Will you be reading City of Bastards?