January Book Reviews: Medair by Andrea Host
Back on my Andrea Host readthrough. In Medair, the eponymous main character left on a desperate last-minute quest for a magic arsenal to save her country from invaders—only to return three hundred years later. Adrift in a world where the conquerors are already assimilated and everyone she knows is dead, Medair must choose where her loyalties truly lie.
This book had SUCH a juicy concept and was easily my favorite Host book so far. I love angst... Medair is a deeply honorable person, but she struggles with a world where her loyalties are no longer relevant: does she continue on a doomed fight against the former Ibisian invaders, or is her loyalty to the country itself? It doesn't help that the historical record has painted her as a sort of King Arthur figure, if King Arthur was prophesied to return to bring the promised ethnic cleansing. (Never date a bard.) But since Medair can't stomach tearing this new world apart with yet another war, she's stuck with a magic bag full of nukes, a terrible case of depression, and a life as a hermit. Until she's dragged into someone else's political problems when a dying Ibisian mage forces her into a geas to help him...
I adore dramatic irony, and most of the tension of the book hinges on Medair slowly getting dragged into local problems with magic stones and traitorous merchants and scheming aristocrats, all while concealing that she's The Medair. Even as she's getting closer to the people who would have been enemies in her time, she's also frantically hiding her poor grasp of the last several hundred years of history, not to mention her entire personal backstory. I heart lying and angst and secrets. However, the one thing I didn't like was how the alien Ibisians were handled. Their inhumanly pale skin and hair is consistently described as particularly beautiful in a way I disliked. And while the Ibisian hardline blood-purity movement is generally condemned, it's easy to see how it grew from a culture that accepted the deaths of hundreds of thousands over years in a war of conquest rather than running the risk of (gasp) possibly assimilating as refugees from a magic disaster. As a historical setup, I'm honestly surprised that this fantasy kingdom has lasted several hundred years without a bloody genocide on either side.
Truly excellent fantasy with one of the most delicious concepts I've read all year. And the execution lives up to it too. My favorite Host book so far and a strong early contender for my best of the year list. Recommended.
