Review: The Incandescent by Emily Tesh

Ah, the British public school. Which is backwards, because in Britain, “public” means “private.” And posh private at that.

I was the charity girl. I was the girl everyone knew was only there because she had a bursary, who’s house only had one bathroom (the horror). I was supposed to get an education, get rid of my accent, and marry somebody of at least a slightly higher class.

I ran off to America.

If Emily Tesh does not have experience with that kind of a school, she at least knows somebody who did. Because Chetwood School was intimately familiar to me. Hogwarts is a caricature of that kind of school.

Chetwood just is that kind of school. Except it’s a magic school in the way we have music schools or STEM schools.

You get a rounded education, but you get to study magic. And if you’re fortunate/unfortunate enough to be a sorcerer, you might well be stuck there.

All of this is to say that The Incandescent is a magical school story. With a twist. With an inversion even. Because in a school story, the kids are the stars and the adults are vaguely incompetent, sometimes obstacles.

The Incandescent is written from the point of view of Sapphire “Saffy” Warden, the school’s deputy headmistress for magical studies.

It’s about the adults. About the faculty and the adventures of the magically inclined youth are thus brought into a different perspective; kids messing around. And oh, those kids are messing around.

Add in a not entirely functional sapphic love story and lots, and lots, of demons and you have something that might appeal to those who grew up on Harry Potter and feel betrayed by JKR’s transphobia or even those of us old enough to remember our growing understanding of Enid Blyton’s racism. Ahem.

This is a good school story. Tesh doesn’t just know the terminology (Oddly, I almost never think of myself as a Old Girl anymore, even though I am), but she understands the culture. It’s beautiful.

And it’s a great alternative for people who are all grown up…and just can’t do Harry Potter anymore.

Recommended

I received a copy of this book for award consideration purposes.

Review: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

This is a western. This is a vampire story. This is not a western. Not exactly. Call it western-adjacent.

Jones, a Blackfoot, weaves the tale of a Native American man infected with vampirism, and using it to go after the people who destroyed the buffalo and the plains. This is, yes, the same Jones that wrote The Only Good Indians, which I admit I have not read.

The historical research that went into this book is solid, the language is period (by which I mean the word “Indian” is used a lot, and that’s okay), and the horror is…well. It’s a vampire novel. Meaning blood, gore, body horror, and people being hunted. The core relationship in the story, though, is between Good Stab, our vampire, and Arthur, the Lutheran priest who is related to the people who deeply harmed him. And a glutton. That parallel, between the priest who overindulges in baked goods because he can and the vampire who drinks people dry because he must to survive is an interesting choice.

This is, in fact, a book of interesting choices. It was definitely one of the better vampire novels I’ve read, in part because there is nothing sexy about Jones’ vampires, nothing of Anne Rice at all and, like Sinners, it juxtaposes supernatural horror with the horror of real history.

Recommended, with the caveat that there is a lot of gore.

I received a copy of this book for award consideration purposes.