I was so excited a little over a month ago when I was approved to read Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao. It sounded amazing: a Russian-inspired fantasy! And look at the cover! Almost immediately after I downloaded the book, it suddenly became controversial.
Today’s post is partly a review of this book, and partly a discussion of the controversy surrounding this book. Unfortunately, the author has chosen not to publish this book for the time being. I was given an advanced reader copy of Blood Heir in exchange for an honest review.
Our hero, whom I’ll call Ana, was framed for a murder she didn’t commit. She teams up with a con man (Ramson Quicktongue) in order to seek revenge. In the meantime, both Ana and Ramson discover that they sometimes have to make difficult choices between right and wrong, while at the same time fighting off corruption and discovering a much larger conspiracy…
The Controversy
This isn’t one of the fairy-tale books you read in your childhood, where the hero always wins in the end.
Blood Heir ARC, ~loc. 5586
I think this quote from Blood Heir sums up my feelings on this controversy. In case you don’t know what happened, Ms. Zhao was accused of racism because of some of the content in the book. One of the characters, a girl named May, ends up getting killed after being rescued from a slave auction. Slate wrote an article about this. Yes, there is slavery in Blood Heir, but despite some people saying that the book was referring to African slavery in the 1800s in the US, most of the slaves in this book weren’t even black.
Yes, I can see how some people might be upset because May ends up dying, and it wouldn’t really be very good optics to kill off your main black character after a slave auction, but there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that May wasn’t even black. She has ocean-colored eyes, to give one example.
The book had so many good things to say about corruption, and powerful people taking advantage of the less fortunate… it breaks my heart to see this book with such a beautiful message be taken away from public access. There’s a whole dedication page at the front of the book where the author says why she wrote the book… because she sees the racism and hatred that people have for “the other” and wanted to try to combat that. Anyway, from a messaging perspective, I am very sad about what happened. I hope at some point this book will have another chance.
The Book
Overall, Blood Heir was an interesting story. The characters had depth, and even though they were trying to do the right thing, had plenty of darkness inside of them as well. The book kept me interested and I needed to know what happened next. Even after finishing the book (which was originally supposed to be a trilogy) I’d still like to know what happens next.
There was some phrasing that I personally wouldn’t have kept, but I’m probably just being nit-picky because I’m in the middle of editing my book… so editing mode me seems to always be in full gear. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment though.
The book was meant to be Russian-inspired. This was one of the things that drew me to the book in the first place because I speak Russian and go to a Russian meetup group every week. There was some beautiful Russian worldbuilding: the Taiga biomes, the domed buildings, the governmental setup, but there were some things about the Russian inspiration that I think would be distracting to readers. Some of the “Russian”-ish words were very difficult to pronounce, even for someone that speaks Russian (many of the Russian sounding words weren’t Russian). This is a fictional world, so it doesn’t have to follow Russian conventions; the author probably could have made the names a little simpler.
Overall
My conclusion about this book: it was enjoyable, the book shouldn’t have been pulled off the shelf, but the Russian inspiration could have used a little work. I would recommend this book if it ever is published, I would read the sequels to this book, and I would definitely read more work from Amélie Wen Zhao again. I was blessed to have the opportunity to read this book and I wish more people would have been able to read this as well.
I’m so upset that I’ll probably never get a chance to read this book. It was one of my most anticipated releases for 2019. I feel like a lot of people might have overreacted to something that truly did happen in that time period. It’s not like the author did that to piss off everyone.
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This might be the biggest tragedy of the year, I think. I know A Place For Wolves also had some controversy to it (which, although I haven’t read that book, might be a little more deserved), but after reading this book, and seeing what this book was trying to accomplish, I’m just heartbroken that this was taken out of circulation. I hope that it will be released at some point in the future.
I was also crushed that this book probably won’t see light of day any time soon. I’m just so tired of seeing so many books dragged for their content (exception listed below). It brings up a lot of questions when it comes to talking about serious issues in fiction, mostly: are authors NOT allowed to write about these issues? Is it just going to constantly lead to someone calling for a book’s demise before it’s even properly published? Not everyone’s experience is the same.
I do agree about A Place for Wolves though–I was interested in reading it but after reading several reviews and the author’s behavior, it rubbed me the wrong way.
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It makes me a little concerned about my own book. Most of the elves in Erenya are terribly racist, bigoted people. They cage humans and kill them for fun (although some they enslave). I don’t know what people might say about that.
I guess the only thing you can do is write and publish anyway, and if people have something to say about you, be polite but publish anyway.
I’m concerned for my own too. It’s a retelling, but it details some horrific events and abuse. Sometimes I wonder if I should go ahead and even finish writing it, but that’s unfair to the progress I’ve made and my characters. I’m going to continue with it, because if I keep this doubt going I’ll hold myself back.
I wonder how many other people have those same thoughts but are unwilling to express them? How many people will decide to tell bland, uncontroversial stories for fear of having their voices shut down?