The Jewel and Her Lapidary
The Gem Universe series, Book 1
Fran Wilde
Tordotcom
Fiction, Fantasy
Themes: Diversity, Girl Power, Magic Workers, Weirdness
***+
Description
The singing gemstones of the Valley have great powers, but to hear them is to court insanity unless bound by metal and oaths. Thus, for generations, the ruling Jewels each had their bound Lapidaries at their side from childhood to death, harnessing powerful gems that can protect the lands and compel obedience and perform other great wonders... until the king's Lapidary betrayed the royal house and let the mountain warriors into the palace. Now, only one Jewel survives, the princess Lin, and her Lapidary Sima... but Lin had been meant to marry off to a foreign ally, and thus was never trained in the arts of ruling, let alone war or rebellion, while Sima's skills have never been tested beyond minor manipulations of paltry little gemstones with paltry little powers. How can they stop the invaders from enslaving the Valley and turning their magical gemstones toward global conquest?
Review
The concept of this story and universe is wonderful, and I really wanted to enjoy this story. For some reason, though, I had a hard time getting into it and connecting with the characters or their world. After a brief opening entry establishing that this is a tale of long-ago (the opening is an excerpt from a travel guide to the Valley, written long after the events that form the meat of the tale), the reader is thrown head-first into the chaotic events following the poisoning of the entire royal house (save Lin) and their companion/slave Lapidaries (save Sima), a jumble of events in which the core concept of the singing stones and the Lapidaries and the oaths that bind them (quite literally, oaths inscribed in metal cuffs and rings) are chucked about haphazardly. From the start, the two have very little power over their circumstances, especially when they learn that their survival was no accident; the invading general wants her rule legitimized by a royal marriage of her son to Lin, and she needs a Valley-born Lapidary to control the last remaining royal gemstone, the one that can compel obedience and with which she might conquer not only the Valley resistance but the rest of the world. The fact that Sima is not skilled enough a Lapidary to wake the powerful stone is a detail the general does not care to hear, any more than she cares to negotiate with Lin for the safety and survival of the Valley people. I was spending so much time trying to juggle the worldbuilding and where the characters fit in to that and each other that I felt distanced from the emotions, from living in the story. The problems and eventual solution are deeply dependent on the customs of the Valley and the gemstone/Lapidary relationship, though there still seems to be a bit of a flaw in it. The whole felt rushed, too tightly packed with all the elements Wilde was trying to introduce, or like I'd missed a previous book in the universe and was already supposed to know more about the Valley and its world. Though undoubtedly intriguing, I never quite got past that feeling of being an outsider to the story, and don't know that I'll read on in the series.