The Emporer's Edge Series
by Lindsay Buroker
reviewed by by AJ Reardon
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Here's the thing: I am in general very, very skeptical of self-published and other "indie" authors. It can all be traced back to a Comic Con trip years ago, when Chris decided that he would pick up a book for me because it was about faeries and dragons and I love that sort of thing. I can't remember now what the book was called... Something-something Scotlynn or Scotlyn something-something? I dunno. It was about a female knight, it was pseudo-historic, I think there was some really weird Jesus love going on, and it was horribly written. In one fell swoop I went from thinking that self-published books were a labor of love to thinking that they were largely written by people who either weren't good enough to get picked up by a traditional publisher or were too lazy to try. You'd think my opinion might have been changed by the fact that my father - CT columnist Rick Higginson - has decided to go the self-published route and I know his stuff isn't awful. But no, that hasn't really helped, because he's just one author in a sea of authors, and we've swapped stories about the horrible self-published books we've read in the name of trying to give people a chance. So anyway, a friend kindly gave me her old Nook when she upgraded to a new tablet, so I was giving this whole "ebook" thing a try and I was getting annoyed by how expensive digital books were. I was expected to pay the same price as a paperback for the virtual version, I couldn't sell it to the used bookstore when I was done if I didn't like it enough to keep it, I couldn't use coupons, oh yes, and if I decided I didn't want to switch over to an ereader after all, I'd lose out on the books I had purchased. So I was desperately looking for something cheap or free as a test-drive for the Nook. And along came The Emporer's Edge. It was the first book in a series and it was FREE! But wait... it was self-published! OH NO! I waffled. I wavered. But then I read the reviews, and it was very well-rated and reviewers mentioned all sorts of things I liked, like good writing, enjoyable characters and a strong female lead. Finally I said to myself, "Self, it is free. We will probably get what we paid for, but let's give it a chance." I know, I know, I'm so charitable. So with this skeptical attitude, I loaded the book up before bed and started reading. And surprisingly, I was almost immediately hooked. After 150 pages, I started recommending it to people as "Hey, it's free and it's really good so far." Soon enough the same friend who had given me the Nook was reading along and pulling ahead of me in the series, and we were chatting about the various elements we loved in the books. I read the five that are available currently, and some of the related short stories, and one of the author's other books, and I'm now reading more short stories while waiting impatiently for book 6. Emporer's Edge is exactly what self-published fiction is in your best daydreams - clever and original, a truly well-written labor of love that hasn't been forced into a mold by the publishing industry. It has steampunk elements, but because it was written without the author being steeped in the steampunk culture (she just wanted an industrial-age setting instead of a medieval or renaissance inspired one), there's no obligatory bustles and airships (ok, eventually there's airships, but as a plot point, not window dressing). It has an urban setting without being an "urban fantasy." It's a fantasy without being an epic quest to save the world. And it has mystery elements, but without being about a person who is surrounded by people who just keep dying (ever read one of those mystery series where you're glad you're not friends with the protagonist because people around her die in the most exciting ways and turn out to have the darkest secrets? Yeah, me too). The first book is in fact described as "a high fantasy mystery set in the era of steam" and I thought really, they're going to cram all those elements into one book? But it worked, and it keeps right on working throughout the series. The author even manages to throw in some romance and political intrigue. I think what really makes this series is the characters and their dialog. Buroker creates a wonderful cast and then lets them talk to each other. There's playful banter and genuine arguments and tender moments, and it all feels so real. Each character has their own way of talking, and the conversations flow naturally. This lead to me quickly becoming attached to each and every one of them, even characters I wouldn't normally identify with, because they felt like real people to me. Over all, the series is pretty well-paced. Each book features a different character's point of view. The first is from the main protagonist Amaranthe, and she shares narrator duties with the rest of the cast throughout the story, tying it all together nicely. The books have a bit of a formula to them, as any given story will usually involve a "case" that the group works on, a personal problem for the narrator, and the over-all meta story of the group trying to be accepted as heroes by the emperor, each for their own reasons. But the cases and problems are all unique enough that the books don't feel formulaic. Parents should like the fact that this is a series they can share with their teens and mature kids. The violence isn't too graphic, sexual jokes are all euphemistic and there's no actual love scenes, and the language is generally setting-specific slang rather than actual vulgarity. I'd say it falls somewhere comfortably in the PG to low PG-13 range. It's not written for a YA audience, since most of the characters are adults, but it is YA friendly and could serve as a good bridge to introduce your kids to the world of "grown-up" fantasy when they've run out of YA (ok, given the size of the YA section, it would be hard to "run out" but maybe they're picky readers or they need something a little more challenging). Small warning: There's some torture in book 5, it's not graphic but it could bother really sensitive readers. This series has shown me that the self-published scene is changing. I'd already seen hints of it with some authors choosing to leave their publishing house in favor of going it alone, and I've seen some complaints that publishing is moving towards being as bad as the music industry in some areas. It used to be that doing it yourself was an unappealing prospect. You'd either have to put out an unedited work or take out a small loan to hire an editor; now you can use crowd-funding to pay your editor and take pre-orders all in one fell swoop. Bookstores were reluctant to carry your work; now your readers can easily find you on-line. Self-publishing companies often printed low-quality books at high prices; digital editions of self-published books are often cheaper than a mainstream paperback (the Emporer's Edge books are $4.99 after the first freebie). Of course, there's still a lot of crap out there, authors who think they don't need an editor, authors with just plain bad ideas, and authors who have promise but need to work a little harder. But this is another area where the internet helps us, as we can read reviews before we decide to buy - we just have to hope that they're not all written by the author's nearest and dearest, and that there are some unbiased readers in the mix. It's going to be a while yet until I'll buy a self-published book without hesitation, but Buroker has shown me that I don't need to dismiss them out of hand anymore.
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E-mail AJ at: ErtheFae@aol.com Visit AJ at: www.erthefae.net
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