Blood over Bright Haven

Originally self-published in 2023, Wang’s overly ambitious standalone fantasy (after The Sword of Kaigen) addresses two weighty social problems: a wealthy, advanced culture feeding off a disadvantaged one, and talented women being kept subservient by a male elite. When a desperate tribe tries to outrace the deadly Blight and find safety in the city of Tiran, only a skilled hunter, Thomil, and his young niece, Carra, survive. Ten years later, as an underclass janitor, Thomil is surprised to be named the lab assistant of Sciona, a talented magical scholar and the only woman to have tested into the ranks of Tiran’s ruling and mostly hostile mages. Working together, Thomil and Sciona gradually learn the city’s unholy secret: Tiranese achievements depend on slaughtering the Kwen, Thomil’s people, in a land called the Otherrealm, for magical energy. Wang slows her plot by minutely delineating this world’s scientific magic system and endows her characters with jarring 21st-century adolescent lingo. The bittersweet ending only partially justifies Sciona’s quest to change her society and Thomil’s rage at its selfishness. Impatient sword-and-sorcery fantasy fans will struggle. (Oct.)