More quality steampunk by Jay Kristoff: Kinslayer leads off with a recap of the important characters, what they did, and what happened to them in book one, Stormdancer. While Stormdancer was primarily about the building of Yukiko and Buruu’s bond, Kinslayer focused more on the civil war that threatens the cesspit city of Shima. A politically inspired wedding is set to take place very soon, cementing another madman in a position of power, who loathes Yukiko and her thundertiger, Buruu. The Kage rebellion is in full swing, led by Daichi and supported by Guildsman artificer turncoat, Kin, who is not trusted by most but deeply involved with Yukiko. New characters abound, especially since Yukiko and Buruu are sidetracked for most of the book. Lowborn Hana, whose job it is to empty the waste generated by the palace residents (nicknamed Shit Girl), uses her “invisible” status to spy for the Kage, trying to rescue the sister of the slain Shogun and last in the family line. Her greedy brother and their kenning connection with an mangled alleycat is great. And some old characters return to align themselves with Hana, including maidservant, Michi a strong, determined, and dangerous character. Kristoff puts the reader right into the action, where you can smell the city’s putrid scents, see their corpse-rats, and dodge the bullets, bombs and fires when all hell breaks loose. ( )

Simultaneously better and worse than the previous book.

The 'hai' 'san' and 'sama' being thrown around like confetti in the previous book are blessedly reduced, if not eliminated, in this one, and the dialogue is soooo much better for it. There's still some bizarre word choices and substitutions, clearly made to make the book feel more 'Japan' - the most egregious being grinning like "a kitsune in a henhouse.' This isn't even a pastiche of Japanese language, culture, or art - this is just someone using the replace function in Word and feeling clever. Its lazy.

The action is well-written. I don't mind violence or gore in a novel, but it did seem excessive. It represented a huge change in tone that felt less like a natural progression of the story or world and more like someone trying to ape on Empire Strikes Back. There's some great imagery there, particularly with how women are treated in the guild. Do I need a visceral description of a cat being slaughtered? No, I do not. It didn't add anything to the scene to describe how its skull crunched and guts splayed, and its the laziest fucking way to elicit a reaction from the reader.

A few more female characters get POV-time in this. I appreciated having a broader cast, with different roles and perspectives regarding the rebellion. I liked how they had kick-ass abilities, although the comparison of Hana, the young girl working as a spy and killer known as No One who can ken into animals, to Arya, the young girl working as a spy and killer known as No One who can warg into animals, is inevitable. Hana, you're no Arya. There's some issues with their presentation, however. The book perseverates on the appearance and beauty of these women, far, far more than any skill, trait, or action. Woman forcibly made to strip in front of everyone? Let's talk about how hot she is. Woman held in captivity with the threat of death looming over her? Let's talk about how hot she is. Woman brutally beaten and possibly gang-raped? Yup, better know she's still hot. Being sexy in the face of violence is not what being a strong woman is about, FYI. If those descriptions had just been cut, it would have read so much better. The revelation of Hana's half-Gaijin status was fine. The revelation that she secretly had her eye and oh, yeah, it is a sign of gaijin with powers was fucking lazy. That should have had the seeds planted more thoroughly and far earlier; this feels like Calvinball. I also didn't see the point of Yoshi being gay. It felt included to have it included. Which means really little when you torture the gay characters to death. Somewhat similar with the Yakuza - I don't think they contributed much to the plot, but were there to have them, because Yakuza are a Japanese thing and we need to shoehorn in all the common Japanese words and tropes people know. So again, its back to lazy worldbuilding.

Yukiko is in very little of the plot of this book. She spends the first 25-33% of the book drunk and suffering from her powers going into overdrive, causing her mental and physical pain/damage. She then flies off on Buruu to the edge of the world, suffering considerable physical and mental hardship along the way. Then she comes back. All the major plot events happen while she's a world away. I didn't mind her being only part of the book---as I said earlier, I liked having others get POC-time!---but it felt like she was just sort of....tossed on the back burner. The biggest downside is that we get even less time with Buruu than we do with Yukiko because they get separated, and we only really follow Yukiko's storyline in depth after the split. Buruu was one of the highlights of Stormdancer, and was a major selling point on this book. I wanted more, not less, of the B-Man.

So let's talk about The Pregnancy. Yukiko is pregnant and there is a graceless reminder almost immediately after the reveal that yes she slept with Hiro and no one else, in case you forgot. The babies--yes, its twins--both have the kenning and are the reason Yukiko's abilities have spiraled into overdrive, causing bird suicide and....earthquakes. The pregnancy was a completely blindside to me, so props on actually surprising me bigtime. There's two plot points that are delicately hinged upon the pregnancy - its used to sway a baby-crazed lady thundertiger to the cause and its used to stop Yukiko from killing Hiro. Both felt like quite a reach, more to force the plot along than anything natural. But that's not what I want to talk about.

Let's go back to the previous paragraph. Yukiko spent the first trimester of her pregnancy pissed drunk, in pollution, experiencing such wonderful events as food deprivation, drowning, having the shit beat out of her (including having her stomach kicked and beaten), hypothermia....the list goes on. During the most formulative time of development for a fetus.

If those babies are born (not conveiniently miscarried/aborted), and are born with actual, factual disabilities (not "omg they are too powerful!" or "they would have been so powerful in the kenning but now only have regular kenning"). I am not making a joke here or downplaying how serious this is. If those babies come out with severe FAS or something, I will take it all back. Because that shit would be legitimately dark and realistic, over-turning a LOT of cliches and tropes in the fantasy genre.
( )

I really loved the first of Jay Kristoff's books in the Lotus War series, Stormdancer. I read it before I'd spent much time learning about cultural appropriation and now I am somewhat ashamed of the fact that I liked it so much. Therefore, I couldn't in good conscious read Kingslayer. I'm disappointed that I didn't really appreciate that problems within the first book nor understand the impact of cultural appropriation. But over the the years I've come to understand it and now I seek out works about people of color by people of color (both fiction and non).

For more about Jay Kristoff and cultural appropriation in Stormdancer, please read this excellent essay: https://thebookwurrm.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/on-cultural-appropriation-an-essay... ( )

Japanese Steampunk, and lots of mythology. ( )

Second book in the series, Japanese steampunk, multiple characters deal with multiple issues and take the story on another step, it's complicated and involved and honestly the only characters I really cared for were Hana and Daken.

It's not a bad book it's just a bridging book that is introducing multiple characters who will be important later but right now are just clutter for me. Some stories were resolved but others will complicate things for the last book. ( )