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The Siege of Burning Grass
The Empires of Varkal and Med’ariz have always been at war.
Alefret, the founder of Varkal’s pacifist resistance, was bombed and maimed by his own government, locked up in a secret prison and tortured by a ‘visionary’ scientist. But now they’re offering him a chance of freedom.
Ordered to infiltrate one of Med’ariz’s flying cities, obeying the bloodthirsty zealot Qhudur, he must find fellow anti-war activists in the enemy’s population and provoke them into an uprising against their rulers.
He should refuse to serve the warmongers, but what if he could end this pointless war once and for all? Is that worth compromising his own morals and the principles of his fellow resistance members?
Alefret, the founder of Varkal’s pacifist resistance, was bombed and maimed by his own government, locked up in a secret prison and tortured by a ‘visionary’ scientist. But now they’re offering him a chance of freedom.
Ordered to infiltrate one of Med’ariz’s flying cities, obeying the bloodthirsty zealot Qhudur, he must find fellow anti-war activists in the enemy’s population and provoke them into an uprising against their rulers.
He should refuse to serve the warmongers, but what if he could end this pointless war once and for all? Is that worth compromising his own morals and the principles of his fellow resistance members?
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 12, 2024
72 people are currently reading
1946 people want to read
About the author
Premee Mohamed
83 books741 followersPremee Mohamed is a Nebula award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. She is an Assistant Editor at the short fiction audio venue Escape Pod and the author of the 'Beneath the Rising' series of novels as well as several novellas. Her short fiction has appeared in many venues and she can be found on Twitter at @premeesaurus and on her website at www.premeemohamed.com.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 155 reviews
July 14, 2024
This is a secondary-world fantasy (as defined by the author) novel that tries to answer whether pacifism can survive a war. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for July 2024 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group. This is my first book by the writer, a Nebula award-winning Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Canada.
The book starts quite grimly. The protagonist, Alefret, is locked in a prison, which is located at St. Nenotenus’ school for the correction of minors. There is a war going on between Varkal, which currently holds him and the Meddon. As the story develops, readers find more about both the character and the world. It turns out that Alefret is abnormally large, and such abnormalities are assumed dull and caring only for basic needs. However, he was a village teacher and co-founder of a pacifist movement. The war caused him to take refuge in a city, where a bombing caused wounds that led to an amputation of one of his legs. Here, in the prison, a local mad scientist used him (against Alefret’s will) in an experimental treatment of regrowing the missing limb. This is done by regular injections by a group of genetically modified wasps.
Alefret is initially accused of consorting with the enemy, for there are only ‘ours and theirs’ and everyone not fully with us is an enemy. It is hard to stick to a pacifist creed where killing one may save thousands, but Alefret holds. Finally, Varkal’s military decides to send Alefret with a minder, deadly SpecOps commando Qhudur across the frontline to stimulate anti-war protests and capitulation of the other side. The rest of the story follows this mission.
The writing is solid and definitely talented, the story is a strong argument for an ultimate pacifism. The message is clear, but, I, an unwilling participant in the Russian-Ukraine war cannot agree that both sides of every war are guilty, so ordinary people should get together to stop the madness. Because there is evil, and turning the other cheek may save your soul if you believe in it, but not your life or lives of yours.
The book starts quite grimly. The protagonist, Alefret, is locked in a prison, which is located at St. Nenotenus’ school for the correction of minors. There is a war going on between Varkal, which currently holds him and the Meddon. As the story develops, readers find more about both the character and the world. It turns out that Alefret is abnormally large, and such abnormalities are assumed dull and caring only for basic needs. However, he was a village teacher and co-founder of a pacifist movement. The war caused him to take refuge in a city, where a bombing caused wounds that led to an amputation of one of his legs. Here, in the prison, a local mad scientist used him (against Alefret’s will) in an experimental treatment of regrowing the missing limb. This is done by regular injections by a group of genetically modified wasps.
Alefret is initially accused of consorting with the enemy, for there are only ‘ours and theirs’ and everyone not fully with us is an enemy. It is hard to stick to a pacifist creed where killing one may save thousands, but Alefret holds. Finally, Varkal’s military decides to send Alefret with a minder, deadly SpecOps commando Qhudur across the frontline to stimulate anti-war protests and capitulation of the other side. The rest of the story follows this mission.
The writing is solid and definitely talented, the story is a strong argument for an ultimate pacifism. The message is clear, but, I, an unwilling participant in the Russian-Ukraine war cannot agree that both sides of every war are guilty, so ordinary people should get together to stop the madness. Because there is evil, and turning the other cheek may save your soul if you believe in it, but not your life or lives of yours.
March 27, 2024
A meditation on war, the duality of violence and non-violent resistance, and the deep commonality of all people.
There was some weirdness at the end of the story and a minor thread I seemed to have lost track of at some point, but generally this was excellent. There is a quiet emotional depth infused in Mohamed’s writing that catches and takes hold of me when I read her work.
This was war, the very definition of it at last: like dying in winter. A slow numbing, the gradual but irrevocable loss of sensation in the core, the acceptance of death, the inability to be shocked. Then lassitude and relief. Supposedly, at the end, you even felt warm again.
There was some weirdness at the end of the story and a minor thread I seemed to have lost track of at some point, but generally this was excellent. There is a quiet emotional depth infused in Mohamed’s writing that catches and takes hold of me when I read her work.
This was war, the very definition of it at last: like dying in winter. A slow numbing, the gradual but irrevocable loss of sensation in the core, the acceptance of death, the inability to be shocked. Then lassitude and relief. Supposedly, at the end, you even felt warm again.
March 22, 2024
Alefret is a prisoner of his own country, a pacifist in a time of war, a victim of his own country’s bombs and torturers. Reluctantly he agrees to infiltrate the enemy’s last remaining floating city with one of his guards/torturers, to try and persuade them to surrender or call for a ceasefire. There’s much to think about in this novel, war and peace, resistance, violence and its uses, the use of propaganda particularly in the dehumanisation of the enemy, disability and difference, and much more.
There’s also science fiction elements, the floating city, strange weapons and tools that are part animal/part mechanical, including wasps that are used for injecting drugs.
It’s an interesting read and some parts I found really engrossing, in other sections the pacing is a bit slow.
There’s also science fiction elements, the floating city, strange weapons and tools that are part animal/part mechanical, including wasps that are used for injecting drugs.
It’s an interesting read and some parts I found really engrossing, in other sections the pacing is a bit slow.
May 11, 2025
An ambitious novel that I ultimately did not find successful on any level, neither as a story (plot and character leave much to be desired) nor as a philosophical exploration (themes are undeveloped and confused). The prose is good, and I appreciate that it’s unique instead of trendy and features characters who seem based on life rather than tropes. But ultimately, I think it was published a couple drafts too soon.
The Siege of Burning Grass is a fantasy or sci-fi novel (initially I thought the former, by the end it seemed clearly the latter) following a proclaimed pacifist on a military mission during a destructive war. As mentioned, the plot is weak, with the first two-thirds being a slow, episodic slog of a journey to the point where the real story begins. For the first third I was willing to see where it went; by the second third I was on the verge of abandoning it, and while the final third does pick up, I wouldn’t have missed much had I done so.
The protagonist, Alefret*, is at the root of many of the book’s troubles. Alefret is supposed to be a famous pacifist, and has been arrested and undergone torture for his cause, and yet we never actually learn what pacifism means to him. From a comment at the beginning about witnessing violence being itself a form of violence, it’s clearly not as simple as just opposing the war and refusing to kill. And yet in the first chapter Alefret accepts a role on a mission obviously intended to end in violence, for reasons that remain confused. He goes on to do a bunch of things that don’t seem pacifistic (actively forwarding said military mission; physically restraining people and knocking them down; directing people to throw grenades(!) at other people) and has zero internal monologue about it. Has he violated his creed?—then why no wrestling with it? Or is he following to the letter a highly specific set of beliefs that he never shares with the reader? For a book supposedly about his beliefs and the challenge to them, that element is notably absent, beyond his occasionally pondering moral justifications for killing a villainous character, and then frustratingly refusing to do so, which, come on, you can get in any fantasy media. And neither he nor anyone else undergoes any change or development over the course of the story.
Meanwhile, Mohamed seems to confuse pacifism with passivity. Because most of what Alefret does is allow himself to be manipulated and pushed around by other people, silently resenting them but making no independent plans. On the couple of occasions he acts, it either goes nowhere, or plays into the military’s hands. I’m not sure “pacifists are a valuable military tool” was the takeaway the author intended, but I struggle to see how anyone interprets this book as pro-pacifism when that is in fact the gist of it.
Finally, the geopolitics and larger picture are also confused. Mohamed’s worldbuilding attention seems to have focused on elements that are fun or creative but ultimately irrelevant (the biotechnology, the background on how this world came to be), while the pieces essential to the plot don’t quite fit. If the opponent nation is down to a single, besieged city floating over barren territory occupied by their enemies, why does everyone think they’re winning and why do they still have food while their enemies are starving? If in fact they have ground territory somewhere, why aren’t they linked up with it? When Alefret is in his army’s camp he sees his countrymen on their last legs, having lost all effective air power and just trying to feed their own soldiers, so where do all of their subsequent bombings come from? The book takes for granted that no treaty or ceasefire can be made without one side or the other “surrendering,” which is never questioned and seems contrived to allow the plot to occur. (And yet, ).
In the end, I think the author is talented enough at the mechanics that I wouldn’t rule out reading more from her. But I can’t recommend this one, a slog of a journey to a nothingburger of a destination.
* The names in this book are okay written down, but as I learned doing a buddy read, they sound very silly aloud. “Alefret” sounds like someone struggling with “Alfred.” “Qhudur” looks badass on the page but aloud is just “Cooter.” Even “Cera” just turns into “Sara.”
The Siege of Burning Grass is a fantasy or sci-fi novel (initially I thought the former, by the end it seemed clearly the latter) following a proclaimed pacifist on a military mission during a destructive war. As mentioned, the plot is weak, with the first two-thirds being a slow, episodic slog of a journey to the point where the real story begins. For the first third I was willing to see where it went; by the second third I was on the verge of abandoning it, and while the final third does pick up, I wouldn’t have missed much had I done so.
The protagonist, Alefret*, is at the root of many of the book’s troubles. Alefret is supposed to be a famous pacifist, and has been arrested and undergone torture for his cause, and yet we never actually learn what pacifism means to him. From a comment at the beginning about witnessing violence being itself a form of violence, it’s clearly not as simple as just opposing the war and refusing to kill. And yet in the first chapter Alefret accepts a role on a mission obviously intended to end in violence, for reasons that remain confused. He goes on to do a bunch of things that don’t seem pacifistic (actively forwarding said military mission; physically restraining people and knocking them down; directing people to throw grenades(!) at other people) and has zero internal monologue about it. Has he violated his creed?—then why no wrestling with it? Or is he following to the letter a highly specific set of beliefs that he never shares with the reader? For a book supposedly about his beliefs and the challenge to them, that element is notably absent, beyond his occasionally pondering moral justifications for killing a villainous character, and then frustratingly refusing to do so, which, come on, you can get in any fantasy media. And neither he nor anyone else undergoes any change or development over the course of the story.
Meanwhile, Mohamed seems to confuse pacifism with passivity. Because most of what Alefret does is allow himself to be manipulated and pushed around by other people, silently resenting them but making no independent plans. On the couple of occasions he acts, it either goes nowhere, or plays into the military’s hands. I’m not sure “pacifists are a valuable military tool” was the takeaway the author intended, but I struggle to see how anyone interprets this book as pro-pacifism when that is in fact the gist of it.
Finally, the geopolitics and larger picture are also confused. Mohamed’s worldbuilding attention seems to have focused on elements that are fun or creative but ultimately irrelevant (the biotechnology, the background on how this world came to be), while the pieces essential to the plot don’t quite fit. If the opponent nation is down to a single, besieged city floating over barren territory occupied by their enemies, why does everyone think they’re winning and why do they still have food while their enemies are starving? If in fact they have ground territory somewhere, why aren’t they linked up with it? When Alefret is in his army’s camp he sees his countrymen on their last legs, having lost all effective air power and just trying to feed their own soldiers, so where do all of their subsequent bombings come from? The book takes for granted that no treaty or ceasefire can be made without one side or the other “surrendering,” which is never questioned and seems contrived to allow the plot to occur. (And yet, ).
In the end, I think the author is talented enough at the mechanics that I wouldn’t rule out reading more from her. But I can’t recommend this one, a slog of a journey to a nothingburger of a destination.
* The names in this book are okay written down, but as I learned doing a buddy read, they sound very silly aloud. “Alefret” sounds like someone struggling with “Alfred.” “Qhudur” looks badass on the page but aloud is just “Cooter.” Even “Cera” just turns into “Sara.”
March 30, 2024
"It's that 'fair' is a meaningless word if someone really wants to hurt you. There are no equal fights. Even if there were, you cannot tell by looking. So don't fight."
What are the consequences of refusal? What are the consequences of complicity?
I absolutely adore what Premee has to say and how she chooses to say it. I would argue that this is the heaviest of the three books I've yet read from her, but incredibly worthwhile.
A man -born huge and strong, the kind of person people think is an indelicate, brutish monster on sight- who is actually a scholar and a pacifist is forced to go on a two-man mission with his enemy-- someone who looks like your neighbour or best friend but whose very bones sing with violence and war propaganda. Along the way he reflects often on the state of war and of stories, on the value of nonviolence, the lies we tell ourselves.
The world-building details are not the main focus, but build up an interesting setting in the background. From the floating city to the village bred lightspiders that can be depended on even in a blackout to the wasps with stings that can regrow human limbs. In many ways the two nations and their technologies (cold and mechanical vs alive and evolutionary) remind me of the Darwinists and Clankers in Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan series, and I think it works very well in this much more Adult novel.
I will be reflecting on the ideas presented here for a long while. Thank you for a beautiful story.
Edit: 4.5/5, but this belongs much more with the books I ranked 5 stars this year, so rounding up.
"A very rapid sort of natural selection, like everything else in war. Survival of the fittest. But fittest didn't mean the most fit. It meant the one who fit best into the tortured shape the world made around them."
Thank you to Solaris and NetGalley for granting me an ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
March 18, 2024
"Bombing children. Bombing children as if to say, See what you have made us do. Fight without honour because you fought without honour. Forced our hands."
4.5 stars rounded up.
I swear, the more Premee Mohamed I read, the more I fall in love with her unique style of storytelling and writing.
Similar with authors like Cassandra Khaw and Vajra Chandrasekera, her style is definitely not for everyone. But if strange, almost otherworldly, SFF is your thing, you should definitely check this one out.
I'll admit though, it took me some time to get used to the prose because it read very clinical and detached in the beginning. It was hard to get to know the MC, Alefret, because the narrative feels very impersonal.
But once the story unfolded, it was easier to understand Alefret's fears and motivations through his exchanges with the other characters, particularly with Qhudur and Cera. This is the type of book that doesn't hold your hand, so you'll have to figure out each character's dilemmas and how the world functions on your own. It was quite a workout, let me tell you that.
But somehow, I ended up loving this mental exercise.
And slowly, but surely, the prose became more and more poetic as the story went on.
I loved how war and the role of pacifism is explored in this book. Several times over, Alefret's loyalty is questioned by various characters due to his pacifist stance.
I also loved how the author explores Alefret's large, disabled body as its own contentious and political topic. The fact that he even exists in a world that persecutes people with physical disabilities becomes a form of activism in itself. This quote below sums it up:
"How good it would be, just once, to be the monster everyone said he was—not forever, not for a lifetime. Just long enough to kill the corporal. But then could you return to humanity after that. Some would say yes. He was not sure."
I highlighted many quotes from the arc that I'll share here. Please note that they're subject to change in the published copy.
"Survival of the fittest. But fittest didn’t mean the most fit. It meant the one who fit best into the tortured shape the world made around them. And that was changing all the time, protean, many-faceted."
'[...] If the Meddon are human, how can they do what they do?”
“They are human,” Alefret said. “What are you talking about? The border wasn’t even drawn between our countries till a few hundred years ago. We all come from the same people.”'
"A child martyr could not consent to martyrdom. The youth of these soldiers pained him as if they were his own students, back in the village, out here sheltering under a carcass and waiting for old men to tell them to die."
"He could not imagine these teenagers fighting desperately, ferociously, for fear or anger or revenge or love of their country— for any reason, any emotion—when they were at the same time treated like assets in a business decision. Now we none of us are what we wanted to be, he imagined himself saying, solicitous, his teacher voice. A father to these children. But couldn’t you be anything else? Anything?"
"The idea slipped away again and again and finally he grasped it, and thought: They have butter here. And in Edvor they are running out of rats."
"War is practicing human sacrifice. You kill and you pray to the gods and you say: I have given you blood. Now you give me victory. The fact that they do not call it that, or admit to the prayer, does not make it any less true."
"...he could see that the loss had made her hard and hollow, and hard and hollow things broke easily under stress. He wondered how many times she had broken, during the war, and been alone, and rebuilt herself."
"The war was full of soldiers who had been forced to kill; and a small, unspoken contingent of those who wanted to kill. Who had only been waiting for the mass disaster of a war to unleash what they’d wished they could do all their lives."
Thank you to Solaris and NetGalley for this arc.
April 5, 2024
3.5 rounded up. This is the first book I've read by Mohamed, although I've been intrigued by her work for several years. Her prose is absolutely gorgeous, and I think perfectly suited for this narrative that relies as much on character and philosophy as it does on plot. I did not find the ending very convincing, but the journey to get there was rewarding enough.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC.
March 17, 2024
Premee Mohamed is incredible. I'm steadily becoming convinced that everything she writes is a remarkable work of art. And (not "but") this is a dark, challenging work to get through. While The Butcher of the Forest was most like a fairy tale and was gorgeous and then got swiftly dark and briefly brutal but then gentled up, this brilliant reflection on war and resistance ends on a hopeful note but the path to get there is grindingly bleak.
If you're up for that, the world-building is phenomenal. I love the snippets of myth and old cultural tidbits from Alefret's village. The sheer astonishing weirdness of Varkal's biotech, perfectly ordinary to Varkallagi residents and thus not meriting much mention, is wonderful and is presented so seamlessly by the author that lizard guns seem, in the moment, to make perfect sense.
War has such an awful lot of inertia. I loved how, in this exploration of how the systems that support and continue war function or cease to function--as well as how resistance movements function or cease to do so--along with the complex ethics of pacifism, nobody is idealized. Neither side (Varkal or Meddon) is Right, and no one, even among the resistance, is uncomplicated to sympathize with (well, maybe with the exception of Cera).
It's very, very good, but prepare yourself for Cormac McCarthy levels of bleak and dark. CW for an awful lot of things .
If you're up for that, the world-building is phenomenal. I love the snippets of myth and old cultural tidbits from Alefret's village. The sheer astonishing weirdness of Varkal's biotech, perfectly ordinary to Varkallagi residents and thus not meriting much mention, is wonderful and is presented so seamlessly by the author that lizard guns seem, in the moment, to make perfect sense.
War has such an awful lot of inertia. I loved how, in this exploration of how the systems that support and continue war function or cease to function--as well as how resistance movements function or cease to do so--along with the complex ethics of pacifism, nobody is idealized. Neither side (Varkal or Meddon) is Right, and no one, even among the resistance, is uncomplicated to sympathize with (well, maybe with the exception of Cera).
It's very, very good, but prepare yourself for Cormac McCarthy levels of bleak and dark. CW for an awful lot of things .
November 29, 2024
Gosh did I want this book to Say Something. I just don't think it ever did. I could probably give you a list of 10 books that contemplate war, the ludicrous nature of nations, the nature of rebellion, and the fall into fascism better than this book
It was very earnest in its thoughts, even if they weren't enlightening, however.
CONTENT WARNING:
I honestly am trying to remember much about this, but 2 months later, the big takeaway is that war never solves a problem, and that propaganda is the best tool of the state, no matter which state.
Maybe I'm just jaded, but nothing in here was shocking. A lot of it was grotesque, like the torture and depravity, but none of it made me think new thoughts.
Yeah, kid, this is what war looks like. Yeah, kiddo, revolutions fail.
So it goes.
It was very earnest in its thoughts, even if they weren't enlightening, however.
CONTENT WARNING:
I honestly am trying to remember much about this, but 2 months later, the big takeaway is that war never solves a problem, and that propaganda is the best tool of the state, no matter which state.
Maybe I'm just jaded, but nothing in here was shocking. A lot of it was grotesque, like the torture and depravity, but none of it made me think new thoughts.
Yeah, kid, this is what war looks like. Yeah, kiddo, revolutions fail.
So it goes.
dnf-for-good
August 25, 2025dnf @ 57%
Realized that based on my recent reviews you would prob think that I'm an incredibly negative person when that is absolutely not the case. I would actually consider myself a sort of happy go lucky fool 😂😂😂 Regardless, I cannot bring myself to finish this. It is sooooo boring and the main character personally annoys me. He's got a staunch pacifist moral code that comes across as self-righteous. I don't remember where I read this description, but it was like "he's the hero who just refuses to kill the most despicable villain" and that is spot-on.
In all seriousness though, this philosophy of total nonviolence and blanket pacifism here comes across in the wrong way. I don't know if there is some interesting critique or take on it at the end of the book, but I honestly had a hard time aligning with this moral code only because it's just not that straightforward ever. Silence and complete neutrality can be one of the worst things that we do in the face of atrocities. I know the author probably didn't mean for this to be the interpretation, but that's how it read to me.
Realized that based on my recent reviews you would prob think that I'm an incredibly negative person when that is absolutely not the case. I would actually consider myself a sort of happy go lucky fool 😂😂😂 Regardless, I cannot bring myself to finish this. It is sooooo boring and the main character personally annoys me. He's got a staunch pacifist moral code that comes across as self-righteous. I don't remember where I read this description, but it was like "he's the hero who just refuses to kill the most despicable villain" and that is spot-on.
In all seriousness though, this philosophy of total nonviolence and blanket pacifism here comes across in the wrong way. I don't know if there is some interesting critique or take on it at the end of the book, but I honestly had a hard time aligning with this moral code only because it's just not that straightforward ever. Silence and complete neutrality can be one of the worst things that we do in the face of atrocities. I know the author probably didn't mean for this to be the interpretation, but that's how it read to me.
January 31, 2024
This timely meditation on war, violence, and identity is a shimmering oasis, spied from a distance through unrelenting heat. There is beauty in the vision alone, but there is doubt about if it is real or if your desperate mind has combed with the landscape to project what you hope to see. My previous experience with Premee Mohamed’s work is with her Beneath the Rising trilogy, and while the competence and expanse of the writing there is similarly on display here, those novels did not prepare me for this. That trilogy was fast-paced, ranging in scope from techno-thriller to cosmic, eldritch horror come to life. This story, in contrast, is slow and contemplative. We are constantly learning new details about our protagonist even up to the final part of the book, a slow unfurling, or revealing. This gentle exploration is perfectly aligned with the interiority of the protagonist, and it serves this story quite well. There are a handful of secondary characters that are distinct, and even though we don’t have a lot of depth into their personal stories they always feel like more than archetypes or place holders. The world-building is deliberate and slow, similar enough to our world that we don’t need our hands held, but different enough that as more small details emerge, slowly, organically, it is a treat.
The story itself is slippery. This is why I liken it to a shimmering oasis; it seems straight forward if you were to summarize it but feels like it is constructed only with curved lines when you experience it. There is not a lot of action, especially in the first 3/5 of the story. Events happen and there are bursts of excitement, but the real journey here is internal. This, again, is paralleled in the structure, being divided into 5 sections only, not a few dozen chapters, and while there are section breaks within each division they are not the hard and clear delineations that often pull readers forward in a story. I did struggle a little with this novel in the beginning, it felt like it was holding back in a way that didn’t always invite me in. I don’t think it needed to move faster or be more revealing, but even accepting this as a meditative journey it was hard to find a lot to hook me in, early, to really compel me along. That isn’t to say the story is rambling, it is remarkably well-focused, but it doesn’t have a narrative urgency. This contrasts with the constant urgency and sense of internal despair felt by the characters, which is an engaging stylistic technique, and definitely felt more effective the longer I spent with the characters. I felt implicated the whole time, constantly searching my mind for how I would respond to these situations, which all felt painfully realistic. The novel has an ending, but it doesn’t have answers. Beautifully written and tragically timely, this is a wonderful story that sits with you far beyond the last page.
I want to thank the author, the publisher Solaris, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
The story itself is slippery. This is why I liken it to a shimmering oasis; it seems straight forward if you were to summarize it but feels like it is constructed only with curved lines when you experience it. There is not a lot of action, especially in the first 3/5 of the story. Events happen and there are bursts of excitement, but the real journey here is internal. This, again, is paralleled in the structure, being divided into 5 sections only, not a few dozen chapters, and while there are section breaks within each division they are not the hard and clear delineations that often pull readers forward in a story. I did struggle a little with this novel in the beginning, it felt like it was holding back in a way that didn’t always invite me in. I don’t think it needed to move faster or be more revealing, but even accepting this as a meditative journey it was hard to find a lot to hook me in, early, to really compel me along. That isn’t to say the story is rambling, it is remarkably well-focused, but it doesn’t have a narrative urgency. This contrasts with the constant urgency and sense of internal despair felt by the characters, which is an engaging stylistic technique, and definitely felt more effective the longer I spent with the characters. I felt implicated the whole time, constantly searching my mind for how I would respond to these situations, which all felt painfully realistic. The novel has an ending, but it doesn’t have answers. Beautifully written and tragically timely, this is a wonderful story that sits with you far beyond the last page.
I want to thank the author, the publisher Solaris, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
November 3, 2024
Alafret is a very tall and powerful man. He lives in a country that is perpetually at war against its neighbour. Alafret is constantly mistaken for a brute because of his unusual size, so it comes to everyone who meets him as a surprise to find he is as quiet, learned, and committed to pacifism as he is.
He is aiding people escape a bombing when he is injured, captured, and thrown in prison. He is treated with a highly experimental technique, then forced by a military leader to travel to the enemy, with a vengeful, violent and nasty guard. The aim is for Alafret to infiltrate the rebels and convince them to confront their leadership to stop the war.
The journey is long and difficult and fraught with dangers, even beforeAlafret and his tormentor/guard Qhudur make it into the enemy's floating city. There, they encounter suspicion and do fall in with the rebels, but to Alafret's dismay, even here, despite them admiring his writings, the rebels treat him much as his own countrymen do, with varying levels of disgust or dismay because of his appearance.
Premee Mohamed's works are fascinating, and grapple with weighty topics, but never feel didactic. This story drew me in immediately, and I got enough detail and background as Alafret moved through the novel to understand the world and the stakes. Mohamed nicely encapsulates Alafret's ambivalence about his mission: even though he hated assisting his country's military, he also wanted the war to end. Sitting it out, or providing aid to refugees was not hastening the end of the conflict, which has been brutal and unforgiving on both sides.
This was a wonderfully written indictment of war. It's understandably dark in tone, both in terms of what it has to say about loyalty to cause and country, and the cost of war.
Mohamed also shows how intolerance and bigotry are corrosive, and all too common, despite supposed high ideals espoused by some. Mohamed uses the fact that Alafret is disabled to explore these ideas; there is too often a sense that disability equates to stupidity, weakness or venality. Neither his culture nor the enemy's has any use for anyone who does not conform to what is seen as “normal”, which makes Alafret's size and missing leg an affront to everyone he must deal with on his mission. But his injury and size clearly do not stop him from making an arduous journey, and repeatedly figuring out solutions to problems. He also is principled, and kind, and many times understandably frustrated with the intolerance he experiences for his appearance, and his activism.
This was a fantastic novel, and I found myself rereading passages once I'd finished. Mohamed's prose is lovely, and the story, and the questions it raises, are worthwhile reading.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Rebellion for this ARC in exchange for my review.
He is aiding people escape a bombing when he is injured, captured, and thrown in prison. He is treated with a highly experimental technique, then forced by a military leader to travel to the enemy, with a vengeful, violent and nasty guard. The aim is for Alafret to infiltrate the rebels and convince them to confront their leadership to stop the war.
The journey is long and difficult and fraught with dangers, even beforeAlafret and his tormentor/guard Qhudur make it into the enemy's floating city. There, they encounter suspicion and do fall in with the rebels, but to Alafret's dismay, even here, despite them admiring his writings, the rebels treat him much as his own countrymen do, with varying levels of disgust or dismay because of his appearance.
Premee Mohamed's works are fascinating, and grapple with weighty topics, but never feel didactic. This story drew me in immediately, and I got enough detail and background as Alafret moved through the novel to understand the world and the stakes. Mohamed nicely encapsulates Alafret's ambivalence about his mission: even though he hated assisting his country's military, he also wanted the war to end. Sitting it out, or providing aid to refugees was not hastening the end of the conflict, which has been brutal and unforgiving on both sides.
This was a wonderfully written indictment of war. It's understandably dark in tone, both in terms of what it has to say about loyalty to cause and country, and the cost of war.
Mohamed also shows how intolerance and bigotry are corrosive, and all too common, despite supposed high ideals espoused by some. Mohamed uses the fact that Alafret is disabled to explore these ideas; there is too often a sense that disability equates to stupidity, weakness or venality. Neither his culture nor the enemy's has any use for anyone who does not conform to what is seen as “normal”, which makes Alafret's size and missing leg an affront to everyone he must deal with on his mission. But his injury and size clearly do not stop him from making an arduous journey, and repeatedly figuring out solutions to problems. He also is principled, and kind, and many times understandably frustrated with the intolerance he experiences for his appearance, and his activism.
This was a fantastic novel, and I found myself rereading passages once I'd finished. Mohamed's prose is lovely, and the story, and the questions it raises, are worthwhile reading.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Rebellion for this ARC in exchange for my review.
November 1, 2023
Disclaimer: An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher through NetGalley, many thanks, though this does not influence my opinion in any way.
This is a book, that is hard to put into words. Reading it, I had the impression of tangled wool and I feel like I have not managed to smooth out every knot, not yet. I think I will be thinking about this book a bit more in the future.
My very favorite thing is the worldbuilding and the interesting world the characters live in, how can I not with the lightspiders and the medical wasps, the shot lizards. The book had me as soon as I realized that a hive of wasps was regrowing our main characters leg!
Split into five parts, each set in a specific location, my favorite was the second, where Qhudur and Alefret wander through the bombed country trying to reach the military base. The conflict between them was so interesting to read about and Qhudur especially was a very interesting villain. Their shared cultural heritage and the myths and stories especially, that Alefret recounts, were immersive and fleshed out the world in what is maybe my favorite way to do this (The book reminded me in that, in the best way, of Ursula K. Le Guin‘s The Left Hand of Darkness).
The ending twist came very suddenly, I wish its idea would have been hinted at sooner, wish it had been a bit more established earlier on, because it is so interesting. I wanted more of so many things! I want more of this world, more of its past. More of Qhudur and Alefret and their ideological conflict. So many things would have been even more interesting if they were fleshed out further! But it all cohered together nicely, so it is just a matter of personal wishes.
Also some stylistic choices did not mesh with me sadly which, again, is simply personal preference and many would surely disagree. This Book is a wonderfully interesting examination of a strange world and of the meanings of pacifism and nationalism.
Four out of Five Stars
This is a book, that is hard to put into words. Reading it, I had the impression of tangled wool and I feel like I have not managed to smooth out every knot, not yet. I think I will be thinking about this book a bit more in the future.
My very favorite thing is the worldbuilding and the interesting world the characters live in, how can I not with the lightspiders and the medical wasps, the shot lizards. The book had me as soon as I realized that a hive of wasps was regrowing our main characters leg!
Split into five parts, each set in a specific location, my favorite was the second, where Qhudur and Alefret wander through the bombed country trying to reach the military base. The conflict between them was so interesting to read about and Qhudur especially was a very interesting villain. Their shared cultural heritage and the myths and stories especially, that Alefret recounts, were immersive and fleshed out the world in what is maybe my favorite way to do this (The book reminded me in that, in the best way, of Ursula K. Le Guin‘s The Left Hand of Darkness).
The ending twist came very suddenly, I wish its idea would have been hinted at sooner, wish it had been a bit more established earlier on, because it is so interesting. I wanted more of so many things! I want more of this world, more of its past. More of Qhudur and Alefret and their ideological conflict. So many things would have been even more interesting if they were fleshed out further! But it all cohered together nicely, so it is just a matter of personal wishes.
Also some stylistic choices did not mesh with me sadly which, again, is simply personal preference and many would surely disagree. This Book is a wonderfully interesting examination of a strange world and of the meanings of pacifism and nationalism.
Four out of Five Stars
February 3, 2025
2.5 STARS
CW: war, ableism, torture, blood, gore
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. (And yes, I do realize this book came out last year. I have resolved to catch up on a backlog of ARCs I never managed to read this year.)
I'm a little sad about my reading experience of this book... I think I started it in the wrong mood and wasn't in the right mindset to read it. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more otherwise.
As it stands, I couldn't really get into the story as much as I wanted to. The premise sounded super promising and I enjoyed the beginning but the story lost me a little when neverending conversation was followed by yet another neverending digression. As I said before, I think I could have enjoyed this more at a different time but the past week definitely wasn't the best moment to pick this up which is unfortunate.
I think the dynamic between Alefret and Qhudur was very interesting and I'm sure it makes for a great story for others. If you're looking for an action-packed story, this is not really the book for you and I also think you need a little bit of brain-space to enjoy this book and get as much out of it as possible. For me, due to exams and other outside factors beyond my control, I couldn't really dive as deeply into it as I would have needed to. And once I realized that was the reason why I wasn't clicking with the story as much, I was already more than halfway done and I did not want to stop.
CW: war, ableism, torture, blood, gore
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. (And yes, I do realize this book came out last year. I have resolved to catch up on a backlog of ARCs I never managed to read this year.)
I'm a little sad about my reading experience of this book... I think I started it in the wrong mood and wasn't in the right mindset to read it. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more otherwise.
As it stands, I couldn't really get into the story as much as I wanted to. The premise sounded super promising and I enjoyed the beginning but the story lost me a little when neverending conversation was followed by yet another neverending digression. As I said before, I think I could have enjoyed this more at a different time but the past week definitely wasn't the best moment to pick this up which is unfortunate.
I think the dynamic between Alefret and Qhudur was very interesting and I'm sure it makes for a great story for others. If you're looking for an action-packed story, this is not really the book for you and I also think you need a little bit of brain-space to enjoy this book and get as much out of it as possible. For me, due to exams and other outside factors beyond my control, I couldn't really dive as deeply into it as I would have needed to. And once I realized that was the reason why I wasn't clicking with the story as much, I was already more than halfway done and I did not want to stop.
May 13, 2024
This book starts out as fantasy and evolves into more-or-less science fiction at the end: it's admitted that the human inhabitants of the planet are the descendants of colonists who came from (presumably) Earth thousands of years ago, and their floating cities and other technology are plausibly the repurposed remnants of their colony ships. This, however, is very much not the novel's focus. Its central conflict is the opposing philosophies of violence/war and nonviolence/pacifism, as embodied by the protagonist Alefret and his jailer/torturer/warrior companion Qhudur.
Alefret is a leader and founder of the Pact, the pacifist group who staunchly refuses to fight in the never-ending war between the conquering, biotech-based (they have giant pillbugs serving as tanks, for example) country of Varkal and the more technological country of Meddon, with their floating (antigrav-powered, probably, though it's never specified) cities. At the book's opening, Alefret has been captured after one of his legs was blown off in the war, and the Varkallagi medtechs are regrowing it with their specially bred medicinal wasps. He is offered the chance to win the war by using his reputation to infiltrate the final Meddon floating city and bring it down. This book is the story of Alefret's and Qhudur's journey to that floating city, and what they really find there.
Alefret is an interesting, complicated protagonist: he is an extremely large man (seven feet four) who is viewed as a "freak" and a "monstrosity" by Qhudur and the people in his home village:
So huge, so ugly; look at that face, must be simple, he'll never speak, never read, never think, not really. He'll eat you out of house and home if he lives. And you can forget having in-laws, forget being taken care of when you're older, you'll die alone and penniless, you should never have let him be born. All those things people said to them as Alefret watched. As if he could not understand the words. His parents had never defended him, only nodded, wept, nodded.
He wished he could hate them for it, but even now, with them both dead, he could not; there was only a great bewilderment, because he could speak, and could write, and think, and they dismissed it all, till he himself wondered whether he really could do any of those things or was simply imagining them, locked into a skull as thick as everyone said he had. As thick as a bull's, they said. No room for a brain. And that great misshapen forehead: like horns.
Even when he was older, and had made his living teaching mathematics and geometry and science to the village children, when he had his own school at the family farm, sold his own wool and eggs, even when he purchased his house, the village said: We love you. And in the next breath: You monster.
Qhudur, Alefret's minder, is sent with him to infiltrate Meddon's floating city. Qhudur is dangerous, and more than half nuts, and espouses some disturbing ideas of his own:
" You're part of the masses. You think you shouldn't be given the vote?"
"I don't vote with the masses. Anyway, both countries used to have the right idea. Ruled by a king. Or a dictator. Maybe with a small council of wise men unaffected by this...rabble. More educated. Able to think for themselves instead of doing what everyone around them is doing."
Alefret sighed. It was another rehearsed speech. Qhudur had again betrayed his youth, no matter how experienced he claimed to be in matters of war. He thought like a surly teenager. In his daydreams, when he fantasized about the subjugation and (no doubt) mandatory high-pressure washing of this hypothetical mob, he was never among them. Qhudur was the king, the tyrant, the grand vizier: no undignified crowd of ignoramuses had voted him into power. He had power because he was one of the ones who deserved power. Or he had been appointed by a man of power, singled out, sanctified and raised up, to sit on this mythical council of wise men.
When Qhudur and Alefret finally reach the floating city (they're towed there by one of Varkal's giant genetically-engineered pteranodons) they meet up with an underground group inspired by Alefret's writings. Alefret tries to start a nonviolent revolution in the city:
"It's not the way to end the war," Alefret said, trying to quell the thin man's unease. "It's a way to end the war. Nonviolent solutions to anything have to be tried again and again and again, and at different angles and in different ways and with different people. Governments like the violent solution because they've tried it, it works, and it's fast. They don't want to conceive of anything different. But there are other things to try--slower, more experimental, because they call for more people. And anything with lots of people moves slowly. But it has more power when it does."
This tension, this ongoing grappling, between violence and nonviolence, war and pacifism, makes for fascinating reading. This is not a breezy, fast-paced book. Alefret manages to thwart Qhudur's murderous plans and bring the floating city down without much loss of life, but we see at the end that there is still much more work to be done. Alefret is going to return to his home town of Edvor, see if he has any friends remaining, and start over: organizing "properly this time," as he puts it. The SF/fantasy elements are there, but the worldbuilding isn't the book's focus: the ideas and themes are. It makes for a very good read, if the reader is willing to adjust their expectations to what they'll actually be getting. It's an unusual story, but it's worth it.
Alefret is a leader and founder of the Pact, the pacifist group who staunchly refuses to fight in the never-ending war between the conquering, biotech-based (they have giant pillbugs serving as tanks, for example) country of Varkal and the more technological country of Meddon, with their floating (antigrav-powered, probably, though it's never specified) cities. At the book's opening, Alefret has been captured after one of his legs was blown off in the war, and the Varkallagi medtechs are regrowing it with their specially bred medicinal wasps. He is offered the chance to win the war by using his reputation to infiltrate the final Meddon floating city and bring it down. This book is the story of Alefret's and Qhudur's journey to that floating city, and what they really find there.
Alefret is an interesting, complicated protagonist: he is an extremely large man (seven feet four) who is viewed as a "freak" and a "monstrosity" by Qhudur and the people in his home village:
So huge, so ugly; look at that face, must be simple, he'll never speak, never read, never think, not really. He'll eat you out of house and home if he lives. And you can forget having in-laws, forget being taken care of when you're older, you'll die alone and penniless, you should never have let him be born. All those things people said to them as Alefret watched. As if he could not understand the words. His parents had never defended him, only nodded, wept, nodded.
He wished he could hate them for it, but even now, with them both dead, he could not; there was only a great bewilderment, because he could speak, and could write, and think, and they dismissed it all, till he himself wondered whether he really could do any of those things or was simply imagining them, locked into a skull as thick as everyone said he had. As thick as a bull's, they said. No room for a brain. And that great misshapen forehead: like horns.
Even when he was older, and had made his living teaching mathematics and geometry and science to the village children, when he had his own school at the family farm, sold his own wool and eggs, even when he purchased his house, the village said: We love you. And in the next breath: You monster.
Qhudur, Alefret's minder, is sent with him to infiltrate Meddon's floating city. Qhudur is dangerous, and more than half nuts, and espouses some disturbing ideas of his own:
" You're part of the masses. You think you shouldn't be given the vote?"
"I don't vote with the masses. Anyway, both countries used to have the right idea. Ruled by a king. Or a dictator. Maybe with a small council of wise men unaffected by this...rabble. More educated. Able to think for themselves instead of doing what everyone around them is doing."
Alefret sighed. It was another rehearsed speech. Qhudur had again betrayed his youth, no matter how experienced he claimed to be in matters of war. He thought like a surly teenager. In his daydreams, when he fantasized about the subjugation and (no doubt) mandatory high-pressure washing of this hypothetical mob, he was never among them. Qhudur was the king, the tyrant, the grand vizier: no undignified crowd of ignoramuses had voted him into power. He had power because he was one of the ones who deserved power. Or he had been appointed by a man of power, singled out, sanctified and raised up, to sit on this mythical council of wise men.
When Qhudur and Alefret finally reach the floating city (they're towed there by one of Varkal's giant genetically-engineered pteranodons) they meet up with an underground group inspired by Alefret's writings. Alefret tries to start a nonviolent revolution in the city:
"It's not the way to end the war," Alefret said, trying to quell the thin man's unease. "It's a way to end the war. Nonviolent solutions to anything have to be tried again and again and again, and at different angles and in different ways and with different people. Governments like the violent solution because they've tried it, it works, and it's fast. They don't want to conceive of anything different. But there are other things to try--slower, more experimental, because they call for more people. And anything with lots of people moves slowly. But it has more power when it does."
This tension, this ongoing grappling, between violence and nonviolence, war and pacifism, makes for fascinating reading. This is not a breezy, fast-paced book. Alefret manages to thwart Qhudur's murderous plans and bring the floating city down without much loss of life, but we see at the end that there is still much more work to be done. Alefret is going to return to his home town of Edvor, see if he has any friends remaining, and start over: organizing "properly this time," as he puts it. The SF/fantasy elements are there, but the worldbuilding isn't the book's focus: the ideas and themes are. It makes for a very good read, if the reader is willing to adjust their expectations to what they'll actually be getting. It's an unusual story, but it's worth it.
November 17, 2024
I've never thought about pacifism as an anti war tactic very deeply, so it was interesting to consider here. The ending felt a little hm pat however.
June 2, 2025
Can pacifist beliefs and practice survive a war? The leader of a movement, mutilated, imprisoned, and tortured by his own government, is sent to infiltrate the floating city of the enemy empire, along with a psychopathic soldier, in order to provoke an uprising. The worldbuilding and character work in this is excellent. I felt it didn't quite land the ending and bit off more than it could chew philosophically, but it was ambitious and interesting as hell.
December 8, 2023
I found this book fascinating. I'm partial to smart, un-beautiful, conflicted protagonists like Alefret. He's was born a malformed giant, and more recently has an amputated leg that is growing back, thanks to being experimented on by a mad scientist while imprisoned. He's also gentle, thoughtful, and immensely principled. A pacifist so committed that he has written the manifesto for how to be one, he is throughout the book thrown together with a violent zealot who he utterly hates, and yet resists killing or even harming. The book is an examination of how to be a pacifist when given every opportunity to kill someone you know is going to kill or otherwise cause the death a great number of others, someone you would take pleasure in killing. The unusual, highly original world this is set in makes this a fascinating story. Alefret's people have advanced bioengineering, so there are living tools of all kinds, such as wasps that deliver various drugs, spiders that make bandages, and lizards that create bullets. The enemies have a flying city. The writing is excellent, the characters superbly developed, the story completely unique, and the ending entirely satisfying. I highly, highly recommend this book!
January 6, 2025
Beautiful prose and fascinating worldbuilding, but I feel like the problem set up narratively is ultimately so complex, no ending would have satisfied me. This one didn't, particularly due to the context in which I read it.
But still, I am really glad to continue reading Mohamed and intend to check out more of her works.
But still, I am really glad to continue reading Mohamed and intend to check out more of her works.
February 12, 2024
Brutal and beautiful, THE SIEGE OF BURNING GRASS thrusts us into a war-torn world, eerily similar to our own, with touches of speculative brilliance that at once feels both nostalgic and new. Finding himself at the crux of the conflict is Alefret, an unexpected pacifist turned reluctant military tool, hoping to bring about a permanent ceasefire without sacrificing his deeply held beliefs. Across a desolate countryside, Alefret and his unlikely (and unwelcome) compatriot pursue an end to this war, and possibly all wars. Having read several of Mohamed's works, she constantly surprises me by her adaptive voice, a literary chameleon of the highest caliber. Read; discuss. Read again.
December 4, 2023
This book throws you off a cliff, but patches you up during the fall. Is the fall hard or soft? It depends, but trust that Mohamed knows exactly what she's doing from the first page and you're in her hands the entire way. You'll get there (where? the bottom. of? the abyss? all things?) and things (most of them) will be fine. Or they won't. It depends.
July 14, 2024
Dismal!!! and too much in MC's head
A book club friend says it gets better at the end (I dropped out before that) . . . and she gave it 5 stars, so I upped my review to 2 stars. Not fair to ding it so badly when what I complained of stops at some point. But still not encouraged to continue beyond the halfway point.
A book club friend says it gets better at the end (I dropped out before that) . . . and she gave it 5 stars, so I upped my review to 2 stars. Not fair to ding it so badly when what I complained of stops at some point. But still not encouraged to continue beyond the halfway point.
December 27, 2024
I saw this book on the site formerly known as tordotcom's best books of 2024 list and immediately went to check it out from the library because the premise was so enticing. Alefret has been tortured in prison for months for being a key leader in the pacifist movement against his country's endless unwinnable war. Until a general approaches him and makes him an offer—help a spy enter the enemy's city, and Alefret might be able to end the war and its endless violence.
The Siege of Burning Grass was a bitter, brutal novel, and I loved every bit of it. It immediately reminded me not of anything in the SFF canon, but of Alleg's The Question (the account of a journalist who was kidnapped by the French in Algeria and tortured). From the author's bibliography, it looks like her inspiration comes from farther north—she cites multiple nonfiction works on the siege of Leningrad—but you get the idea. Alefret comes from a city which is devastated to the degree that its people are running out of rats to eat. Alefret himself is in equally rough shape. He spends the entire narrative struggling to focus through excruciating pain, as he had a leg blown off by his own side prior to his capture. In an extra surreal twist, the sadistic prison doctor has experimented on him and burdened him with a cage of genetically modified wasps that sting his leg periodically in an attempt to regrow the limb.
Ultimately, this isn't a book about spies, or about anyone winning the war. It's about Alefret's grim, stubborn conviction that violence is wrong, pitted against the unrelenting machine of war, which follows him around in the form of his fanatically doctrinal prison guard, Qhudur. In a world where both sides explicitly despise him as a freak and a monster for his size and deformities, where there are no good actions, what is the right choice for Alefret to make? Mohamed doesn't offer too many answers, but she asks some excellent questions along the way.
Highly recommended if you're looking for a SFF book about war, but not an easy or a light read.
The Siege of Burning Grass was a bitter, brutal novel, and I loved every bit of it. It immediately reminded me not of anything in the SFF canon, but of Alleg's The Question (the account of a journalist who was kidnapped by the French in Algeria and tortured). From the author's bibliography, it looks like her inspiration comes from farther north—she cites multiple nonfiction works on the siege of Leningrad—but you get the idea. Alefret comes from a city which is devastated to the degree that its people are running out of rats to eat. Alefret himself is in equally rough shape. He spends the entire narrative struggling to focus through excruciating pain, as he had a leg blown off by his own side prior to his capture. In an extra surreal twist, the sadistic prison doctor has experimented on him and burdened him with a cage of genetically modified wasps that sting his leg periodically in an attempt to regrow the limb.
Ultimately, this isn't a book about spies, or about anyone winning the war. It's about Alefret's grim, stubborn conviction that violence is wrong, pitted against the unrelenting machine of war, which follows him around in the form of his fanatically doctrinal prison guard, Qhudur. In a world where both sides explicitly despise him as a freak and a monster for his size and deformities, where there are no good actions, what is the right choice for Alefret to make? Mohamed doesn't offer too many answers, but she asks some excellent questions along the way.
Highly recommended if you're looking for a SFF book about war, but not an easy or a light read.
December 29, 2023
Thanks again to Solaris for passing this along! This is a hell of a novella that I devoured in the space of Christmas Eve and Day this year, accompanied for a not insiginificant portion of time by a glass of wine and some cheese and sausage. The core of the novel would already be a hell of a setup - the leader of a pacifist movement being tortured by his own governement and sent as a spy to the enemy, but who is also on his own mission (which I think you can probably guess giving Mohamed's previous books, but I'll not spoil it for you). The message of community and care at the heart of this while also balancing survival in a greater hostile environment is great, and you're going to want to pick this up when it comes out, trust me and just preorder it now.
Read
December 14, 2025Got super into this one months ago, reading it for the World Fantasy Award. I was pleased to see that it was getting plenty of praise and being put on other award lists, because I was about 100 pages in when I realized that it wasn't going to make our shortlist for the WFA. Finally got a chance to finish it, and it was so good, and so unusual! A very raw look at the ugliness and futility of war, from both sides.
September 28, 2025
unheimlich einfallsreiche Welt, Scifi/Fantasy-Mischung über Krieg, Pazifismus und Behinderung (glaube ich), wirklich wirklich toll, nur das letzte Drittel kann sich nicht von den Konventionen von Fantasy lösen, das passt dann irgendwie nicht mehr so recht zu den interessanten Charakteren
March 25, 2024
An excellent fantasy story exploring the futility of war with a fascinating lead character who is a pacifist on a quest to stop a war with a brutal soldier. Excellent and thought provoking
Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...
Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...
January 29, 2024
I wanted to like this, but I just didn't.
I wasn't a fan of the writing style. It was too...erratic? I'm not sure. There wasn't enough depth to it, and it jumped around too much. I never felt like the pieces really fit together well enough to understand exactly what was going on. Because of this, it made it difficult to get into. I finished it, but I found it a real slog and reading it felt like a chore.
I wasn't a fan of the writing style. It was too...erratic? I'm not sure. There wasn't enough depth to it, and it jumped around too much. I never felt like the pieces really fit together well enough to understand exactly what was going on. Because of this, it made it difficult to get into. I finished it, but I found it a real slog and reading it felt like a chore.
October 3, 2024
9+ Even though there are a few flaws I could nitpick about, this is one of the best books I've read in the past few months.
I have read books by Mohamed before (to be specific: the 'Beneath the Rising'-series) and while they were adventurous, fun and imaginative spins on genius inventors and Lovecraftian horror - unique in the genre landscape - they did not catapult Mohamed to the top of my list of authors to watch in the genre. With this book my doubt has been erased. Here she comes into her own, with a more serious tone, a deeper investigation of the philosophy of pacifism and war and the psychology of being born different and ones place in society, a more subtle and thus convincing plot, that built towards a tense climax, and an enveloping second world war like atmosphere, this is a book that sucked me in and made me want to read on.
Oh, it's written in rich prose as well. It's not pretentious, but it has a high register at places, it flows beautifully and I loved the inventive and colorful descriptions, like 'a sky the color of teeth' or 'books were leaping of the shelves like cats' - to give but two examples. Those examples also show the broody, sometimes feverish atmosphere of the novel. Some scenes take place at the front, there are battles and there is life in a city under siege. There is an underground rebellion. There is no joy in war.
I love that this is not easily pinpointed to a specific genre. Is it SF or fantasy? The author gives the game away at the end, but it does not really matter. There is no clear magic here, but there's also not a clear technological 'novum' the story is labeled about. Our genre labels are artificial constructs anyway. This does what genre in any form does well: provide for us a mirror in which to see ourselves and our foibles clearly.
Here is the setup: There are two countries at war with each other. One side has technology based on the manipulation of animals, like lizards used as guns, and wasps that deliver medicine. Oh, and the fly with pteranodons. Awesome! The other country has technological gadgets and a city that floats in the air, impregnable from below. Protagonist Alefret is a pacifist, captured by the army for betraying his country, and sent on an impossible mission. He is accompanied by a fantatical soldier, who he could crush with one fist, and who hates him. Tensions build up of course, as Alefrets commitment to the cause is put to the test, again and again. Can he bring an end to the war, without breaking his promise not to kill? I like a genre novel that discusses these topical themes (as wars are seemingly breaking out all over the globe and we are all pushed in a siege mentality - what connects us all as humans? can we find common ground?).
Now on to those nitpicky elements. One is the slow build up. The pacing at the start was very slow and I thought some scenes could be moved maybe (however they built up the tension between Alefret and his minder). At the end the story moved very quickly - a very large part of the story kept for the final fifty paces - which could easily have taken twice as long. It made the ending less clear than it could be. Also I was waiting for some elements introduced at the start (the leg, the wasps) to play a more important role at the conclusion - but that may be my own preferences as a 'planning'-writer peeking through.
Anyway, thoroughly recommended to readers searching for a fresh genre novel that cannot easily be pigeonholed, and for fantasy with beautiful prose, leaning towards a literary style. I am a fan from now on and look forward to Mohameds next novel!
I have read books by Mohamed before (to be specific: the 'Beneath the Rising'-series) and while they were adventurous, fun and imaginative spins on genius inventors and Lovecraftian horror - unique in the genre landscape - they did not catapult Mohamed to the top of my list of authors to watch in the genre. With this book my doubt has been erased. Here she comes into her own, with a more serious tone, a deeper investigation of the philosophy of pacifism and war and the psychology of being born different and ones place in society, a more subtle and thus convincing plot, that built towards a tense climax, and an enveloping second world war like atmosphere, this is a book that sucked me in and made me want to read on.
Oh, it's written in rich prose as well. It's not pretentious, but it has a high register at places, it flows beautifully and I loved the inventive and colorful descriptions, like 'a sky the color of teeth' or 'books were leaping of the shelves like cats' - to give but two examples. Those examples also show the broody, sometimes feverish atmosphere of the novel. Some scenes take place at the front, there are battles and there is life in a city under siege. There is an underground rebellion. There is no joy in war.
I love that this is not easily pinpointed to a specific genre. Is it SF or fantasy? The author gives the game away at the end, but it does not really matter. There is no clear magic here, but there's also not a clear technological 'novum' the story is labeled about. Our genre labels are artificial constructs anyway. This does what genre in any form does well: provide for us a mirror in which to see ourselves and our foibles clearly.
Here is the setup: There are two countries at war with each other. One side has technology based on the manipulation of animals, like lizards used as guns, and wasps that deliver medicine. Oh, and the fly with pteranodons. Awesome! The other country has technological gadgets and a city that floats in the air, impregnable from below. Protagonist Alefret is a pacifist, captured by the army for betraying his country, and sent on an impossible mission. He is accompanied by a fantatical soldier, who he could crush with one fist, and who hates him. Tensions build up of course, as Alefrets commitment to the cause is put to the test, again and again. Can he bring an end to the war, without breaking his promise not to kill? I like a genre novel that discusses these topical themes (as wars are seemingly breaking out all over the globe and we are all pushed in a siege mentality - what connects us all as humans? can we find common ground?).
Now on to those nitpicky elements. One is the slow build up. The pacing at the start was very slow and I thought some scenes could be moved maybe (however they built up the tension between Alefret and his minder). At the end the story moved very quickly - a very large part of the story kept for the final fifty paces - which could easily have taken twice as long. It made the ending less clear than it could be. Also I was waiting for some elements introduced at the start (the leg, the wasps) to play a more important role at the conclusion - but that may be my own preferences as a 'planning'-writer peeking through.
Anyway, thoroughly recommended to readers searching for a fresh genre novel that cannot easily be pigeonholed, and for fantasy with beautiful prose, leaning towards a literary style. I am a fan from now on and look forward to Mohameds next novel!
March 27, 2024
Mohamed in her afterword talks about the difficulty of second world fiction, worlds which are after Earth (or Earth themselves) which sometimes present as fantasy. The Siege Of Burning Grass only really reveals its hand at the very end, it is a story of near endless conflict between two warring states, one of which seems technologically superior (not least in that they have flying cities). Magic is never mentioned, but the technological level reached in the actual warfare doesn't seem to be that high, our protagonist has had a leg amputated for medical science, and is being treated by a mad scientist via the means of pharmacological wasps. All of which is the say The Siege Of Burning Grass is chock full of lovely details, but surprisingly abstract when it comes to its bigger picture.
Out protagonist Alefret, the leader of the pacifist movement of Varkal has been captured, imprisoned and tortured by the state he is offered a deal. For his freedom, and more importantly, to end the conflict, they want to smuggle him across enemy lines to make contact with the oppositions underground anti-war movement, to enable them to bring down their own monarchy, government and end the war (in a way that would be beneficial to Varkal). There is a lovely moral dilemma backed into this issue, Alefret want the fighting to end, but to what extent will he involve himself in the conflict to stop it. It becomes more problematic when he agrees and is paired up with the brutishly simplistic Qhudur to get there. The picaresque portion of the book tests the positions of both characters philosophically, not least the amount of pain Alefret is constantly in. Again there is lovely detail about how the war is being run - the Varkal's using pteredons for airpower, versus the opposition's flying drones.
Its a solid read but there is a tension in the book between the allegorical aspect of the book about all conflict, and the specifics of this conflict, not least when the origins of the world is uncovered. Some of the choices made to leave it as an open parallel to earthly conflicts pushed against the specifics, and its final act never really takes a side as to whether a pacifist should employ violence to prevent greater violence, and the scenario it ends up with cannot help try to answer that question only for a low technology world with flying cities. Thought provoking and interesting, particularly on the PR battles of modern warfare.
Out protagonist Alefret, the leader of the pacifist movement of Varkal has been captured, imprisoned and tortured by the state he is offered a deal. For his freedom, and more importantly, to end the conflict, they want to smuggle him across enemy lines to make contact with the oppositions underground anti-war movement, to enable them to bring down their own monarchy, government and end the war (in a way that would be beneficial to Varkal). There is a lovely moral dilemma backed into this issue, Alefret want the fighting to end, but to what extent will he involve himself in the conflict to stop it. It becomes more problematic when he agrees and is paired up with the brutishly simplistic Qhudur to get there. The picaresque portion of the book tests the positions of both characters philosophically, not least the amount of pain Alefret is constantly in. Again there is lovely detail about how the war is being run - the Varkal's using pteredons for airpower, versus the opposition's flying drones.
Its a solid read but there is a tension in the book between the allegorical aspect of the book about all conflict, and the specifics of this conflict, not least when the origins of the world is uncovered. Some of the choices made to leave it as an open parallel to earthly conflicts pushed against the specifics, and its final act never really takes a side as to whether a pacifist should employ violence to prevent greater violence, and the scenario it ends up with cannot help try to answer that question only for a low technology world with flying cities. Thought provoking and interesting, particularly on the PR battles of modern warfare.
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