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Biomancer Quintet #1
Biomancy
The disease had been ravaging Leana's body for years; her atrophied muscles were barely enough to lift her body from the chair and her sensitivity to the sun left her virtually trapped in the house. To make it worse, her twin sister was a constant reminder of what Lea could have been: strong, ex-military, attractive, and outgoing. She swore to fix herself and--once she developed the medical and magical skills--to fix others as well. With the aid of a rabbit named Amber, she set forth to create a new branch of magic to accomplish her goals, a branch of magic she called biomancy.
In Gunn's debut novel, she deftly takes us deep into a fantasy world peopled with nonhuman races to explore what it is that makes us human. Her world is detailed and the characters that populate it are complex and believable.
This first book in the Biomancer Quintet is a trans-humanist fantasy with a predominantly female cast of characters. If you use magic to restore your humanity, do you become more human, or do you end up sacrificing exactly what you were trying to rebuild?
In Gunn's debut novel, she deftly takes us deep into a fantasy world peopled with nonhuman races to explore what it is that makes us human. Her world is detailed and the characters that populate it are complex and believable.
This first book in the Biomancer Quintet is a trans-humanist fantasy with a predominantly female cast of characters. If you use magic to restore your humanity, do you become more human, or do you end up sacrificing exactly what you were trying to rebuild?
431 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2016
12 people want to read
About the author
Desdemona Gunn
3 books5 followersDesdemona Gunn is the author of the Biomancer Quintet, currently including Biomancy and the upcoming sequel Bioenhancement. She also writes short fiction and has a journalistic history of reviewing both movies and video games.
Desdemona is an openly transgender fantasy author from beautiful Red Lodge, MT. She holds an Associate's Degree in Journalism, and is currently putting it to use writing fantasy novels. Desi is a self-proclaimed 'tea maven,' considering herself a master of Masala Chai. She finds home as Tea Master of a Montana tea bar.
Desdemona is an openly transgender fantasy author from beautiful Red Lodge, MT. She holds an Associate's Degree in Journalism, and is currently putting it to use writing fantasy novels. Desi is a self-proclaimed 'tea maven,' considering herself a master of Masala Chai. She finds home as Tea Master of a Montana tea bar.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 8, 2017
In Desdemona Gunn's debut novel, complex characters confront the big questions like; "When has science gone too far?" "Do the ends always justify the means?" and "Am I gay for my BFF?"
Set in a lively fantasy world with elements of both the familiar and the bizarre, the book follows multiple protagonists as their narratives draw ever closer together. Though they live in a plane where magic is harnessed for mundane purposes and where birdlike races soar through the air, their personalities are realistic and relatable. Gunn's characters confront mortal battles and mortality itself without losing scope of their human problems.
Her prose is fluid and towards the end of the book I found myself devouring pages to find out what happened next. Highly recommended for a fresh take on fantasy!
Set in a lively fantasy world with elements of both the familiar and the bizarre, the book follows multiple protagonists as their narratives draw ever closer together. Though they live in a plane where magic is harnessed for mundane purposes and where birdlike races soar through the air, their personalities are realistic and relatable. Gunn's characters confront mortal battles and mortality itself without losing scope of their human problems.
Her prose is fluid and towards the end of the book I found myself devouring pages to find out what happened next. Highly recommended for a fresh take on fantasy!
January 1, 2025
An amazing start to a really interesting world with a very unique magic system that really needed a few more rounds of revisions.
The book has a lot of really interesting characters, but the narrative is a bit bogged down due to the fact there is just SO MANY of them and the switching POVs that you never get to really settle with one or the other for long. Due to this, it's also incredibly difficult to understand what the overarching plot is of the book until about 2/3rds of the cast finally come together in the final few chapters where we start to understand what the set up was really for.
The downside being the other 1/3rd of the cast feels entirely irrelevant to the overarching storyline in the moment and like their passages could have been cut entirely to focus more on the cast that is relevant.
The nuances of the world and magic system, while creative, also struggled a bit with explanation as the story went on. We never get a full description of the magic of the world and so when a character does something we aren't given a reason to believe it's unusual until another character informs us that they apparently just did something impossible. This results in a rather confusing jumble of what the types of magic are, what the limitations are, and how powerful some characters of the cast really are in comparison to the norm.
The time measurement of the world is also rather strange, and I think would have benefited from an explanation how it worked within the first two chapters rather than near the end of the book. This is also because there is a character who has a lot of their story completely recontexualized from an adult perspective once you realize their age and is another aspect I think should have been cut or edited overall. On the topic, while the segments going over the races of the world were very fun and nice little short breaks from the main narrative, they did feel like needless fluff most of the time and might have been better served as breaks between a much more concise narrative flow rather than just being there every other chapter.
Despite my critiques, the book was still very enjoyable and I found the writing style used to also be easy to read and very well done. The characters all felt extremely distinct and unique from each other, with much of the cast being interesting enough that I am excited to see where it is going for the rest of the series once my copy of the second book arrives.
The book has a lot of really interesting characters, but the narrative is a bit bogged down due to the fact there is just SO MANY of them and the switching POVs that you never get to really settle with one or the other for long. Due to this, it's also incredibly difficult to understand what the overarching plot is of the book until about 2/3rds of the cast finally come together in the final few chapters where we start to understand what the set up was really for.
The downside being the other 1/3rd of the cast feels entirely irrelevant to the overarching storyline in the moment and like their passages could have been cut entirely to focus more on the cast that is relevant.
The nuances of the world and magic system, while creative, also struggled a bit with explanation as the story went on. We never get a full description of the magic of the world and so when a character does something we aren't given a reason to believe it's unusual until another character informs us that they apparently just did something impossible. This results in a rather confusing jumble of what the types of magic are, what the limitations are, and how powerful some characters of the cast really are in comparison to the norm.
The time measurement of the world is also rather strange, and I think would have benefited from an explanation how it worked within the first two chapters rather than near the end of the book. This is also because there is a character who has a lot of their story completely recontexualized from an adult perspective once you realize their age and is another aspect I think should have been cut or edited overall. On the topic, while the segments going over the races of the world were very fun and nice little short breaks from the main narrative, they did feel like needless fluff most of the time and might have been better served as breaks between a much more concise narrative flow rather than just being there every other chapter.
Despite my critiques, the book was still very enjoyable and I found the writing style used to also be easy to read and very well done. The characters all felt extremely distinct and unique from each other, with much of the cast being interesting enough that I am excited to see where it is going for the rest of the series once my copy of the second book arrives.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews