THE KING MUST DIE

Three rebels and the heir apparent to a corrupt, globe-spanning empire team up to save the world.

The crimes of her fathers have colored Fenyyang Mekantai’s whole life. She was 6 years old when the rebellion her parents attempted to foment went awry, leaving them under house arrest. After 20 years spent training as a bodyguard under a magistrate, Fen decodes a message containing a horrible truth: Her fathers are dead, and the Sovereign wants her foster father to kill her. The message launches Fen down the path to rebuilding her parents’ legacy, starting with joining the Broken Masks—the handful of freedom fighters who remain after the quelled rebellion two decades ago. After months of training, she winds up one of only two survivors in a deadly clash between the Masks and a troop of imperial soldiers. The other is Alekhai, the Sovereign’s younger brother. Gifted with the ability to revive the dead, the princeling agrees to resurrect some of Fen’s fallen comrades in exchange for her assistance with his own mission, one aimed at getting his brother off the throne and ushering in an age of democracy. Ashing-Giwa has created a world run by imperial technocrats who bleed their planet dry of its resources at the expense of their poorer neighbors’ lives. Although the technology sometimes feels indistinguishable from magic, the novel is deeply rooted in science fiction, and it never strays too far from those roots. The author’s prose is crisp and clean, even when the story meanders toward the gory. The cast is diverse; Fen and most of her friends are coded as Black. One secondary character is Asian-coded, although there is no “Asia” on Fen’s home planet of Newearth. Alekhai is of indeterminate race and is trans-coded.

A bold and refreshing new SF adventure from one of this generation’s writers to watch.