Siamese Mayhem finally finishes a series, or, a review of the Chemical Garden Trilogy

One of the great tragedies of reviewing is that bad books always give me more to say. When I have an actual good book, I just can’t find the snark. Hopefully, it is possible for me to be interesting without making fun of something. However, I promise nothing. The Chemical Garden Trilogy is one of these happy few; they are the sort of books I have only good things to say about.

Think queens, not kings

Years and years ago, when I first thought up a fantasy world, it was a cliched mess, but in fairness to myself, I was nine. It consisted of long-lost princesses, talking animals, and more cliched dreck. And the men were mostly in charge. This country didn’t have queens; it had kings–even though the primary religion had a goddess. Storywise, it wasn’t a terrible gender dynamic. Throughout history, we’ve seen a similar story play out; no matter how friendly to women a society might seem at first, men have generally ruled the lands. For an author who wants to write history-based fantasy (think Game of Thrones), gender roles like these are a great idea. It is not, however, the only model available. The point of fantasy is imagining what could be different, be it dragons, chimeras, or gender equality.

Or maybe even matriarchy.