Review: The Bird King

The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book takes place around the time of the fall of Granada, Spain, the last emirate in the Iberian peninsula, in 1492; and it tells the story of Fatima, one of the Sultan's concubines, and of Hassan, the royal mapmaker with magical abilities, as they flee Granada to escape the incoming Spanish Inquisition.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book, and normally I wouldn't make a big deal of that, but in this case that forces me to address a big problem with it: the narration is very slow, kind of like a drawl, oscillating between languid and downright sleepy, making the book seem slower and boring. All the characters sounded wrong - her voice work for the protagonist (Fatima) didn't fit with the character at all! I had to listen at higher speed (at least 1.1x) so it wouldn't be so tedious.

The terrible narration makes it very difficult not to find the book slow and boring. It doesn't help that the plot is actually slow too. Most of the book concerns the escape of Fatima and Hassan from the Alhambra (the royal palace complex in Granada) after the arrival of the Castilian representatives, from Granada to the coast, over a period of 3 days. That is, the book really drags out the description of the escape of a fairly short distance (a couple of hours drive today) in a fairly short time. That's it, that's most of the book. And despite being slow, I actually thought it should have taken its time being a little more descriptive at the start, describe the places and people more, taking time to set the stage better. The narration is mostly action and dialogue, except that it's trivial action and boring dialogue. The characterization work was also extremely weird, it was difficult to understand the people and their motivations, who they were, what they wanted. On the other hand, the characters (with the exception of Fatima) all seemed to have a big sense of history, as if they already knew what was going to happen, and kept reflecting on it constantly. It was annoying, breaking with the realism of people. The ending is fantastical, in the "fantasy"-related meaning of the word; but the book is too mysterious and precious about it.

Despite these flaws, the story on the whole was interesting, with a cool setting. In fact, I must confess that this last point was what I liked most - because I actually have been to Granada, and I liked recognizing the places in the stories, because it's still all there, the Alhambra, the Nasrid palaces, the gardens - more than 500 hundred years later! I also liked that the story weaved some real fables and myths in, which I always prefer to wholly made-up fantasy worlds. I also liked the relationship between Fatima and Hassan, even if I didn't like their dynamic towards the end.


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