Resorting to the blurb for a plot summary, because I need to get my reviews up to date, and trying to come up with my own synopsis takes too long:

The Crescent Moon Kingdoms are at a boiling point. A struggle between the iron-fisted Khalif and the mysterious Falcon Prince is reaching its climax. In the midst of this brewing rebellion, a series of brutal supernatural murders strike at the heart of the Kingdoms.

Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, three score and more years old, has grown weary of hunting monsters and saving lives. But when an old flame's family is murdered, Adoulla is drawn back to the hunter's path. Raseed bas Raseed, a hidebound holy warrior, is eager to deliver God's justice. Zamia Badawi has been gifted with the near-mythical power of the Lion-Shape, but lives only to avenge her father's death. Until she meets Raseed and Adoulla.

When they learn that the murders and the brewing revolution are connected, the companions must race against time to save the life of a vicious despot. In so doing, they discover a plot for the Throne of the Crescent Moon that threatens to turn the city, and the world itself, into a blood-soaked ruin. 

First of all, I would like to point out that the blurb I copied from the back of my book actually contained TWO separate grammatical errors, that I felt the need to correct before transcribing it. That's some piss-poor copy-editing there, Gollancz publishers. Real nice. I can't have spent too much time reading the back before picking this book up at a clearance sale at the Oslo Airport book shop a few years ago. I may have refrained from buying the book if I'd seen that. Now, having read the whole book (as far as I can recall, there are no egregious grammatical errors in the actual book), I'm glad I did buy it. It was an entertaining, and out of the ordinary read, for me.

Second of all, the blurb makes it seem as if Adoulla is actually pretty much retired when these supernatural murders occur. That is not the case. He is in fact pretty much the only one still trained in the old ways to kill ghuls and other horrible monsters, with most of his peers either already retired or dead. Naturally, he's getting a bit fed up, and feeling his age more and more. Raseed is a deeply religious dervish and Adoulla's apprentice. He's frequently shocked and outraged at the older man's speech and behaviour, but there is also clearly a lot of affection between them. Together, they work hard for little monetary reward and keep risking their lives to keep the populace of the Crescent Moon Kingdoms safe. 

Zamia Banu Laith Badawi is a desert warrior, who was chosen to take on the role as Protector of her tribe, meaning she can shape-shift into a lion with supernaturally sharp claws and teeth. Normally, the role of Protector would be bestowed on a man, and after Zamia's entire tribe was brutally murdered by an evil, soul-stealing sorcerer, she is starting to believe that she is unworthy of her gifts. She has nonetheless sworn to avenge her people and while initially sceptical to Adoulla and Raseed, she agrees to join forces with them. As it turns out that her lion-shape is the only thing able to harm the incorporeal Jackal-spirit helping the sorcerer, her aid becomes invaluable to the ghul hunters.

The majority of epic fantasy seems to be both written and largely populated by white men. Luckily, the fantasy landscape isn't all J.R.R "I have three women of any importance in my fantasy epic, and let's face it, Arwen isn't much to write home about" Tolkien any more, but unlike in paranormal fantasy (where pretty much all the writers and protagonists I can think of are women, Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden being the notable exception), there is still a strong dominance of Caucasian men both writing and populating the stories. Now, Saladin Ahmed is also a dude, but he is of Arabian descent and there is not, as far as I can tell from their physical descriptions, a single white person in this book. The setting, characters, supernatural threats and magic is all Arabic-inspired, reminding me a lot of A Thousand and One Nights.

Two of the protagonists are men, one older, one young, but they would clearly be completely overpowered if not for Zamia. The most important supporting character is also a formidable woman of rank and magical abilities and it shouldn't be quite so surprising when women are given prominence and an equal share of the glory in fantasy. But it sort of is.

So why no more than 3.5 stars? Despite the interesting and unusual setting, the pretty cool characters and the fairly action-packed plot, I just kept waiting to get more engrossed in the story. It took me four full days to finish the book, which is unusual for a book of only 300 pages. I will absolutely be keeping my eye out for the next book in the series, as I hope that now that I've been introduced to the world and the characters, the next book may be more of a page-turner for me. A promising beginning to a series, but not the most exciting fantasy I've read. Huge kudos for doing something different, though.

Judging a book by its cover: The UK paperback I own of this has a fairly plain cover, a bluish purple with hints of mosaic decoration, with the Throne of the title prominently displayed, even highlighted as with a spotlight. There is a curved sword resting on it and quite a lot of blood on the sword, as well as the seat and base of the throne. I don't want to spoil too much of the book, but the image is really quite apt. The US cover has an artist's rendering of what the three protagonists might look like while fighting ghuls, but I actually prefer this simple cover, as my mental image of the characters doesn't match up with that of the other cover.

Things I liked:
• characters
• worldbuilding
• story

Things I didn't like:
• the prose

So that's that then. When the writing gets to your nerves, the characters start grating, the brilliant worldbuilding loses its shine and the story becomes one of those "why do I care again" tales.

I'd still recommend this to people wanting to read diverse fantasy, just not with the enthusiasm others have.

This was simultaneously colorful and extremely grey. 

There should be no doubt this is dark fantasy. It starts with the villain doing terribly villainous and also terrifying things. It does not exactly ever get "pretty," because this is not a pretty universe. The good guys, while easy to root for, are not perfect at all and are occasionally annoying, both to the reader and to each other. They don't get along. They fight about stupid things and have character flaws and rub each other the wrong way.

These people are awesome. 

Adoulla is the heart of the novel, and is probably the most likeable of the characters. It's interesting to have an older man as the main character--he's a good man, but he is so tired of what he has to do. His job as a ghul hunter is exhausting, but it is a burden he feels he can't put down, and that belief drives him further than he thinks he can manage a lot of the time.

Raseed feels very Galahad-like. I should probably further explain that one of my earlier and probably my most-defining experience of Galahad was from Nancy McKenzie's Grail Prince, where he is pretty much a super religious warrior who has some questionable interactions regarding ladies and also older men to whom he should be listening. He thinks he knows better than anyone what God wants of him at all times and is not generous in his judgements of others. Raseed, just like Galahad, does eventually learn a bit better (just a bit, mind), but his progress is glacial and while interesting as a character in that he acts as a foil to several of the others, he isn't exactly fun.

Zamia seems like a moderately standard warrior woman in a culture that doesn't understand or like them, but she has a few hidden depths and she manages to feel like a real person, even when I find her behavior occasionally annoying. She is proud, and she has a right to be. She is also proud as a way of handling the fact that she has never felt accepted in her role as warrior, and that causes its own set of issues for her as she struggles through her feelings about her place in the world.

The plot is a bit complicated in a few ways, given it is kind of a sword-and-sorcery novel wrapped around a dark fantasy evil overlord novel tied up with a bow of political intrigue and revolution. It's a lot of fun, admittedly, and I loved how everything tied together and where things ended up going. Tracking what was going on was sometimes a bit tricky, but I get the feeling that was intentional--if you knew exactly where things were going early on and who you could trust, where would the fun be?

The setting is amazing. I loved it. I have always adored fantasy, but I loved seeing an entirely different set of tropes and traditions in play here. I hadn't realized what a terrible waste it was to have so few fantasy novels set in a sort of Arabian Nights-esque universe. It comes with what feels like a new set of monsters and place names and assumptions on government and religion that just feels very refreshing.

I don't quite want to say I liked the ending, because it was kind of dark and admittedly did not handle all of the things I was hoping that it would (though I thought it did handle all the things it had to handle), but I felt like it was just perfect. I was comfortable with the idea of this as a stand-alone novel, because I felt like it did everything it really needed to do in terms of allowing for closure, but I was ecstatic to discover there is going to be a sequel and I can't wait to read it.

Favorite book of the month: Mistborn: The Final Empire

Honorable Mention: Throne of the Crescent Moon

Biggest (Good) Surprise: The Mermaid's Sister

Longest: Mistborn: The Final Empire

Total books read: 27

Re-reads: 12

That's a lot.

Total pages read: 7676

Average pages per book: 284

Scores:

1: 0

2: 2

3: 21

4: 3

5: 1

Did not finish: 0

Average: 3.11

Pretty solid there.

Reviews Written: 8

This was bad.

I have no good excuse for suddenly getting super lazy about writing any kind of reviews except that there were an awful lot of library book holds that came in simultaneously and wow, did I want to read the books instead. It is oddly easy to let writing about books slip by the wayside and just read all the things. Once I have stopped for any reason, it is easy to not pick it back up again.

I re-read almost all of the Tortall books this month. I'm intending to finish up with them when the rest of my library holds come in. Also blew through the first trilogy of Valdemar books and looking like that is going to continue as well. It has been awhile since I read them.

I intend to pick up the rest of the Mistborn books in April and then make my way through Brandon Sanderson's other stuff, though I am waiting for my library hold to come in to start that.

I read an alarming amount of contemporary YA, which is not really like me at all, so it's likely April will be fantasy stuff to counterbalance it. Other than that, let's be honest, I'll read whatever catches my eye at any given moment. I will pick up and finish the reviews for at least some of the books I read this month, though. I need to get back in the habit.

What did you guys read? Did March treat you well?