(And an aside: three Emperors of SFF I’d really like to introduce to each other)
I’ve been listening (again) to Ilona Andrews’ Sweep of the Heart. Sometimes I feel like Ilona Andrews’ books are the only audiobooks I’ve listened to for the past three months, since my surgery. But the truth is, I’ve cycled through all their series fairly consistently since being introduced to them back in, what, fall of 2022?
Sometimes I question why I impress on something. Why I want it in my brain over and over again. When I was little, it used to be musicals. And I was already a re-reader of books, a re-watcher of favorite movies. I have sometimes found it frustrating, my desire to constantly re-explore that which I’ve explored before, rather than seeking out the new. I mean, I do read new things too.
But for audiobooks, I like them best when I’ve already read them on the page before. The first time I listen to an audiobook is usually my second encounter with the work itself. But, for some audiobooks, it’s just the first time of dozens. Some audiobooks are one and done. So what makes others ultimately re-listenable?
It’s still a mystery. But Ilona Andrews? I know why I love them. They’re like friends I wouldn’t mind eating with most days of the week, or meeting for tea, or work dates. They’re easy to be with, and they’re constantly teaching me new things. In their newsletter yesterday, the Ilona half of Ilona Andrews wrote: “Three things are the hardest to write: battles, making love, and horrible tragedies.”
But friends, those authors are VERY GOOD at all three things. And the horrible tragedy part is interesting, because I do think of Ilona Andrews as comedic writers. They are so excellent at a family scene. They’re superb at epic battles, followed by Taco Tuesday night, and yes, often followed by a very hot sexy scene, possibly on the kitchen counter during cleanup when every else has gone to bed.
I think the “horrible tragedy” part of their stories are so profound because of those lighter, funnier, family scenes. The stakes are so dear, so intimate. Taco Tuesday is what’s at stake. Eating together. Checking in. Teasing. In an Ilona Andrews book, you’re always at a risk of having all of that destroyed. And the heroes will not have it!
And battles are hard to write. I find it incredibly difficult! For Saint Death’s Herald, for some reason, a huge chunk of the book ended up being combat—a hastiludes! I plotted it that way. And also there’s an epic climactic battle at the end!
Why did I do that? I have no HEAD for combat! The amount of YouTube videos I’ve watched about hand-to-hand combat, knife fights, fire arms… you have no idea. And then, for the larger stuff (I have an underdeveloped aerial-view imagination), Carlos had to break out the DND battle maps. We didn’t fight it out DND style with rules and stuff, but I was able to visual, with the little meeples, where people were placed in space, who was where when such-and-such an event was happening, and what might be happening elsewhere on the map. So helpful!
But Ilona Andrews makes the choreography of combat seem effortless. They are very violent. Very vivid. So if that’s not your thing, you know, Content Warning.
On a more intimate level, Ilona Andrews does the same with the choreography of love-making. Each time has to be different right? And there’s several sex scenes in a book, and a lot of teasing up to it.
It’s so endlessly interesting. I am wholly absorbed in their craft.
And also, I love their characters. I love the weirdness of their worlds. Ilona Andrews always has an interesting core “novum” at the heart of their world-building, the great “what-if” from which the rest of the world-building follows.
I read their books like I’d binge a favorite TV show. I fall asleep listening to them.
Anyway, in their “Innkeeper Chronicles” series, in the last book (so far), called Sweep of the Heart, one of the guests at the inn is an Emperor Kosandion, Sovereign of the Seven Star Dominion. The inn is holding a competition for Kosandion’s next spouse. I’ve never watched an episode of the Bachelor (well, except for the satirical version Dropout did on Gamechanger with Grant O’Brien), but it feels like that, a bit. Only there are philosophical space chickens, and vampire knights, and werewolf soldiers, and all kinds of weirdness.
But the best thing about the Innkeeper Chronicles is the novum of the inn itself: a sentient entity that looks like an inn, but acts a little more like an awesome magical tree that bonds with its human innkeeper, and has roots in ALL THE UNIVERSES across time and space. The inn is basically a nexus point, a place of hospitality that welcomes everyone. It derives energy from the guests it hosts.
Such a great idea. Such a WEIRD IDEA!
Anyway, back to the clever, melancholy Emperor Kosandion. One just wants to match him with other lonely, clever emperors. And in my head, I want to fanfic-friendship him with Emperor Gregor from Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga (the first novel in the series, Cordelia’s Honor, which comprises Shards of Honor and Barrayar, is my favorite book in the entire world), and Emperor Maya from Katherine Addison’s Goblin Emperor (in my top ten favorite books).
THEY COULD HAVE SUCH A BROMANCE! SUCH AS THE WORLD HAS NEVER SEEN!
And that’s really why I came here to write this blog… just to say that.
But now, I’d really love to just write another 50,000 words about all the reasons I love Ilona Andrews, and why I love each series particularly.
But I guess, if you want a place to start, their latest novel This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, is part one of the Maggie the Undying Duology.
It’s fantastic. It hit, like, a kajillion bestseller lists. It’s a portal fantasy, and I love it. I don’t want to say much more than that, because you can check it out for yourself!!!
The novum of the The Edge series is that there’s a pocket dimension where an Earth similar to the one we know is divided by a magical border called “the edge.” Pass through the Edge one way, and you enter “The Weird,” a world that maps to Earth but where magic is dominant over technology. Pass through the Edge the other way, and you enter “the Broken,” which seems exactly matched to the Earth we know: no magic, and technology is dominant. But the people who live in the Edge, this slender, interstitial space, who are poor, living precariously in a fairly lawless land, are sometimes magical enough to pass into the Weird, but don’t have enough magic to pass into the Broken. That’s the world, and the series follows characters from two families through the four books. And you meet some of the characters from the Edge books in other series, like the Innkeeper Chronicles.
The world of the Kate Daniels series have this novum: the Earth of pre-history was entirely magical. Then the first technology wave came, and all the magical structures crumbled, and this vast entities gods, wizards, etc, were either banished to a magical realm or fell asleep. In the present day, the magic wave is coming back. It comes in like tides. Sometimes the world runs on magic, and tech doesn’t work. And during a tech wave, magic doesn’t work. The characters have to deal with this unpredictable and crumbly infrastructure, which creates some very comedic moments. And Kate—the first person protagonist—is mostly magical, but also great with sword. There are a lot of vampires and were-animals in these books, so if you grew up loving Buffy and, like Patricia Briggs, Kim Harrison, Marjorie M. Liu, or even Robin McKinley’s Sunshine, you might like these.
There are some awesome spin-off books and novellas in the Kate Daniels world as well, so it doesn’t have to stop for a long time if you don’t want it to.
But my absolute favorite series is the Hidden Legacy series. There are six books and several short stories and novellas in this series. The first three books are a trilogy focusing on Nevada Baylor, the oldest of a family that consists of three sisters, two male cousins, a sniper mother, and a mechanic grandmother. They all run “Baylor Investigative Agency.” The world’s novum is that, sometime in the 19th century, the government developed a serum that drew out latent magic abilities in humans. The ones who had these magical abilities passed them along their blood lines. But the serum was quickly outlawed, seeing as how it utterly altered the entire world, its government, and the rules of reality. So now the world is sort of ruled by these “Prime” houses, and magic is really made much of, and bloodlines. But not in a nice way.
But it’s the SECOND trilogy of this series that holds my heart forever. I love Catalina Baylor (the second sister of the three) best in all the world. I love her growth as a character, from a very shy, smart, reticent, anxious girl to… well, spoilers. But it’s so awesome to watch. Her love interest is also my favorite of all the Ilona Gordon romances. They tend to write a very “alpha” male for the main male lead, which, to be honest, is the least interesting thing about their books. It’s often the side characters which are far more interesting to me.
Anyway, I’ve probably said enough. It’s just… I CAN’T HELP IT.
Here’s a link to the Ilona Andrews book page: https://ilona-andrews.com/books/
And really, their newsletter is so great, so consistent. https://mxw8sl.subscribepage.io/
Sometimes it’s put out by Ilona Andrews’ assistant “Mod R,” who is very charming. These newsletters have a lot of fan-centric details (they call their fans “The Book-Devouring Horde,” or BDH) and logistics. But sometimes Ilona or Gordon hop on and write about writing or publishing. And it’s all very fun to receive in one’s inbox. And occasionally really useful and motivating.
The early books in their series were all trad-published, but when they wanted to keep writing in the world and the publishing market didn’t really allow for that, they went into a hybrid mode of making their own team of editors, cover-artists, etc, and putting out the books they wanted to write. They often serialize their novels on their blog, or give snippets and hints of what they’re working on, and it really whips their readers into a frenzy.
Lately, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, marks their triumphal return to trad publishing. I don’t know these authors at all, but I’m so dang proud of them, and happy for them.
I look to them for the kind of writer I want to be in the world: with an incredible work ethic and a get-her-done attitude, and really such graciousness and generosity to their readers—without whom, what would we writers be?
That’s all! That’s my fan-squeeing for the day.
Yours truly,
C. S. E. Cooney
C.S.E. Cooney 