Review copy provided by the publisher.
The alternate history of Everfair was a creative work not quite like any seen before in the genre, bringing a steampunk story to a fictional African realm and peopling it with vivid and beautifully drawn characters. With Kinning Nisi Shawl returns us to Everfair in a direct sequel that takes it in a new direction.
Now siblings Tink and Bee-Lung have developed a fungus that bonds people into telepathic super-organisms, and Queen Josina is working behind the scenes to determine which of her children should inherit the throne of Everfair, who should be fungally bonded in which groups, and how else the fungus can be used for the benefit of Everfair and the world.
If this sounds like a major departure, it sure is. Everfair read like alternate history steampunk. Kinning, on the other hand, falls more into a trend I’ve noticed where contemporary authors take on tropes of the ’70s and redo them without the racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. that plagued the works of that era. So why not, the people who didn’t get to play with the toys the first time around should get to play with the toys, everybody gets a turn, this time someone’s actually thinking about not being gross about incest in addition to all the above-listed improvements. If you want “more of the same, only slightly different,” Shawl isn’t interested in doing that. If you want to see what she wanted to do next, here you go, this is it.