The Sword and Laser discussion

Ok, so I noped out of reading BLRW because I didn't fancy the sound of all the violence. But I wanted to read something in the same sort of vein, so I went for Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron. It's a YA fantasy which, like BLRW, takes inspiration from African mythologies, and, also like BLRW, the plot is kicked off by a child going missing and the main character trying to find them. It doesn't have any of the graphic descriptions of sex and violence which BLRW has, but it does have quite a lot of instances of violence, and more than that, there are a lot of scenes of magic control and violation of personhood (demonic possession, soul-eating etc) which were pretty visceral.

It was a very imaginative world with a twisty and exciting plot, and it's also the first in a trilogy (again, like BLRW, although I don't think this book will retell from different perspectives). I was happy I chose something which explored some of the same themes as the S&L BotM, without the extreme content which I didn't want to read.

What other alt-reads did people pick? What did you make of them?

Ruth wrote: "Ok, so I noped out of reading BLRW because I didn't fancy the sound of all the violence. But I wanted to read something in the same sort of vein, so I went for Kingdom of Souls by [..."

Oh interesting this one sounds good! I started [book:How Long 'til Black Future Month?|40855636] but it's taking a while because I'm just reading a story every now and then, but I'm enjoying it. I actually think Jemisin doesn't see herself as a short story writer but the issues I have sometimes with her novels are solved by having the idea in a shorter form!