Book Review: When Jackals Storm the Walls
Another year, another Song of Shattered Sands book! We’re finally approaching the climax of the series. So how does the fifth volume pan out?
Ceda has freed the asirim, who have joined the 13th tribe, and only a few kings remain, though they have not returned to Sharakhai. In their absence, Queen Meryam has seized control of the city and receives a bargain from the gods, to work toward the same goal they charged the kings with, in exchange for Macide’s life. Ceda and her friends must join with some unlikely allies as they search for the reincarnated Nalamae and a way to thwart the gods. Unfortunately, the 13th tribe isn’t as unified as they once were…
When Jackals Storm the Walls is relatively short in comparison to the other books in the series, which is a nice change actually. (It’s still 500 pages though). It prevents the plot from dragging too much, an occasional issue in some of the other books. That said, I’m still not sure the book needs to be as long as it is; there are some threads to the story that I just don’t find particularly relevant even still (sorry, Davud and Brahma), and it could be a lot leaner. The pacing isn’t bad, per se, but it does feel like we spend an awful lot of time away from the characters who actually matter (Ceda, Emre, Ramahd) in favor of characters who only obliquely impact the main plot.
The characters I’d term the “core” cast are still strong. Ceda is still engaging to read, still growing and learning. She’s reached the point of having to make hard decisions, decisions that even her own allies don’t agree with, and it’s costing her. She’s also getting closer and closer to realizing the truth, the whole goal that the gods have been working toward. Emre, meanwhile, has barely survived a close brush with death. He’s not the same as he was, but his spark with Ceda remains and his leadership skills continue to improve. Ramahd probably has the most personal stakes out of anyone, as he continues his work to bring down Meryam, and I’m happily rooting for him to succeed. Ihsan was always the most interesting of the kings; that hasn’t changed, and he spends this book struggling to regain the power cut away from him in the last one, as well as trying to figure out how to stop the apocalyptic visions Yusam had before he died.
The rest of the POV characters…eh. I like Davud, but I fail to see what he adds to the story that couldn’t be worked in through Ramahd. Brahma came in rather abruptly off the back of a novella, and while his relationship with the ehrekh Rumayesh is certainly fascinating, it serves very little purpose here other than giving a window into the gods’ goals (they’re a plot device, basically). And there is absolutely no reason I can see to add an additional new POV, a servant of a blood mage hiding at the Collegia. Maybe this character is about to become super relevant, and if so, that’s fine — but do we really need another POV?
Oh, and lest I forget, Hamid is a POV here too. I’m really fed up with Hamid, to be honest. He’s a selfish jerk being consumed by jealousy for Emre and self-righteous desire to be the leader of the 13th tribe, when he hasn’t earned it. He’s a bully. It almost seems like there might be a divine influence here, something else driving his choices…ah, who knows? It’s annoying, anyway, since his sole goal seems to be undermining everyone who once called him friend. Plus, I have enough villain between Meryam and the gods.
There’s a lot of focus on her here, with flashbacks and expansion of her relationships that culminates in an obvious (to us) conclusion which she hadn’t ever admitted to herself: this was never about her sister or her niece. This was always about Meryam and the power Meryam wants. And even if her plans here did not come to fruition as she desired, even if Ramahd won quite the victory (!), we shouldn’t count Meryam out yet. It’s one of the book’s highlights.
(Were you keeping track of the number of POVs? Yeah. Even for a 500 page book, it’s WAY too many.)
On the romance front, and another improvement over the last book, Beaulieu seems to have remembered that Ceda and Sumeya are half-sisters, and he’s backed wildly away from that romance. To be honest, that’s the best decision; incest seems to be just as taboo in their world as ours, and it’s just not something that I (or many others) want to deal with in characters who are supposed to be heroes. While I love a good queer romance, I’m far happier that Ceda and Emre are back together; they complement each other well. And Nayyan and Sumeya have met again; let’s leave the queer romance to them.
But oh how the turn tables! Now that the gods’ plans are out in the open, to some degree, strange alliances are turning up all over the place — the most interesting, of course, being the remaining kings and Ceda. Ihsan has managed to convince them that the gods’ plans will doom the desert, and they end up working with Ceda to find Nalamae and stop Meryam. Second prize for “unlikely allies” goes to Ramahd and Hamzakiir. Hamzakiir is a broken man after spending so long enslaved by Meryam, but Ramahd manages to convince him that they can defeat her together.
Beaulieu continues to drop in interesting worldbuilding, especially as the gods become more and more central to the story. We get more and more references to events in the distant past, including some really ominous stuff sure to crop up in the last book.
It all leads up to a pretty tight and exciting conclusion, with Meryam trying to bring the gods’ plans to fruition (through a mass murder, no less), and almost literally everyone else trying to stop her. It sort of works. The good guys have bought some time, though the sacrifice of a few lesser characters. (Yeah, there are non-king deaths here). It won’t last forever though, and the gods have worked too long and too hard to get what they want to give up so easily. The ending feels like a held breath before a plunge, the calm before the storm.
Overall, When Jackals Storm the Walls does feel like an improvement over Beneath the Twisted Trees, which felt too much like it was kicking its heels. The dominoes are lined up for the last book now, and I’m still interested to see how it all shakes out.
Grade: 3.75/5 stars
Memorable Quote:
“But there was something much bigger in play, which made Ihsan’s fingers tingle just to think about. Four centuries ago, the gods had set a grand game of aban into motion. Everyone, including Ihsan, had been certain they knew the players: the Twelve Kings of Sharakhai pitted against the desert tribes, especially the thirteenth. But it wasn’t so, and never had been - it had always been the gods against mortal man. That was the importance of Yusam’s journals. Their dizzying visions had lifted Ihsan up high enough that he could see the board in full, or enough of it that he could start making real moves of his own. And just in time. The endgame had arrived, the closing moves were being planned, and Ihsan himself was preparing some that would shake the foundations of the desert.”
