Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Square Fish, 416 pages, $11.99 (c2013)

On the eve of the Netflix broadcast of its series based on Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha books, which it corporately renamed “Shadow and Bone,” I read the first book in the series, “Shadow and Bone.” (I feel there was too much redundancy in that first sentence, but without redundancy we would not be doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Not that Bardugo’s book is doomed or mistaken; it was fabulous and enjoyable, in fact.)

The Grishaverse, as it has been styled by Bardugo’s fans, is both comprehensible and strange. People with very human traits of anger, jealousy, love, madness, curiosity, and pique populate the country of Ravka, overtly fashioned on old Russia. They are at war with neighboring countries. The other countries have repeating rifles, but Ravka has the Grisha, people who wield what we book readers would call magic. 

Alina and Mal are orphans who were raised on the estate of a minor lord who took many war-created homeless children under his wing. He was often gone, so their care was left to his household. There were good times and there were uncomfortable times, but mostly they survived, thanks to their friendship. When Alina and Mal got older, they joined the army, Alina as a mapmaker apprentice and Mal as a tracker. 

One day, the Darkling, lord of the Grisha came to their camp just as their company was set to traverse “The Fold.” The Fold was created by a Grisha. It is never-ending darkness that envelops what used to be verdant and productive farmland. Now the gray wasteland is populated by volcra, vaguely human-shaped, flying monsters. There is nothing volcra like better than the taste of fresh meat. Because of their specific powers, it is the fate of some of the Grisha to help navigate silently through the utter darkness of The Fold. There are some fire-casters who can defend in case the volcra manage to find them anyway. At this point Alina does not realize she, too, has a power and will eventually become a Grisha (sorry, minor spoiler). At this point she is simply a scared mapmaker.

Anyway, the Darkling lord whips into camp just before the journey. He is on board the desert ship that will roll into western Ravka, cut off by The Fold from the rest of the country. During the voyage, the volcra find them. Alina finds her unique power when she saves Mal from a volcra’s claws.

It is not clear whether being a person of power will benefit Alina. She has a soft bed to sleep in, clean clothes, fresh food, but she cannot control her power. What good is she? And there truly begins the saga.

Young adult-ish reading, but that shouldn’t stop old adult-ish people from digging in. Bardugo has a fairly traditional, comforting style of writing. She pays attention to details and doesn’t make her world so outlandish it is a struggle to understand characters’ motivations. Thoroughly enjoyable!

P.S. We have made it a human mission to repeat mistakes over and over again.