Crier’s War

by Nina Varela

October 1, 2019 · HarperTeen

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Here’s what was going through my head when I finished this book: wow woah wow woah wow woah wow woah wow!! In a good way.

I’ve been majorly excited about this book since June when I saw the beautiful cover and read these words in the synopsis: “an impossible love between two girls—one human, one Made—whose romance could be the beginning of a revolution.” This book features SO many things that are right in my wheelhouse: queer love, fantasy setting, cyborgs/artificial life, and, of course, burning it all down. I was worried it wouldn’t live up to my high expectations but it definitely did! Even though it ends on a massive cliffhanger, which I can forgive because it’s a planned duology and not a trilogy (#BanTrilogies).

The book is set in a fantasy world wherein several generations ago, wealthy humans created artificial life-forms, called Automae, to be their servants and/or humanoid pets (yikes). The Automae rebelled, won a war with humanity, and are now the ruling class while humans serve them. The plotline of the servant class overthrowing the overlords who are now the servant class in a fantasy universe gave me major Claidi Journals vibes. (Has anyone else read the Claidi Journals series by Tanith Lee? It’s been over a decade for me but those books made a huge impression on me as a teen). Having now read the entire book, I still think the comparison is apt, although Crier’s War doesn’t rely as much on crazysauce box-within-a-box-style plot twists to keep its forward momentum going.

The two heroines are Crier, the Made heir to one of the Automae kingdoms, and Ayla, a human girl who wants vengeance against the Automae, and especially Automae royalty, for ordering the raid that killed her family. Naturally, they meet (cute?) when Ayla saves Crier from tumbling off a cliff while they are both eavesdropping on the same conversation; Ayla becomes Crier’s personal attendant and the sparks (AND THE FLAMES OF REVOLUTION!!) fly from there.

There are so many amazing things I want to highlight about this book, but I’ll limit myself to a few, namely: the main characters, their love story, the intensity of the prose, and the book’s compelling investigation of some deep human questions.

First, Crier and Ayla were wonderful protagonists, both in the sense that they were well-drawn and dynamic and in the sense that I wanted to root for them. In broad strokes, Crier is scholarly and compassionate, while Ayla is a ferocious and hardened survivalist. At the outset of the book, Crier seems to be motivated primarily by a desire for understanding (of herself and of the people around her), while Ayla is motivated by a desire for vengeance. Within the book they have opposite journeys, as Crier awakens fully to the horror of the world around her and Ayla realizes that the world may be slightly less horrible than she has previously surmised. There is a sense of meeting in the middle in their character arcs that was very satisfying for me as a reader.

I also want to talk about the romance between Crier and Ayla. It was significant to me that Crier and Ayla forming a relationship was taboo for reasons that had nothing to do with their queerness. Reading a queer love story where queerness is neither an obstacle nor a secret feels both revolutionary and necessary, and I wish there had been more books like Crier’s War when I was a teen.

Also, while nothing too incredibly spicy happens romance-wise in this book (it’s definitely a slow burn), the desire between Crier and Ayla is described so magically it seems almost metaphysical. Like this:

A drop of water gleamed on Ayla’s lower lip. Strangely, it made Crier want to—drink.

How can something so PG be so steamy??? I have about a million more passages in this vein highlighted in my ARC, but honestly, I want you to discover them for yourself because they are so wonderful in context. The chemistry between these two is POTENT.

It’s not just Ayla and Crier’s relationship that is described so vividly. The prose in this book is magnificent throughout. It captures the same vibrancy of feeling and sensation that poetry does without breaking the flow of the story. On the very first page, Crier describes humankind:

Love, a glowing lantern in their hearts; hunger, a liquid heat in their bellies; souls, dark wells in their eyes.

There’s something almost…spiritual about this description that I can’t quite put my finger on but that I LOVE. Once again, I could call out tons more beautiful passages but I want you to experience them yourself within the book!

I actually had to read Crier’s War in smaller increments than I normally do when I am enjoying a book a lot, because the prose made the emotional worlds of Ayla and Crier so immediate. This made the book a particularly intense reading experience. For example, the following description of Ayla wrecked me:

Her family’s death had left her not a person but a ghost, a ruined shell, a carcass. The parts that had survived would be tainted forever.

BRB, crying forever and then taking a nap.

All of these elements are enough to make this book stand out. What truly takes it a step further for me is that this book explores and fleshes out some intriguing ideas about humanity and personhood that I’m still ruminating on.

The distinction between humans and Automae, and the power structure based on this distinction, definitely functions as a metaphor for a number of structural inequalities like racism, sexism, classism, and any other number of -isms. A book that uses a fantasy metaphor to explore social inequality can easily come across as ham-fisted. In this case it was well-executed and it worked.

This is because the Automae/human divide is not solely a metaphor, but is fully realized within the world of the book. There are some distinctions between the Automae and the humans that can’t be elided: the Automae are superstrong, superfast, don’t age, don’t need to breathe, don’t need to eat, and are basically “born” into adult bodies. Through the Automae, Crier’s War explores what it means to be posthuman, and it does it within the fantasy genre, which is somewhat unusual. I actually got some Ghost in the Shell vibes from this book because of how it explores what life means when you are more or less a machine with capabilities far beyond typical human flesh, which is not something I was expecting at the outset.

The Automae quite explicitly arose from humans (and humans continue to be an integral part of the creation of new Automae), but they have repudiated human-ness in critical ways. For example, even though Crier’s father, King Hesod, claims to value certain human traditions and structures, Automae society rejects the value of affective social ties like friendship (that sounds warm and fuzzy, huh?). Through this of-human-but-not-human tension, Crier’s War raises questions about who gets to be human, what it means to be a human, and who teaches us to be human, and it does so within a fully realized fantasy universe, which is no mean feat.

There’s a moment where Crier comes upon a human celebration:

Crier strained her ears to catch the words—something about straw hats and sickles—and tried to figure out how all the humans knew the same song, the same dance.

Maybe it’s just because I majored in Folklore and Mythology and I’m already fully sold on the idea of ritual as a fundamental human trait, but I found this passage quite moving and a great example of the kind of concepts the book is getting at.

Now, while my overall reaction to this book was incredibly positive (clearly), there were a couple of minor pain points that keep me from full-on squee level. First, I felt like several of the secondary characters remained pretty opaque and I found myself wanting more from their characterization. It was hard to figure out if there was more than a one-note motivation for several of these characters, including Crier’s father King Hesod, and Ayla’s guardian Rowan.

There is also some slight info-dumping about world-building and premise-related stuff in the first few chapters. This did not bother me much, but I do think if you don’t really like fantasy as a genre, this book may not be the exception for you as there is a lot to set up and set in motion at the outset.

However, none of these flaws seem terribly significant in light of how fresh and intricate and well-crafted Crier’s War is overall. I cannot stress enough how new and exciting this book felt. The premise really delivered both in terms of plot and in terms of how fully its implications were explored. The heroine duo was awesome, the queer love was amazing, the prose had me fully in my feels, and I’m still thinking about some of the deeper questions raised by this book several days later. I feel confident saying Crier’s War is one of my top books of 2019.