Book Review: The Shadow Histories Duology
The Shadow Histories duology by H.G. Parry (Redhook)
Book #1: A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians (2020)
Book #2: A Radical Act of Free Magic (2021)
You have no idea how eagerly I’ve been waiting for the release of A Radical Act of Free Magic. I mean you have no IDEA. The moment I finished last year’s A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, I was panting for the sequel.
A bit of background: New Zealand author H.G. Parry immediately became one of my favorite modern authors in 2019 with her debut novel, The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep. For me, Parry’s literary fantasy—with its diffident but brilliant hero, whip-smart dialogue, and classic characters (especially Dickens characters) breaking out of their books into reality—is one of those books that you realize you’ve been looking for your whole life without knowing it. It’s the sort of fiction I’d be writing, if I could write fiction.
After that, Parry shifted from literary to historical fantasy. A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians is set in England, France, Jamaica, and Haiti during the revolutionary years near the end of the 1700s. We meet such notable figures as William Pitt the Younger, William Wilberforce, Maximilien Robespierre, and Toussaint Louverture, in an alternate universe where magical abilities—who has them, who’s allowed to use them, and how they’re abused—are a vital human rights issue, right alongside the issue of slavery. We also meet some fictional but important figures, including Fina, a woman who escapes from slavery in Jamaica after developing magical abilities, and a mysterious vampire who quietly manipulates people and situations for his own ends.
For those who know anything about the period, it’s not really a spoiler to say that the end of Declaration sees the fall of Robespierre and a hint at the rise of Napoleon. A Radical Act of Free Magic continues along that trajectory, as Napoleon conquers Europe with an army of the dead, and Wilberforce steps up his fight against the slave trade. In Haiti (then known as Saint-Domingue), Fina aids Louverture in battling both the British and the French, until disaster strikes and she’s forced to seek surprising new allies. Meanwhile, an ailing Pitt struggles to lead a fractious government, always aware that the vampire has plans for him . . .
Parry displays a deep intelligence and sensitivity about the vagaries of human nature and how power—political power, magical power, or both—can shape and change it. And she manages her fantasy world with assurance, shifting deftly among the witty banter of English aristocrats, the feats of magicians, the sickening violence of the French Revolution, and the horrors of the slave experience. Scenes like the opening of Declaration, in which six-year-old Fina is kidnapped and paralyzed by slavers, are not for the faint of heart.
But they’re an integral part of this world, a world that sucks you right in and makes you care deeply, even desperately, about its people. I don’t suppose I’ve ever given two thoughts to Pitt the Younger before (except while watching “Blackadder” and Amazing Grace); Parry made me cry over him. And I don’t cry easily over books, even the most moving books. These characters and their relationships—especially the almost Frodo-and-Sam-like friendship between Pitt and Wilberforce—get inside your head and heart, and stay there.
The best fantasy novels are the ones that bring such insight and creativity and heart to their imaginary worlds, that they forever change the way you look at the real world. And that puts The Shadow Histories right up there with the best.
(Cover images copyright Redhook)
Book Links:
A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians on Amazon
A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians on Bookshop
A Radical Act of Free Magic on Amazon
A Radical Act of Free Magic on Bookshop