How much do people sacrifice for safety? When has a government gone from legitimate demands to using fear as a means of control? Intentional or not, it’s a commentary on the social contract. Since Bone Shard Magic was used to overthrow the tyrannical Alanga centuries ago, and is now the front line defense in the event they ever come back, it’s considered everyone’s patriotic duty. The harvesting process kills one in twenty-five, and once the Emperor starts inscribing commands in the shard to use in a construct, the person will begin to decline. In a sense, the story resembles the monstrous Constructs that run the sprawling island empire setting: a mishmash that create a functional whole.Ĭobbled together from the parts of various animals, these constructs are powered by human skull shards, which every child in the empire must provide. There is so much going on in The Bone Shard Daughter that it could’ve easily fallen apart into an incoherent mess, yet Stewart masterfully stiches together seemingly unrelated plot lines, worldbuilding threads, and thematic elements. I imagined myself in her shoes (though given her height, they might be too big for me), trying to compose an elevator pitch…and shuddered. This also came as a surprise to me, because as you could tell from my tagline, a list of what Bone Shard Daughter isn’t is quite short. Of course, Stewart is quick to point out her story is not explicitly an Asian fantasy. Given my interest in Asian-themed fantasy, it came as a surprise that I didn’t hear about Andrea Stewart’s debut novel, The Bone Shard Daughter, until about a week before it launched to a parade of glowing critical reviews.

Frankenstein meets Hacker meets Solo meets Legend of Zelda, in an Asian family drama.

The bone shard daughter lin