What defines a book as an “adventure”?

Google “adventure” and the results will tell you that it is an undertaking, activity, or experience that is new or unusual as well as bold, risky, dangerous, or hazardous. In my mind, an adventure also involves a journey of some kind: to venture forth.

The adventures in this book start solidly grounded in reality (well, not quite, and I’ll come back to that in a moment). A grandmother, a mother, and a child living simply in a dusty, old house on a quiet country road, their thoughts occupied by a son/brother/uncle who has left for a job in a nearby town and his pregnant wife. One day, when the grandmother is away, an old woman’s carriage stops and the stranger requests refreshment. She’s clearly rich and powerful, and the mother dares not refuse to host her. The old woman tells her hostess a story: a cherished and protected daughter who has been kidnapped, held ransom for a mysterious object held in trust by the family. The mother’s heart is touched, especially when she learns that the missing granddaughter is the child of her good friend, whose life had been sacrificed to save others. It is not until, however, the old woman threatens her, her mother, and her own daughter that she agrees to help.

And so the great pirate queen, Amina al-Sirafi, comes out of retirement.

Well, it’s not that easy. First, she has to escape her mother’s disapproval. Next, she has to recruit a witch to join the search. Then she has to rescue her crew from prison and steal back her ship. She has to sail to a distant country for the aid of her old navigator, who has retired and started raising children of his own.

With each step, the story becomes bigger and wilder and more distanced from the dusty realism of the old house by the side of the road, until the main character finds herself suspended in the air above a fantastical island populated by djinn of all sizes, shapes, and colors (blue, purple, yellow, red). It becomes clear to the pirate, pretty quickly, that the old woman was not telling the whole truth – she suspected it at first but walked into the trap with her eyes open, assuming she could find her way out again. And she does. But what is the real story of the cherished granddaughter who is so much more than her grandmother described? Where is this protected artifact entrusted to the family – and what does it do? What is the horrible secret that the pirate queen knows about the granddaughter’s father? And who is the father of the pirate queen’s child?

Oh, I loved this book!

Every science fiction and fantasy book is an adventure of sorts. New planets or unusual civilizations, fantastical realms or cultures, magic or science of a level that seems magical to us mere mortals, a mission or mystery that must be solved or a journey that must be undertaken: this is what defines science fiction and fantasy. “To boldly go where no man has gone before.” It defines the genre.

The voice of this book sets this story apart. Chakraborty perfectly captures the tone of the Arabian Nights, that whisper of the wind that carries with it the scent of spices from some far-off place, where anything seems possible – and often proves to be. Told first person, as if the main character were reciting it to a scribe – and not always telling the truth, or all of the truth, as if the storyteller doesn’t want to think about certain things or to reveal them. Until, finally, at the end of the end of the book, she has to reveal her secrets. Who is this young scribe to whom the great pirate queen reveals all her secrets, what is their relationship? One more secret to be revealed later.

Did I mention that I loved this book?

When I was a little girl someone gave me a collection of the Arabian Nights, slightly smaller than the normal hardcover trim – which made it extra thick, hefty – with a deep red embossed cover and shiny gold edge painting. The inside of the front and back covers were dappled in white on red. Full-color illustrations in the style of Persian miniatures sprinkled throughout.

This book captures what I felt as a child, lying on the rug beside the fireplace as winter storms raged outside the windows, losing myself in the stories, gazing sleepily at the illustrations and imagining a world where I could be that beautifully dressed adventurer riding on the back of a griffin or soaring on a magic carpet somewhere that it was always sunny and warm.

We devoured this book – literally, the covers were chewed and the spine broken in so many places. The dust-jacket disappeared so quickly that I can’t even remember it and the book itself finally dissolved years later, loved to death. I tried to find another copy of it and came across what I thought was a more recent addition a few years back: but no edge-painting, un-embossed cover… sometimes packaging matters.

Which reminds me that I need to find a copy of this book in paper. It’s too good for e, which still feels transient. It deserves a space on my shelves as a real book, not just a digital idea.

I only had two complaints about this book: the first is that it doesn’t really start where I said it did. Before the story starts as I described above, there’s a short, spooky tale that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything that comes afterwards. The tale is fun and well-written. But I kept trying to go back and tie it in and I could never figure it out. It had the whiff of an editor suggesting that maybe the author should add something magical at the beginning just to promise more to come later. It was a good story but it felt unnecessary.

My other complaint comes about 3/4 of the way in. The main character, who keeps facing insurmountable challenges and surmounting them, gets cast off the ship in the open ocean and finds herself on a strange island populated by magical beings, djinn. That part felt a little forced. And, again, somewhat unnecessary except to set up the main character for future books in the series. The action picks back up again quickly once she escapes the island and returns to her mission.

All in all, a great book. I highly recommend it.