The Tangled Lands

By Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S. Buckell

Winner of the World Fantasy Award 2019, Best Collection.

For fans of Ken Liu and Gene Wolfe.
Khaim, the last city of a once-great empire, clings to life.

This is a world poisoned by its addiction to magic. Every time a spell is cast, toxic bramble sprouts, bursting forth from tilled fields, thrusting up from between cobblestones. A bit of magic, and bramble follows until whole cities are consumed by tangling vines. Armies hack and burn... yet in a world that can't give up magic's sweet succour, the bramble can't be stopped.

When Jeoz the alchemist discovers a potent new weapon to wield against the bramble, his invention promises Khaim freedom from fear and starvation. But these are twisted times and the bramble is not the only corruption that blights the land.

'Pulses with the siren call of power, the throb of remorse and dreams of redemption' Daily Mail.

'Exploring themes of power, corruption, greed and thwarted hope, the authors deliver an absorbing and sensitive fantasy' Guardian.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Feb 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781788544788

Paolo Bacigalupi

Paolo Bacigalupi is the bestselling author of The Windup Girl. Between them, Bacigalupi and co-author Tobias S. Buckell have either won or been nominated for the Locus, Hugo, Nebula, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell awards.

Reviews for The Tangled Lands

[iftyzaidi · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I picked this up without knowing anything about it and boy, did I luck out. This was great! The book consists of 4 novellas, 2 by each author, set in the same fantasy setting. There is a real depth and emotional weight to these stories which set them well above the norm. The setting is a world in which the use of magic is fairly widespread but comes with a cost – every time magic is used it spurs the growth of ‘Bramble’ – a toxic plant that is growing and overwhelming the land. The analogy to global warming and the use of fossil fuels is unmissable. And the philosophical questions that rise as well as the political ones when attempts are made to limit the use of magic.The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi – great stuff. An Alchemist invents an alchemical device that burns up Bramble at a fast rate. He dreams of saving the world, but his invention is put to use by the mayor and magister of the City of Khaim to cement their own power and wealth. A cautionary tale about the danger of the control of technology falling into the hands of an elite.The Executioness by Tobias S. Buckell. Another great story which expands the world of the Tangled Lands beyond the City of Khaim. The philosophical bent here is the idea of the circularity of violence – how it perpetuates itself. One particularly interesting revelation was that the creed of the raiders who have been slaughtering and kidnapping their way around the continent was actually one that abhorred violence and originally preached against it. An interesting insight in to how even seemingly benign religions can be twisted to violent ends.The Children of Khaim by Paolo Bacigalupi. This was dark stuff. Very dark stuff. Showing the seedy underbelly of a feudal society in which life for the poor is cheap and how they are used as things – either cheap labour or to fulfill darker desires.The Blacksmith’s Daughter by Tobias S. Buckell. This was a good story but perhaps the weakest of the 4 novellas due to the writing. A good editor might well have trimmed the fat off this story to make it tighter and more impactful. Having said that its still a compelling story with that blend of fairytale happenings and gritty realism that makes this entire book so compelling.

[sarcher-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

These short stories start in the middle and end in the middle of each conflict, which is going to make them less interesting to revisit for me. They are windows into this imagined world, and I really hope that more books set in this tangled land are released. A great exploration of the 'tragedy of the commons'.Story two was the weakest from my perspective, it's also the story that tried to tell a larger story (army developed and sieging a city) within the confines of seventy-five pages, hard to do.

[macha_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

four novellas from two very good writers, set in a shared world they jointly invented. in which magic is real, but comes at a cost that others pay, as the brambles thrown up by its usage proliferate and threaten to destroy the world. so, almost a set of fairy tales, in a very dystopic dying earth kind of setting.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Magic causes bramble to grow; bramble poisons people into endless sleep and eventually into death, if they don’t get a mercy killing before that. Refugees clog the city of Khaim because they’ve magicked their own city-states to death; raiders kidnap children and kill young women to prevent further magic-users from being born and poisoning the lands around. When a brilliant inventor figures out a way to better destroy bramble, he also invents a way to detect who’s been using magic—and the latter turns out to be a lot more useful to the existing power structure. This is a series of setting-linked stories centered around the ways in which families are broken by power, climate disaster, and greed; the people who can’t stop using the magic that’s killing their society are very familiar, as are the people who would rather rule the ashes than have a voice in governing a healthy polity.

[4leschats · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Four novellas all set in the world of Khaim where magic has created an untenable situation as bramble grows with each new spell destroying land and creating potential death with its stinging needles. I liked the world building and the characters, but felt that nothing was really resolved, so I am hoping that there is another book that will bring some of the characters together.

[rdwhitenack · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't know how I became so judgmental about novels written by two authors. To the best of my knowledge, I'd never read one, but I resisted for a long time. Based on my reaction to this book, I might be missing out. Drawn initially to read this by half of the writing duo, in Paolo Bacigalupi I am really impressed by the work of both authors. Four separate stories, with only villains carrying from one story to the next, are filled with magic, poison, deception, hard-learned lessons, hard-fought victories, and violence, lots and lots of violence. Oh, and necrophilia also makes a lasting and disturbing visit.From Bacigalupi's previous works I know he has some stances on human interactions with the environment and how we are perpetuating our own problems. In this story he is he uses metaphor to make the case, I believe, that we are digging our own graves. Magic = modern conveniences. Bramble = climate change. Middle class and low class people of the world try to fight encroaching issues. The elites and the rich turn their heads away from it, and ignore the inconveniences at best, or at worst exploit the issues for their own gains in power. Sounds familiar.Would recommend this to young/teen readers, but there is some pretty graphic violence (hammer fight!) and scenes where people are discovered to be having sex with corpses of the recently dead. Characters in the book seem to get younger, and more female as the stories move one (actually both of Bacigalupi's main characters are males, and Buckell's two are female). Recommend to readers interested in world building, fantasy, environment, magic, strong female protagonists, and who don't mind their being a nice, neat, happy bow wrapped on their endings.