Hugo 24 Novel: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Time to set sail for adventure! Yeah, people we’ve got a map in the front of the book, we’ve got a retired legendary pirate captain pulled out of retirement for just one last job, we’ve got a crew of talented misfits and we have a truly evil magician after a magical relic. Djinn, monsters, magic, all we need is some Ray Harryhausen stop-motion monsters and a great time is guaranteed.

It is sometime in the 12th century and the notorious pirate captain Amina al-Sirafi is living a quiet life in her mother’s home bringing up her daughter. Amina’s life of sailing the great trade routes of the Indian Ocean are over. Unfortunately, her reputation has not been forgotten and when a rich and powerful woman seeks her out, Amina is left with no choice but to reclaim her ship and her core crew and sail off on one last adventure.

What can I say? This book is exactly what it says it is going to be. The story barely pauses for breath as it rushes through a series of adventures that start relatively grounded in a real historical period and then become increasingly entangled in a world of magic and magical beings. Sinbad but with a protagonist with more depth and motivation. Part of what makes writing a review difficult is that I read it so quickly that I didn’t reflect much on what the book was doing as it raced along.

Unlike Shannon Chakraborty’s Daevabad trilogy the connection between the mundane/real historical period and the world of djinn and magic is better integrated. The older setting feels like a world in which Amina is on a course where magical beings and other worlds are likely to intrude on her plans. The sense of the Indian Ocean as this highway of cultural exchange and exploration is also well realised. The age in which Muslim traders were bringing goods back and forth from North Africa to South East Asia is in itself a great setting for high adventure but add in an evil Frankish sorcerer and an amoral ex-god and you get a non-stop fantasy adventure.

As far as Hugo Awards go, if I was ranking the novels just on fun, adventure and page turning pace, this would win. However, in terms of developing deeper themes and character development, it has to face some much stronger contenders. A great addition to the set of finalists and I look forward to the sequels.