Book Review: "Warrior of the Wind"

The second volume of Suyi Davies Okungbowa "The Nameless Republic" series is even more compelling and powerful than its predecessor.

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

---

I remember being blown away by Suyi Davies Okungbowa novel Son of the Storm, one of a spate of African-inspired fantasy series that have taken the publishing world by storm over the past several years. It was gritty and powerful and compelling, grabbing hold of me from the very first page until the end, leaving me wanting more. Now, Okungbowa has at last returned us to this world, with Warrior of the Wind, wherein a variety of characters, some villainous and some heroic and all complicated and fully-realized individuals, all try to gain more knowledge, artifacts, and power, as the very world in which they live seems poised on the brink of catastrophe and cataclysm.   

At the heart of the story are Lilong and Danso, the warrior woman and the scholar-turned rebel, who increasingly find their existing bond strained by distrust and conflicting goals. As he did in the first volume, Okungbowa spends a lot of time in these characters’ heads, allowing us as readers to understand both their past and the way their experiences impinge on and shape their present actions. Neither of them are perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they do grow and change and develop, and they both experience their fair share of heartache and resentment. 

As compelling as our heroes are, they are joined by some equally fascinating villains. Esheme continues to be one of the best villains in fantasy, someone who is willing to sacrifice everything–including her own health and well-being–in order to ensure that she gets the power that she believes is her due. Like Danso and Lilong, she has to suffer a great deal and, like them, she learns that power carries its own consequences. She might have become the Red Emperor, but ruling a domain is a far different proposition than conquering it. 

One of the most compelling characters has to be Kangala who, like many of the other characters, is something of a self-starter, someone who has had to scratch and claw his way to the top, building both power and a family with equal deftness. As the novel progresses, his appetite for power grows apace, he continues to become ever more brazen in the pursuit of it, even going so far as to challenge the Red Empress herself. Kangala is a bit of a wild card in the story’s greater contours, and Okungbowa gives us just enough detail about him to make us interested, without giving away too much of his endgame. Who could ask more of a villain than that?

Warrior of the Wind excels at keeping character development and plot development in finely-tuned balance. We get to spend a great deal of time with these characters, getting to know them inside and out, to discover in more detail how they think about the world and their place in it. Unlike many other middle volumes in a series, this one never lets up on the action. There are revelations, to be sure, and moments when the plot makes great leaps forward–there’s even a prison break and a revolution in the making–but there are also slower moments in which both the characters and the reader can catch their breath. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, wanting to read just another chapter to see what happens and, to my mind, that is the mark of a truly great work of fantasy.

Also like the best fantasy, Warrior of the Wind uses its story to ask some probing and important questions. Even as these characters struggle and interact with one another, there’s a cataclysm looming on the horizon, one that is unlikely to care about the different political factions that are taking shape. Mysterious creatures are now coming out of the woodwork, and Okungbowa sketches them in remarkably chilling detail, giving us creatures that do seem to have come straight out of a nightmare. All of this brewing chaos affects the characters in different ways, though it has the most immediate effect on Nem, Esheme’s mother and the one person who seems to actually know how to run an empire. As she finds, however, there is still only much that she can do, even when the power is placed in her hands. 

Moreover, the novel is also very much about the nature of power: who wields it and why, and what the ethics involved should be. In that sense, Danso and Esheme are mirror images of one another. While Danso increasingly comes to believe that power is the only thing that can change the world for the better–abandoning his earlier sense of morality in the process–Esheme gradually loses hers, until she is reduced to little more than a prisoner. For a woman who has already shown a willingness to reanimate the bodies of dead men to serve her (to say nothing of a giant serpent which she also manages to enslave) this is a particularly galling fall from grace. As she learns, the higher you rise when it comes to political and magical power, the farther you have to fall. 

Danso, on the other hand, has quickly become someone who turns to darkness. Like so many other people who have spent much of their lives being abused, he comes to believe power is the only way to ensure goodness manages to emerge on top. This is quite an interesting turn for him to make, and I can’t wait to see how things continue to develop in the next novel. 

Overall, I thought that Warrior of the Wind was a superb follow-up to Son of the Storm. The magic system is a compelling one, but Okungbowa fortunately doesn’t beat us over the head with complexity. It’s enough for me that it has a set of rules that it has to follow and that, like all magic, it takes a toll on the user. The world of this novel is one that feels lived-in and perilous, with violence lurking around every corner. 

I know one thing for sure. I’ll be eagerly awaiting the next volume!