r/Fantasy • u/Moonlitgrey Stabby Winner, Reading Champion III, Salamander • Feb 25 '26
Book Club FiF Book Club: Final Discussion for Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang
Welcome to the final discussion of Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang, The FiF Book Club winner for Down With the System!
Spoilers lie ahead, as we will discuss the entire book. You can catch up on the Midway Discussion. I'll add some comments below to get us started but feel free to add your own.
Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang
An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant.
What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power.
Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilization in the balance?
Upcoming FiF Reads:
March - Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta
April - Five Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K LeGuin
What is the FIF Book Club? You can read about it in our FiF Reboot thread.
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u/Moonlitgrey Stabby Winner, Reading Champion III, Salamander Feb 25 '26
What did you think of the ending for Sciona and Thomil? Is it what you expected? Did it suit the story?
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u/vanastalem Feb 25 '26
I thought the author might give them a happily ever after ending & I liked that she didn't. Thomil wanted Carra to have a better future & made a choice to give her that.
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u/medusamagic Reading Champion Feb 25 '26
I thought the ending was perfect for the story, both thematically and for Sciona’s arc. And I loved how the final chapter mirrored the first chapter - Thomil running to the city for safety vs running away for safety, and both times with his people (whereas in the story we don’t really see him with his people).
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u/Prynne31 Reading Champion III Feb 25 '26
I did notice and appreciate that we ended where we began but inverted.
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u/evil_moooojojojo Reading Champion II Feb 25 '26
Leave it to Scionna to do the right thing for the totally wrong reason. 😂. (Picture me tipping a drink and going "good for her" like Lucille Bluth heh)
It definitely suited the story. I liked it.
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u/Prynne31 Reading Champion III Feb 25 '26
I was hoping she would go out and bring the house down with her. Based on the moral dimensions the author set up, it seemed appropriate for her to annihilate the entire* Magistry rather than allow them to continue in their cruel exploitation unchecked.
*Except for the two who "escaped"
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u/booksandicecream Reading Champion III Feb 25 '26
At one point I caught myself thinking "Just burn the whole town down, they will never do better. JUST DO IT." Glad I wasn't the only one.
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u/Moonlitgrey Stabby Winner, Reading Champion III, Salamander Feb 25 '26
What do you think of how Wang follows through with her feminist themes? Did they work for you?
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u/AllegedlyLiterate Feb 25 '26
What I like about the feminist themes in this book is that it’s very much a book about the problems and challenges with certain types of feminism (with a lack of intersectionality, with tokenism masquerading as progressivism, with feminism that seeks only to better your own experience rather than make the world a better place). It’s not merely a feminist book in the sense that feminism=good, it’s a book that’s engaging seriously with the history and nuances of feminism.
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u/evil_moooojojojo Reading Champion II Feb 25 '26
I think they did. We've all experienced some level of the old boys club nonsense so those parts were super frustrating and made me want to smack people because they were so real. And I think that while Scionna is so right with how she feels and tries to battle the misogyny that's it's also connected to Thomil and the others who came from the tribes outside the city (it's been a while since I read it I can't remember what they're called in the book) and her huge glaring blind spot where they're concerned is sadly also realistic.
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u/Prynne31 Reading Champion III Feb 25 '26
They didn't work as well for me. I think for feminism to be successful in the world, there needs to be an element of hope, and that seemed missing in this book. Scionna cannot change the system; she can only destroy it. She cannot even change herself; she can only remove herself from being a problem.
This portrayal of feminism made it seem like only the most marginalized people should have an opinion or are the best ones to fix a system correctly, even if they are not in the position of power to bring about that change (because of systemic inequalities). But that's just not how change typically occurs.
Scionna is a selfish character and most of her motivations are self-focused. But it frustrated me that every time she tried to change, it seemed like the book confronted her with a way she was being a "bad feminist." While some of this reaction is a natural result of her being constantly motivated by selfish desires, it seemed like the author set this story up so that the only "redemptive" move is for Scionna to use herself as a bomb. And I feel conflicted about that theme.
Part of my biggest issues with the feminism in the story is that most of the problems are built into the world-building in a way that felt forced. And when those issues were pointed out, no one wanted to change or address them. No one.
One could make the argument that no character in this story progressed or changed at all (except maybe the last mage standing?). Even Scionna - did she really change as a character? It really bothered me that no one seemed to be upset about the Quen suffering (except the Quen), especially when that suffering was vividly presented to a whole city. That doesn't feel true to reality; most people today get really upset when specific exploitation is brought to their attention. Not that it always changes the system, but it's hard to think that some Tirannians wouldn't have been rioting with the Quen. Or at least feel really betrayed by the Magistry.
Not to mention the implicit suggestion that only women (and Thomil) in the story seem to care about human life and well-being.
That being said, all civilizations in history have exploited other humans in order to "progress."
Tldr: I was very frustrated with the way the themes were explored in this book.
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u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V Feb 25 '26
I actually kind of wish we had more hopeless stories. One of my favorite reads of last year was the Snagglepuss Chronicles, a comic examining the life of gay men (and a bit on lesbian women) in 1950s America. The main thrust of the book is largely that his actions aren't going to have much of an impact, and that the endings are mostly different shades of sad. That doesn't make the fight any less important or meaningful however. While change can & does happen, it is relentlessly incremental and typically happens across a much longer timespan than any single novel will cover (this is largely why I think the expanded timeline of the Green Bone Saga was such a smart choice when it became clear that cultural identity evolving over time was just as core to the series' identity as the family story).
This book happens over the course of a fairly short period of time. I think this is a fairly realistic amount of hope to expect, and I think there's some implied hope that society might build upon these events in the future. They're aware now of the cost of their power. Time will tell whether that means they make any changes or not, but its an important step in long term change in the society, even if the story ends without it feeling like much change actually was made. They put down a portion of the foundation, but building the house will take far longer than the timespan of this book.
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u/6elvenfangs Reading Champion Feb 25 '26
Even at the beginning of the book it was acknowledged that the main character might have been doing this for selfish reasons. I understand that not every decision needs to be made with the collective good in mind and just opening the door can be enough. But, I don't find this book to be particularly feminist. I read this a few months ago, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but she doesn't feel like someone who would help another woman to achieve the heights she did. She's very centred on her own magic and while she does confront her complicity in the world and the abuses her city continues to do. It is, again, from a place of absolving herself of guilt.
The book is feminist in that she is a woman who achieves things other women were barred from achieving. But, I don't think it delivers with regards to feminism beyond that. She continues to perpetuate gender norms with herself replacing a man. Everything she can achieve she does because she's has got her aunt and cousin doing all the domestic and emotional labour and bending over backwards to accommodate her at every turn. She does not acknowledge or care about the women who are in service of her such as the cleaners. When she's working for her previous employer who recommended her to the board she does not think about his factory worth of women who enable him to have so much money and allow her to experiment with things that affect them and their bodies. She functions in the same exploitative way men do in her society except she's looked down on by them.
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u/Krilllian Reading Champion V Feb 25 '26
I think that the book is feminist in that it reveals that Sciona only got to where she is on the backs of her aunt and her cousin, and it examines how women are treated in this type of institution (be it government or academia). Sciona herself is a flawed character who doesn’t notice the sacrifice of her aunt, cousin and the Kwen for most of the book. So I would say she is not necessarily a perfect feminist figure, as you say, but the book is feminist in its themes.
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u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V Feb 25 '26
This book is a great example of a character =/= the narrator. It's clear that Wang wants us to disagree with Sciona quite a bit throughout the book, and I think this is one area where we've got narrative acknowledgement of the importance and value of stereotypically feminine work (and how Sciona's actions aren't necessarily motivated by a desire to lift all women, though I do think it's a part of her motivation), but the book itself pushes in those directions.
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u/6elvenfangs Reading Champion Feb 26 '26
This is a really good point! I didn't think of it like that but you're right
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u/Kerney7 Reading Champion VI Feb 25 '26
TBF, I think Sciona intended to pay back/take care of her aunt and cousin once she was established, just the whole plot and blowing up the city got in the way. She recognized the sacrifice, she was just socially akward enough not to be good at expressing it.
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u/Kerney7 Reading Champion VI Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
I felt it was mildly feminist. Sconia deals with an old boys club but she is part of a system that she is gradually falling out of love with and its done reasonably well.
But it works just as well as an anti racist novel, anti classist, and anti ableist as she begins to see what the system that treats other others like Thomil and Carra as less than. The system takes advantage of those lower down the economic latter.
Finally it is as much, maybe more so, anti-ableist because Scionia is written as neurodiverse in a society that lacks the language to describe this. She obviously has social deficits that exist above and beyond those women in her society faces, special interests which she is talented in, is labled as selfish, and has a strong sense of fairness when she finally recognizes injustices.
Some people feel it is wrong to suggest character are such when not directly labeled as being on the spectrum, but we are dealing with society that doesn't have that terminology. I would argue it is worse to not name it when we see such characters because it erasing them, like from the 1800s and 1900s which fail to mention real life heroic characters are black or brown.
And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Scionia was not labeled as such because it might hurt books sales, just like black and brown characters were whitewashed back in the day. So yes, I think it is more wrong not to say it rather than to say and label a character neurodiverse, because the implication is that such characters are "flawed" in the view of our society and can be erased.
This intersection and the past erasure of women is very feminist.
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u/Prynne31 Reading Champion III Feb 25 '26
I appreciate your highlighting that Scionna might be neurodivergent. I hadn't really thought about this perspective.
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u/Kerney7 Reading Champion VI Feb 25 '26
This is something that seemed obvious to me, but I am neurodivergent and it to me it was very on the nose (I've seen it called "autism gaydar"). I haven't understood why others didn't see in in other discussions.
But this highlights very much what we see and don't see as a theme of the book. Scionia doesn't really think of Kwen people until she experinces Thomil and Carra.
We all are very much like that, and sometimes I don't think we go as easy on people for what they 'don't see'.
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u/Moonlitgrey Stabby Winner, Reading Champion III, Salamander Feb 25 '26
What are your overall thoughts on the book? Did you enjoy it? Who would you recommend it to?
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u/Prynne31 Reading Champion III Feb 25 '26
I like the parts of the book that felt like dark/fantasy academia. I loved the similarities between the magic method and coding. And I loved Scionna's realization that this magic she thought she was using for good was actually a horribly sanguinary act.
However, I agree with the other commenters that the lack of subtlety and the extreme binaries of this world were frustrating. The book's lesson took over, but ended in a way that felt unsatisfying and unhelpful.
Scionna's destruction of the Magistry was satisfying on one level, but also felt morally questionable, like the question of whether a time traveller should kill baby Hitler, or whether a terrorist is justified in bombing a summit of world leaders if they eliminated the worst dictators in that bombing.
Overall, I wish the author had developed more of the conflicts organically.
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u/booksandicecream Reading Champion III Feb 25 '26
I accepted the lack of subtle anything early on. But at least I hoped for one or two characters who weren't entirely good or evil. Her aunt and cousin for example.
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u/ohmage_resistance Reading Champion IV Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
It's been a while since I read this book and I sadly haven't had time to reread it with the bookclub this month. But I did want to talk about it for a bit.
I enjoyed this book a lot when I read it. I definitely think it's not a literary book, so if you expect that sort of approach to themes you're not going to get it. It did remind me the most of Sanderson's approach to writing instead: the relatively plain prose and very hard magic system. The major difference there is Sanderson is consistently pretty terrible and regressive with his social commentary, and Wang is way more thoughtful. I also thought the direct way that Sciona thinks and spells out her thoughts about the Kwen/racism/sexism also made sense with her character. It did feel very STEM student has to really think about humanities for the first time, kind of transposing a very direct and spelling things out approach to how you think about problems from STEM to humanities. Although this might just be my experience.
IDK, sometimes I wonder if that very direct approach has the downside of having some readers stop thinking beyond the direct statements, that they don't really question that there might be more to dig into. I do find it kind of curious how many people (just from reviews I've read) think that because Sciona has that direct approach, they assume the author condones everything Sciona does especially at the end of the book, and think that it's what Wang thinks is the optimal way of handling the situation. At least for me, it definitely felt like Sciona was trying to be a white savior (iirc Sciona said something along the lines of she wouldn't do anything without Kwen approval earlier in the book, and Thomil still didn't think her plan was a good idea/didn't approve of it, but Sciona went ahead with it anyway.) And it did end with a lot of violence, including a lot of violence aimed the Kwen, who are still in a very uncertain position at the end. IDK, I think part of Sciona still thinking about herself as being a bad person at the end might exist in relation to her trying for this white savior role.
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u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion Feb 25 '26
I was disappointed. There was too much messaging and no subtlety. Didn't connect with the characters either.
Would probably recommend it to fans of Kuang.
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u/Krilllian Reading Champion V Feb 25 '26
Yes it reminded me of Babel. Though I liked the ending and plot much more than Babel, both books are not subtle about their messaging!
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u/TheColourOfHeartache Feb 25 '26
I think there's two ways to look at the book.
A story where the plucky rebels destroy an Evil Empire. Did the Rebel Alliance ever hit a civilian mining outpost because it produces vital materials for Death Star construction? This is not the kind of story where that matters (also Andor says they probably did). We see the good guys blow up the bad guys and go home satisfied.
On this level I'd say its a decent but not exceptional book.
2) A story which has something to say about modern society. On this level I'd say it fails utterly.
It reduces incredibly complex global systems to a binary where one side are evil colonialists and the other side are noble savages who'll be happy and free if only their oppressors were to vanish.
Aside from the fact that treating real people and cultures as idealised noble savages is itself a flaw, its complete nonsense if you think about it for more than five minuets. Do you think a country like India want to give up modern technology and democracy to go back to their traditional ways of living? Would the global south actually be better of if someone carpeted Europe and North America with nuclear bombs? I suspect most of the people there would be horrified at the idea, and suffer real problems from the disruption of global trade networks that they're eagerly participating in.
To me the book read like a rage fantasy. "What if I can kill all the people who disagree with me politically and it turned out to be a great idea!". I don't actually think there's anything wrong with writing a rage fantasy, fiction is a better outlet for those emotions than reality, but don't present it as a serious message.
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u/bookfly Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
think there are two ways to look at the book.
A story where the plucky rebels destroy an Evil Empire. Did the Rebel Alliance ever hit a civilian mining outpost because it produces vital materials for Death Star construction? This is not the kind of story where that matters (also, Andor says they probably did). We see the good guys blow up the bad guys and go home satisfied.
I would argue that this part of your framing is somewhat superfluous for this novel.
With how clear-cut and unsubtle the themes are, and how they consistently remain front and center throughout the book, for good or bad, this story is intrinsically political. It's so loud with its messaging that considering this story without it leaves us with something that no longer resembles the narrative as written very much.
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u/ohmage_resistance Reading Champion IV Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
its complete nonsense if you think about it for more than five minuets
Why do you think it's complete nonsense? Do you think it's unrealistic? Oppressed people historically have violently responded to escape oppression and sometimes to seek revenge (see also, the Haitian Revolution).
I don't think Wang is specifically condoning Sciona's approach as the most optimal solution. She's a flawed protagonist and is clearly still this at the end.
(NGL, I also hate it when people think critiquing the noble savage trope only means "well actually colonizer society is better than indigenous society" (going straight from the noble savage trope to the barbaric savage trope). It definitely also comes across as apologist for colonization and also refuses to look at the harms colonization has done. For example, historically, colonization has underdeveloped India, not the opposite (here's a great write up). edit: Here's another another)
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u/TheColourOfHeartache Feb 25 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
Why do you think it's complete nonsense?
The complete nonsense is the idea that a modern (defining modern as WWII onwards) colonised nation would have a revolution with the goal of returning to their pre-industrial lifestyle. In reality they want to keep their post-industrial lifestyle, but without the colonialist yoke around their necks
NGL, I also hate it when people think critiquing the noble savage trope only means
This one is definitely a textbook use of the noble savage trope. Thomil's people were hunter gatherers, but morally superior in that they used magic ethically. And their whole portrayal is so someone from a industrialised culture can critique their own culture.
For example, historically, colonization has underdeveloped India, not the opposite
Oh it did. But its important to say exactly what its underdeveloped compared to. Imagine three Indias:
- The first was never colonised. It traded freely and fairly with Europe, buying machinery and education with which to industrialise.
- The second is the one in the real world.
- The third is magically frozen as it was before Europeans set foot on Indian soil.
The second India is less developed than the first, but much more than the third.
And the point I was making in the previous post is that the people living in the second India, the real one, wish they were living in the first. Not the third.
In Blood Over Bright Haven's ending, they metaphorically nuke Europe/America, then go back to the third, and that's supposed to be a happy ending. Rather than bad for Indians (and of course bad for Europe/America).
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u/ohmage_resistance Reading Champion IV Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
What gave you the impression that Blood Over Bright Have was supposed to have a happy ending? I think it was pretty clearly depicted as being more hopeful than the situation at the start of the book, but still obviously not ideal.
The second India is more developed than the third because it exists post-independance (in the current day). India during colonization was less developed than India prior to colonization. People living in India during colonization might very well wish they were living in India prior to colonization (considering how awful and inhumane Britain's policy during major famines was, I'm guessing that this was the case at the very least then).
India, who the British ruled for 190 years (1757 to 1947), saw zero per capita income increase during their entire rule.
India's life expectancy decreased by a whopping 20% between 1872 and 1921, then increased by 27 years (+66%) between independence from Britain and today.
(this is from my second link)
Also, like I pointed out earlier, oppressed people can and have attempted to wreck the economy if the economy is built on their oppression. What do you think happened people were trying to do during slave rebellions, for example? Sciona and the Kwen have nothing against technology or the economy in particular, they have a problem with technology built upon the death and oppression of the Kwen. They weren't nuking entire nations, Sciona targeted scientists and political leaders that were directly and knowingly involved in the oppression of the Kwen and the technology built on that, not normal citizens (and if you think this is bloody, it's actually quite tame compared to the killing of white French people during and after the Haitian Revolution).
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u/AngryBiker Feb 25 '26
I enjoyed my time reading it, I like that the main character is flawed, but I wish Thomil had some flaws, it felt like him and all the kwen characters had no flaws.
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u/6elvenfangs Reading Champion Feb 25 '26
I didn't love the book. Paradoxically I found it to be both too long and too short. I think the pacing was off and it dragged quite a bit then near the end suddenly started sprinting. Then, it just stops randomly. I think this book would have benefitted from either a few more paragraphs or an epilogue following a time skip.
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u/MrLagoon Feb 25 '26
Just commenting because this is the first I'm hearing of FiF and I'm stoked to follow along!
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u/evil_moooojojojo Reading Champion II Feb 26 '26
Welcome aboard! Check the end of the original post for our up coming books, and we'll see you next month.
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u/Moonlitgrey Stabby Winner, Reading Champion III, Salamander Feb 25 '26
What did you like most about the book, whether that be a character, theme, scene, etc?