by Saara El-Arifi ★★★★★
In The Battle Drum, author Saara El-Arifi follows up her stellar debut The Final Strife (my #3 Book of 2022) with a continuation of that story, and does so both ambitiously and successfully. It is, of course, challenging to write about a sequel without spoiling anything from the series. However, who would be interested in a review of The Battle Drum if they hadn't read The Final Strife?? Very few, I'd imagine. If you happen to be one of those few, stop reading now and go read The Final Strife instead! It's a really well-crafted fantasy novel that combines a compelling plot with some savvy social commentary. For those that have already finished The Final Strife and are curious if the series is worth continuing, read on...
**SPOILERS BELOW for The Final Strife (but not for The Battle Drum)**
Alright -- on to The Battle Drum.
To reset the stage: the overall series opened in the mythical land of Nar-ruta, an island nation that, as far as its inhabitants know, is all that exists in the world. Inhabitants are divided into three classes, based on the color of their blood: the Embers, the ruling class with their red blood; the Dusters, the working class with their blue blood; and the Ghostings, the slaves of the empire with their clear blood. Early in The Final Strife, our heroine Sylah discovers a map of Nar-ruta, but curiously it seems as if it was torn from a much bigger map. Over the course of The Final Strife, Sylah learns the truth: that the world extends far beyond Nar-ruta. Book 2 explores that more fully.
The Battle Drum opens shortly after the conclusion of The Final Strife, with Sylah standing on the shores of the Marion Sea. She's fresh off killing Loot, who had been revealed as the leader of The Sandstorm, and perhaps even more shockingly, was found to have yellow blood, something Sylah had never seen before. Anoor has sent her on a mission: travel beyond the sea and find aid to help stop the tidewind. Jond is still with her, now as her prisoner after his betrayal, and she's planning to exile him. Through a connection via their Ghosting friend Hassa, Sylah and Jond are waiting to meeting Ghostings who can take them to their settlement and beyond.
As I got into The Battle Drum, I started to get worried. Things suddenly got a lot more broad and bigger than they were in The Final Strife. The world was much bigger, there were even more blood colors than what had been revealed, a random character named Nayeli was introduced who seemed to have no connection to the rest of the story, and suddenly El-Arifi was trying to string along three or four plots simultaneously. It had me concerned that it was going to take the series down a path like George R. R. Martin went with A Feast For Crows (Book 4 in A Song of Ice and Fire), where he significantly expanded the size of the world, introduced an entirely new set of characters, and left the reader (and, apparently the author -- I'm still waiting for The Winds of Winter, George...) struggling to see how it would all come back together.
The Battle Drum was ambitious, and far more experienced writers than El-Arifi (this is only her second book) had gotten themselves in trouble with less. But I should not have doubted her -- she does a tremendous job of pulling it all together and charting a path for the conclusion of the trilogy. While the pacing is a little inconsistent -- it's slower in the first half, and then things speed up a bit at the end -- The Battle Drum got to a state of alignment in the story that was satisfying and unexpected, both in terms of the skill it took to expand and collapse things all within 550 pages, as well as some of the reveals that El-Arifi deftly hints at throughout the book and pays off by the end. While the rendering of Nar-ruta in The Final Strife was well done, the world-building and culture creation in her expanded world in The Battle Drum was even more impressive.
This is a story that carries three separate plots (at least) for much of the book, but does so in a way where none of the three threads is left unattended for too long. We get a murder mystery to try to solve in Nar-ruta, we discover the origin of the tidewind, and we meet new societies in well-rendered new locations, all while El-Arifi smartly sets the stage for the conclusion of the trilogy. This is another winner, and I'm excited to see how she wraps up the story. Highly recommended for fans of The Final Strife -- you will not be disappointed, although give it some time; it's a bit of a slow burn to start until it really picks up steam and things come together in the final 200-or-so pages.