READ THIS BOOK

mirrorstone:

In a world where “hero” is a licensed and regulated title, dusty and barefoot Jack Farris walks into The Academy For The Education Of Potential Adventurers And Legends. He wants to learn the best way to save people. He ends up a guide major, meant to tend to the horses and identify edible plants for the rest of his League while the hero does the rescuing and fighting. His study group consists of Rupert, of a blueblooded hero whose family has been in the business for generations, Grey, a sage who comes up to his elbow and whose aspirations include skipping adventuring entirely to become a librarian, and Laney, a mage who cultivates terrifying competence like it’s effortless (like she’ll lose something if anyone ever sees her fail.) When they learn that their apparent stickler for the rules hero is sneaking into town to engage in illegal, unlicensed vigilante hero activity, fighting Things in the Darkness in the parts of town too poor to afford protection from a licensed League, they all want in. Well, Jack and Laney do. Grey thinks they’re all crazy for risking their necks for fun in their spare time. But Jack continues not to wear shoes and fights a little too well for a backwoods nobody, and Laney prefers her gun with bullets she enchanted herself to the traditional enchanted sword, and Rupert brings along armor and after battle snacks, and somehow Grey ends up lending his advice because without it these idiots are probably all going to get themselves killed. And of course they fall into adventures. But while the story ends when the day is saved, life goes on, and Beanstalk follows them through it: classes the day after on too little sleep, what’s left in a monster’s wake, and the aftermath of heroism.

The book is Beanstalk by Jade E Lomax. Why should you read it?

1. I have been excited constantly about this book from the moment I started it to the moment I finished it.

2. It passes my “this should not be so difficult for the majority of fiction to pass” test: At least one main character of color, at least one female main character, at least one queer main character. You could technically argue that the queer characters, that’s right I said characters plural because this book is a gift, are side characters because they’re not part of the main four, but even the “side characters” are well developed, and get screen time and important roles in the plot and are literally only not main characters because they’re not the main focus. You see them having their own lives and adventures when they’re not intersecting with the main characters’ adventures, and get the feeling that they’re the main characters in another story happening alongside the one you’re reading.

3. Piggybacking off number 3, the characters are well-rounded, well-written, likable, flawed people. I love them deeply, each one of them, with the kind of idiotically proprietary affection that causes me to screech at the page “be nice to him! he’s sad!!!” every time anything remotely bad happens to Jack. Or Grey. Or Rupert. But not Laney because she has the situation under control and can take care of herself. The emotions are genuine, the motivations are understandable, they’re written with rich inner lives and realism.

4. The ebook version, and its TWO sequels, holy shit look how much more of this pure joy you have to look forward to, are all free to download here on the author’s site. You can also buy the print versions if you want, and if I find that they have a paypal or something I’ll post it here, because I prefer the ebook version but I’d still really like to pitch them some money for all they joy I got out of their writing.

5.This is not your typical “everyman farm boy dreams of heroics, falls in with some supporting cast who rocket him into heroic situations, and saves the day, wins the girl, and is admired” story. Trust me, I’m sick of those too and I would not steer you wrong. This is a story about the people who get glossed over in those stories. This is a story about identity, about who you are to your friends, to your family, to the ones who’ve heard stories about you, to yourself. This is a story about found family and real family and people who care about each other. This isn’t a story about adventures and heroics deeds, although they do occur. This is a story about the people who have adventures, and the people who are left behind.