” I always felt it was a liability to care for others, that it would put us in danger. But I don’t think that anymore. I see how you all fight together for each other, and I think I finally understand.”

Ayleen K. Kyrstin’s In Ice We Steel was one of my first SPFBO reads and I really enjoyed my time with it. It’s an adult epic fantasy focused on competing political factions (an oppressive government regime vs. a ragtag group of rebels whose affiliation with a religious movement becomes ominous in its own right). Aspects of the military struggle between the two groups put me in mind of R. F. Kuang’s The Poppy War, though Ice is nowhere near as brutal. It’s a competently written fantasy that’s strongest during its character-focused moments, and when Kyrstin leans into the internal and external conflicts of Ice‘s characters, the book really shines.

Our two POVs are Ax (a thief who falls in with the rebels fleeing debts to a salacious and creepy mobster) and Veyre (a Protector–essentially a soldier or enforcer–who works for the regime). Both characters wrestle with their allegiance to their respective factions, and for Veyre in particular, her deeply-buried doubts concerning the people she works for are an excellent source of internal conflict and tension. While not every section of the book feels heavy, when the stakes are high, they’re high, and I especially appreciated those moments in the story when both Ax and Veyre felt truly challenged by their choices (or, in many cases, lack thereof). “High stakes,” to me, are personal stakes, and Kyrstin is great when she focuses on the personal. I’d be remiss not to mention the prologue, which teases a still darker storyline that doesn’t see a pay-off in Ice itself, but which promises to return in a more meaningful way in later volumes of the Rise of Kerti series. Although I found the initial few pages of the prologue a little shaky and felt the prose could have been tightened for greater impact, by the end I was hooked. The focus here on Zea, an imprisoned scholar forced to bear the child of a cult leader and doomed to see her own daughter suffer the same fate, is a smart one, establishing clear and compelling stakes. I admit, I kept hoping to see this storyline return, and I’m excited to see how it interweaves with Ax and Veyre’s plots as the series continues. There are hints here and there, with the cult leader mentioned a few times in the main story.

One of the major thematic elements at work in Ice is that of allegiance and belief. As mentioned, Veyre and Ax are both caught in situations they wish to escape but from which they’re unable to extricate themselves. In Veyre’s case in particular, her conflicts are informed by her relationship to dogma and propaganda, as she yearns to fully suppress what are so obviously her subconscious doubts concerning the legitimacy of the regime she serves. In Ax’s case, much of what’s compelling about him is that he’s very much an ordinary person who longs to live an ordinary life free of the pressure to act as a political agent. There’s something to his struggle that I feel speaks to marginalized experiences of oppression that bar us from certain life choices and funnel us in to life paths that are marked by hardship. In general, there’s a tension throughout Ice when it comes to the characters’ agency–what does agency actually look like when your choices are limited, and do we owe it to ourselves and others to act, even when our actions may be to our own detriment? The throughlines of rebellion and resistance, though common enough in epic fantasy, feel particularly topical in our present moment, even if I never quite got behind their rallying cry (the titular, “In ice we steel!”). It’s clear from certain plot elements at the novel’s conclusion that Kyrstin’s approach to rebellion and rebel movements as a concept is far more complex than “rebels good, government bad,” and I appreciated the nuance and thoughtfulness with which she addresses the topic.

While I enjoyed Ice, there are some pacing issues at the midway point. A large part of the plot in this section revolves around a series of scenarios (captures, escapes, heist-like adventures) that could have been combined or otherwise tightened for greater emotional impact. This is followed by a series of rollercoaster events at the novel’s conclusion that had me quickly turning the pages, but also wishing some of these more meaningful sequences had been spread out a bit and given more attention/room to breathe. There’s the sense of some missed opportunities when it comes to rooting the explosive plot points in something more textured, real, and immediately impactful for the two MCs. The ending, though an excellent teaser for future volumes, also felt a bit tacked on (I thought the novel could have clued up a chapter earlier and been more effective, especially as the final chapter introduces some new thematic elements that seem as though they might work better as the opening to a second volume).

Kyrstin is certainly a talent, and I’m eager to see where the series leads. Ax, and especially Veyre, are complex and interesting characters. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of Kyrstin in the fantasy scene, and recommend Ice to fans of epic fantasy that combines adventure with classic stories of rebellion against tyrannical empires. I’ve already mentioned The Poppy War, but I’d further recommend Ice to Star Wars fans as well.