While Tuyo by Rachel Neumeier is pretty far under the radar in the fantasy world, there are a couple Redditors who seem to regularly like the same kinds of books I like and who have been evangelizing it for a while now. I had a pretty good idea that it would fit my Bingo theme this year, so I was excited for the excuse to finally give it a chance.
Tuyo takes place in a world with at least three sentient races and an extremely abrupt shift in climate near the river that separates the territories of the winter and summer peoples. The lead hails from the tribal northern lands, and with his people hard pressed by the southern invaders, he is offered as a sacrifice, with his life traded for the end of fighting between his tribe and the force that harries them (though not an end to the larger struggle). But the commander who accepts his sacrifice has designs beyond ritual execution—he seeks to use this prisoner to help him understand his enemies and find a way to bring the entire war to a finish.
Tuyo ascended my TBR at an opportune time—I picked it up while traveling in a locale where I do not speak the language, and the reading environment primed me to easily connect to the linguistic and cultural barrier between the lead and his captor. Both characters are competent in each other’s tongues, but neither is fluent, and it leads to difficulty in communication and misunderstandings with the weight of potential bloodshed behind them. The prose tends toward the simple, but it’s readable and effective, with the simplicity not breaking immersion one whit; instead, it further drives the reader into the perspective of a lead in an unfamiliar culture.
There is a big bad and high-stakes fantasy plot, but it builds slowly in the background through a narrative that’s much more focused on the building of trust and friendship across cultures. The character-driven slow burn makes it a book for a certain sort of reader, but that sort of reader is me. I loved watching the characters learn to interact with each other, with the lead only very slowly revising his expectations and stereotypes about the people holding him captive. There will be a time for the question about how much trust and friendship can truly exist in a captor/captive relationship, but Tuyo doesn’t hurry to get there, progressing in a series of fits and starts that make the whole narrative feel earned.
As that trust becomes more deeply established, the wider plot begins to take shape. There is a terrifying enemy, and it will take cooperation to defeat him—cooperation that would have been unthinkable if not for the interpersonal plot at the story’s heart. Involved in this conflict are the complicated strategies and fighting both magical and mundane that one expects from chunky fantasy novels. And those elements are plenty exciting, though they’re not the story’s true strength. There are moments where gambits succeed a bit too easily or where battles become a bit tricky to follow, but while they may not be so immaculately crafted as to carry the story, they’re plenty sufficient as supporting pieces in a story with such a strong interpersonal plot on offer.
Crucially, the widening of scope does not merely mean that there will be an increase in fighting. Instead, there are yet more and stronger threats to the fragile trust being built, and there is diplomacy that goes well beyond one relationship, drawing in an entire people with an intensely honor-driven culture and myriad reasons to distrust the one who seeks their cooperation.
One of my favorite elements of Tuyo is its refusal to take shortcuts in its handling of the culture of the winter tribes. The royal who despises formality and lets his hair down when engaging a tactless young hero is a well-worn fantasy trope, and there’s not a hint of it here. The forms will be followed, even in the shadow of what could be an existential threat. But neither does Tuyo commit the opposite sin of portraying an honor culture with such incredible rigidity that they are unable to function when the stakes are high. It takes its time establishing diplomacy through the appropriate forms and chains of command, but it never loses the feeling that these tribal leaders care about the preservation of their people more than about petty grudges. There are adults in the room, and while those adults come from different cultures, neither culture is a straightjacket preventing them from doing good; instead, they demonstrate a practiced aptitude at leveraging the forms and expectations of their people to advance an agenda deeply interested in solutions.
Admittedly, I am exactly the audience for this book, but it still has to execute, and Tuyo does so with aplomb. Its commitment to building an interpersonal relationship across linguistic and cultural barriers and care in respectful portrayal of both cultures make it one of the best things I’ve read all year. In a fantasy landscape full of scheming, backbiting, and prideful rigidity, watching good-hearted characters genuinely working together to seek the good is an absolute breath of fresh air. Neumeier has written many other stories in the world, and while Tuyo makes a perfectly satisfying standalone, I had a good enough time that I may yet check out more.
Recommended if you like: fish-out-of-water stories, problems being solved with relationships as much as with magic.
Can I use it for Bingo? It’s hard mode for Stranger in a Strange Land and is also Self-Published.
Overall rating: 18 of Tar Vol’s 20. Five stars on Goodreads.