amina al-sarifi adventures

I was first attracted to this book at the library. It was on the shelf, face out, in the new fiction section, not far from where I had recently found The Priory of the Orange Tree, and then The Day of Fallen Night, both by Samantha Shannon. The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi is by Shannon Chakraborty,* so there is a similarity in the names, but not just that, the illustrations on all three of these books seemed similar, so I picked up Al-Sirafi thinking that it was another book by the same author.

Similar name (Shannon)... similar artwork... but no, this is a different adventure. One I turned out to like, but the similarity in the illustrations was uncanny. I figured that it had to be the same person.

Yep.

Ivan Belikov did the cover art for all three of these books. Belikov does these rich, crisp illustrations of mystical beasts that made him a great choice for all three of these adventures.

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi is the first (I'm assuming) in a new series of adventures for Shannon Chakraborty. I haven't read her stuff before that I can recall, but she established herself with another fantasy series known as the Daevabad Trilogy. I say the first in a series, but this actually read like the first book is a series, which has also intentionally left plenty of room for prequels, if this series does well. I guess you might call that savvy.

This story does--perhaps because of the need to leave room in both the future and the past--spend some time and text on both world building and backstory, but the adventure makes up for that, especially when one considers that there is probably more to come, and that backstory is going to be helpful in the future. and the past? the future-past? past-of-the-future? 

Chakraborty is a fan of history, according to he acknowledgments, and did lots of research to ensure that the travels, the ports, the seas, the ships, and the customs, Amina Al-Sarifi is awash in ring true. There is even a bibliography and further reading suggestions at the back of the book, including some translations of a few of the adventures this stories Al-Sarafi is based on. Most of Chakraborty's research was done in the original language, and she points out that there aren't many of those volumes that have been translated into English, so she has us (sole English speakers) at an advantage there. 

Does this book remind me of The Story of Sinbad the Sailor? Yep. Is that a bad thing? Nope. This one is worth a read, and I'll be looking for the next one.

* Shannon Chakraborty used to use the "author name" S.A. Chakraborty, which she used for the Daevabad Trilogy. Looks like Shannon Chakraborty is the name her future works will be published under.