Sworn to fulfill her family’s blood debt, Emiko Soong is given the daunting task of retrieving the Ebony Gate: a portal that stands as a barrier stopping a horde of ghosts from descending onto the living, human world.
Emiko carries a lot of baggage. Among the magical world that lives in secret among the human populace, she is infamously known back home as the Butcher. Taking refuge in San Francisco after a bloody incident that haunts her to this day, she’s sworn off being involved in the cutthroat life and shady politics that her clan is forever embroiled in.
Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle’s “Ebony Gate” is the beginning of a promising new series that situates itself as an Asian American urban fantasy. Their construction of the world’s magical systems and its storied history is strong; the society that their troubled heroine navigates feels very lived in. The fantastical elements of the story—monsters, spirits, magical powers, contracts bound by blood, and so many others—are deftly woven into the backbone of this lively portrayal of San Francisco, manipulated from the shadows by inter-clan warfare. The book’s tendency to drawl on about the endless peculiar aspects of its supernatural society may feel a little overbearing to some, though.
“Ebony Gate” uses its fantastical backdrop as a springboard into a thorough thematic exploration of familial commitment and the meaning of belonging. Emiko accepts the call to retrieve the Ebony Gate so her younger brother Tatsuya, the up-and-coming treasured heir of the Soong clan, wouldn’t have to take it instead, endangering the future of the clan. While her family are only mentioned off-screen, their presence as a driving force in Emiko’s life is deeply felt. Raised by two emotionally insular parents who she struggles to understand, her physical distance from them as they reside an ocean away speaks to many relevant experiences and feelings by others who’ve settled roots outside of their home country, seeking a new start, unfettered by the burdens of their old life.
Beyond her strained family ties, another aspect that the writing takes great care in portraying is her fractured sense of community as she tried to understand the life she wants to live in San Francisco, and the extent of which she wants to still be involved in the magical world she’s always felt ostracized from. Later developments in the novel show an interesting exploration of how a city is only ever the sum of the people who live and breathe it, highlighting one of the great things about writing in the urban fantasy genre.
The story only really faulters a bit in its tone at times. Told in first person, Emiko’s inner monologue is an endless stream of clever quips. There is rarely a moment in the novel’s many tense action-packed scenes where she does not have a witty thought, poking exasperated fun at the situation at hand. While this does to serve to lighten the mood and make the story not take itself too seriously, it feels a little excessive at times.
To its credit, the later parts of “Ebony Gate” truly shine, after the usual worldbuilding of a fantasy novel has been dutifully built up in the pages prior. The stakes are high, and the denouement after the story’s climax sets up several enticing threads to follow up on in the next book in this series. Beyond the implications that Emiko’s journey has just begun, it would be interesting to see further exploration in the characters of Emiko’s shadowy mother, her stern father, and her younger brother that she’s been fighting to protect this whole time. Whether Emiko can triumph against the tide remains to be seen—but like its protagonist, future stories in the series have a promising outlook for ever stronger growth and potential.
