More books like this: a mix of social remarks and urban fantasy
I thorughly enjoyed this book. as it's well plotted, fascinating world building, and entertaining. . I liked the good storytelling
Highly Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Told in four novellas, Servant Sovereign is half urban fantasy and half a love letter to San Francisco. The structure is more the sort of thing you see in kids' media where the plot is as much a vehicle for learning something (in this case, San Franciscan history) as an adventure story in its own right. I found it charming, especially since it’s written with obvious love for these parts of history, and because I don’t know much about San Francisco and did learn something from it. It does leave the main plot feeling sparse at times to make room for the historical details.

What took me out, though, was the execution of some of its messages/themes and the shallowness of certain characters that was related to this. There’s a lot of "both-sides" waffling on most social issues that are brought up, which is very discordant with the extremely blatant anti-capitalist message that underpins the entire story. The protagonists are queer witches who literally fight off a manifestation of capitalist greed who goes out of his way to almost cartoonishly show off gentrification, exploitation, corruption, and valuation of wealth over human life under this system. But mixed in with all that the queer trans witch who gets dropped into a historic instance of police brutality against the queer community doesn't get to express a stronger opinion of the police force in America than ‘there's some problems with it, but we should try to have sympathy for them too.’ There's a historical missionary brought into the story who 'rescued' Chinese women from human trafficking but then held them captive till they learned English, converted to Presbyterianism, and married men of her choosing. The author's note addresses this somewhat, but the story itself very much tiptoes around this side of things to keep her in a heroic role and settles on the idea that she was just fighting back the best she knew how. (The Chinese American protagonist doesn't get a voice in this, just the white guy.) In general, the author seemed unwilling to engage with the unsavory aspects of most historical figures he writes into the story, particularly ones who ally with the protagonists, even when these aspects would be relevant to the story and its themes. It felt noncommittal, like trying not to be too radical and not to speak ill of the dead by fully characterizing them. But then why tell an anti-capitalist story? Why make a large portion of the cast real, imperfect historical figures? I just felt some disconnect here.

Thank you for the opportunity to read Servant Sovereign by Michael G. Williams, I enjoyed it and will look out for more by this author.

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for granting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this soooooooooooo bad. In the beginning, I very much did! It gave me so many childhood feelings of reading Good Omens, but Actually Gay. Unfortunately, there were a number of things that eventually made my joy and excitement grind to a halt. Some of these things would be five star material for other people, but for me, it just killed the light in my eyes.

For one thing, the little history factoids about San Francisco are cool and all, but like...... THAT many? For THAT long? I wasn't even 30% of the way through before I was absolutely exhausted by it. And I love history! I go out of my way to consume historical nonfiction because it fascinates me. I just................................................................. listen, I'm not reading gay sci fi with demons so I can endure an unrequested tour guide's presentation on SF, alright? It just took a good pace and made it grind to a halt every time. The last thing I want to do when I'm reading a book is get to a point so repetitious that I find myself going, "I just don't fucking care," about the history of an unbelievably interesting city.

Another stick in my craw was the way the message was hammered in. I'm a staunch anticapitalist, but geez louise, I was so sick and tired of hearing the same in your face points over and over again. In the very beginning, it was... well, not SUBTLE, but definitely made you use your brain a little more, a little more show than tell, but that "subtlety" died before it could take its second breath of life.

It was like the author scribbled CAPITALISM BAD on a baseball bat and just whacked me over and over and over until my skull was pulp. I get it, okay? I prommie I got it BEFORE the whacking began. Like, golly gee whiz, there's preaching to the choir, and there's tearing down the church roof during choir practice. At one point early on, I had to double check that I wasn't reading a fucking TJ Klune novel. It just made the anti-capitalist shit like..... boring. How do you manage to make anti-capitalist spirit-summoning gay witches BORING???

AND ANOTHER THING. How in god's name am I meant to take all this CAPITALISM BAD (true, based) shit seriously when there's like... cop centrism? I was already wary when we were introduced to the Real Actual Salt of the Earth Good Guy Cop and his immunity to corruption, but we literally have a trans character saying that it's "reasonable" to see the humanity in cops. Some verbatim things this character said about cops:

🚨That "There are good ones"
🚨That cops are "not great when dealing with the queer communities" what a fucking insanely lukewarm serve for a TRANS PERSON to deliver about THE UNITED STATES POLICE FORCE
Offers a sympathetic "I mean, I get it, they do nothing but see people at their worst, day in, day out."
🚨That "hating all cops" "would be just as bad as the overgeneralizations people inflict on each other about anything else"
🚨Again, calls it "reasonable" to have a centrist mindset, as a trans person, about cops. Furthermore, that the ACAB mentality is a "knee-jerk reaction" that is "pretty judgmental". Consider a knee-jerk reaction to growing a fucking spine.
🚨That they are "trying" to show more compassion and understanding to cops - because it's so reasonable, of course. Because the most protected organization of thugs, bullies, and tyrants in this godforsaken country wike, weawwy needs the empathy and undewstanding of the LGBT community 🥺🥺 It's okay that we beat, rape, imprison, and murder people just like you day in and day out, especially your siblings of color, and we'll get away with it not only Scott-free but with a paid vacation attached - and that's IF we get caught - but like....... have you considered you're super fucking unreasonable for hating cops, you fetid piece of dogshit I went out of my way to squish under my boot?

Get a grip.

The strongest stance a TRANS ANTICAPITALIST WITCH had about cops is, quote: "[...] I do have some problems with the institution."

I feel insane. Your anticapitalist media is worthless if it shows hole for cops, I don't know what to tell you. Neoliberal take. Lily-white take. "Obviously he was evil, but he had some good talking points" take.

I was just.......... so disappointed by this. It was well-written, and the premise was so interesting, but it was constantly getting in its own way. I couldn't finish it. I was so tired of finding my eyes glazing over for half the book.

If you think TJ Klune is a revolutionary in gay fiction, you will like this book.

Servant Sovereign is a collection of four novellas, which are one part fantasy (demons and witches) and one part scifi (time travel). We follow two queer witches, Iria and Madge, who summon Emperor of the US, Norton I (a real person) from the moment of his death in 1880, to 2019 to use him in their plan to defeat the demonic greed ruining San Francisco. With each novella, things get more mind bending, as there is a lot of time travelling going on, but Michael G Williams does a brilliant job in the final novella to tie it all up neatly and satisfyingly. And no matter what century the characters are visiting at the time, queer people are ever present and feel quite central to the plot.

This book is certainly a strange one for me, as I've only read a handful of scifi novels. But the political themes on show here really shine through and the time travel is used to great effect. It especially highlights how capitalistic greed has influenced San Francisco throughout its history, from post gold rush all the way through to now. With the personification of greed as a literal demon, I found myself quite enthralled With the plot all the way through.

I also quite enjoyed learning about various historical aspects of San Francisco, as these novellas feature more than just Emperor Norton from the past 250 odd years. The historical figures Iria and Madge meet are excellent contrasts to their individual identities. For Madge it comes across more with her Asian American identity and the history of Chinese people in SanFran. Whereas Iria finds themself having to contextualise their gender identity against others from the past who equally didn't “conform” to expectations of their gender.

Overall, while I did struggle at times reading this, largely due to the pacing of some chapters (mostly a personal preference for shorter chapters) and the confusing nature of time travel, I had a great time with this book.

Thanks to Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and Arcanum Revelatur for providing this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions in this review are my own.