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| Arcane, set in the League of Legends universe, Ekko is on a spy mission of deadly concern. |
Happy Holidays, everyone!
For the final post in the Choose Your Weapon series, I want to explore one of the most complex, and possibly most intriguing weapons at an author's disposal- Espionage.
espionage
/ˈɛspɪənɑː(d)ʒ/
noun
noun: espionage
The practice of spying or of using spies, typically by governments to obtain political and military information.
By this definition, the usual arsenal of the spy ranges between futuristic weapons al la Bond, stealth vehicles and the key to it all, information.
Yes, information becomes the weapon. If you aren't convinced, consult Sun Tzu.
The Art of War
The Art of War, by Sun Tzu (circa mid-5th Century), is the oldest known military treatise and a classic study of rivalry and competition. It has 13 chapters, each devoted to a different set of warfare-related skills. For today, it's the 13th chapter that interests me the most - The Use of Spies.
Sun Tzu said: Raising a host of a hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the State... Hence the use of spies... This is called "divine manipulation of the threads." It is the sovereign's most precious faculty.
The First Spy-Fi Novel
Even though Sun Tzu wasn't writing fiction, there are subgenres devoted to this style of storytelling. For example, The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper, published in 1821, is considered the first spy novel. It's set during the American Revolution and based on the exploits of Harvey Birch, an American secret agent.
But the first Fantasy spy novel is considered to be "The Princess and the Goblin'', published in 1872. Complete with intrigue, camouflage, trickery and twists, Spy-fi is defined as media that centers around the adventures of a protagonist working in secret to gain hidden information. Usually, these adventures involve defeating a rival superpower or singular enemy in a fantasy or futuristic world setting--outer space, undersea, alt history/time and/or Shagrala-esk locations in the world.
Contemporary Spy-Fi
Little has changed over the last two centuries of Spy Fiction, other than writing style and the increase in female, or even non-gendered main characters. The essential ingredients remain the same: a combination of Fantasy, Mysteries and Thrillers, and some form of espionage as the main weapon wielded.
Consider the titles below and thank you Silvana Reyes Lopez for your insights too!
Incendiary
Set in a world inspired by the 15th-century Spanish Inquisition, Incendiary is a great example of espionage.
Renata has a magic ability that makes it easy to steal memories from people. She has lived a thousand lives. Yet, she only wants to live freely on her own.
Part of a rebel group, Renata now has to infiltrate the royal court in order to rescue the leader of her unit. But the palace harbors difficult memories for her, and the prince inside those walls is ready to have her blood.
Judgment Night by C. L. Moore 
Moore’s novella begins with an ironic meet-cute.
Juille, the princess of a galactic empire, is incognito on a pleasure planet, where she meets Egide, the similarly incognito leader of the space barbarians (yes, space barbarians) at her father’s proverbial gates. Their dance of will-they-or-won’t-they-topple-each-other’s-domains twists through double crosses, divine audiences, and the use of ancient superweapons, but the book ends by asking why a galactic empire should even continue to exist.
On the way to answering that question, Moore gives us an array of “high fantasy” prose that keep us riveted in the genre. For example, the ship came to a velvety stop; the worldbuilding is neatly bound up in deep time with immense scale; and a female anti-hero who’s strong, complex, and sympathetic. She's also bad to the bone...
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.
In this brutal world inspired by ancient Rome, Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who rebel.
But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, she is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy...
Dragon by Steven Brust 
Over the years, Brust’s antihero Vlad Taltos has been involved in a lot of espionage and trickery, but in the eighth book we get that epic fantasy classic: a war
The beauty of Dragon is how petty, small, muddy, and unimportant that war is. Vlad, the supremely competent assassin and sometimes mafia boss, has to pretend to be a normal foot soldier in order to get close to an enemy. He’s utterly out of his element: uncomfortable, bored, and terrified. As the story wraps up, it expertly combines the satisfaction of a plot well-executed with dark satire and just a touch of sadness at such a useless loss of life.
All this is told in Brust’s spare and almost Hammett-like first-person prose, which describes epic fantasy figures and eldritch magic weapons as though they’re everyday nuisances...
Warcross by Marie Lu
Emika Chen is desperate for some quick cash to pay her rent, so she decides to hack herself into the global sensation Warcross, a video game that took the world by storm. She soon realizes she just hacked herself into the opening game of the international Warcross championship, making her an overnight sensation.
Convinced she’s going to get arrested, she’s surprised when she gets a call from the game’s creator, the young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, offering a deal she cannot refuse.
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Care to share your favorite Spy-Fi book or film? We'd all love to hear about it.
xxKim :)
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The Complete Choose Your Weapon Series 2024
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About Kim Falconer
Kim can be found on AKWilder Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and KimFalconer.com.
Throw the bones, read your horoscopes or Raise Your Phantom on the AKWilder.com site See you there!
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