I don't like fantasy books without disability representation, and, yay! The Justice of Kings has some on-page disability rep, and includes mobility aids! Sure, they're minor characters, but that means it's not a total wipeout, right? Hmm.

But it's still a choice and I'm still not into it. As the setting here is very much 'conservative backwater frontier of fantasy Not!Europe', I'm more inclined to let this one go from a worldbuilding perspective, because not many people choose to migrate to conservative backwaters. In The Justice of Kings, the existence of people of colour is brought up once, to explain to us that one of the main characters from a specific part of Fantasy Not!Europe is just a bit tanned, not actually a person of colour.

I don't like fantasy books where everyone is white.

In The Justice of Kings, the concept of homosexuality is brought up once, to assure us that the main character is not a homosexual.

I don't like fantasy books where everyone is cisgender and heterosexual with no mentioned exceptions.

Bonus negative points for 'dead family' being the entire backstory of a second man as well.

Related to 1: I do not like fantasy books which kill off their most interesting or powerful woman to further man pain: a technique known as ' fridging'.

The most mentioned category of women in this book is 'whore' - but, of course, there's no sex workers with names or dialogue (silly me for even bringing that up as an option!). Yes, the narrator and sort-of protagonist is a woman, but that doesn't excuse the rest of the representation. One is an antagonist who plays one specific role and then is never seen again. There are a few women, fewer still who wield any sort of power and aren't there to be mad, servants, or dead. Men who are soldiers, men who are nobles, men as senior political figures, men as religious leaders, men who are fathers or sons (no living mothers here), men as villains and assassins. I don't like fantasy books with 'man' as the default gender, and The Justice of Kings is very.For me, however, there are several fundamentals of a good fantasy novel that are missing from this one, and I need to talk about them before I start talking about anything else:

A lot of people are going to find in this the exact sort of thing they read fantasy for, with all the character archetypes and plot twists and cool moments and fantasy worldbuilding they want to see in their stories. A lot of people are going to really dig this book.

Richard swan the justice of kings