Anji Kills a King: Keep that story moving

If you get bored with exposition and backstory, have I got a book for you.

Anji Kills a King
By Evan Leikam
Published by Tor, 2025
Buy it

I always like it when a book starts as late in the action as possible. With many stories, especially those in the fantasy genre, a fair amount of time needs to be spent establishing the setting, explaining the characters’ backstories, and detailing how magic or other supernatural elements work before the plot can really get going. That’s fine, but it can also leave readers wondering when things are going to get interesting.

In Anji Kills a King, debut author Evan Liekam entirely skips all of that, at least at first. He delivers on the expectation set by the title by opening in the midst of an act of regicide, forcing readers to figure out what is going on as the main character deals with the aftermath. This allows the story to move at a breakneck pace, which befits the approach Leikam takes, which is to focus almost entirely on action and plot developments while slowly doling out the details that flesh out the world and help us understand the stakes of everything that is happening.

While we get the idea that Anji’s reason for killing the king is due to his tyrannical ways, the story mostly focuses on her personal reasons for doing so before giving us more information about the state of the kingdom and the reasons to stand up against an evil ruler. She had been working as a laundress in the king’s castle, and there are some hints about how she ended up there and the reasons for her actions, but most explanations will have to wait. That’s partly because while she manages to escape the city and go on the run, she is almost immediately captured by a bounty hunter known as the Hawk, so the plot focuses on her continuing attempts to escape, her anger at everything that is happening, and her increasing sense of despair as it seems like she’s doomed to be taken back to the capital and publicly executed.

The Hawk is an older woman who is a member of a group of animal-themed agents of the state known as the Menagerie, and as she and Anji journey toward their destination, it becomes clear that something else is going on. While the Hawk is gruff, she doesn’t seem completely hateful, and she sometimes even seems protective of Anji, and not just because the bounty will be higher if she’s brought in alive. She seems to have her own agenda, which brings her into conflict with other members of the Menagerie who are also on the hunt for the most wanted criminal in the kingdom.

As the story proceeds, the true scale of what is happening in the kingdom becomes clear, with Anji gaining an understanding of the effects of her actions at the same time as the reader. Both she and the Hawk go through some growth and development over the course of their journey, and the story ends up delving into issues such as the difficulty of effecting real change when standing up against tyranny and the ways people can cause harm by pursuing selfish agendas even when they think they’re in the right. The world established here is a harsh, gritty one, with people in the land struggling with poverty and drug addiction and those who are in power making decisions based on religious zealotry. It’s a fantasy setting that seems very informed by the issues that are currently playing out in reality.

But, as mentioned, we learn much of this information organically as the story proceeds. Rather than giving long-winded descriptions of the state of the world, the focus is on action, and the plot proceeds pretty relentlessly. There are near-constant fights, whether they involve Anji trying to escape from the Hawk, the Hawk having to fend off others who want to capture Anji and collect the bounty, or the pair having to contend with other threats that arise during their journey. This being a fantasy setting, there are monsters, magical spells and transformations, and lots of swordfighting, and it’s all very exciting. Plus, it’s very violent, with people being killed in gory fashion during various battles, as well as maimings, torture, and lots of unjust death.

For a first-time novelist, Leikam does a great job of creating a world that seems lived-in, with real, believable issues affecting the main characters and others that they encounter. While this is his debut novel, he isn’t a complete unknown; I had previously encountered him as one of the many people in the “BookTok” community on TikTok, where he posts videos discussing books, mostly focusing on fantasy and science fiction. He also has a podcast, Book Reviews Kill, where he holds longer discussions and interviews authors. It’s always cool to see someone who has put so much thought into what makes stories work create stories of their own. Judging by the quality of his work here, he has a long, fruitful career ahead of him, and I’ll be happy to see what he does next.