Graham

I am a sucker for mercenary companies it seems. The banter and camaraderie, dirty soldier humour and general sense of community engendered within a good mercenary book is hard to beat.

Badger Company follows the tale of down on its luck mercenary company who has been forced to try to sign on for a somewhat suicidal war to try and clear their name after some series of cock ups which are alluded to without fully explaining has made them somewhat unemployable. When one of the company accidentally unleashes a demon on the city they are trying to gain employment in they are forced to prove their skill to get out of the new mess they are in.

This is a shorter novel and was a really quick read, aided by the fun sense of action that pervades it. Very much on the setup for some larger arc this was still a very enjoyable read, the general shenanigans that the mercenaries get up to providing both humour and plenty of action!

Vampire crime mystery in a well realised world. The Fear of Moncroix is a fascinating take on economy in world building. Everything here is here for a purpose and you end up with an incredibly strong sense of place, yet the story is remarkably short and self contained. We are introduced at the start to a kind of secret society dedicated to maintaining the balance between the different races/factions in Moncroix. Something goes horribly wrong leaving the Vampires with a dominant position. The bulk of the book is looking at unpacking what actually happened - what hidden conspiracy is at the heart of the failure.

This mystery setting in a vampire court with the inherent darkness of such creatures well realised gives a wonderful murky morality to everything going on. I love the unsuspected farming of humans as a concept, with people from different areas treated as different vintages like in wine... The rules and structure of the vampire court is cleverly defined. The pettiness that entails is well brought in to the story as well. The main issue I had was the way Davion infiltrated the court - somewhat contrived that he manages to rise to such a high position when apparently entering at a moment of great betrayal, and I was never quite able to let that go.

A fun shorter novel that works as a great palate cleanser between the bulkier fantasy epics out there. Enough grit and darkness to get your teeth into as well!

This is one of those books where I have to conclude I am not the target audience. I can appreciate it is well written, with some clever writers tricks in terms of tensing and language use. But for me, I am not a big romance person and there was too much of that in this. Enemies to lovers is one of my least favourite tropes out there and it basically forms the centerpiece of this story.

We follow the stories of a dragon and a thief. The dragons have all been banished to an alternate realm, but during a magical convocation the thief calls one across from their realm to this one. The shapeshifting dragon trope is also used here (another one I am not especially fond of - let dragons be dragons!) so the dragon blends into society. The main plot follows a heist involving the dragon and the thief along with attempts for the dragons to return to this world. These are all aspects I enjoyed, but for such a character driven story I have to engage with the characters and I struggled here, and I always find these romance heavy things kind of cringey.

There is some clever use of language around gender here, which I do appreciate. The thief is never specified as to which gender they actually are, and there are multiple allusions to gender fluidity in the story. This was well done and in a way that did not feel forced or shoe horned in.

Ultimately, I can appreciate this was well written, but it played with tropes that I am not particularly fond of which ultimately detracted from my overall enjoyment. YMMV.

Slowburn epic grimdark fantasy. This plays heavily into the grey morality that defines grimdark. Most of the characters here have serious baggage. The world built is a dark and brutal place too.

We have four main POVs to follow: The Former Crown Prince, currently in hiding working as a drug dealer after some questionable actions in his past, an orphaned Princess trying to find her place in society and not get swamped in the continuous power plays of court, a grandmother basically torturing her grandson to try and awaken some mystic power, and a suicidal son of a farmer. This is very much a character driven story and all the characters are well drawn, even if it takes a while to really get to grips with some of their motivations.

The world building is also well done. Right from the prologue we are drawn into a world where there is an underlying conflict, a recent liberation that still defines the nation that is focused on. The idea of national identity is a key one! The mythology around that is also ever present and plays an important role in defining the action.

The magic is something intriguing as well. We have beings known as ‘The Awakened' who possess some mystical powers, but this is relatively ill defined within this first book.

Intriguingly despite this being an 700+ page beast of a book we are only really scene setting here. All of the stories are separated with no crossover. This is very much a first book in a series, and whilst there is certainly a steady build in the action it all still feels like only the opening shots in something greater.

Definitely intrigued enough to delve further into this!

Smutty, pulpy and definitely a bit juvenile in places, mostly this was just fun.

I guess the elevator pitch for this is ‘horny elf goes on a rampage?' To be honest, the book is mostly kind of bonkers, a bit of a teenage boys fever dream in places with a mixture of overt sexualization and bonkers violence. Is this serious literature? Hell no. Is it overall quite a fun read? To me it was. Definitely one where it is advisable to have an idea of what you are getting yourself into before hand though. This is about as pulpy as modern fantasy comes.

The story follows one of the Commrach (a fey/elf type creature) through a couple of different timelines, following her during her exile and what led to her exile. Our MC (Kyra) is not what you would call a nice person. Self-centered, prone to violence and aggressively rude. Also extremely horny. Sex is a big theme in the book, so be prepared for a lot of smut. The world around her is also not very nice. The Commrach kingdom with its petty politics, scheming and vicious backstabbing or the mainland with a puritanical style church are both fairly unpleasant places. There are themes of otherness, a fairly LGBTQ+ friendly approach to relationships and some found family aspects to the story to add some meat to it. The world building is not the main theme here, mainly what we are focused on is the characters. And their interactions are entertaining. Kyra's many barbs and witty comebacks make for a fun dialogue that forms the core, with the attendant relationships being built. The politicking at the center of the story is also entertaining enough, its denouement enough of a surprise to give a satisfying ending

Filthy, silly fun

I do love a bit of wuxia fantasy, and Pawn's Gambit is certainly a fun take on this. This is my first glimpse into the Mortal Techniques universe and I thoroughly enjoyed.

Firstly on the world side, I think Rob Hayes has been very clever to create a world where it is easy to generate standalone novels that work in isolation on their own. Pawn's Gambit is not the first Mortal Techniques book, but I never felt lacking jumping straight in here. The world building and exposition was all on point for a person entering the world with no prior reference points. The world itself is a really fun one, taking some of the sillier elements of Asian martial arts films and giving them a nice well reasoned magical basis, through the techniques. These techniques are powerful, but they are not leaned on too heavily and most of the story is driven by the character's wits.

The characters themselves are well drawn, likeable and understandable. Their motives are clearly defined - Yuu is hiding from her past and expectations, trying to learn to live with herself. Natsuko, the God of missed opportunities (I love the nod to Pratchett there btw) has a certain ineffableness to her as befits her godliness, but then her choice of champion and cause definitely fits the bill. Even the horse (Lump) is a memorable character!

The action is fun, almost anime like in places. The baddies like The Ticking Clock have a wonderful over-the-topness. The silliness was was well contained though and only added to the entertainment. I loved this!

Lovecraft but from the monsters perspective? This is fascinating stuff, diving into the minds of the Deep Ones from Lovecraftian myth, completely flipping a lot of the perspective on the mythos. Here humans are very much one of the monsters to be feared, with their own bias and bigotry impacting heavily on our MC (Aphra). Ultimately the themes here are on alienation and otherness, but also found family and community. Such a rich mythos as this deserved such a story. The pathos and the sympathy generated is brilliant, and a lot of what is in here could be used as a parable towards many modern views on migrants and racial segregation. Linking it to the Japanese incarceration in the Second World War was also a master stroke giving it a good grounding in reality.

Essentially this is a character study, the interactions of the characters being the main bulk of the book. All the world building is leaning pretty much into the preexisting mythos around Miskatonic and Innsmouth. The characters that Aphra surrounds herself with are engaging and sympathetic, to counter the prejudice and alienation that exists outside of the group. The characters are all distinctive, with their own voices and feel and the group as a whole very much works.

An intriguing take on one of the most evocative mythos' out there!

I really wanted to like this more than I actually did. The concept is great - a snarky deadpoolesque super assassin forms a ragtag crew to assassinate the ruler of country. I just really struggled with the voicing in places.

This is certainly an all action story, with violence, gore and a callous disregard for life thrown everywhere. I can tell that the author has tried to leaven it all with humour, but for me the humour ultimately mostly fell flat. The main issue for me is the MC is just not very likeable, coming across as whiny little man boy for most of the first half of the novel. Whilst there is some growth and I find the character much improved by the end, it is hard to get past how unpleasant he is at the start. And when it is his snark that is driving the early humour that just failed for me.

I also had some issues differentiating the voice of some of the earlier characters, with a similar cynical and whiny outlook on all of them. Again all the characters added later had a better more distinctive voice and one, Zuba, is downright brilliant with his faintly rapey creepiness... The demons and dusters are also well realised with their weird names and abilities

The worldbuilding is done well too. The concept of snorting ground up bones of gods to gain magical powers is clever in its slightly uncomfortable way. The clash of cultures between the demons and the humans leads to an interesting power dynamic as well.

Ultimately this is a book of promise. The voicing issues do plague the first half, but the second half steps it up with a much improved style. I wish that first half had the quality of the second!

This is a mightily impressive debut, doubly so considering it is a translation.

This is not an easy book to define or nail down, especially without spoilers. It plays with your perception of its setting in clever ways and the ending is an impressive curveball (even though there is some interesting foreshadowing throughout the story). Properly genre bending in ways that you do not expect!

The Sci-Fi elements are cleverly worked in to the story. I can't help but compare this a bit to Brandon Sanderson's most recent book, The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, which plays on a similar concept - that any sufficiently advanced technology will feel like magic to a more primitive one. Sealed Empire does this far more successfully by seeing these 'magical' technological items through the eye of the more primitive culture, allowing the mystery around them to actually drive the story. I will also say that the use of AI is very much on the nose for the current zeitgeist and I certainly appreciated its rather dystopian overtures and how subtly it was achieved.

I appreciate books that throw you straight into the action, and Sealed Empire opens up on a boat in the middle of a storm with some proper fast and furious action with its prologue. This sets the tempo well, even though we cycle a decade and half into the future for the story proper. The characters are well drawn, their motivations rational and well realised. Even the more villainous ones have a rationalizable arc to them, avoiding some of the tropey caricatures that can sometimes come in. The sense of political intrigue is also well built considering the general conciseness of the story. This is what drives the central part of the story and it is extremely well done, with its clever twists and turns. Norbert does a really great job of weaving together some very disparate stories into its wild and clever ending, never quite going where you expect but dragging you along eagerly nonetheless. The world building is excellent, with existing conflicts, mythology and a strong grounding in real power dynamics. This is a pretty brutal world, there are definite grimdark motifs in places, edging into sexual violence and control in places, and the conflict that engulfs the story is graphic. That said it never felt gratuitous and always feels like it is driving the plot onwards.

This is also one of the best written translations I have come across - it genuinely did not feel like a translation at all such was the quality of the prose.

This story was fresh and unique - highly entertaining and a delight to read. An author to watch!

Grimdark meets weird west. A genre mashup that I have not seen before, and it works surprisingly well. Snyder's protagonist has a classic, world weary voice that just fits that weird west so well. Couple that with some extremely callous violence and an interesting magic system and you have a well lived in world, with all the greys you expect from a real feeling grimdark fantasy.

Emotions are definitely wrung out here, with loss being a major theme. From the loss of his wife to the loss of his anonymity to the loss of his children, Cutter is definitely taken through the wringer. It all makes his callous disregard for other peoples life more believable - the world he lives in is the definition of nasty, brutish and short. His flaws are very much on his sleeve.

The magic feeds well into the weird. Opening portals, but trying not to let anything back through is an interesting (and dangerous) magic!

An impressive genre bending story that definitely felt original!

The quintessential Poe tale. He captures the experience of guilt in an impressive way. The timelessness of the telling is deeply impressive showing very little age as well. As one of Poe's most famous works there is nothing new I can add to its analysis but this is definitely an essential story for anyone to read.

So this is a love story. Kind of.

Sorry, yes this is a love story, but paved in blood, gore, violence and general evil. It is impressive how sympathetic Michael Fletcher has managed to make our MC, Khraen. He wants to be a better man, but he will do absolutely anything for his love, including manipulation, control and genocidal destruction of various peoples.

This is an intriguing continuation from the first book. Whereas Black Stone Heart was essentially a white room mystery with Khraen trying to find out who he is, this more the descent into madness trying to avoid becoming who he was. Khraen is very aware of what he is doing, aware of the monster he was. He becomes it anyway. Yet all the way you as a reader are hoping for his better side to win out. The twists and turns along the way are impressive.

This is dark stuff yet somehow it is super compelling. The nightmarish imagery gets progressively more depraved, but the actions and scenarios always feel necessary, it never feels gratuitous despite it being at the extreme end of the spectrum. Necromancy was never going to be a fluffy subject and the use of it here is expertly done in its weird and horrific necromantic creations, along with the psychological elements of control and lack of agency engendered by it.

This series is awesome.

Read it.

An intriguing if ultimately extremely pessimistic view on the human condition. The idea of an alien coming to earth and using their superior technology as a patent farm to raise funding is an intriguing one. Innovation and technology are an important area of the sci-fi genre and this is a good example of the near future part of that genre. The technologies are fascinatingly realised, believable in their conception. In this one however we see the fears and paranoias of humanity come to its fore, the tendency to lose oneself to ones vices. The premise of the corruption of human society is well done and intriguingly presented. Ultimately humanity is projected onto the alien and some of the worst aspects of it end up being imprinted.

Clever and cerebral sci-fi, definitely worth a read!

The Goldsboro Prem1er pick has been getting better recently!

Go As A River is an undeniably bleak novel - a tale of estranged families, racial bigotry, and love cut short. The whole novels eddies and swirls like its namesake river around the themes of loss and belonging. We follow Victoria Nash, the daughter of a peach farmer in Colorado with a difficult brother and a strained relationship with her father as she has her first experience with love. The trip that leads down is heartbreaking, painting a vivid picture of conservative rural biases and judgement and her own attempts to escape from it. A fascinating critique of mid 20th century values in rural America.

This is not a fast paced novel, it flows you along through the life and trials of our MC through some beautiful prose. But that momentum is always there - life is always flowing forwards.

Moving, heartfelt and with a melancholy beauty

I really enjoyed Threadneedle so was intrigued by this novella set in the same universe. Threadneedle did the whole YA thing extremely well, balancing some of the youthful experience with some interestingly dark themes. The Hedge Witch is a much lighter and brighter affair and spends most of its time focusing on the MC's desire for a summer fling. Unfortunately this is the type of YA that I really do not enjoy. Teenage angst is not something I have a particular desire to relive and it just ends up frustrating to read, and the predominance of it in this novella really destroyed my enjoyment in it. This was a shame because at the center there was an interesting idea - I did genuinely think the reveal of who was behind the magical pranks was done quite well.

There is some good world building and ideas in this novella, but its enjoyment for me was ruined by leaning to heavily into the teenage angst aspects of YA - my least favourite parts of that genre.

I can respect that the story here is well written, but I really struggled to engage with either of the two main characters and this really limited my enjoyment of the book. This was one of the better Norse inspired fantasies from a pure world building concept. The mythology was well developed, the societal hierarchy was interestingly set up but made a degree of sense. As someone who has some knowledge of Nordic languages the strange mix of pure English (Oakharrow) and Nordic names jarred somewhat, but I recognise that is a niche complaint. Etymology is important though!

My biggest complaint was with how blindly and irrationally stupid the two MCs are. They both had a tendency to rush blindly without thinking into an action, when even a second of thought would make it clear that better options were available. They both have severe trust issues, without really any explanation of why. Most of the problems here would have been solved if they were able to delegate properly (or even at all - neither seemed willing to let anyone else do a task). As they both came from a ruling family it seems unbelievable that they do not have any understanding of this type of thing, and that kind of threw me from the whole story

Engagement with the main characters is so important to me in reading a book, and this is definitely something that can be personal taste. The prose and the story here is well done, but I just struggle to like the characters as they do such unbelievable things

Loved this! Cosmic horror mixed with historical nautical fiction set in the Opium Wars. Such an intriguing mashup! And it is all done with skill and style.

19th century interaction between China and European powers feels like an under represented fictional niche. The Opium Wars, the Taiping rebellion and the various imperialistic powers meddling certainly made it a turbulent time with a lot of disruption. This setting provides the backdrop of the novel - a Royal Navy ship on patrol against pirates in the aftermath of the Opium Wars with the Taiping rebellion still in full swing on the mainland. Madness was already very much in the air.

A boat also provides an excellent claustrophobic setting for existential horror. The sense of being trapped, unable to escape from the building madness and horror around creates an excellent degree of tension. The imagery is certainly graphic and prays upon that sense of entrapment well. Throughout it all is a fascinating philosophical question framed around the famous Descartes quote of ‘I think therefore I am'. Epistemology and the theory of knowledge ties in well with this kind of cosmic horror, where perception and reality become important themes. Add in the mind bending nature of drugs (opium in this case) and a recipe for questioning the reliability of the narrator is carefully concocted.

The characterizations are also all superbly done. The MC is the ships doctor, someone who has previously battled an opium addiction, and the desire to fall back into the comfort of that addiction is a fascinating battle that is well articulated. The other characters are well drawn as well, from the junior officer facing his own battles with injury and fears for the future, to the American smuggler whose nastiness is just on the right side of believable.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and can highly recommend it.

You are always in for a wild ride with Tamsyn Muir and the third entry into her Locked Tomb series is no exception. Each of the books in this series have been utterly distinct and different in their writing techniques and styles, yet also utterly and unambiguously Tamsin Muir. Gideon gave us a gothic haunted house/murder mystery full of snark, Harrow gave us second person space opera with an unreliable narrator. Nona goes full on post apocalyptic dystopia with a childish sunny disposition. The way that the inherent contradictions somehow enhance the overall story arc is nothing short of glorious. I am left in awe of Muir's writing abilities.

Thats not to say that these are easy reads. These are dense, complex and confusing books, layered with hints and clever cross references, obscured behind their different narrators personalities and flaws. Even placing them next to each other in the overall series timeline is challenging at times.

In Nona we do get some nice world building, linking back to the early rise of John Gaius. We return to some familiar characters in Camilla and Palamedes, even if they are presented in a new way. We get Corona from a different perspective. We get to see Gideon as others see her. And we are confronted with the mystery of who is Nona. All this against the strangely gentle background of a school teaching in a city undergoing lockdown in some dystopian post-apocalyptic planet.

The Locked Tomb is probably the most clever, dense and insane current speculative fiction series out there. I cannot wait for the conclusion in Alecto!

Yay, this was fun! Atwater truly channels Good Omens with a dash of Screwtape Letters, but with lower stakes. A masterful take on cozy religious satire. Cozy Fantasy is very much in vogue and it is easy to see why. Comforting but fun.

Small Miracles follows the attempts of the ‘Fallen Angel of Petty Temptations' to tempt Holly Harker as a way of paying off his gambling debts to a former angelic comrade. There is a wonderful gentle humour to this, the silly score keeping, the petty interactions between different celestial beings, the day to day mundanity of school life. Everything plays off each other in a delightful manner with Gadriel's cynicism forming the root of it all.

This was definitely a worthy winner of SPFBO 8 and I am glad I discovered it through this competition.

I have to respect the impact this book has had. Reading it for the first time, I can see its influence writ large upon many of my favourite dystopias, from Brave New World to 1984. The oppressive controlling state forms the center, a direct challenge to the rising authoritarianism in Bolshevik Russia. The concept that happiness and freedom can directly oppose one another. These are big themes, dealt with in an impressive way.

Surprisingly, a lot of the world and concepts seem very timeless. The glass buildings to remove privacy are eerily reminiscent of modern glass skyscrapers (it brings to mind the Tate Modern in London which overlooks some expensive penthouses where people have been complaining). The rocket ships and surveillance is all very ahead of its time. There is also a very liberal view on sex and sexuality - very enlightened for its time.

The prose itself is on the poetic flowery side, which is not to my personal taste, but I can see it is well constructed and beautifully done. There is a kind of stream of consciousness flow to everything which can be a bit exhausting, but the descent to rebellion is well captured.

This is one of the foundational texts for modern dystopias. It still reads well and powerfully to this day, almost 100 years after it was first written

This was fun, but it is a long way from Sanderson's best work. The basic conceit that advanced technology would be indistinct from magic to a more primitive society is a fun one, the use of multiworld and portal fantasy to act on that idea works well. As always Sanderson's prose is very easy to read. But then it destroys that conceit by providing a portal world that does actually have magic in it, which feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity.

The main character, John West, is well drawn. I appreciate the use of a white room setup - with John trying to figure out who he is as part of the background. The local characters to the dimension are all also well drawn. The other characters from John's home dimension are more of a mixed bag. Some of the dynamics there just feel a bit weird?

The Saxon world is also well built, with things almost but not quite following a semi-historical course here. It feels well researched with a nice sprinkling of Norse and Old English mythology thrown in.

I am not sure that the Frugal Wizards Guide excerpts work especially well though. They are repetitive, the humour just feels very forced, and I think the small print references are much more culturally referenced in America than other parts of the English speaking world, which feels strange for a book supposedly referencing medieval England.

This is not a bad book but compared to other Sanderson books it really does not stand up particularly well, with some slightly strange directions to the story. Worth a read for curiosity's sake, but not essential Sanderson reading.

A folk tale from within the Keeper's Chronicle universe, this was fun and heartwarming. The story is told via a ‘Keeper' tale told at an inn (Keepers being bard like characters), so a story within a story. It follows the story of Tomkin, the youngest son of a duke seeking to make a name for himself as something other than a glorified steward, responding to stories that a dragon has appeared on his family's land whilst his father and older brothers are away fighting elsewhere. Expecting the rumours to be false he is surprised to find both a dragon and a very determined young woman trying to use the dragon to escape from her family.

There is a lot of heart to this story, the way the relationship between Tomkin and ‘Mags' develops is done extremely well, from the confrontation at the start to the gradual affection that develops - how each comes to appreciate the other's flaws. The dragon is also well characterised, with its motivations cleverly developed and the ultimate denouement giving a very satisfying conclusion.

The story is humorous and well written. Never outstaying its welcome this was a delightful little read.

I read this as part of the Action Fantasy Book Club

Grimdark Magazine continues to be an excellent source of short format fiction at the grittier end of the speculative fiction scale! This issue focuses on Sci-Fi grimdark fiction and offers an intriguing mix of stories. As always I will review each of the short stories individually

The Royal Game - Christopher Ruocchio

I am a big fan of the Sun Eater series and it was fun to see a new short story from it. This definitely is a mid series story though, so it does contain some spoilers for those who have not read the larger series. Otherwise it does work pretty well as a standalone short story though - focusing on the side of the main timeline, yet still featuring Adrian Harlowe. Sun Eater definitely has grimdark vibes - the whole alien civilization/existential threat, the petty politicking and all the characters definitely are on the grey spectrum from a moral perspective. This story definitely showcases that aspect, with politicking and Adrian Harlowe using intimidation to get his way. A fun little side trip from the main story line.

4.5/5

The Night Sung Out My Name - Ken Scholes

An interesting take on AI overriding your agency. Definitely dark in feel with an intriguing glimpse at an alien world, but the overarching theme appears to be on dependency on AI despite its inherent danger. With the rise of AI in the public discourse at the moment it feels timely!

4/5

The Cure - Guy Haley

The least Sci-Fi of the stories here, this one was more in the Fantasy realm, tracking a group of mercenaries hired to escort a pair of priests across some decidedly hostile terrain. The recurring refrain of ‘more pay for the living' each time a member of the party dies is wonderfully mercenary in its echoes. This also pokes some fun at religion as well, but is ultimately a morbid tale of effectively a suicidal mission. I enjoyed this!

4.5/5

Electric Sonalika - Samit Basu

Another take on AI, but this one plays more on the boundaries of what is the meaning of humanity. Our main character, Sonalika is mostly maching, but human enough to pass as human, in a society where AI has risen up once and been defeated. Sonalika is a tragic figure, not able to fit into either world. Kind of a cinderella story, but with some dark twists and turns. I'm not overly prudish but some of the machine sex stuff seemed a bit unnecessary other than to play on potential incest themes (it did nothing for the plot) but otherwise an enjoyable enough tale. Was interesting to have something with some Indian cultural sensitivities referenced here too

3.5/5

Dead Reckoning - Miles Cameron

Again, I am already a fan of Arcana Imperii, the series that this story links in with. This operates a vignette into the larger story arc, with a different ship and crew to that featured so far in the only novel in the series (Artifact Space) but linked into the wider universe (and story). There is some fantastic foreshadowing going on here with hints of threats to come. This series has to be the sci-fi series I am most anticipating as the first book was so brilliant. Probably the least grimdark of the short stories in this issue, it kept my appetite thoroughly wetted for the series though...

4.5/5

The Wormwood Trilogy is really hard to pin down. Mixing African Futurism, new weird and even some vaguely cyberpunk aesthetics it is something distinctively its own which I have not come across. The titular Rosewater is a city somewhere in modern day Nigeria, centered around an alien entity called Wormwood. This, the third and final novel in the trilogy, does a great attempt to round up the events (especially the fall out from the climactic insurrection in the second book).

Now an independent state, we see a change in understanding of the implications of living with the alien presence. Whilst the alien was mostly benign in the earlier novels, as its purpose is understood more so is its threat. But how do you counter something that can read your thoughts, that pervades everything in the area and is slowly replacing humanity with its own?

It is interesting what this has echoes of, some of it is very uncomfortable to think about (and that plays well with the eventual solution reached which is definitely uncomfortable). Playing on themes of xenophobia but taken at a more whole species level is intriguing and unpleasant at the same time
- the echoes of the great replacement theory are very tricky to parse, but they are there. Twisting it on its head and having it given from an African perspective and applying at a species level plays with the mind a lot (and let me be absolutely clear that I am not a proponent of this theory in its current usage - I think it is despicable and dangerous).

This is also a decidedly African feeling story. Yes there are brief forays into London and the US, but the story is very much centered on Africa, Nigeria in particular. The cultural flavours from that do effectively work their way into the story in a very satisfying way.

Ultimately the ending is satisfying, rounding out the story in a pleasing way whilst leaving enough unanswered questions to be intriguing. Tade has built such an impressive world and story arc. He asks uncomfortable questions and goes in weird and unusual directions. Unlike anything I have read before and very clever trilogy.

The Final Architecture is space opera on a truly epic scale. Eyes of the Void, the second book in the series takes up where the first book left off with Idris, the Int who forms the heart of the tale, now trying to help find people in the Partheni, rivals to his native Hugh, who can potentially become Ints as well. His fellow crew members on the Vulture God are helping out with Partheni intelligence to earn their keep. Things quickly devolve from there as we learn more about the Hegemony, Unspace, the Architects and the various factions all stand on (or just over) the brink of war.

What Tchaikovsky does so well is balancing these different factions, playing them off against each other (and internally) giving a dense political tapestry to the tale, whilst allowing the universe ending action to play out as a backdrop to it all. I think the tendency to focus on the small problems when major disasters are going on around you is a definitely a very human reaction, and something that the human factions noticeably do in this story, allowing the alien factions to be a bit more distinctive yet leaving us a familiar backdrop.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, the balance between intimate and epic is excellently maintained. The found family of the crew of the Vulture God is well balanced with an excellent level of camaraderie and banter that gives the whole thing a sense of life. Each faction has its own distinct character, and each species also is distinctive. The aliens do feel genuinely alien, from the mysterious Architects to the weirdness of the Essiel Hegemony. The universe feels real, lived in and just excellently built.

Thoroughly looking forward to diving into the final book in the series!