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danielles_reads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
It was important to acknowledge numbers, especially when the dead were dead by your doing.
I am kicking myself for not reading this book sooner!!! This is military epic space opera at its finest: truly alien with immersive world building, complicated and nuanced characters, and a tense story. The scope is so huge and intricate and the writing is so smooth that I can’t believe this was Lee’s debut!!!
Honestly, this is the sci-fi version of what I expected The Traitor Baru Cormorant to be like 😅 It’s also got political intrigue, morally grey characters, and overthrow of a government, but it was sooo much more intriguing with characters that were still sympathetic, even though at times it was just as confusing.
The first two chapters took me a few tries to read and understand. This book really just throws you into the deep end without any info dumping. The info that is directly provided is done seamlessly within the text, and is only what you need. Everything else is mostly implied, but the major concepts started to make more sense to me in chapter 3. I’m still a little confused on the whole calendar as math keeping society together thing lol, but I read an interview of Lee’s where he mentioned past real world civilizations starting wars over changing calendar systems, which helped me appreciate the concept more. I see a lot of reviewers say this book has too much math, but I don’t think that’s accurate. There wasn’t much direct math—it’s just that the world building starts out so confusing and happens to be based on math. This world is also subtly more Eastern-inspired than Western, which is very refreshing in a space opera. It also includes references to assimilation and language / cultural differences between different peoples of the empire. Despite the oppression, the society is queernormative and equal between genders, and both main MCs are queer!
The layers in this though!! I did not expect what ended up happening in the end, and I loved how it was done. Such a novel concept to show
I really liked Cheris as a character, and to see her wrangle with the effects of her commands was so good. Oh yeah, and her caring for the servitors when no one else even noticed them!! I’m a sucker for characters like that. I am really looking forward to learning more about her character separate from Kel Command and even Jedao. Lee also included short POVs of regular soldiers that really made me care for each person so quickly (must be from his practice of writing short stories). It was the same kind of thing Tasha Suri did in The Burning Kingdoms books, but frankly I think Lee did it better, as it flowed in the narrative better and didn’t take up as much space as hers did.
I considered giving this 5 stars, but ultimately it lost some points for essentially being one long battle scene until the last 10% or so. There were a lot of moving pieces, yes, but I think some of the middle portion could have been cut. It wasn’t clear where the book was going until the very end, and the constant battle speak and deaths started to get exhausting (which I think was intentional to prove a point but still). Regardless, I read half of this book while waiting in line for Anime Expo, and it was definitely a great book to keep me company.
I can’t wait to continue on in the series! I am so impressed by Lee already.
~Yours in calendrical heresy~
“Be more assertive. You tend to defer to Nerevor. The problem with authority is that if you leave it lying around, others will take it away from you. You have to act like a general or people won’t respect you as one.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, and War
Moderate: Suicide, Rape, and Suicidal thoughts
talonsontypewriters's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
can't tell if I just have no brain power at the moment or if the worldbuilding and plot legitimately are never explained in a way that makes sense. want to maybe give it another shot in the future to see if my feelings change, but for now, just kind of impenetrable
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Death, Murder, Gore, and War
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Genocide, Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, Xenophobia, Body horror, Emotional abuse, and Rape
Minor: Child death, Torture, Sexual content, Suicide, Ableism, Transphobia, and Dysphoria
bbbarttt's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: War and Violence
Minor: Sexual assault
ofbooksandechos's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, and War
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, and Rape
Minor: Torture and Suicide
anna_hepworth's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
In short: I loved it, and I want more people to read it.
In long: I've heard a lot of good things about this series, but none of them prepared me for how much I was going to love this story, how invested I was going to be in how the complex strands of politics and warfare across time and space are woven together.
While the plot is good, and the characterisation is impressive, what held me in this story was the world-building, and the way that the writing slowly exposes it. Yoon Ha Lee has developed a mathematics and a magic that are one and the same, and that influence everything that happens in the story.
Difficult parts of the story: The sheer numbers of sacrificial deaths, and the fact that just to maintain the government system, torture is a necessity. Fortunately the torture is only referenced, but the sheer numbers of senseless deaths do happen as necessary parts of the story.
If you are someone who usually doesn't like complex political shenanigans and the logistics of war, it may still be worth reading this.
In long: I've heard a lot of good things about this series, but none of them prepared me for how much I was going to love this story, how invested I was going to be in how the complex strands of politics and warfare across time and space are woven together.
While the plot is good, and the characterisation is impressive, what held me in this story was the world-building, and the way that the writing slowly exposes it. Yoon Ha Lee has developed a mathematics and a magic that are one and the same, and that influence everything that happens in the story.
Difficult parts of the story: The sheer numbers of sacrificial deaths, and the fact that just to maintain the government system, torture is a necessity. Fortunately the torture is only referenced, but the sheer numbers of senseless deaths do happen as necessary parts of the story.
If you are someone who usually doesn't like complex political shenanigans and the logistics of war, it may still be worth reading this.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, War, and Body horror
Minor: Torture
Details on the body horror:sandragloz's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Jedao🥲
Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Emotional abuse, and War
bluejay21's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, and War
Moderate: Child death, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexual assault
eegah's review against another edition
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Quite challenging to get through - took a while for me to get oriented and by the end of the book I still didn't fully grasp the concepts this world is built on.
However, worth it for the little vignettes of war seen from different points of view, and the discussions on the brutal maths of conflict. The ending was also really rewarding.
However, worth it for the little vignettes of war seen from different points of view, and the discussions on the brutal maths of conflict. The ending was also really rewarding.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and War
Minor: Sexual assault
natcat's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
This book absolutely blew me away, wow, what a ride! I couldn’t remember why I’d put this on hold at the library so went into it without any expectations and, wow, I loved it! I loved the ride it took me on, and the inventiveness of the worldbuilding is amazing and the way that world building unfolds is incredibly compelling - I thought all of that was just super well done.
This is a pretty grim book, in a lot of ways - the universe it takes place in is a dark one, in which lives are incredibly disposable, and a lot of people die in this book, many of them from the actions of our main characters - and it doesn’t shy away from that, but it’s not depressing, either. The characters might exist in a universe where lines of morality are drawn differently, but their emotions and motivations are not alien and are very compelling and are very much looking at those moral lines.
The way the story unfolds is fascinating, and I was very impressed with how the author started weaving in short segments from a wide variety of characters in the second half of the book - some of them were very short, but each character felt different and fully realized. I really liked our main perspective character, Kel Cheris, and her relationship - the central relationship of the book - with Shuos Jedao is fascinating, and I think would be very rewarding on a reread.
I also really liked the casual way sexuality and gender and queerness worked in this book - several of the characters have same-sex relationships, and the way this is portrayed feels very convincingly like all the people involved haven’t grown up in our societies, with our hang ups and perceptions of ‘normal’, all of which was really lovely to read.
Inventive, emotionally compelling, and entirely engrossing - I highly recommend this book!
This is a pretty grim book, in a lot of ways - the universe it takes place in is a dark one, in which lives are incredibly disposable, and a lot of people die in this book, many of them from the actions of our main characters - and it doesn’t shy away from that, but it’s not depressing, either. The characters might exist in a universe where lines of morality are drawn differently, but their emotions and motivations are not alien and are very compelling and are very much looking at those moral lines.
The way the story unfolds is fascinating, and I was very impressed with how the author started weaving in short segments from a wide variety of characters in the second half of the book - some of them were very short, but each character felt different and fully realized. I really liked our main perspective character, Kel Cheris, and her relationship - the central relationship of the book - with Shuos Jedao is fascinating, and I think would be very rewarding on a reread.
I also really liked the casual way sexuality and gender and queerness worked in this book - several of the characters have same-sex relationships, and the way this is portrayed feels very convincingly like all the people involved haven’t grown up in our societies, with our hang ups and perceptions of ‘normal’, all of which was really lovely to read.
Inventive, emotionally compelling, and entirely engrossing - I highly recommend this book!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, War, and Violence
kalteherz's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
A little bit slow to start, and can feel like you're missing a lot of information, but if you can push past it, it gets really good
Content Warnings
Graphic: War and Suicide