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le_lobey's review
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
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
Complicated thoughts. I can't really rate this iwithout knowing more.
The story was exciting and adventurous. I love the worldbuilding, and the characters are really vibrant and well imagined. The climax and denouement were insanely thrilling.
For the most part I really liked the details in the prose and thought the pacing was great, particularly in the back half. I find the way Ruocchio writes Hadrian to be really grating sometimes. I literally groaned through the sequence where they approachedVorgossos — the prose was asphyxiatingly purple, and he capped it off with an on the nose Shelley reference that made me cringe. I know it's a creative choice, because the style was so different in the novella from Crispin's POV. It just doesn't land for me when it's at its most excessive.
What makes me more conflicted about this book is the way the text handles one of its main themes: delineating the boundaries of self and what counts as human. The main conflict informing this theme is obviously Human vs Cielcin, and Tanaran complicates any easy answers with its intelligence and comportment. The first half of the book sees Hadrian and co. travelling among Extrasolarians, whose mores regarding transhumanism and genetic engineering are markedly less restrictive than in the core of the empire. This makes sense, but Hadrian desperately holds on to his society's taboos in ways that made me really uncomfortable.
The fact of the matter is that Hadrian equates his humanity and selfhood with his blood — his biology and his genetics. Using samples of his blood as a bargaining chip is completely off the table for him because he pales to imagine a part of himself being used to produce genetic chimeras. He sees these homunculi as wholly separate from, and less than, humanity. He feels the same way about the Exalted, a group of extrasolarians whose widespread technological body-modding he finds repulsive and horrifying because of the exotic shapes they create for themselves. Hadrian himself is deeply upset at the end of the book that the bones of his left arm are replaced with metal. He's not himself anymore. The persistent equating of selfhood, genetics, and biological form read as fundamentally transphobic to me. And since the book's narrative framing device positions Hadrian as the author, I can't tell if those opinions are meant to be the character's or the author's. The dog whistles are loud, and last for hundreds of pages.
I enjoy the world enough to give the series one more try. I hope that these opinions are artifacts of Hadrian's status as an anti-hero, and that as he processes what happened to him in this book he'll come to question and move past these immature and reactionary views. If it turns out that the vitriol is Ruocchio's and he's letting it bleed through I'll have to abandon these books.
The story was exciting and adventurous. I love the worldbuilding, and the characters are really vibrant and well imagined. The climax and denouement were insanely thrilling.
For the most part I really liked the details in the prose and thought the pacing was great, particularly in the back half. I find the way Ruocchio writes Hadrian to be really grating sometimes. I literally groaned through the sequence where they approached
What makes me more conflicted about this book is the way the text handles one of its main themes: delineating the boundaries of self and what counts as human. The main conflict informing this theme is obviously Human vs Cielcin, and Tanaran complicates any easy answers with its intelligence and comportment. The first half of the book sees Hadrian and co. travelling among Extrasolarians, whose mores regarding transhumanism and genetic engineering are markedly less restrictive than in the core of the empire. This makes sense, but Hadrian desperately holds on to his society's taboos in ways that made me really uncomfortable.
The fact of the matter is that Hadrian equates his humanity and selfhood with his blood — his biology and his genetics. Using samples of his blood as a bargaining chip is completely off the table for him because he pales to imagine a part of himself being used to produce genetic chimeras. He sees these homunculi as wholly separate from, and less than, humanity. He feels the same way about the Exalted, a group of extrasolarians whose widespread technological body-modding he finds repulsive and horrifying because of the exotic shapes they create for themselves. Hadrian himself is deeply upset at the end of the book that
I enjoy the world enough to give the series one more try. I hope that these opinions are artifacts of Hadrian's status as an anti-hero, and that as he processes what happened to him in this book he'll come to question and move past these immature and reactionary views. If it turns out that the vitriol is Ruocchio's and he's letting it bleed through I'll have to abandon these books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Torture, Murder, and War
Moderate: Transphobia
zone_a3's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
slow-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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Gore, Sexual assault, Blood, Violence, War, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Abandonment and Death of parent
danny_lastname's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Torture, War, and Xenophobia
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