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A review by booksthatburn
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
mysterious
reflective
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
5.0
THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS is a very cool and weird fantasy about strange circumstances, toxic family, and the strain of the world changing when you aren't looking.
Fetter was trained by his mother to be an assassin, so that one day he would kill her and his father, as part of some grand plan that she doesn't quite explain to him. She tells him the individual steps and what his role will be, but it's not until much later that he learns the history behind her hatred for his father. Fetter grows up and leaves assassination behind with a move to the big city, but the city is gleefully bureaucratic, using classism and race science to tacitly (and forcefully, if necessary) enforce boundaries around its residents and make it easy to exist but difficult to thrive.
The worldbuilding is precise without getting bogged down in specifics. We don't need to know exactly what race science Luriat uses to sort its residents, classify its citizens, and determine which persons will have no recourse if the cops assault them. What matters is the shape of it, as these intermittently visible rules tug at Fetter and direct the course of his adult life. The rules in his childhood were no less arcane, and in some respects were clearer, there, at least, he had a goal. Now, he finds himself in the company of others who were passed over by destiny, but are determined to eke some kind of purpose out of their existence. The Bright Doors have a chance at being that purpose for Fetter. They're at once mundane and strange, so ubiquitous and inevitable that the specter of them shapes the plans for every building, stopping any true privacy by requiring doors never fully be opaque, lest they turn into portals to somewhere else.
I'm torn about the ending. There's a perspective shift which I found both innovative and jarring. Until that point I thought I knew where things were going, then I was ripped out of that certainty even as other things were resolved. This is definitely on purpose, as it viscerally recreates a small version of the way Fetter feels at various stages of the story. I like how it's done, but it creates feelings I wouldn't regularly seek out in fiction.
Fetter was trained by his mother to be an assassin, so that one day he would kill her and his father, as part of some grand plan that she doesn't quite explain to him. She tells him the individual steps and what his role will be, but it's not until much later that he learns the history behind her hatred for his father. Fetter grows up and leaves assassination behind with a move to the big city, but the city is gleefully bureaucratic, using classism and race science to tacitly (and forcefully, if necessary) enforce boundaries around its residents and make it easy to exist but difficult to thrive.
The worldbuilding is precise without getting bogged down in specifics. We don't need to know exactly what race science Luriat uses to sort its residents, classify its citizens, and determine which persons will have no recourse if the cops assault them. What matters is the shape of it, as these intermittently visible rules tug at Fetter and direct the course of his adult life. The rules in his childhood were no less arcane, and in some respects were clearer, there, at least, he had a goal. Now, he finds himself in the company of others who were passed over by destiny, but are determined to eke some kind of purpose out of their existence. The Bright Doors have a chance at being that purpose for Fetter. They're at once mundane and strange, so ubiquitous and inevitable that the specter of them shapes the plans for every building, stopping any true privacy by requiring doors never fully be opaque, lest they turn into portals to somewhere else.
I'm torn about the ending. There's a perspective shift which I found both innovative and jarring. Until that point I thought I knew where things were going, then I was ripped out of that certainty even as other things were resolved. This is definitely on purpose, as it viscerally recreates a small version of the way Fetter feels at various stages of the story. I like how it's done, but it creates feelings I wouldn't regularly seek out in fiction.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Religious bigotry, Confinement, Child abuse, Gore, Police brutality, Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Death, Violence, War, Blood, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Death of parent, Alcohol, Excrement, Homophobia, Vomit, Terminal illness, Cancer, and Injury/Injury detail