A review by josiah17
Disquiet Gods by Christopher Ruocchio

adventurous challenging dark reflective medium-paced

4.5

"Humanity little knew it, but all its kings and emperors, all its joys and sufferings, every conqueror and hero, every warrior and poet, every sinner, scholar, and saint-indeed all its violent history-had taken place within the walls of a garden that every man from Menes had mistaken for the wild wood.

Outside, it was very dark."

What a wild, wild book. Completely mind-bending and propelled by constant massive plot twists. I'm just gonna run through my thoughts because I'm unsure how to structure this review without feeling repetitive and continuing to sing the same praises I have in previous reviews. The book is really good, obviously. But this is also the most criticism/dissatisfaction I've had with a Sun Eater novel since the first half of Howling Dark.

Let's start with the positives. My favorite part of the book is probably the first 70 pages? It's incredibly bittersweet and emotional after Ashes of Man, and I loved finally getting a glance at Jadd and its grandeur. I also loved getting introduced to Cassandra (from Hadrian's POV, having already read her short story). Chapter 4 is one of my favorite Sun Eater chapters, it hits incredibly deep. 
"Valka was looking down on me from the portrait, smiling after her fashion. She was looking down at a child with twin braids who smiled back at her, a girl in a long Jaddian tunic. There were flowers in her hair, and Valka stooped to place one there as she never had in life. Little Cassandra was laughing, looking up into the face of the mother she had never known. I stood behind them both, a shadow in black charcoal, the only one of us three peering out of the image.

We held each other's gaze a moment. Art and artist.

Only the artist blinked, and when he did, it was to blink away fresh-forming tears.

How I envied that charcoal man."

😭😭😭

"Do you know, Anaryan, that we live on a truly beautiful world?"

Additionally, I thoroughly enjoyed act 1 on Sabratha and all the HAPSIS stuff we finally get. It was a super captivating act, with utterly insane cosmic horror; can't understate how stupefying and terrifying it is. Ruocchio gets incredibly bold and crazy. Act 3 was great as well. The immense shifts in narrative make for a very exciting and truly unpredictable experience, supported by great pacing. You simply could not guess any of the major twists in this book.

Well I remember the Monarch's words—chilling and clear—and the way he turned his eyes on me. Black, dead diamonds glimmering. "There are no innocents," he said. "Have you heard it written? There is none righteous."

Now for my criticisms, using spoiler tags. Firstly, and the largest of them, is my lack of enthusiasm for the obvious religious allegory and themes of
the Quiet. I always felt this godly figure was going to both build to and remain something more supernatural and otherworldly.
That's how the writing felt for all this time. Instead, this book turns that on its head for a very clear and on-the-nose allegory for Christianity/Catholicism. I am not a fan of that. Consistently throughout the series, Ruocchio maintained a certain distance from religion which I found very appropriate and apt for Hadrian's characterization and the Sun Eater world at large. He struck a perfect balance, refraining from being preachy. But he abandons that here and comes across as sermonic to me, which really pulled me out of the narrative during that reveal (chapter
40
). Does it diminish my enjoyment of the series entirely? No, it doesn't. There is some good in there, but it's not my favorite writing decision to say the least. I would have probably felt better about it had the allegory been vaguer and the cosmological remained more obscure.
I preferred when things were mysterious and open-ended, which is not to say we have all the answers because we certainly don't, but just a little too many for my taste.


This allegory and sequence also brings about a big change in Hadrian, which at first I really didn't love. I am more accepting of it, and even to an extent the aforementioned allegory, having finished the book.
But it's like Hadrian has a crisis of faith and suddenly becomes hyper religious with his new understanding of this being. This isn't totally incomprehensible considering the quiet has brought him back from the dead twice now, but yet it came off as extreme and inconsistent to me to a degree. Mostly because of the way some of his inner monologue seemed to suddenly change on certain topics.
Though this could also pertain to another dissatisfaction of mine with this book, albeit kinda minor, which is not enough mopey and depressed Hadrian, reminiscing about certain characters (
mainly the loss of Valka
). He certainly is that way at times, but considering who he's lost, I would've appreciated some more moments of Hadrian recalling his friends, thinking about them, referring to them. I know this can get really repetitive quite quickly, but it's something that worked very well emotionally for me as a reader in Ashes of Man, and I just wanted a little more of that spread throughout this book.

My second biggest criticism is Cassandra's characterization. She feels so incredibly underwritten. Though I have read, from Ruocchio's wife, that her portrayal is deliberate and she has a greater purpose to this story--which I can see--it does not diminish the feeling of severely wasted potential. She is so one-dimensional, even having read her short story before this book. She's almost only ever asking a question in three different ways during whatever dialogue she has. She's supposed to be 40 years old, yet feels as if she's still her 15-year-old self, honestly even younger. She lacks any agency besides her abilities as a Maeskolos. It was very frustrating to see her written this way considering who her parents are, but I do not doubt Ruocchio's abilities as a writer. So I remain hopeful the words of his wife are true, and she serves a greater role in Shadows Upon Time. 

"History only repeats itself because human nature never changes," Edouard said. "We think we've come so far, but all the miles we've walked since we left the Garden are as inches measured against the light-years we have to go."

I smiled at this. Had I not thought much the same a thousand times before?

"We're the same animals we always were," I said. "Not even the Extras can really change that. They just destroy themselves trying to become something else."

My last little quibble is regarding Hadrian
accepting the pledge of Ramanthanu and a handful of his Cielcin underlings.
That simply didn't seem right, or plausible, at this point in the series to me with all the things the Cielcin have done. It felt entirely like a plot device simply so Hadrian could escape the current predicament.
I don't know how they managed to survive the entire book, but they did.
That decision threw me for a loop.

Alright, that's all my incoherent rambling for what I wasn't satisfied with in this book. Everything else was spectacular. I spent less time listing the positives, but they do FAR outshine my negatives. Ruocchio's prose, creativity. and framed narrative is like crack to me. I can't get enough of it. Before reading Disquiet Gods, there were many days where I thought Sun Eater has become my favorite series of all time. Elements of this book not meeting my preference does not change that. Demon in White, Kingdoms of Death, and Ashes of Man were just that good. I'm so sad I'm all caught up now. I cannot wait for Shadows Upon Time in November. I know Ruocchio won't let me down. This must be.

Pain.

Our fear of pain is the foundation of all morality. It is that fear that shapes our world, orders civilization. We pass laws, build walls and for-tresses, fight wars and forge empires all to minimize our people's pain. That is why it is the lowest form of obedience, not because it is basest-as I once answered when asked by Tor Gibson-but because it is foundational. Our experiences of pain teach us the nature of suffering, and so we are moved to minimize that suffering in others. Pain grounds our reality, is the cornerstone of our interactions with the objective world.

Pain makes us human, teaches us to be human. 
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