2016 Hugo-nominated science fiction. In a world defined by belief, Kel
Cheris won a battle against heretics… by using a heretical technique.
That makes her the perfect leader for a really important mission.
This is a book that has it all: strange sufficiently advanced
technology, real people, lush writing, a compelling plot. The reader
is thrown into a battle at the start of the book, and has to pick up
quickly what's going on and how it works; like any good supertech, it
has its own rules, and indeed they're core to the plot.
Naraucher liked parades. Everything could go wrong, but when you got
down to it, no one was going to die. Except that one time with the
combustible pigeon, and that had been a tasteless prank.
If enough people believe the right way, strange things can happen as a
result. The hexarchy (it used to be a heptarchy, we don't like to talk
about that) has constructed a calendar to optimise those results and
requires its subjects to observe it, but this means it's involved in
endless wars against calendrical heretics, since any disgruntled group
has to deviate from that calendar to have any chance of success. Of
course, if the heresy is strong enough those special results (you
could call them "magic", but the book doesn't) don't work any more, so
the soldier-caste Kel are trained in less-powerful "invariant" weapons
as well as the calendrical "exotics".
"We're quite a pair, aren't we?" Isaure said as she continued to
draw a map with her toe. It was surprisingly good, especially if you
ignored the streaky marks left by skull splinters and the
accompanying shreds of brain.
Lee throws around gorgeous words and phrases, such as "bannermoth" and
"carrion glass" and "threshold winnower", and expects you to keep up.
There's context enough, but those not used to the puzzle-solving mode
of reading SF may find it hard work.
And that meant the Kel Arsenal. Catastrophe guns, abrogation sieves,
small shining boxes that held the deaths of worlds. During
graduation from Kel Academy Prime, she had seen such a box,
disarmed, dented, and ordinary in appearance. The speaker said it
had annihilated the populations of three planets. Small planets, but
still. It was remarkable how much death could be held in a small
box.
This book often reminded me of Ancillary Justice: explanation
dribbled in rather than foregrounded, constant progress if not
constant action, and people who try to do the right thing though
they're in the service of a polity that on balance seems like a pretty
horrible place to live even if you're one of the people on top.
"I'm bored," Mikodez said, "and if I don't spend this money, one of
my subordinates will put it into something wholesome, like
algorithmic threat identification." He cultivated a reputation for
being erratic for occasions like this.
"All right, all right, I'll put in the authorizations on my end,"
Kujen said. "You think you have paperwork, you should see mine."
You think I don't? Mikodez thought, but he kept his expression
bland. Kujen's security wasn't nearly as up-to-date as he thought it
was.
And I haven't even mentioned Jedao. Cheris's mission is to reclaim the
Fortress of Scattered Needles from the heresy into which it's fallen
(it's an anchor point for calendrical orthodoxy), and the weapon she's
chosen to do it, apart from the war fleet, is the ghost of the
hexarchy's greatest general, Shuos Jedao… who famously went mad and
slaughtered his own staff. He's been kept suspended since, brought out
when there's a really hard military problem to be solved, and now he's
going to be Cheris's chief advisor. But any bit of advice he gives
might be tactical brilliance, or might be setting up some insane long
game of his own…
Colonel Ragath had reported that the Radiant Ward was a wasteland no
one wanted to enter except some corpse calligraphers bent on
memorializing the event.
The only real flaws for me were some slightly turgid explanation by
flashback near the end, and the fact that this isn't a complete story.
In spite of those problems, this is a lovely book, one that I enjoyed
and recommend wholeheartedly.
To be followed by Raven Stratagem. This work was nominated for the 2017 Hugo Awards.
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