2019 fantasy, second of its tetralogy. Five years later, Nahri is
married to the heir of Daevabad; younger brother Ali has somehow
survived an exile that was meant to kill him; and Darayavahoush is
dead, but they won't let him rest.
It's another big fat book, more than 180,000 words, and at times
it seems like a slog. But I'd want to be very careful cutting, because
some of the point here is the gradual development of its themes. Once
more, nobody is a villain in their own minds, because you can justify
anything with "what they [their ancestors] did to us [our ancestors]
back in the day", and there's no shortage of historical atrocity to
draw on when you want to justify a new massacre to your troops, or to
yourself.
So yes, many of the problems here could be solved if the good people
on various sides could just sit down and talk to each other… but they
all have reasons for not doing that, even after taking account of the
bad people on their own side (and every side has them).
After all, what can you do when the ruler's first reaction to any
slightest whim being disobeyed is "I will have the people you love
tortured to death"? (And it takes our principals a while to work this
out, though to be fair he is an absolute ruler.)
Meanwhile of course people are still playing politics, and it's
gloriously messy: not just the This Faction and That Faction basics,
but each individual is out for themselves and, well, if other people
help them in that I suppose you could call it a faction…
It is slow-moving, and it's the sort of book I often taken in in audio
form on a long car journey, but in spite of that I enjoyed all of
this, from the backstabbing politics and the new ruler, same as the
old ruler, to the lyrical descriptions when there isn't any murdering
going on.
Zaynab—who could drive men to their knees dressed in an ill-fitting
sack—was clad in a gown that looked like a waterfall had come to
life and decided to worship her, a cascade of teal, emerald, and
cobalt blue held together by a collar of real lotus flowers.
I think one has to be in the right mood for something long;
fortunately I was, and I'll continue with the series.