Book Review
Mar. 22nd, 2018 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariThe Ruin of Angels
by Max Gladstone
This is the sixth of the Craft Sequence novels, and it is every bit as good as its predecessors. This book takes us to the city of Agdel Lex, where Kai Pohala has come for some very routine business meetings only to find that her sister Ley is in serious trouble. Kai's attempts to save Ley embroil her in the complex and contested history and politics of Agdel Lex. Under the control of the squid-god worshiping Iskari, Agdel Lex is really three cities in one: the modern Agdel Lex, the old and less stable districts that are what remains of the old city of Alikand, and the dead city, which is something of a parallel world where a key moment of the God Wars stretches into eternity amidst a dangerous city of ruins and horrors. Also involved with Ley and her troubles are a team of delvers, people who go into the dead city to recover books and other artifacts from the ruins: Zeddig, daughter of one of the old families of Alikand and Ley's ex; Raymet, a grad student; and Gal, a knight from Camlaan.
There is a lot going on in The Ruin of Angels, from business deals to train heists to a rocket launch, involving a large cast of characters. Yet it never get confusing or overwhelming - everything weaves together very well and all the complexity just makes the book that much more interesting.
The highlight of this book for me was the setting and the way Gladstone uses it. Agdel Lex with its multiple layers is endlessly fascinating, and if there is anything I could possibly complain about, it is that there were not nearly enough visits to and exploration of the dead city and its ruins. The city also is a perfect stage for explorations of the effects of colonization and occupation on a city: whose version of a place's history is the one that counts? who gets to control the city's reality? who decides what to preserve and what to discard?
by Max Gladstone
This is the sixth of the Craft Sequence novels, and it is every bit as good as its predecessors. This book takes us to the city of Agdel Lex, where Kai Pohala has come for some very routine business meetings only to find that her sister Ley is in serious trouble. Kai's attempts to save Ley embroil her in the complex and contested history and politics of Agdel Lex. Under the control of the squid-god worshiping Iskari, Agdel Lex is really three cities in one: the modern Agdel Lex, the old and less stable districts that are what remains of the old city of Alikand, and the dead city, which is something of a parallel world where a key moment of the God Wars stretches into eternity amidst a dangerous city of ruins and horrors. Also involved with Ley and her troubles are a team of delvers, people who go into the dead city to recover books and other artifacts from the ruins: Zeddig, daughter of one of the old families of Alikand and Ley's ex; Raymet, a grad student; and Gal, a knight from Camlaan.
There is a lot going on in The Ruin of Angels, from business deals to train heists to a rocket launch, involving a large cast of characters. Yet it never get confusing or overwhelming - everything weaves together very well and all the complexity just makes the book that much more interesting.
The highlight of this book for me was the setting and the way Gladstone uses it. Agdel Lex with its multiple layers is endlessly fascinating, and if there is anything I could possibly complain about, it is that there were not nearly enough visits to and exploration of the dead city and its ruins. The city also is a perfect stage for explorations of the effects of colonization and occupation on a city: whose version of a place's history is the one that counts? who gets to control the city's reality? who decides what to preserve and what to discard?
