A fantastic first instalment that would probably be a five star read, had it not suffered a little bit from both feeling very much like the start of something, as well as been top heavy with a lot of exposition. In all other areas it excels. It is subversive of genre in many ways I like: framing and perspective changes, unique world building, extrapolating true history into the future in a much more organic and compelling way than most in the genre; characters are fleshed out and central.

Plot-driven readers will probably not like this much, as it’s fairly clear the plot mostly exists to examine core ideas placed in a speculation. Lots of deconstruction of social constructs take place as intersections with the various cast. It’s methodical and feels like a defining work. Naturally, I like works that do not conform to the commercial aspects of the genre, though, I also wouldn’t call it literary. Fantastical elements make this more of a kitbash. There’s no fan service and the tone and style is crafted in a classical sense. It’s a chimera, of sorts.

It all just worked for me, though. There were some sections that felt like awkward pacing, but the dynamics between characters were often so interesting, the fact that not much was progressing was elided because of the unreliable narrator. This is a history of sorts, told by a criminal who, in Lolita-esk style, points out his own logical fallacies without realizing it. Such as the a central framing device of antiquated references to gender, which he claims is necessary because of the “classical” style, written for “us”, the readers, but I don’t think we are never actually told who “we” are. And so, really, it communicates a lot about his personality that he weaves this capitalizing history while eschewing a main tenant of the society he is now charged with a kind of servitude, as punishment for his actions.

So much of the novel is engaging because of this tension between the excellent storytelling of the protagonist (though there are inserts from others and different structural and even language changes) and what information we acquire later, which recontextualizes, in some cases, everything we know to be happening, and what we know of individuals; especially the narrator. It’s just interesting, though probably a very polarizing reading experience. I will certainly be picking up the next. I was foolish to put them off for some long, having owned the first 3 for years now!