Khemri is one of thousands of Princes in the empire, all fighting to become the next Emperor. He is biologically enhanced to make him faster, smarter, and stronger than regular humans. When Khemri comes of age, he begins to realize just how brutal the fighting between Princes can be. He narrowly escapes several assassination attempts with the help of his loyal servant, the Master of Assassins. However, the empire has specific plans for Khemri, and he is sent on a secret mission where he learns what it truly means to be human.

I loved the imaginative world-building! I was fascinated with the whole setup of the Empire controlling everything, and the politics and alliances and duels and assassinations between all the Princes. There are also a bunch of different types of technology that play a large role in the story, and it was so imaginative and different from anything else I have read. There is biological tech, psychic tech, and mechanical tech, and they are all merged and used in different ways in spacecraft, housing, food production, entertainment, medicine, communication, and in Khemri's own body. You can't even walk through a door without using some type of weird tech. It's so cool!


This book had some profanity and cursing, but not a lot. There were only about five times where there were any bad words. There are also some mentions of Khemri having sex, but there is no description. The book just mentions it as a fact, and then moves on with the rest of the story. There are also mentions of other Princes and Khemri taking recreational drugs to get high, but the story barely mentions it and then says how the Princes are able to artificially regulate their body chemistry so that the effects of the drugs don't last very long. There is also a lot of violence and people's heads being cut off and blood and guts and battlefields full of dead bodies. I didn't like any of these things being in the story, but I appreciated that they were a very small part of the story, so that I could mostly ignore them and enjoy the rest of the book.

I did not really connect with Khemri's character. He's just so arrogant and selfish for most of the book. He does have a good story arc where learns to be humble and caring, but it was sort of lackluster. His character development is too impassive and unemotional.

I was completely hooked by the immersive writing style. I stayed up way past my bedtime reading this book, because I could not put it down! Usually I'm a character-driven reader, but this is one of the few times when I was less interested in the characters, and more interested in the plot and the mystery of the secret mission and what the empire might be planning.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but it had some problems and some annoying things as well.