While the first book is more gripping simply because it’s more plot driven and has an intensely good hook, coupled to an intriguing narrator—the subsequent instalments have much more heady and slow moving. Very much a book of ideologues, made necessary because of the events of the first books, where society essentially collapses and factions must now, well, battle.

But there isn’t actually to many battles, which I doubt anybody would expect, anyway. These books have never focused on that aspect. Much more about the political intrigue and revelations based on context, than anything actually decided by a physical kind of conflict.

So, be warned then: This is slow moving, but just as methodical and just as big on twists and turns you probably won’t see coming. I have to be in a specific mood to engage with something like this. In the previous book I compared it to Dune, and I think that’s apt, though minus the battle sequences and add in confronting more social constructs than (primarily) religion. Though just as interested in questing for morality through a figure that literally embodies godhood (head).

3.5 rounded up