What a pleasant surprise this was! I didn’t get along with the Ancillary series so was hesitant to pick this up. But this was just riveting, very compelling stuff. I think I’d describe it as soft worldbuilding masquerading as hard. The magic feels codified but actually has to be soft, because not even the raven god or the people really understand it that well. Whatever it is though, it’s the star of the show, for me.

Coupled with a second person narration and the conversations engineered through a form of scrying, basically, and you have a pretty damn unusual, and therefor unique novel. If you’re a plot driven reader it may grind your gears somewhat, as much of it is small/new gods just figuring out what the heck is going on as things that shouldn’t be happening, happen. So, maybe the best way to sell it is a fantasy novel with different narrative style and setting and characters, with a mystery at the heart of it, maybe?

The fact that it’s hard to pin down only makes me like it more. Though, the only analogous thing I had in my brain for it was a kind of Norse mythology, so that’s what I filled in the blanks with. Very Northman or Vikings, or something like that. I’m not sure that was particularly intention, which means it probably could have used more description. It leans pretty heavily on the reader doing so, otherwise it might have been a five star read.