Deep Into The Weird
Review: Asunder by Kerstin Hall
Weird gods that…well…eat their most favored worshippers. Which are gods? Which are demons? Asunder pretty much puts them all in the same category.
You don’t want to involve yourself with gods in this world, but it’s too late for Karys, who sold her soul to become a deathspeaker, to have power for a time…and then…
But her master has other things in mind for her, and the old gods aren’t as dead as people think.
Is this a romance? Not based on the ending. It’s more in the current vein of secondary world fantasy…where people are avoiding being Tolkeinian by being just plain weird. This is not a criticism. Asunder is quite delightfully weird, with a cast of interesting and flawed characters and a world that is definitely very different from most secondary world fantasies.
I do wonder about the fact that everyone has daddy issues…Kerstin, are you okay? There’s a lot of daddy issues and no good fathers to counteract it.
But this is an interesting and strange book that needs all of it’s 440 odd pages to tell its story…and left me wanting more.
Recommended.
I received a copy of this book for award consideration purposes.
Review: Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera
Full disclosure: I have never really liked Chandrasekera’s work. And this book leans into all the reasons I don’t like it.
It’s beautiful, it’s incredible prose, and I have no idea what happened; I found it confusing even to the point of, at one point, wondering whether it was supposed to be Earth (it was).
I couldn’t always keep track of which character was actually which and I sometimes struggle with non-linear narratives.
All of this is to say that this book is about as far from my personal taste as you can get, with apologies to Chandrasekera, whom I have never met and would probably get on decently with if I did.
But, if you liked The Saint of Bright Doors and wish it was even weirder, this is definitely the book for you. Rakesfall is pre and post apocalyptic at the same time, it is an exploration of identity, humanity, and the nature of story, as well as being profoundly decolonial.
It’s not my thing. It’s never going to be my thing. But it’s also a mature work by a mature artist and you might find it right up your alley.
I received a copy of this book for award consideration purposes.