Days of Shattered Faith
Always nice to close out the year with a Tchaikovsky novel and I seriously think this man basically lives on his keyboard or something. Days of Shattered Faith basically follows up on House of Open Wounds in the same calendar year! That’s unheard of. George R.R. Martin basically is taking 20 years to finish up his Song of Fire & Ice series and here Tchaikovsky basically hits a trilogy in 2 years.
Anyway, insane story and typing speed aside, Days of Shattered Faith is an indirect sequel to House of Open Wounds in the sense that even though we follow a new set of protagonists, we also follow the travails of the last set of heroes we met. This new set of heroes is nowhere as interesting as the last book, as there is more political intrigue and a whole lot less magical and non-magical healing involved.
The central plot mostly involves the Pallesand’s outreach program and the central character is the ambassador to the embassy to one of the countries that the Pallesand wishes to eventually subsume into their empire. A lot of hi jinks ensue to make sure that nothing is as it ever seems and everyone has their own individual and non-individual agendas.
The really interesting thing here as always is how wonderful the world building is. We’ve seen 3 different cities/landscapes of the world so far in 3 different books, and they show how vast and varied all of them are, much like our world. We have competing religions, competing political regimes, competing countries and they all believe they’re in the right, or at least, the least wrong way of doing things.
The plot itself is interesting enough to keep me listening to the book, but frankly political thrillers aren’t exactly my forte. There is plenty of action enough in the last 3rd of the book, but I always thought the conclusion was more or less forgone.
All in all, its still a book worth reading and I think The Tyrant Philosophers is more interesting so far than his previous space opera series.
highly recommended.