C. J. Cherryh

Once again, Bren is largely passive in this installment, but his worry, anxiety, and misguided concerns provide a high level of tension. Cherryh is a master at dramatic irony. The reader clocks what is going on before Bren does, knows when Bren is misinterpreting the data, when Bren is being too human. She resists telling us about all the political subterfuge, just relates the events and Bren's attempts to understand them, realizing it may be totally off base but keeping us hopeful and frightened in the dark anyway. So much happens off the page, and the story is still interesting. How does she do it? And in the end, Bren is uniquely and embarrassingly human, and it is these final actions that puts him closer to being atevi than ever.

And can I just say, the aiji dowager is the best character in any book anywhere? Long before Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey, there was Ilisidi, the aiji dowager and her exclamatory cane -- manipulative, aristocratic, cold-blooded and yet authentic and honorable in her own way. And with a political acumen that outpaces everyone except possibly Tabini.… (mere)