Sometimes you can learn a lot about a person by comparing themes across their works. Wells loves to write books about protagonists who are different and slowly come to find their place within a group. They have morally ambiguous pasts, about which they feel guilt. Her settings are expansive and luscious with rich world-building. Her villains have mind-control powers. It gives you a sense, right?

This was a very solid epic fantasy. I'm not in love yet, but I wasn't in love with murderbot by the end of the first book either. I'm interested to see what happens next. ( )

This was really enjoyable! In a way it feels like a combination of Murderbot, "The Nascent Diplomat" by Not-Poignant, and the "Gargoyles" TV Show/comic series, all of which work together to be really fun!

The cast is awesome, and Moon is a wonderful ball of paranoia, hope for love, dry humor, compassion, intelligence, capability, and wounded pride. His backstory is crunchy, his journey is really exciting to follow, and his constant expectation to be pushed aside is tragic. He is wounded and lovely, and the way others reach out to him as he finds acceptance is so good, and the ways he struggles to handle that are sad and sweet. Wells shines in creating believably complex casts, and this is no exception. From Moon's initial groundling family and neighbors to the Raksura courts and the Fell, and the many other species on the Three Worlds, the universe is heavily detailed and fascinating. Stone and Moon's relationship is wonderful, and the way Wells plays with trust and suspicion is really great. Like Murderbot, Moon may be very anxious and paranoid, but he has valid reasons for it, and it's often a good survival instinct. Chime is another of my favorite characters, and his relationship with Moon is really sweet. Jade and Pearl are also really fun, and Selis is excellent as a curmudgeonly woman who just wants her life in order.

I'll admit I couldn't quite keep track of the many different species in this, but Wells' descriptions are quite good. Mostly I imagined something half-between the cover art and Goliath from "Gargoyles", and honestly if this story started as "Gargoyles" fanfiction with a bisexual/pansexual Goliath, I would not be surprised. That's not a bad thing, and I don't honestly think that's what happened, but it made it easier to imagine things, especially when it came to fights and Raksura crawling around on walls and ceilings.

For folks looking for more queer stories from Wells, yes, this book is queer. It's far less queer than Murderbot, but Moon and a number of other characters are overtly queer.

The plot itself is a lot of fun, and it's a great ride from one problem to the next, with a great fish out of water/outsider story, and some interesting things with gender stereotyping and dynamics. There is some gender essentialism and a caste system to this, if that's not your taste, but for what it is, it's well-written. I will say that even within that framework, Wells pushes boundaries. Queens may be always cis female, but they are warriors, too, and active participants in their court. Consorts may be cis male, but they help to care for a court's young, and there's no divide on men fight/women caretake/w/e, including courting rituals. There's even a reference to clownfish gender changes, which is pretty neat.

All in all, this is an excellent novel, and a great start to a series. If you're coming from Murderbot and want more Wells while waiting for the next book to release, start here, not with Ile-Rein (unless you reeeeally love detective fiction, in which case maybe you'd like "Death of the Necromancer", but it's still a really long slog). In many ways this feels like Murderbot but with fantasy shapeshifters, and if you love "Gargoyles" but wanted more queerness outside one comic issue most people never read, you'll probably love this, too. ( )

Loved it. ( )

2966

By far the best thing for me in this book was the world and all its cool inhabitants. I loved the sense of constantly cycling civilizations (so many ruins!) and wacko fauna/flora just waiting to swallow you whole around every corner. And while I avidly read the first half, by the end I was skipping wholesale over battles as I'd got pretty bored with all the disemboweling and found I hadn't made the emotional leaps with the characters. I also found all the "I guess that's just how it works" explanations of the little mysteries the colony was trying to solve unsatisfying. The tight POV made me wish the book was shorter. Or, conversely, I would have liked the POV to expand so as to give more depth to the myriad characters and justify the length. Recommended for the world building and cool culture. ( )