looking forward to more. so original! ( )

I read a short story later in the series which was quite good. I wanted to read the series from the beginning but this book just drug along. I am, for now setting it aside at about 50%. ( )

Really tried to stick with this one but it was so easy to put down. Loved the premise, world and character backgrounds but I never felt connected emotionally. Finally gave up at about the halfway point.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I started this book but what I found definitely wasn't it. That said, I'm totally glad I picked this book up. It is completely different than anything else I've read or seen on the bookstore shelves recently. This is dark fantasy with a side of post-apocalyptic, with a side of murder mystery and political shenanigans.

This is the second de Bodard I've read (the first being her Hugo and Nebula award-winning On a Red Station Drifting), and I will definitely be looking out for her other works.

The world-building is phenomenal. This is a world in which World War Two gets interrupted by fallen angels, who appear on Earth with no memory of their previous lives, have amazing magical powers, and continued their war in our world. In Paris, a kind of detente is reached with different angelic factions forming a kind of feudal system of Houses that each hold power in the city. House Silverspires was once the greatest of these houses and was founded by Morningstar, who has long disappeared and presumed dead.

The story is told in shifting POVs among Selene, the current head of Silverspires; Madeleine, Silverspires's alchemist with a secret addiction; and Phillipe, a Vietnamese outcast immortal who was kidnapped to take part in the Fallen war decades ago.

There is a released curse, a murder mystery, political machinations, and a blending of Christian mythology with Vietnamese mythology. It is utterly fascinating. And the plot is really good too. Those who like their books fast-paced may not like this one. The plot is definitely on the slower side, with incremental reveals and regimentation of information based on who is the current narrator. But the end result is completely worth it.

This is a gorgeous book. It's a very dark book without a happy ending, but in a world that has been torn apart, the ending is fitting. I'm very looking forward to book two ( )

Dull, lacking in three-dimensional characters, emotional heft, or any real ideas. The kind of novel that hopes that gesturing towards an aesthetic (fallen angels in an alternate-20th-century, post-war Paris) is sufficient to generate a sense of drama or intrigue. It's not. ( )