Akiva Reads

by C.M. Waggoner

oops i am reading too many books again.

i'm out of the habit of reading fantasy so it took me a while to get into this, but the plot was strong enough to carry me through. doing that thing that's all the rage in sf&f right now where you propose alternate arbitrary kyriarchies (about immigration history, species, race/national origin, gender, class, religion) and play around with them, which i rarely object to. it's done pretty well here.

tsira and jeckran being implausibly bad at communication is more of the romantic tension than i would prefer. cut more of that and spend more time on the mystery, thank you. also, what happened to the gay half-troll poet who almost got murdered?? i was very invested in him and i don't think we even know whether he survived.