Utterly Phenomenal!

This was an absolute revelation to read and the performance was superb!

Knowing that this was a debut novel left me open-mouthed and learning it is a series made me overjoyed.

Fantasy is a genre filled with cishet white guys who are largely oblivious to the amount of politics and colonialism they include in their works without thinking about it. It's the entire foundation of much of the genre and TTRPG offshoots like D&D. But this takes the existing tropes and analogues to history and includes them purposely to great effect, weaving a beautiful, heartbreaking, and exciting tale filled with realised complex and flawed characters and concepts and tensions so often ignorantly and clumsily included and/ or offensively handwaved that are handled deftly with care and understanding. The book isn't just politics either, I'm just saying it handles them well.

Genuinely one of the best books I've ever read.