cupiscent's review
4.0
The heavy style of these books takes some getting used to; even having loved the first book, the prose felt clumsy until I settled again into its pared-back elegance. And this second book digs more deeply into the world, giving us other sides of the story, and a lot more about the variant religious history, which was great. (I would probably recommend a fresh memory of [b:Irenicon|12992433|Irenicon (The Wave Trilogy, #1)|Aidan Harte|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1375959115s/12992433.jpg|18152588] for this reason; I know I missed layers of significance through not remembering people and things.)
Plus, all my favourites from the first: Sofia snarling at the world; flag-based violence (though not quite as much as I'd like); water-related esoteria and ninja nuns (including an unfortunately isolated moment of major bad-assery); twisty twisty interpersonal politics, and the Rasenneisi being... well, their belligerent selves. I'm intrigued about the development of the story, and everything about this story has been strange and vicious enough that even though I have qualms about the Messianic quality of the final showdown setup, I'm really looking forward to finding out how it goes.
Plus, all my favourites from the first: Sofia snarling at the world; flag-based violence (though not quite as much as I'd like); water-related esoteria and ninja nuns (including an unfortunately isolated moment of major bad-assery); twisty twisty interpersonal politics, and the Rasenneisi being... well, their belligerent selves. I'm intrigued about the development of the story, and everything about this story has been strange and vicious enough that even though I have qualms about the Messianic quality of the final showdown setup, I'm really looking forward to finding out how it goes.
More...