Listen. A god is speaking. My voice echoes through the stone of your master's castle. The castle where he finds his uncle on his father's throne. You want to help him. You cannot. You are the only one who can hear me. You will change the world. A triumph of the imagination, The Raven Tower is the first fantasy novel by Ann Leckie, New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. Gods meddle in the fates of men, men play with the fates of gods and a pretender must be cast down from the throne in this breathtaking fantasy masterpiece.
SF is more my speed than Fantasy, but I loved the Radch series enough to give The Raven Tower a chance--enough to give anything Leckie writes, ever, a chance--and I'm very glad I did. The POV is unusual, a mix of 1st and 2nd person, and the narrator is...a rock. A rock that is a god, but still a rock. Just embrace the world and jump in.
In addition, Ann Leckie and I share a truly wonderful local library system.
Not at all like the Ancillary books, but even in the genre of Fantasy, Leckie creates a world.unlike any other, and tells a gripping story of gods and their power.
A thoroughly fascinating read that feels - some parts - more alien than the Ancillary trilogy. The second perspective narration makes sense and when you finally put all the facts together it's very satisfying. The setting is painted in broad strokes, but the concepts are both original and believable. Really the only thing to regret is the limited length and the lack of potential sequels to the story - though there's a little scope for more stories set in the world of the Raven Tower.
3 stars for the first half of the book: I was getting bored and had to start speed reading. But the rest of the book was awesome, and I love how things turned out. Really cool concept and universe!! And I loved all the main characters!
Leckie’s Imperial Radch books easily rank among the best SF I’ve ever read but they suffer from two flaws: a bizarre fascination with royalty/caste in human society, and an almost embarrassing preoccupation with gods and religious oracles. When these themes kept recurring in the second and third book I assumed Leckie had just painted herself into a corner and that her next works would be free of those incongruities.
How wrong I was: Raven Tower is entirely about them. Hereditary titles, improbable “gods” (minerals, or talismans, even a roving cloud of mosquitoes) with nothing conceivably resembling a central nervous system yet with completely humanlike motivations.
It doesn’t work. Not as SF: there’s not even a wildly remote scientific possibility for a thinking rock that ”lives” for eons yet develops sentience and then the ability to interact with humans on our timescale. Not as fantasy: even if we accept the impossibilities, …
Leckie’s Imperial Radch books easily rank among the best SF I’ve ever read but they suffer from two flaws: a bizarre fascination with royalty/caste in human society, and an almost embarrassing preoccupation with gods and religious oracles. When these themes kept recurring in the second and third book I assumed Leckie had just painted herself into a corner and that her next works would be free of those incongruities.
How wrong I was: Raven Tower is entirely about them. Hereditary titles, improbable “gods” (minerals, or talismans, even a roving cloud of mosquitoes) with nothing conceivably resembling a central nervous system yet with completely humanlike motivations.
It doesn’t work. Not as SF: there’s not even a wildly remote scientific possibility for a thinking rock that ”lives” for eons yet develops sentience and then the ability to interact with humans on our timescale. Not as fantasy: even if we accept the impossibilities, the story has no other elements of such. And not as literature: the characters are shallow, impossible to relate to (even the human ones); the second-person narration is clumsy and distracting. The language-as-reality parts fizzle completely. I actually abandoned the book shortly after starting it, then picked it up two months later for airline reading. I regret that.
Leckie is a genius. I will not dismiss her because of this, and actually applaud her for pushing into new and uncomfortable territory. I will continue to seek out more works from her. But, yeah, I‘m disappointed.
Leckie's breakthrough sci-fi novel Ancillary Justice was something special. A very unusual protagonist, extraordinary worldbuilding ... And I could go on, but this is not a review of that book.
It is however a book where she does this again. This time it is a fantasy setting, but it is just as innovative and unique. It can't really be explained without giving away too much of what you need to experience and discover for yourself, and possibly not even then.
If you liked the Ancillary series and/or want to read something that is different and brilliant, you should pour this on your reading list.
This is a very quirky book, with two timelines, one a god moving in geologic time, and the other a human protagonist moving through a week or so. I love the characters! The world-building is fascinating and original, without me every feeling like I was slogging through an info-dump, or getting confused. Highly recommended!
