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I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and voluntary review.

This is a sweet and well plotted fantasy tale about a musician, a scholar, and a tree spirit who become friends during a series of catastrophic, mythologically driven earthquakes. The culture of the region is well constructed, including travel by subterranean river rafting, a believable system of spirits and shrines, and an intricate music guild. The story nicely balances the different characters’ worries and skills. Major events include a fraught music competition, a quest for historical interpretations of catastrophes in folktales, and multiple layers of new and rekindled relationships. It’s a light and enjoyable tale with compelling characters. I’ll keep an eye out for more of the saga.

So fun! The lead character has a sustained, hilarious voice. The story playfully swirls together gaming, multiverses, linguistics, and politics. It offered a much more enticing case for anarchy than Doctorow’s pendantic Walkaway. By the time I finished this, my throat hurt, even while I longed to try out power morphemes.

Engaging and disturbing, with a heck of a one-two punch at the end. Not only a good semi-autobiographical family saga, but fascinating coverage of several strands of Native American history in the U.S.

A fine collection of stories that are various flavors of clever and creepy.

Amusing, but also contains a better, more thoughtful supernatural world building than I anticipated.