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”One sun for the god. Two moons for his beloved sisters. Uncountable, stars to shine in the night. Oh, man and woman, born to a dark path, only look up and the lights shall guide you home.”

I can’t believe I took this long to read this book. I’m a loud and proud lover of GGK’s books, and up until this point my favorite of his was Under Heaven. How could any book be better than Under Heaven, I wondered. Surely, at most, it’d be just on par with it. I’d definitely get around to it sooner or later.

How very wrong I was. This book is now easily my favorite GGK book, by a very large margin.

To summarize a very complex book, circumstances bring together a small band of people from very different backgrounds, both political and religious. They bond through shared circumstances, and then find their bonds and loyalties tested as world events start pulling them back apart again. As with all of GGK’s books, it’s rooted in actual world history (I’m not familiar with the period myself, but it’s evidently based on Moorish Spain and the religious conflicts that happened then), but with GGK magical realism flair. Uneasy peace turns into conflict, religions clash, and loyalties are examined. It’s very complex, and I’m trying to keep things vague for my friends who want to read it.

GGK’s hand is evident here in the quality of the writing (fantastic) and how he somehow manages to make all these complex political and religious machinations make sense to the average reader. It’s not an overwhelming read, it’s very compelling and easy to digest. I instantly loved all the main characters, and was actually breathless near the end during the book’s climax. Contrary to what you might expect, the climax of this book isn’t played out on a major battlefield, but it’s exciting all the same.

I don’t really know what else to say here, except that if I could give it 6/5 stars, I would. I know that sounds fangirly, but I don’t care. I haven’t met a GGK book I didn’t like, and I very much liked this one.

Here lies my expectations, completely unmet.

Yes, a lost city is discovered. Two, actually, but we only hear about one of them for reasons. The other is mentioned a few times, but I have no idea if anything significant was there. Yes, the City of the Monkey God was mentioned in the leadup to exploring the city (also called the White City), but it never was said if this city was actually the city of legend or not. Yes, this was a true story, but more of a true story about the leishmaniasis disease than a true story about lost city exploration.

I loved the first half of the book leading up to the expedition. There was a ton of information laid out about the legend of the White City and the technological means they used to map out difficult to explore jungle regions in search of the ruins. I also loved the exploration of the ruins they selected as the likely site, and the author’s experiences there. But we spend hardly any time there at all (about a chapter and a half), before he’s back in civilization and dealing with his struggle with leishmaniasis. Which, don’t get me wrong, is a valid topic as I hadn’t heard of the disease before and evidently gets very little funding for research because of its prevalence in the poor populations of countries, I was just expecting more of the Lost City of the Monkey God in my Lost City of the Monkey God book.

I actually learned more about the ruins from the author’s article (found here: www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/150302-honduras-lost-city-monkey-god-maya-ancient-archaeology ) than I did from the author’s book. Just kind of a letdown all around, honestly.

“Courage is facing that which is within your strength to face but doing so does not guarantee your victory.”

What a delightful little murder mystery in a sci-fi setting with delightful characters and a well fleshed out world. Evidently this book is set in the same universe as some of the author’s other books, but this is very clearly able to be read without prior knowledge. This book just clicked with me in a way that’s hard to describe, but I think has a lot to do with giving my imagination just enough rope to imagine being in the same city on the same world with the same problems, but not too much rope that I felt lost. It’s a delicate balancing act with sci-fi that I think the author does very well.

Lieutenant Iari, a tenju Templar, and Gaer the ambassador she’s supposed to be protecting investigate a mysterious death outside the bar they’re relaxing at, and get wrapped up in a complex web of half truths and outright lies. A dead wichu artificer is at the heart of the mystery, and witnesses say she was slain by a riev (half man, mostly machine) gone rogue. Investigating the rievs leads Iari to Char, a damaged riev who chips in on the investigation and causes Iari to question a lot of what she (and basically everyone) thought they knew about the riev and what they were capable of. There’s a lot more to the investigation, but in the interest of not including spoilers, I’ll just say that it’s better read than summarized.

If you couldn’t tell from my summary, there’s a lot of world building and lore thrown around, sometimes in a very short period of time. You’ll either love it (as I did) or find it too chaotic and confusing and bounce off hard. I also love how real and alive the characters felt, and the snappy dialogue in parts was one of my favorite experiences in reading this book. Each character felt different and unique, and there’s even something there for the shippers in the audience.

It is quite complex though, and it moves fast. The names can be particularly difficult, though I listened to the audiobook and had an easier time there, I think, particularly when it came to wichu naming conventions. If you need things explained, or if you need time to let complex ideas involving politics, history, or intricate magic systems settle, this might not be for you.

But it definitely was for me, and I’ve already got book two on my radar to pick up soon. I want some movement on my Iari x Gaer ship.