I liked the first book best. A fascinating original world, where every oddity is explained by more oddities from the past. I love these layered worlds. But here we finally hit the bottom layer. The explanation is still "weird stuff and cruelty", but it's no longer supported by anything further below.

Sorry, I can't discuss this in depth without massive spoilers. Of course if you've read the first two books, there is no reason not to read the third. But if you've only read the first, I would forgive you for stopping there.

A random collection of gripes follows.


We find out (too late) that Hoa can take Essun anywhere and he also knows where Nassun is. Essun's only goal is to find Nassun. So she asks Hoa to take her to... a completely different place that has no importance at all. Huh?

Book 2 said there were three factions, and even Stone Eaters were divided. The books don't much focus on these political divisions, but since they are important to understanding the plot, I expected a bit more explanation. A serious fan can probably read between the lines and figure this out. But I'm lost. What were these factions and why?

Hoa wanted to put the Moon back. Essun just went along with it because Hoa said it was a good thing and she loved him because he appeared as a weird kid one time. Why trust Hoa? For all she knew the Moon could have been the villain. Or the Earth was the villain and the Moon tried to break free. Or the Evil Earth gets its strength back and kills humanity if it gets the Moon back. Or the Stone Eaters get super strong and wipe us out. I mean so many explanations would be consistent with what little she knew. In many of those, catching the Moon would be really bad. But just one or two people giving her no explanation at all was enough to convince her to put her life on the line?

Likewise on Nassun's side. She's sad and wants to destroy the world. Steel and Schaffa just go along. They barely seem interested in even learning what she plans to do. "Oh, I've escorted you to the end of the world so you could destroy it? Whatever, do what you like. My head hurts anyway."

Essun and Nassun never stop to discuss their respective plans. Both just assume that their daughter/mother wants to do something super stupid. They start to fight it out, then Essun goes "I'm still sure you want to do something stupid, but you know what? Have at it." then Nassun goes "You would like that, wouldn't you?" but of course by then Essun is dead. I mean I'd have preferred them to have valid reasons for what they were doing and then engage in a discussion of those reasons. Either verbally, or through their actions. But it didn't feel like the clash of two philosophies or value systems or personalities. They both seemed to be more driven by the forces of the plot than by human nature.

We also got a full explanation of the Shattering and the Stone Eaters and Evil Earth. I liked Syl Anagist. I think it's neat how they hold life sacred, but use it as a building material. That's a pretty solid basis for subverting the picture of a utopia.

But instead the main evil of Syl Anagist is the genocide of the Niess. I should not be surprised when a series where the central themes are genocide, genocide, and genocide ends with the revelation that it has all started with genocide. But this is where I felt like this line of explanations has bottomed out.

We do get to know the young Stone Eaters a bit. I really only got to know Hoa and Kelenli. And they are pretty simple too. Kelenli hates being treated as a tool and teaches Hoa to hate it as well. The other tuners I'm not sure about. And at the end when they are Stone Eaters supporting Essun vs Nassun? The two sides barely express themselves and never engage in discourse. They just eat/dismember each other.

Hoa wants to fix everything, and Steel would rather destroy it. There's a lot to talk about! And the books have already talked about a lot of that. Not through the words of the Stone Eaters or the main characters, but through the events in the world, and the examination of how people behave under strain. But I think if these focal point characters are meant to be avatars of ideas, I would have liked them to be more vocal of those ideas.

I like the Evil Earth plot. Syl Anagist just saw a ton of power there and built a device to extract it. I don't think they deserve to be depicted as evil just for this. Perhaps they should have checked if there is a sentient being there, but there is no indication that they knew there was and still went ahead with the extraction.

Anyway, it's pretty cool, and I like how the Evil Earth is quick enough to sabotage the plan! And then we find the answers to the two big questions: what happened to the Moon and where did the Stone Eaters come from. And the answer is basically, "no reason". The Moon was just a random accident. Nobody intentionally flung it from orbit, it's just a random outcome of two kinds of sabotage and the original plan colliding. And the Earth just turned the tuners into Stone Eaters as punishment or something.

They are not terrible explanations, but nobody could have predicted these. I don't very much enjoy a mystery where the answer is revealed to be random chance.

I'm sure many more careful readers have predicted these and felt great when their predictions turned out to be accurate! But it was not even in my search space. Who goes and thinks, "You know what could explain how the Moon was removed from orbit? I bet it was a random accident! That would be so cool!"


I feel much better already! Thanks for hearing me complain!