A violent revenge fantasy set in a world heavily influenced by African cultures. At its heart is a familiar trope of the traumatized youth who becomes an unstoppable force of violence to exact revenge: think Naruto/Sasuke, Kvoth, Arya Stark, etc. What makes this stand out is the well judged pacing of the action, a world built around a strict class system and with a distinctly African flavour to everything. Think medieval Wakanda colonising another continent because they've had to flee their own for mysterious reasons that certainly aren't teeing up the rest of the trilogy, ahem.

The violence of the conflict is emphasized pretty much from the start, at points it seems over the top but given most fantasies seen to skim over the reality of martial warfare I'm happy it doesn't pull its punches. At the start of the book it felt like this story was going to focus on the class and colonial issues that frame Tau's stories, and while it clearly has opinions they're not entirely clear by the end of this first book. In particular we run into a Good Monarch trope who seems to undercut much of class tension that is built up in the first half of the book, maybe this will all make sense by the end of the arc but it feels less like deliberate cognitive dissonance and more like it's just confused.

This is definitely good enough to buy my into the series, and it's a real page turner that makes for a (comparatively) quick read, but at the moment I fear I might be a bit underwhelmed by the conclusion.