Empire Ascendant

Kameron Hurley is not afraid to kill off major characters, that's for sure.

This was a fast-paced and very readable sequel, which may seem like faint praise until you remember that the first book was extra challenging due to its wide variety of societies, each with a complex social structure totally unlike anything you're familiar with on earth. In this book, the settings were well established, so it's easier to dive right in to the story. And there is no lack of action.

It took me forever to read it, though, for two reasons:

1. The motivations of the "bad guys" are so exquisitely human that it is impossible to root against them. Someone has to die, but you don't really want any of them to (with maybe one or two exceptions).

2. It is a show more novel composed 99% of suffering. Narratively it makes sense, all of it hangs together, and there's nothing that feels gratuitous. But the torture, war, murder, disfigurement, and general brutality was too much to take in large doses, for me at any rate.

Still, I do highly recommend it. Hurley is doing something with these societies that is not being done by other fantasy authors, and I am looking forward to book #3. (But please dear god let someone have a happy moment in it!) show less

3 and a half stars. it's a big, beautiful, brutal, and very complicated world. it's got numerous gender configurations, blood magic, a vanished-history mystery, and some elusive alien races. there's an enormous cast of characters (and add in various iterations of those characters, because it's a mirror-world setup), active simultaneously in a wide variety of locations. the 'glossary' alone runs to 27 pages. i give it high marks for ambition. the author complains of a "extraordinarily difficult deadline". the trouble is, it shows. there's a period in the middle where the whole thing appears to be running on empty: everything just grinds to a halt, as nothing happens other than a matched set of imprisonments, but the prose keeps on show more keeping on with its so many words a day. deadlines are a good thing, right up to the moment they're really not. it really needed another pass. and overall the characters are not particularly distinctive. nevertheless the scale of imagination on the worldbuilding end is excellent. and i will read the third volume of the trilogy with interest when it comes out. i'm big on imagination - and ambition. i'm very well-disposed to Hurley. maybe it's just mid-trilogy funk. but because of these problems it's really more of a 3.25, just reading the stars. show less

Longer review in the morning when I'm done reeling from the death toll*.

*ASoIaF is for PISSBABIES

One of those second-in-series that blows the first book (which I also loved) out of the water. I went back and edited Mirror Empire down to 4 stars, which is something I tend to do a lot (Ancillary Justice, Half a King, etc). Certainly not an indictment of "The Mirror Empire", but ME sets up, and "Empire Ascendant" DELIVERS. More world(s)-building, more points-of-view, more Tarantino-style action, more blood magic. Sadly, not more cannibalism. Some of your faves die (maybe), some of your faves torture each other. You cry. Just another day being a Kameron Hurley fan.

start with book one The Mirror Empire and then once you’ve been sucked into this ‘verse go read this one.

Just like with the first book it took me a couple of chapters to really get into this book. I should have really reread the first book, I’m terrible with names and remembering who is who, and there are plenty of characters to remember in this series. Once I’d gotten them somewhat straight in my head I was totally immersed in this story.

Usually I like a character to cheer for. I don’t think I could cheer for anybody in this book. Pretty much everyone is at the end of their tether and they are all doing anything and everything they can think of to survive. To help their people survive. Sometimes that involves slaughtering show more worlds. Not really characters you’d want to ask around for tea.

It is a book that expects you to use your brain, this is far from brainless entertainment, so if you are looking for fluff look elsewhere. It also surprised me by showing me how much I expect gender to be pointed out to me. One character refers to themselves using non-gender specific descriptors, ze and hir, and while I was familiar with those words, and have read them in non-fiction, to read whole chapters was a different experience. I kept looking for a he or she, which, obviously was not forthcoming.

It is a fascinating book, because, as I already said, the characters do terrible things, almost no body is without blood on their hands. And that is a central theme of this book, people being forced into actions and reactions, situations creating “monsters” and what exactly people are willing to do to survive.

In a tweet Hurley described this book as her “Empire Strikes Back”, so yeah, be prepared for the grim and the dark! show less

This is one of those books that compelled. As complex as book one was, I still suspected I would remember enough. Indeed that was the case. Because a lot of what was set up in ME happened in EA, it pulled me through.

I did in fact say something accusatory when I got to the Epilogue. I won't repeat it here. Poor Kameron. I'd apologize, but not only would I not mean it, she loves it. Writers live for that reaction.

Don't wait for book 3. Begin now. Suffer with us! Seriously, I found the time to simmer between books incredibly important.

Amazing.

My advice: Reread MIRROR EMPIRE before starting this book! I waited too long - bought it when it came out but somehow didn't read it 'til now - and kept being slowed by trying to remember who everyone was and what was actually going on. Also, I had thought that many of the main characters in Mirror Empire were dead at the end of that book ... and some were, or are at the end of this one, but I was pleasantly surprised by having more continuity than I expected. Also, though I don't understand the science of it, exactly, I *love* that it's science-based despite the seeming magic of some of the main characters. Hurley says in the afterword that it was an extraordinarily difficult book to write because of the multiple worlds, dead/alive show more characters, and their interactions, and I fully believe that. Can't wait for book 3 (due out in 2018), but am alarmed by the knowledge that many of my favorite characters will not survive. Ugh! Limited resources! So much death. And a slowly dying poisoned world ... sounds oddly familiar. Thanks, Kameron Hurley, for that. show less

The sequel to 'The Mirror Empire.'
I found myself torn between saying, 'Don't read this one first; you'll just be confused' and saying, 'Go ahead and don't worry about the first one, you're going to be confused anyway.'

Don't get me wrong - I really, really like these books. But the scenarios Hurley gives us approach the complexity of the real world. The main world here is a big place, full of different countries, all of which have their own political situations and distinct, original cultures (not analogues of real-world societies).

But that main world's not the only world. There are also the mirror worlds - not just one, but many! - and due to impending disaster, invasions and crossovers are both imminent and ongoing. (The catch? You show more can't cross over unless your counterpart on the 'other side' is dead.) So there are different 'versions' of both countries and individual characters.

On top of all that, the power structures in all of these worlds depends on what satellite is ascendant at a certain time. (Each satellite imbues the people who are 'attuned' to it with 'magical' abilities.) This book takes place in the midst of a major shift - so even once you get a grasp on who's in charge in any certain place, it's pretty much guaranteed to be changing.

You will find the 'Dramatis Personae' useful. (I rarely do, but...)

With the impetus of certain death awaiting a world of the verge of apocalypse, citizens' only hope is to escape to a 'mirror' world. This requires the murder of those on the other side. Of course, those wishing not to be invaded and killed are bound to fight back. There are plenty of people who will make desperate back-room deals, leaders who will give ruthless orders, and others who will simply take advantage of instability for their own gain. Pretty much no one at all here is a nice person. Survival requires a vicious edge. And plenty of people will die.

Recommended for fans of political-intrigue-driven fantasy who are up for a challenge.

Many thanks to Angry Robot and NetGalley for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are solely my own. show less