"I hope fate spares me death for many years, mistress, that I may stay near your side. For I think you play the Game of the Council." Then with a near loss of self-control, moisture gleamed in his eyes and his face split in a grin. "And I think the Empire will never be the same for it."

This is a writing vs plot book and people who want to read it should know about that before starting it.

I can't rate it under 4.5 stars because of my sheer enjoyment of the political intrigue and scheming. It was all smartly done, with a protagonist that doesn't tell the reader (or her advisors) what she's planning so we only ever find out as it unravels in real time, which is my favourite time of scheming. So much of it is also based on societal rules that are completely unfamiliar to us as a modern audience and I always find that to be fascinating.

But the writing (what I rated under "quality"), probably due to being from the 80s, is quite dry and stilted and the lack of emotional introspection/straight up emotional repression (very much to the demand of the culture. Mara mentions many times how unproper and shameful it is to express one's emotions openly) does bring a lack of connection between reader x character and character x character.

Also, although I enjoyed Mara as a character because of how determined and smart she is, how calm and long-term focused she is, and how openly ambitious as soon as she realizes how good she can play the Game; I was very uncomfortable with how natural for not only everyone (once again, culture) but also how Mara was nonplussed about having slaves, or them dying ("you're not sad about a few cows and a slave's death?" [paraphrasing there]). She also mentions several times the nudeness of the slaves and how that made her feel (sexually curious) and that's just plain gross. I'm side-eyeing the asian inspiration that's only half followed and mix&matched but I'll write that up under "being written in the 80s".

It's by no means a perfect good, and I would have DNF'd any book with that kind of stiff writing if the political manouevering wasn't so delicious. I'm really looking forward to the sequels.

"You may be a patriot or a historian, Mallory, but not both."

I don't think I have the words to describe this book. I also think it's probably best to go into it knowing as little as possible and let yourself be carried through it.

This book is a gut-punch after another. The best exemple of the Narrative is Doomed and Yet we Fight. Characters are flawed, physically and mentally, and with pretty massive moral flaws at that (war-mongering, homophobic, imperialist..) and we see that doomed narrative turn inside out every one of their beliefs, of the world and of themselves.

It's about how much we can ask of someone, even under the guise of glory, or the greater good, or love, before they break. It's about the suffocating weight of being made into something you're not and its belief. It's about loving someone despite what they've made you into. About what it means to be a coward or a hero.

It's also about patriotism and the way tyrants and governments and fascists will use young people that desperately need to feel useful and wanted and special. About the purposefullness of history retold to serve a political agenda. About the impossibility of faithfully recording and telling history and being a patriot at the same time.

There's so much in a single, barely over 300 pages book, and it's not only incredible and important and heart-wrenching, it's also told with the most wonderful prose. For the big things, as for the small (I've read "they only watched us, silently, with eyes like thrown stones" and knew I would be highlighting every other line). It's all told in the first person, but adressed to another character, like a journal, or a love letter. It truly makes it feel so unique and personal (doubly so because obviously the "you" feels like being addressed, as the reader).

I have my own little qualms with it, but it's either very personal (a doomed narrative book always ruines my mental state for a bit), or justified (the immediate pull between the characters, although too "easy" of a choice for me at first, made complete sense by the end of the story but it did stick into my mind at first) but it's too well written and brilliantly constructed for me to give it anything less than 5 stars. I feel like nothing I say can do this book justice. It truly is an experience, and I'm in awe of what Alix E.Harrow accomplished.

"I was dying, but I had died before, and would die again. We had told this story so many times, you and I, and we would tell it so many more, and it would always end here, like this: with my blood on your hands and your tears on my face."

"Who is free, who loves another?"

"You may be a patriot or a historian, Mallory, but not both."

I don't think I have the words to describe this book. I also think it's probably best to go into it knowing as little as possible and let yourself be carried through it.

This book is a gut-punch after another. The best exemple of the Narrative is Doomed and Yet we Fight. Characters are flawed, physically and mentally, and with pretty massive moral flaws at that (war-mongering, homophobic, imperialist..) and we see that doomed narrative turn inside out every one of their beliefs, of the world and of themselves.

It's about how much we can ask of someone, even under the guise of glory, or the greater good, or love, before they break. It's about the suffocating weight of being made into something you're not and its belief. It's about loving someone despite what they've made you into. About what it means to be a coward or a hero.

It's also about patriotism and the way tyrants and governments and fascists will use young people that desperately need to feel useful and wanted and special. About the purposefullness of history retold to serve a political agenda. About the impossibility of faithfully recording and telling history and being a patriot at the same time.

There's so much in a single, barely over 300 pages book, and it's not only incredible and important and heart-wrenching, it's also told with the most wonderful prose. For the big things, as for the small (I've read "they only watched us, silently, with eyes like thrown stones" and knew I would be highlighting every other line). It's all told in the first person, but adressed to another character, like a journal, or a love letter. It truly makes it feel so unique and personal (doubly so because obviously the "you" feels like being addressed, as the reader).

I have my own little qualms with it, but it's either very personal (a doomed narrative book always ruines my mental state for a bit), or justified (the immediate pull between the characters, although too "easy" of a choice for me at first, made complete sense by the end of the story but it did stick into my mind at first) but it's too well written and brilliantly constructed for me to give it anything less than 5 stars. I feel like nothing I say can do this book justice. It truly is an experience, and I'm in awe of what Alix E.Harrow accomplished.

"I was dying, but I had died before, and would die again. We had told this story so many times, you and I, and we would tell it so many more, and it would always end here, like this: with my blood on your hands and your tears on my face."

"Who is free, who loves another?"