unfortunately, you might only understand my choice in emojis if you read this book, and no, i will not elaborate.

the art of prophecy is a humorous, light-hearted novel that (imo) could even potentially cross into the cozy genre, if not for the fact that people are dying every 2 pages, in unfortunately gruesome detail. at first glance, this book was what i (mostly) look for in fantasy. multiple povs, an exploration of multiple religious/belief systems and the interaction between religion and politics, prophecies, badass women with sick weapons and fighting skills, and lousy men who get their ass kicked every other page. from the very beginning, the humor is very present (occasionally a bit too much for my personal taste), and the set up of the narrative to come was done well.

the world building and the lore was pretty interesting. we mainly follow the conflict between two peoples; the zhuun and the katuia. the nomadic, nature-oriented, collectivistic society of the katuia was a beautiful contrast to the industrial, capitalist society of the zhuun. i found the similarities and differences of the two peoples to be quite interesting, though the narrative does little to explore this point.

one thing i will say, however, is that this plot is very strikingly similar to the mongolian conquest of china in the 13th century. and, while i admittedly am not knowledgeable in the intricate details of it, the katuia's way of life (katuia people are described as multiple nomadic tribes who were united by the "eternal khan" - mongolia was also multiple nomadic tribes, unified by genghis khan), the resemblance between zhuun and china (names, foods, and other cultural references), the fact that most of their wars/conflicts happened at the borders between their nations, really really reinforces that this book (and trilogy), is based off of real, historical events. and genuinely, this usually doesn't bother me with most historical fantasy, but i literally could not stop thinking about genghis khan the entire time i was reading this book 😭

to me, the persistent, and sometimes over-the-top humor was, in part, the undoing of this book. there were some pretty heavy themes in this book. 3 out of the 4 main characters that you see the povs of are women, and therefore, we get a look into the rampant misogyny during this time. however, when every time something misogynistic or sexist happens, rather than exploring the characters' reaction to it, or the bigger, social/systemic forces at play, we just get an angry/frustrated joke and the character more or less brushes it off. it's painfully obvious that the author is a man attempting to write from the perspective of women. this also happens when anything more serious/severe occurs. a joke is made, therefore switching the tone to a humorous/lighthearted one, and then we end up moving onto the next event. as this continued to happen, i found myself less and less motivated to read further. despite the actual plot moving forward (with scenes that should've, in all honesty, been full of tension), the lack of seriousness throughout the book made the stakes feel extremely low, and more or less removed any and all tension or anticipation. and, maybe that was the point. maybe the author wanted the humor to relieve tension and keep stakes low. but it just did not work for me, and i struggled to stay interested in this.

the lack of exploration of heavier topics and the characters themselves also contributed to my disappointment with this book. the main male character, jian, pretty much loses his purpose (chosen one of a prophecy) within the first 50 pages, and rather than exploring the complex emotions that are sure to follow, we spend most of the book watching him do absolutely nothing (other than get his ass beat, which was admittedly quite entertaining at times). main characters and side characters alike experience all sorts of difficult things, and we never get any kind of exploration beyond an occasional infodump of said character's tragic backstory (that is, once again, almost always followed by a joke). the characters were flat, and for the most part were not unique or interesting personalities (at least, for me) to follow. there was one queer relationship thrown in that felt incredibly artificial, forced, and weird.

if all this wasn't irritating enough to experience, we also get frequent time skips that make absolutely no sense. one chapter, a character is in x location, pursuing x objective. the next time we get a pov from the same character, we are in a completely new and unrelated location, god knows why, and it isn't until nearly the end of the chapter that we are given any sort of context as to why the character ended up here, and for what purpose. this made the plot lose its cohesion, and i spent most of the middle part of this book asking myself "what the fuck is the point of this?" and kept drawing blanks.

the way all these separate povs were tied together was logical, and somewhat interesting, but genuinely not enough to redeem this book for me. even in the height of conflict/conflict resolution, when stakes and tension should be sky high, things kept happening very conveniently. and despite the frequent in your face messaging that "oh!!! this is dangerous!!! x character might die!!!", nothing of significance ever happened.

this might be up your alley if you're looking for a lighthearted fantasy with low stakes. my 3 stars of enjoyment comes from how often the annoying men get their asses kicked ❤️