The Worldbreaker Saga by Kameron Hurley

[Werthead]

Book 1: The Mirror Empire

The subcontinent of Grania is divided between several nations, including the spiritual, peaceful Dhai and the more militaristic, aggressive kingdom of Dorinah. The murder of the Kai, the spiritual ruler of Dhai, sees her untested and inexperienced younger brother taking charge at a time of turmoil. Internal dissent against his rule is accompanied by assassination attempts...apparently from other Dhai, despite this being a violation of their ideology. Meanwhile, one of Dorinah's best generals is ordered to cull the Dhai slaves living in their kingdom, despite the destructive impact this will have on the economy, and a young girl living in a Dhai monastery discovers that her destiny is far more complex than she first thought.

The Mirror Empire is the first novel in The Worldbreaker Saga, Kameron Hurley's follow-up to her splendidly weird science fantasy Bel Dame Apocrypha trilogy. Worldbreaker is wholly fantasy rather than SF and features a lot of standard fantasy tropes, but it mixes these in with fluid gender definitions (some of the inhabitants of Grania are a third sex, or change gender depending on circumstance) and also makes use of the idea of alternate timelines and quantum ideas. Some of the villains of the story are the alternate-universe versions of some of the heroes, which is an interesting idea, especially because there are "good" and "bad" guys on both sides of the mirror and many of the characters are morally nuanced, with good guys doing despicable things and bad guys occasionally showing moral courage.

So far, so standard and so grimdark (if intelligently-realised). Hurley is different in that she seemingly has no interest in making this book easily accessible. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that the first hundred pages or so represent the densest and most-confusing entry to a fantasy series since Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon in 1999, which famously puts as many people off reading his Malazan series as it does entice them in to read more. The Mirror Empire opens in media res, features explosive flashbacks without providing context and features an absolute motherlode of invented terminology and nomenclature which will have you flipping to the glossary on a very regular basis. Entering a fantasy world and spending the first hundred pages wading through stodgy exposition is quite a dull experience, so I can see why Hurley took this course. However, this book arguably goes too far in the opposite direction and I can see some readers being alienated by the opening.

Once the book calms down and relents a bit from machine-gunning the reader with under-explained ideas and concepts every five seconds, it radically improves. The characterisation of our four key characters - Roh, Lilia, Zezili and Ahkio - is first-rate and we learn more about their motivations and foibles that makes them more interesting characters than it first appears. Hurley enjoys setting up archetypes - Lilia as the callow low-class girl with unusual powers and a destiny, or Ahkio as the inexperienced young heir thrust into ruling without adequate preparation - and then undercuts them. Lilia does some pretty horrific things in her quest for self-realisation and Ahkio applies his skills from navigating household politics to the greater nation at large and this helps him become a better ruler, as well as being clever enough not to trust the temple officials and to call upon his allies when necessary.

The book unfolds from that point with Hurley's customary vigour and her aggressive, take-no-prisoners approach really makes the book stand out from the fantasy crowd. By the end of the book it has achieved a significant narrative drive that will make you want to press on to the sequel, Empire Ascendant, immediately.

The Mirror Empire (***½) is a robust, entertaining and relentlessly original fantasy, playing with concepts of identity and destiny in a fresh manner. It's also a big that takes no prisoners and almost overwhelms the reader with concepts and invented nomenclature that can be alienating. Stick it out and you are rewarded with one of the better fantasy novels of recent years. The book is available now in the UK and USA.

 

[Werthead]

Book 2: Empire Ascendant

The kingdom of Dhai stands on the brink of disaster, threatened by a vast invading army from a mirror dimension which has already obliterated the powerful northern empire of Saiduan. Ahkio, the inexperienced Kai or spiritual ruler of Dhai, is forced to make unpalatable decisions to prepare his small, brave and peace-loving kingdom for war. The price for saving Dhai may be to sell out its soul. Meanwhile, the Empress of Dorinah sends her best general, Zezili, south into the kingdom of Tordin on an errand that will have a profound impact on the coming conflict, and the entire world.

The Mirror Empire was a decent opening to The Worldbreaker Saga, introducing a wide swathe of interesting new ideas, delivered in the author's trademark take-no-prisoners style. At the same time, the book undercut its promising opening with a whole lot of confusion, launched a sustained assault of invented terminology and context-less worldbuilding that left a lot of readers scratching their heads. Towards the end of the book, as the worldbuilding, character development and thematic ideas started coalescing, it picked up and ended on a reasonably intriguing note.

Empire Ascendant picks up on that promise and delivers it with the force of a brick through your window. The book explodes into life at the start and doesn't pause for breath. After the much bittier and more inconsistent Mirror Empire, Empire Ascendant is resolute, determined and focused, which is a great relief.

The core characters remain the same as previously: Ahkio, Zezili, Roh and Lilia, along with a number of more minor POV characters, including some of the so-called "villains", now humanised by allowing us to see events from their points of view. In particular, the alternate Kirana, the ruler of the dying world who is desperately trying to save her people by evacuating them to Grasia using portal-opening rituals that can only be fuelled by blood and death, is made more relatable. Although still a mass-murdering tyrant, Kirana believes her actions are necessary as the only alternative is to let her world die and her people be completely wiped out. This puts the actions of our more "heroic" characters in Grasia in a different light as they are also forced to adopt more and more desperate tactics (including sacrificing hundreds of lives in feints and using scorched earth tactics to deny the enemy resupply) to survive.

Empire Ascendant's greatest success is taking the characters and archetypes we thought we'd gotten to know and reinventing them. Lilia could be - on a bare, simplistic level - be seen as a Daenerys Targaryen figure, a young girl who gains tremendous and far-reaching powers which we expect her to use for good. Events don't turn out that way and Lilia developers a ruthless streak which the reader can cheer when she is deploying it against the invading Tai Mora but then becomes a bit disturbing when she advocates tactics that will kill hundreds or thousands of innocents but it is justified because it inconveniences the enemy. Other characters go through similar emotional wringers and transformations but retain their credibility.

The story develops at a relentless, page-turning pace: this is a 500-page book which catches fire early on and never goes out. The confusing morass of moons and satellites and astronomy and astrology from the first book is made a lot more understandable here, so the significance of certain satellites appearing and disappearing is now clearer. Armies march, lots of things blow up and there's a lot of betrayals and daring escapes, as well as hideous major character deaths. It's a dark book, but one where there are shades of hope and light as well.

Empire Ascendant (****½) is a far more dynamic, impressive and vital novel than its forebear, and may be Hurley's finest work to date. It is available now in the UK and USA. The concluding volume of The Worldbreaker Saga, The Broken Heavens, will be released in October 2017.

 

[Werthead]

Book 3: The Broken Heavens

The Tai Mora, invaders from a parallel universe, have overrun and conquered much of the island-continent of Grania. Their ruler plans to activate the five great temples and use their power to seal the ways between the worlds shut, ending the chaos that has engulfed every world and every timeline. For Lilia, the former scullery maid turned military leader, an opportunity to strike back at the Tai Mora is approaching, one that may hold the key to saving the world, but she must first persuade her reluctant allies (who prefer the idea of flight) to stand with her.

The Broken Heavens is the concluding volume of The Worldbreaker Saga, Kameron Hurley's epic fantasy trilogy set in a world that is being invaded by mirror versions of itself. Following on from The Mirror Empire and Empire Ascendant, the book chronicles the adventures of a number of core characters scattered across Grania as events begin to converge.

The Worldbreaker Saga is, as with much of Hurley's fiction, offbeat and weird but is anchored in believable human characters. The book plays with the "chosen one" trope by pitting these as the people who happen to be in the right place at the right time to deal with the crisis, and they succeed or fail, live or die based on their own strengths and weaknesses, and isn't afraid to have them mess up, sometimes catastrophically. It's unusual for an epic fantasy following a standard three-act trilogy structure (albeit in an original and unusual world) to be so inventive in how it handles its characters and plot.

Particularly interesting, and something much more strongly focused on here than previously, is the idea of the mirror characters being not just different characters with the same face, but different versions of the actual same character: the pacifist in one world and the war-mongering dictator in another could have been the same person if it were not for circumstance. Thematic ideas of nature/nurture, environment and desperation are woven intriguingly into the story and developed as it continues.

Some of the weaknesses of the first two books remain: there are occasional moments of obtuseness and the limits of the magic-wielding characters' powers are not always clear. There's also the feeling of events sometimes being a little rushed. There's easily a more sedate thousand-page story which could have explained things a bit better lying within these sometimes compressed-feeling five hundred pages. On the plus side, it does mean that the book moves like it's on fire, with little time or pages wasted.

The setting, with its living killer trees and seething organic temples, is vividly drawn and Hurley's formidable powers of characterisation are at their peak here, not just in depicting different characters but different versions of the same character, which requires a great deal more nuance. Overall, The Broken Heavens (****½) is a worthy conclusion to an often engrossing and original work of fantasy. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.