Boring as sin. The reader of the audiobook did it no justice. (Note: the reader did a wonderful job in Forging Hephaestus and its sequel, just not in this outting.)

It starts strong enough with a lot of world-building and some interesting tech that facilitates deep internal conversations. But then it gets bogged down in dialogue and exposition, drags onwards for hundreds of pages, and ultimately there's no payoff for your efforts. It has lots of potential and maybe future books will be better in the series that it sets up, but I won't be reading them. ( )

I gave up on this at the 55% mark. Not much seemed to be happening. I like political intrigue, but I don't like ONLY political intrigue. I read sci-fi for cool new ideas and tech, aliens and pew, pew. This didn't seem to have much of that other than this strange fixation on poetry and language. I've definitely seen that kind of thing in sci-fi before, but it seemed more of an affectation than something that was crucial to the plot. The characters weren't that interesting and there was almost no action. ( )

With reservations.

What do you mean, what do I mean? There's something about it--as good, as inclusive, as remarkable as it is--that just fails to miss me. Possibly it's the empire-building genre. At any rate, this is probably what Alastair Reynolds was going for in The Prefect, only this was so much more tightly plotted, with better characterization, that it was far more satisfying. Perhaps my reservations are due to lingering disaffection, because Martine does exactly what I expected from Reynolds: she takes a very personal mystery--the death of a predecessor--and links it to empire-shaping events.

Martine does beautifully at giving the sense of two different cultures, the behemoth of the Empire, and the small space-station, Lsel, that Mahit represents. Characterization is also done well, with both main and side characters proving very interesting, naturally developing as Mahit gets to know them and as external events force different interactions. World-building is complex, but not-overly obsessed with extraneous details (cough, cough, you know who I mean). Writing is phenomenal. My hesitation would be the ending of course, I wanted a more clear HAE, somewhat troublesome ethics, Mahit giving the broken imagio away and the technology the imagio seemed a bit ansible, and why didn't the Empire already have it?

It's not gripping, in the on-the-edge-of-your-seat kind of thriller, but it is gripping in the sense of I-really-don't-want-to-put-this-down. That alone deserves a lot of credit, but to integrate an intriguing female lead, cultural conflict, a mystery, political machinations, and even a touch of romance is incredible. Very impressive, and I'll be looking forward to the next. Will I add it to the library? We'll see.

Update: I did add it to the physical library. High potential for re-readability and great sale on the hardcover version. ( )

My editor at Tor gave me a copy of this back in 2019. A mix go mystery and politics, as I remember. I think this is being made into a TV version. I feel somewhat disloyal that I was less than enthused about it. JAvaczuk has decided it's not his cuppa either, so I'll probably donate my copy to the bookstore that raises money for our public library here in Philly. ( )

I really wanted to like this more but it was pretty boring. The ideas were very interesting but the world building was pretty meh. A decent read but no desire to continue reading the series. ( )