Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle …
This is the way the world ends. Again.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
Me ha encantado. Consigue el equilibrio perfecto entre misterio y señales para dejar que vayas entendiendo las cosas a tu propio ritmo. Las tres protagonistas son muy interesantes, y el mundo y su sistema de magia es fascinante. El ritmo está muy bien manejado a lo largo de todo el libro, y el juego con los momentos y las perspectivas narrativas salió genial. Muy buen mundo y muy bien escrito, estoy deseando empezar el segundo.
Without spoiling, I would mention that this is 512 pages long...and then just sort of stops and doesn't really give you a feel for what the "big problem" is that you'll want to see battled against in the next volume. So a little dissatisfaction with that.
I did enjoy the way the author played with the timeline, the different voices used, and the pairing of characters that kept me from being confused about who was who
The world-building was great - it supplied just enough "weird land" to be unusual, but really it was focused on the different groups of people and how they viewed and interacted with one another.
If this is your favorite genre and you don't mind feeling the need to finish the series, you'll enjoy.
Not my favorite book but well crafted and continuing on with the series. A big part is I didn't really love the viewpoint characters, the side characters tend to be more interesting to me.
Took me a bit to get into it, and the changing of character names over time confused me a bit, but once I got past those two issues, it was a really fun read. Looking forward to the next two books to see what happens on Earth in a possible distant future where earth magic is common and nothing is stable.
