Review:
This takes place in a far future world where people's belief systems and the calendars they agree upon can somehow affect the physics behind how everything works. All the action is centered around a place called the Fortress of Scattered Needles, which has been taken over by rebels following a heretical calendar.
Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate has recently fallen into disgrace for her unconventional tactics. The situation at the Fortress of Scattered Needles gives her a chance to redeem herself, although she almost immediately comes to regret her proposed solution, which involves allying herself with the long-dead tactician Shuos Jedao. Jedao was widely regarded as brilliant, but he was also a madman who, in the end, killed both friend and foe alike, and Cheris had no idea that his "resurrection" would involve tying him to her mind and body. It's not a comfortable position to be in, to say the least.
My experience reading this reminded me heavily of the first time I read Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice: so much confusion. I had to wrap my brain around what "Kel," "Shuos," "Nirai," and other words meant. The way weapons functioned was supposedly tied to some sort of advanced mathematics connected to the calendar everyone followed - in practice, it felt a lot like battle magic with no specific rules. It didn't help that the author was disinclined to actually describe anything. I did my best to go with the flow, but it was disheartening when I realized, more than halfway through the book, that I could still barely picture anything that was going on.
Jedao could play Cheris so easily that it was tough to fathom why anyone in command would have thought it was a good idea to pair him up with a Kel (soldiers who, as part of their training, are imprinted with an instinctual desire to obey their superiors). Then there were the servitors, robots that most of the Kel seemed to view as little more than tools but that were more sentient than they let on. There was clearly a lot going on under the surface that Cheris, the primary POV character, was unaware of, and I was, for the most part, willing to see where the author would go with all of it.
Unfortunately, the ending fell flat for me. It felt like the world, characters, all of it held readers at arm's length, and by the time an attempt was made to try to close the gap, it was too little, too late. It's possible that the next couple books bring everything together in a way that'll change my mind and make me appreciate the characters and world more, but I'm not sure I have the willpower to continue on.
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