The Chaos Constellation The Gryphon King

I loved this book. It was so great that I can even forgive the fact that there was hardly any sapphic yearning even though the blurb told me there would be sapphic yearning. It does very much deliver on the sword-and-scythe-wielding-female-knights-with Pegasi-front, though. The Gryphon King is a fantasy novel set in a queer-normative world inspired by the cultures of Western and Central Asia, rife with political intrigue, complex not always loveable characters and entrancing world-building. The relatively large cast of characters can be a bit daunting at first, but the writing somehow manages to make almost all of them feel distinct early on. It also manages to occasionally make you forget that Bataar is actually quite the assh0le and has you genuinely sympathising with him, right up until he does something that makes you go «hey why’d I forget that you’re a piece of shit?!» The emotions, especially towards the end of the book, are so raw and real that it made me feel the despair and anger and fear the characters go through. The comp titles listed for this are «Godkiller» and «The Priory of the Orange Tree», but I also thought that specifically the magical element of the world felt very reminiscent of «An Ember in the Ashes». Both books begin with very little magic, to the point where you’re left wondering whether there really is magic in this world at all. Magical elemets are introduced to the plot slowly, and they always have a very remote, inhuman, almost other-worldly air about them. It is not magic for humans to meddle with, and meddle they shall. I’m really looking forward to reading the sequel, whenever it comes out. The silent despair and hopelessness I felt at the end was exquisite, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from there.