Small gods and big plots

In exchange for helping Andrea move her plants I was able to borrow her copy of Ann Leckie’s The Raven Tower, which unlike the other Ann Leckie books I’ve read is a fantasy rather than sci-fi, but which exactly like all the other Ann Leckie books I’ve read is extremely good. This one is vaguely Hamlety in plot, in that it involves a dastardly uncle whomst has taken control of the kingdom under mysterious circumstances and over the head of the young prince who’s supposed to be heir. Our protagonist is Eolo, the prince Mawat’s aide, and our narrator is a god known mainly as the Strength and Patience of the Hill, who, true to its deliberative nature (the god is a very old rock who makes Ents look like hasty children), takes his time filling us in very slowly and deliberately about the backstory to the current political/religious/divine conflict going on. It’s a really delicious kind of slow-reveal story that gives the reader plenty of time to acclimate to the worldbuilding. There’s a lot of intrigue and murder and testing of the various gods’ abilities in unexpected ways (not that I was entirely sure what to expect from a book narrated by a rock). It was sort of familiar in a way due to the obvious Hamlet influences and also I think influences from Pratchett’s Small Gods, though this book is not a comedy (not that it can’t be funny at times, but overall it’s a drama, not a satire).

I’m not sure if I am just too dumb and tired to say much about this book right now or if it really is knotty enough that it’s hard to talk about without spoilering anything, but basically all I’ve got right now is that it’s a good solid fantasy-mystery and I liked it a lot.