And I can see why James Rollins blurbed this one too, given the similarities to his and Rebecca Cantrell's own Order of the Sanguines series, complete with reformed vampires (or, more accurately, mixed-race silversaints) forming the Church's primary weapon against the vampires.īut it's not an easy road for Gabriel or the rest of the silversaints. The style is just everywhere, from the devotion to saints and God and Not-Jesus to the Holy Grail references, and of course the illustrations all being done in the style of stained glass windows. And in this world heavily inspired by Renaissance Europe (with one country in the south somewhat more North African and Middle Eastern in style, with darker-skinned people than those of the other French and English and Scottish-inspired lands to the north), the religious angle is so steeped in Catholicism that, between this book and Nevernight, I really have to wonder if Kristoff wasn't raised Catholic like I was.
And yes, Kristoff does go into detail about how difficult it is to grow crops when the sun ain't rising, leaving humankind with little recourse but to rely on root vegetables that don't need as much photosynthesis to thrive. Instead of three suns that almost never completely set, here's one sun that never completely rises, allowing vampires of four noble bloodlines to dominate while humans struggle to get by. (And yes, among all the other references buried throughout this book, don't think I didn't miss that little jab at Rothfuss and how Kvothe bedded the most perfectly insane-makingly sexy faerie queene, lolol.)Īs always, Kristoff presents a most creatively-built world, where strange astrophysical phenomena are the cause of all sorts of horrors - in this case, the opposite of Nevernight. At least one part told in a single night, seemingly, as impossible as it might be given the vast length of this nearly 750-page brick. Though I do somewhat miss the days of the infamously overlong footnotes of Nevernight and sequels, I do appreciate Kristoff taking a bit more out of the Patrick Rothfuss playbook, having our protagonist recount his life's tale, after a fashion.
But you know what the bloody hell else he is? Like Pierce Brown, he is an Apex Asshole, capable of plundering the depths of his imagination and holding a mirror up to the world in the darkest of ways, and taking us readers on a long, perilous journey through a fantasy world where the sun won't rise and vampires rule. There's a reason why Jay Kristoff's one of my faves, and it's because he's one of the most bloody rockstarinest writers in the biz.
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