2014-02-10 · in Books, A Land Fit For Heroes · 126 words

Sequel to The Steel Remains, following the same cast. This is essentially bringing what I tend to think of as the William Gibson plot structure to dystopic fantasy, with a sprawl of largely-unrelated stories that converge on an appropriately epic ending. There's a lot of interesting complexity in this series' world, and some neat structural tricks in the writing that had me reading back to check details several times; this feels like it's a lot further into the story than just the second book. On the other hand, being a Richard Morgan book, this pulls no punches, and would be a deeply depressing (and, sometimes, disturbing) work — if it weren't so well-crafted.

The third volume's due this year. It's on my buy-immediately list already.