I Just Read About That…

[READ: April 2023] Night Watch on the Hinterlands

I absolutely loved K. Eason’s The Thorne Chronicles (How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse).  I had no idea that she had a new duology out until this book came to my desk at work.

I had audiobooked the first duology and loved the world that Nicole Poole read to me.

But now I was jumping in to the print version.  Shockingly for me I haven’t been reading many books this year.  I have gotten so into the audiobook world that I’ve been listening far more than I’ve been reading.  And in some respects it was hard to get into this book because there’s a lot of made up stuff here and you really have to get into the world and the vocabulary and it was a bumpy start for me.

This book is set in the same world as the Rory Thorne books.  Yes, that is true.  But it is set far in the future so there is no overlap with characters or anything like that.  So that was a bit of a bummer.

There’s a lot of “hard” science fiction in this story, which is probably more of the reason why it was hard to get into it.  I accepted the new world, but you have to learn so much to get up to speed with everything that it can feel like a slog even if you are flying through the pages.

There are two main characters in this book.

Lieutenant Iari is a tenju templar (which you have to learn about and which I don’t think I fully did, but tenju are rather large humanoid race with tusks).  She was orphaned during the Expansion War and joined the templars because she believed in their mission.  The war is over now and her primary purpose is to stop The Brood.  Brood are deadly, seemingly invisible monsters that have come through a rip in the Void (which you have to learn about).  The rip is called The Weep, and I feel like I never quite got the hang of how or why the Weep happened.  The one thing that was clear was that the vakari inadvertently created The Weep during the war.

The second main character is Gaer, a vakar ambassador who has been sent to the planet to work with Iari.  So yes, they were enemies, but are now working together.  Iari and Gaer get along quite well together, although most people are hesitant around vakari.  Gaer is also sending information back to his people. He’s a spy but it seems like all of the templars know it.  Gaer, like most vakari is skilled in arithmancy and reading auras (this is a continuation from the Rory Thorn books).

The story opens on a remote planet called Tanis.  They are called down to investigate the murder of a wichu (you see, there’s lots of races to keep straight).  Wichu are a peaceful race of very tiny creatures (one assumes every creature is humanoid unless specified otherwise).  Witnesses all say that the murderer was a riev.  Riev are a sort of human/robot hybrid which creeps out Iari to no end.  They are mostly mechanical but there is a significant organic material on them.  They also appear to be huge.  Riev were created during the war to kill vakari.  It was their only purpose, and now that the war is over they have been deprogrammed.  And shouldn’t be able to kill anyone–it’s not in their programing anymore.  Plus wichu repair riev, so there’s very little animosity there.

When Iari decides to question some local riev, there’s a first for her–Gael is nervous.  Vakari are enormous and steel plated (I really need to see a picture of these creatures).  They usually frighten everyone, but the riev were designed to kill them, so Gael is justifiably nervous.  But the riev are peaceful and two of them–Char and Brisk Array–seem to have broken their programming and are acting somewhat like individuals.  Indeed, Char wishes to join the templars!  Eason is not afraid to tangle with the morality of riev and how “human” (for lack of a better word) in this world they are.

So this proves to be something of a mystery, but with a lot of official channels and military protocol to worry about.

The chapters alternate viewpoints which is fun and allows you to get into each character’s head.  You can see Gaer read auras, which is kind of like reading someone’s mind or at least their feelings.  He can see Iari’s emotions–usually the ones she’s trying to hide.  Auras can also tell him when someone is lying (and since he has no concept of subtlety or trickery he often reveals when someone is lying while Iari is trying to manipulate them).

Gaer is also adept at arithmancy, which was a huge component in the Rory Thorne books.  I missed it here.  Even though Gaer can do it, it takes a much less prominent place than it did in the other books.  Arithmancy allows you to create magical mathematical equations called hexes.  The math helps to form reality–indeed all reality is based on these mathematical equations.  Manipulating them is, therefore, a very powerful skill.

Iari has to call on an old war “friend” named Corso, another tenju.  He is now a private investigator, having left the templar as soon as the war was over.  It’s clear that he and Iari have a history, but we don’t learn anything about it.  He proved to be a help and a hindrance.

There’s a lot of magic and mysticism in the mystery.  There is a lot of political ill will between some of the races.  And of course, there is a lot of pride at stake.  All of these get in the way of making this an easy to solve mystery.

By the end of the book, with the world-building all filled in, I was really flying through it.  The ending is satisfying but since this is clearly a duology, it is obviously set up for the finale, which I’m rather looking forward to.