Plot: ?/9.
The protagonist was trained as an assassin by his mother who commanded him to commit 5 kinds of irredeemable sins, which included matricide, heresy leading to factionalism, sancticide, patricide and the assassin of the Perfect and Kind. As he grew old, he escaped from his mother, bode in another city, worked as a guide for the newcomers, and occasionally joined in a group of unchosen ones.
One day, Koel wanted him to pretend as Peroe, spy on a committee and discover their secret about the bright doors. After the protagonist had a dinner with Tomarin, Coema and Gerau, Coema introduced Pipra’s research team on the bright doors to him, who led him to record a translation of a bright door.
After witnessing a massive execution of prisoners, his boyfriend Hej invited him to see the Perfect and Kind, aka his surreptitious father.
Out of the blue, her mother’s call appeared in his house so strangely that he had to reconnect with her to dispel the annoying and unstoppable ring.
One day, she told her the story of his birth: His father, a pirate and ex-prince, had once encountered her—a rich, young and beautiful pearl diver living in an rural island with other sea folk. She had fell in love with that man so much that she had abandoned her girlfriend. But after his father had comprehended sea folk’s power, he and his mates had gradually grew contempt for her, since they saw her an impediment to their dream. So eventually he had left his pregnant wife, named the protagonist as Fetter, smashed the island into the mainland and destroyed their traditional life style thoroughly. He had even distorted their history, forced them to live in the new world, and made them forget the old world. In the end, his mother warned him that his father would come to bring another heartbreaking cataclysm to his own city.
Koel, the self-claimed inheritor of the Walking, convened the protagonist who was the son of the Perfect and Kind, Ulpe who needed to prevent the Man in the Fire from coming out, and Caduv who wanted the Song of the Red and his cousin to fail, for the Plague/White year was about to come.
After he found a devil protruding out of a bright door, he felt sick for a few days. His boyfriend came to visit him and suggested his staying in the city for the imminent plague. Her mother suffering from cancer declared that his rebellion against her will made him commit the first sin.
Caduv failed to complete the task of stealing records from the Ministry of Health assigned by Koel, because the guardian was immune to his manipulating voice. So the protagonist helped him to get the required data. He also acquired their paper on a holy object believed to be held an ailing effect on the Perfect and Kind, with which Coema and Pipra intended to spoil his father’s show.
The protagonist found Coema sent people to substitute Pipra. Koel invited the protagonist to watch her latest scripted show based on the Perfect and Kind with Caduv acting as the leading singer. The protagonist found its amazing and made sure that Coema thought that too.
He snooped about the object in Pipra’s team and finally stole it, before he came back to call in on his dying mother and gladly declared that he found a method to annihilate his father. She then claimed that this tooth had been hers until a visitor stole it. She supplemented that the real reason behind his father leave and the cataclysm on their island was their fierce wrangling on their future. This tooth harboured his mother’s curse and remaining power, which accounted for the unique harmful influence. But with her subsequent death, the magic would disappeared.
He finished his mother’s funeral and went back to the city. Undoubtedly, he was caught into the jail.
(I am determined to desert this horrible book at chapter 25/34 (3/4 of the process) because of the following 4 reason:
- The plot is as boring as a pupil’s journal without enough suspense. Worse, Vajra Chandrasekera attempted to lump large amount of random information together like an instruction book. Maybe it would be better to rewrite your chapter 2 and explored this city from the perspective of a new strayer, Vajra Chandrasekera.
- The world and the society is disordered, unreasonable and illogical. From my perspective, fantasy fiction should pay more attention to this respect to avoid a crime called Deus ex machina. For example, since the world had computers, then why didn’t the official install cameras that could spot the protagonist’s stealth? Or did not they have some magical safety measure considering the fact that lots of people here seemed to hold the magic?
- The characters were charmless without any arresting characteristics or even effective motivations that evoked my empathy. For example, why did the unchosen group including the protagonist suddenly listen to the command of Koel at their great risk? Why did the protagonist immediately believe that pretending to be a higher caste that was quarantined for classified information with bare face would be enough to fend off the consequential trouble? How naive he was!
- What made me eventually desert the book was the protagonist’s abrupt return to her mother’s side after his constant firming refusal from the beginning—and a more ridiculous return to the city after he had just wanted to leave it forever. Thanks to your kind of idiotic protagonist, welcome to my blacklist, Vajra Chandrasekera!
The reference to the religion, LGBT and a Byzantine society may explain its popularity. But to me, it just decreased the value of Nebula Award within my mind.
By the way, from now on, I am somewhat allergic to the book heavily relying on religion, because it is sorta like antediluvian fan-fiction for fans only and full of argot I don’t understand.)