The Autumn Republic

This review is about the whole series, not just this one book. They all had the same strengths and the same weaknesses and I prefer looking at this one as more of a single unit. Also, some of my thoughts are about the whole narrative arch of it, so there is that.

When I give 3 star-ish ratings, it can mean two things. Either the book is fine, but has some relatively big flaw I can't ignore, or (like here) something is just missing.
Even from the get go, this series takes a huge risk with starting from the end of many typical fantasy stories. Often we have some sort of a ruler. A powerful figure who is corrupt and negative. So what do the heroes do? They fight the power and get rid of the ruler, fixing the problems of the world. Here... the first book starts with a group of politically motivated people of different walks of life (religious figure, criminal boss, patriotic war hero, academic, etc.) having the king executed. At the very beginning.
Honestly, that was a super interesting idea. That we get to see what happens AFTER the big conspiracy and plotting and such are done. Because power vacuums are an interesting concept. Sure, even real people in the real world love to talk about changing The System and getting rid of The Man. But how exactly do you do it? What kind of allies do you have? What if you need them, but you don't like them?
This was so cool. And honestly, Field Marshal Tamas was a good central character. I especially loved the fact that we see him through different lenses. For the country, he is a hero. A father figure who does what needs to be done. Always dutiful, always doing his absolute best, without hesitation. Yet, he is the actual father of Taniel. A father who can't help missing out on so much of his duties towards his own son because he needs to be bigger than a human, bigger than anyone else.

And while I say that... this is where the book misses a lot.
We never get much dept when it comes to the characters interacting with each other. Separately a bunch of them are really interesting and cool. Like look at Bo, the last Privileged left after the eradication of the Royal Cabal. Yet we have him have extremely mediocre conversations with Nila.
The possibility of something very nuanced and difficult between Taniel and Vlora, people who thought they were meant for each other, mostly because they were special in the same way, yet they realise it's not true. Pans out to nothing. Maybe a couple pages of dialogue and it's all done and fine and whatever.
Tamas and Gavril? Tamas and Vlora? Nila and Olem? It all just ends with hints of something complex and yet nothing ever really happens.

It doesn't even just end with character interactions.
There are so many questions left. Ideas never properly developed. So many elements I would love to learn about, like the Predeii, the conflicts between the gods, how they came to be, the relationships between Privileged, Ka-Poel's magic...
Half the storylines lead to nowhere. We get mentions of Taniel being something more now, something potentially one of a kind, yet we forget about that whole thing at the end.
Same with Jakob. Nila's storyline is started by her hiding Jakob, a child of a noble family. After the executing of royalty, he is legally the next king, as the closest relative left alive. She refuses to save herself to make sure he is okay. Yet by the end he is only a passing thought. She doesn't even care anymore.
Same with Adamat. His family went through absolute hell. Yet we never see any of the fallout. Hell, his children don't even have any lines in the book! I think one daughter said like a handful of words, but it's nothing.

Adamat was another genius addition to the book, by the way. His investigations meant that the series had an element of detective fiction. Amazing to break up long military scenes. The solutions were sometimes a bit abrupt and not everything made as much sense as I wished, but I generally really liked Adamat and SouSmith.

I think one of the main things, from my point of view, was the fact I misunderstood what this book series was meant to be.
You know those romantic, often YA fantasy books, like Cassandra Clare's stuff, Sarah J Mass, that circle. Where fantasy is more a setting, a backdrop for romance. This series is the polar opposite, but similar in a way. How?
It's fundamentally military fiction. Most of it is about battles, wars, troops, battlefield moves. Some fantasy is included, gods and powers, but that is a lot less than I expected.
If you enjoy that, I would recommend this series. The human element is not incredibly nuanced, sure, but the war games part of it prominent.

All in all, it wasn't a bad choice, just not my No. 1.