The Black Tides of Heaven

I want to start this review by saying that I acknowledge this is a novella, as is the rest of the series.

But I was expecting more than I got. I think this book really suffered with the timeskips. The whole overarching plot I liked. I think it was a satisfying arc and it made sense with the world that had been built, but cutting out the meat of the plot and character development to get to those plot points quicker just hollows out the whole thing. Having finished and seeing the story as a whole I can confidently say this is not the type of story that can be told in novella format. It NEEDED to be a long-form book to make the impact it was trying to make. We didn't spend enough time with the characters, we didn't see more than the very base levels of the things that they went through that shaped them to be what they are, and we didn't get enough depth into the world to make the culmination of the plot meaningful. If it was given proper time and space this could be an incredible story. That being said, I enjoyed it but it left me more disappointed than anything else.

But to speak on the positives instead, since there were things I enjoyed here: the atmosphere was particularly lovely. The blending of a traditional Asian setting and adding in the introduction of technology and engineering running on magic–always fascinating to play around with. What we saw of the world was lush and I would've loved to see more. The way gender is approached is also probably my favorite part of the book because I always adore alternate approaches to gender in fantasy books, especially when magic is a factor in that.

I don't regret reading this book, but I most likely won't continue the series.