May 062014
Jemisin shows astounding worldbuilding at creating a society kind-of but not really based on ancient Egypt. This is a fantasy of political machinations and a magic that is woven in with religion, spirituality, and day-to-day life. Jemisin’s warrior-capable priests are charged with ending the lives of the ill or corrupt by weaving them an everlasting pleasant dream, then draining their ‘dreamblood’ for use in healing. The reader is plunged deep into the world at the start, and it takes a few chapters to work out what’s going on, but it’s a lovely, interesting journey – despite for occasional pages of italics.