Nightwatch on the Hinterlands
Arithmancy and Anarchy: The Weep series, Book 1
K. Eason
DAW
Fiction, Fantasy/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Generations ago, the multiverse was rocked by interspecies war - a war that only ended when the vakari Protectorate inadvertently ripped the very fabric of spacetime with a powerful act of arithmancy. The fissures of the Weep extend into an unknown plane of existence, from which reality-warping entities known as the Brood periodically emerge to ravage anything in their path. The Protectorate, the splinter defectors of the Five Tribes, and the Confederacy alliance of species were forced to the treaty table in order to deal with the threat. But so far no arithmancers, hex-workers, artificers, priests, or others on any side have figured out how to close up the rifts. All they can do is stand watch over the fissures, wait, and pray to whatever gods or entities that might listen that today will not be a surge day.
The backwater world of Tanis was lucky enough to survive the worst of the Weep, but still has a minor fissure running through the system. As such, it has its contingent of Aedis templars - soldiers with advanced nanotech and battle suits and other augmentations, trained to fight Brood - as well as an official Five Tribes vakari presence. Templar Lieutenant Iari, a native tenju and veteran of the last Brood outbreak on Tanis (with the scars and cracked tusk to prove it), is devout and loyal, so when Knight-Marshal Tobin assigned her to be the escort of Ambassador Gaer, she took the assignment without complaint, for all that babysitting a diplomat was not why she took oaths as a templar. In truth, the duty isn't too terrible, for all that Gaer has terrible taste in night club music. But when an excursion to B-town is interrupted by screams, Iari and Gaer stumble into a horrific and impossible murder: a wichu artificer has apparently been brutally killed in their own workshop, but the apparent culprit should not have been able to hurt so much as a fly, let alone a sentient being. The riev - amalgamations of magic and technology wound around the reanimated corpses of deceased soldiers, created originally to fight the vakari - were repurposed after the treaty, their ability to kill removed from their systems. Are the riev going rogue, or is someone controlling them... and to what end? The more Iari and Gaer unearth, the more they realize the terrible plot at work, the danger that might bring Protectorate, Tribes, and Confederacy to their knees.
REVIEW: I greatly enjoyed Eason's Thorne Chronicles, which mashed up fairy tale tropes and space opera to create an original and entertaining world. When I saw Eason was continuing the tale with this new sequel series, I snapped it up (even if it took a while to rise to the top of the reading pile; I read by mood, not necessarily order of acquisition). Nightwatch on the Hinterlands both is and isn't like its predecessor, in ways that were initially a bit jarring but which quickly became compelling and fascinating. This is Rory Thorne's young adult-tinged multiverse all grown up, gritty and battle-scarred. While there are callbacks and follow-ups on some threads from the first duology, and while it uses the same magic-tech blend of "arithmancy", hexwork, turing devices, and such to create an interstellar milieu powered by magic so advanced it's almost indistinguishable from technology, it's almost effectively a standalone work. There is no chronicler adding amusing footnotes, no fairy tale structure or archetype underlying it (at least not one I readily recognized), no princesses or queens or fairies placing blessings or curses upon children to shape their destinies. Instead, there is a thorny tangle of alliances and rivalries, ranging from personal to interplanetary, a collection of nicely rounded and individually flawed characters in a multiverse that has literally been shattered, and a fast-paced, twist-filled murder investigation whose implications could destabilize, even destroy, what's left of that shattered multiverse, wrapped in a noir-tinged tale haunted by past traumas and punctuated with violence.
From the start, it's clear that this isn't Rory Thorne's multiverse anymore, for all that there were definite shades of darkness and significant depth in the earlier tales. Within ten pages, there's a gory murder and a mystery, not to mention loads of confict and tension in the setting. A lot of setting and worldbuilding gets layered in along the way - sometimes pushing toward new-term overload, especially as it's been a while since I read the Thorne Chronicles - but it sorts itself out along the way. As before, nobody is stupid or stubborn just for plot's sake, each doing their best with the information and resources they have. Iari and Gaer make for a good, if outwardly unlikely, investigation team, wending their way through B-town's underworld with some help from Iari's ex, former soldier turned private investigator Corso, as well as a pair of unusually independent riev. The traumas of war - between species and against Brood incursions - have left their mark on everyone and everything, and the notion of facing a renewal of hostilities and a brand-new enemy that may combine the worst of all previous conflicts is almost more than anyone can face. The plot, as mentioned, starts fairly quickly and hardly ever lets up, leading to a high-octane climax that sets up the next book in the Weep series. Despite the change in gears from the first duology, I found myself very much enjoying this new facet of Eason's arithmancy-laced multiverse, and eagerly look forward to more.
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