The Empire of Gold

Read this right on the heels of the second book. And greatly enjoyed it, read it fast, but I didn't like it quite as much as the first two books.

My complaint is with Part 3, the big dramatic conclusion to all the scheming and plotting and peril. It was just too much, a chaotic and sprawling extended fight scene with world-shaking magic and enormous movements of people, monsters, destruction. The author holds it together, it is coherent and followable, but it was big and loud in a series of books that I think are better in its quiet moments.

And some good quiet moments! Nahri's relationships, particularly Ali and Dara, get room to develop and come to conclusions in ways that satisfy. Also various characters resolve the mystery of their parentage and while it gets a little ridiculous at times, it does feel meaningful. This kind of character writing is the author's strenght, I think, and when the books stick to that I like them all the more.

Can't wait to read the next novel Chakraborty writes, I'm hoping for something still borrowing from Arabic mythology but in a different setting. There's also The River of Silver: Tales from the Daevabad Trilogy as a sort of apocrypha for this trilogy and I imagine I'll read it when it comes out.