Review: The Empire of Gold (The Daevabad Trilogy #3)

/
52166786.jpeg

5 stars. Absolutely incredible, breathtaking, gorgeous, well-written - this trilogy is an instantly classic piece of fantasy fiction that will captivate and inspire for years to come. As I mentioned in my review of book two, it's been awhile since I felt a full-on fanatic obsession for a piece of writing, and it's been so nice to feel it so deeply, gulping down a story at the risk of ignoring and forgetting everything else about my life.

First things first, I guess, which needs to be a bit of a disclosure: I'm pretty into all things Egypt, and have been since I was a kid. I read textbooks about Ancient Egypt for fun. I love trying to cook Egyptian recipes. I've watched all the National Geographic documentaries. I am fascinated by Egyptian culture and, well, blah blah blah, I know I'm not alone, or special. Egypt is fascinating. But I'm saying this because this trilogy scratched an itch for me personally, and that undoubtedly impacts my review.

All that being said, and I cannot emphasize this enough, Chakraborty's creation of a diverse historical fantasy world in this trilogy is really well-done. She respectfully incorporates - honors - a culture that is often twisted, skewed, misunderstood, and manipulated in today's modern world. I really admire the way she navigated this, threading that needle so well. In an interview, answering a question about writing outside of one's own culture experience, she said: "Is it your place? Sometimes the answer is no. We have to learn to be okay with that. If you love the history and culture enough to write about it, you have to respect the people enough to hear what they’re saying. What are you doing to lift their voices?" (Source)

I'm not the right person to weigh in on this with any sense of authority or expertise, but I learned so much from the way she wrote this story that I can't help but feel she clicked it all into place in a good way. A fair way.

Other things I'm obsessed with:

  • The ending! A lot more hopeful that I was anticipating - my heart was in my throat for so many of the characters.

  • The themes! As always, Chakraborty explores a lot of Big Stuff like religion, family, politics, heritage, power, and the cost of peace with an expert hand. I'll genuinely be thinking about the way she pokes around concepts like justice and free will for days.

  • The characters! Characters who experience trauma and emerge totally traumatized, what a concept! Characters who are beyond comprehension yet beautiful and admirable in their own ways (Sobek ILY). Plus the room she creates for characters who are otherwise villainous.

  • Nerdy stuff, like character names and structure and pacing and plotting!

  • The world. Colorful and vivid and full of true history and lore. I still struggled with the various tribes and their backgrounds, but it doesn't matter. This world is so rich and it never feels too magic-y or too info-dump-y or too show-off-y (technical terms, every last one of them). I think often about how to marry a good idea with good execution, and I think many authors are (don't kill me) sort of rarely successful. There are always things to nitpick about one or the other and of course one directly impacts the other. But the narrative here felt really purposeful and beautiful at the same time.

I'm not ready to let go, but I actually do have to like, get back to work and do my job and take care of my responsibilities and stuff. Or maybe I could just start the whole thing over again. Decisions, decisions.

The Empire of Gold on: Amazon | Bookshop.org | Goodreads