The Way Into Chaos

This was a very enjoyable read!

Harry Connolly pitched this trilogy to Kickstarter as “epic fantasy with no dull parts”, and he delivered. He concocts an innovative high-fantasy world full of clashing countries and intriguing magic and, just as the reader is beginning to get their bearings, runs it over with a steamroller. The two viewpoint characters of the story are the ones who have the courage— or just plain stubbornness— to stand up and do something about the problem while everyone else is running away, hunkering down, or getting killed. I recommend reading the whole trilogy in quick succession; you don’t want to be left hanging on anything less.

The characters are well developed and an interesting story line. A quick read as well. Only issue was there were a lot of grammatical errors.

Full disclosure: I copyedited the series. As a result, many would assume that I'd be biased, that I'd try to promote something I was directly involved with so that I might have future work, or something to that effect. Combine that with my publicly avowed fandom for Harry's Twenty Palaces stories, those people would likely see that assumption as "proven." And those people would be wrong. I'll admit that I love my work, that I enjoy pretty much everything I work on (primarily fantasy and science fiction), and that that informs a lot of my thoughts about the books I copyedit. That being said, this series was something special. The defining aspect comes in the way I do my work: slowly, methodically, focusing on all the little particles instead of letting myself get pulled along with the story (and if there are errors, they're mine). For this series, it was an entire order of magnitude more difficult to keep that from happening, to keep my focus on the microscopic instead of the macroscopic so that I *could* do my job as well as possible. It was the story itself, not my liking for Harry's writing in general nor my enjoyment of my work, that made that intellectual distance that much harder to maintain. Harry's thoughtful skirting of the standard tropes (i.e., acknowledging and using them but not letting the story be bound by them and their classic uses) kept my interest piqued just about continuously, and it's a rare book that accomplishes that for me...and he did it over the course of three straight books. If you like epic fantasy but are open to a fresh-thinking take on it, this series is what you want.

Clear, well-plotted fantasy with original world-building and emotionally-engaging characters that act like real humans, whose choices have actual consequences. Imagine something halfway between Martin's Song of Fire and Ice and Butcher's Codex Alera. Also reminded me of the best of Dave Duncan's fantasy. Gritty, but more in tone than in direct content, great for YA readers.