Aidan Harte

This has been a really interesting trilogy. It's an intriguing mixture of starkly stilted but poetic prose, action that's anime-esque in both it's ridiculousness and epic coolness, and a Messianic throughline that manages to be both profoundly Christian and genuinely interrogative of the concept of evil vs grace in mankind, and what part God and/or Christ might play in that. It does so many things that fantasy fiction just isn't doing - is so unusual and intriguing - and at least one of the stars I've given it is for being just so plain bloody different in a genre that gets a lot of its strength and comfort from familiarity.

I would recommend that if you're reading this series, read all three in quick succession. The style might get a little overbearing, but it's already quite oblique and fast-paced in its own timeline, so a large gap between books can lead to a lot of confusion.… (más)

The heavy style of these books takes some getting used to; even having loved the first book, the prose felt clumsy until I settled again into its pared-back elegance. And this second book digs more deeply into the world, giving us other sides of the story, and a lot more about the variant religious history, which was great. (I would probably recommend a fresh memory of [b:Irenicon|12992433|Irenicon (The Wave Trilogy, #1)|Aidan Harte|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1375959115s/12992433.jpg|18152588] for this reason; I know I missed layers of significance through not remembering people and things.)

Plus, all my favourites from the first: Sofia snarling at the world; flag-based violence (though not quite as much as I'd like); water-related esoteria and ninja nuns (including an unfortunately isolated moment of major bad-assery); twisty twisty interpersonal politics, and the Rasenneisi being... well, their belligerent selves. I'm intrigued about the development of the story, and everything about this story has been strange and vicious enough that even though I have qualms about the Messianic quality of the final showdown setup, I'm really looking forward to finding out how it goes.… (más)

Flawed, unusual, great. There are elements of the things I loved about Guy Gavriel Kay about this - the strength of the setting (a strongly evoked northern Italy of Machiavelli) and the romantic brutality of character choices and consequences - but though Harte's style is equally poetic, it is sparse and pared back (sometimes cut too far, too close to the bone to give the necessary weight to the big moment that just went whizzing past). The characters are strong, floundering, human, drawn in virulent and sizzling strokes - and though I have seen comments on it being YA, I had to actually think hard about it to remember that the heroine is 16 for much of the story. (Not that she's not believably 16, she's just living in a city where innocence dies young.)

And the broad strokes of the story and worldbuilding had so much stuff that delighted me. The martial art of Rasenna is inherently ridiculous, and so magnificently delivered that I wish it could be real. The differences from the real world are threefold and not necessarily related, but thematically they're woven together tightly, and with a depth of exploration that I found genuinely interesting. I found myself with a great deal of trust in the author (for all this is his first book) and a genuine interest in how he was going to explore further, and this enabled me to keep my enthusiasm through some slightly bumpy bits in the finale sequence.

It felt fresh but measured. It felt artistic but grounded. And I really enjoyed it.… (más)

The Warring States is book 2 in the Wave Trilogy, and takes this action packed story further out. It’s blurb is: “ After the rout at Rasenna, Concord faces enemies on all fronts, and nobody believes that the last surviving Apprentice is equal to these crises--but Torbidda didn't become Apprentice by letting himself be manipulated.” Technically, this story steps back a couple years to set some things up, mainly a new character Torbidda. This story is set in the rich alternate world where Herod killed Christ as a baby, and goes on to define a different era.

What I liked:
I love the cover and the map at the beginning that gives me a rough layout of the world I am about to visit. The world building and character depth is immense. Maybe even a little too heavy in some places, but all these aspects intertwine together to show why and how for future events. It’s almost epic fantasy, and definitely historical fantasy. The world isn’t just defined by how vast the locations are, and Harte seemed to get that I don’t need to learn a whole new earth for the world to be rich and vivid. I actually spent time in few places, but they were still rich. There is the world of the Engineers, the Wave technology, and little aspects of the different characters and the worlds they live in. Harte also uses references to books to give small intros to places or things that refer them back to the overall prophecy that has set these characters on their journey. It creates a quest and adventure that I got easily immersed in.

What I didn’t like as much:
Some setups for events or characters were dragged out. Torbidda is introduced at the very beginning, and it takes a full 100 pages to get to the main story. Authors handle back stories differently, but this still felt like most could’ve been handled through other aspects already ingrated within the plot. The plot is another aspect. Being fantasy, and historical fantasy, some aspects are a given and make things become predictable.

However, as many have said: “It’s not the destination, but the journey.” Like I said, there were aspects that were drug out, or introductions that went on way too long. Still, this journey was a good one, and the set up for the next book makes avid readers of fantasy ready to get to it.… (más)