Review: The Empire of Gold

The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm so glad that this is one of a small handful of books I've been able to acquire in physical form since California got locked down - and that I found my way to the right place to get a signed first edition from Chakraborty herself, courtesy of Interabang Books in Dallas. The Empire of Gold, a green and gold brick of paper clocking in at over 750 pages, wraps up the trilogy in such amazing fashion that I'm glad I took my sweet time savoring it a little more strongly than I even did for the first two books the first times I read those.

After The Kingdom of Copper ended on a couple of weapons-grade cliffhangers, I honestly had no idea what to expect next. Well, other than a nice, neat conclusion of the kind that we didn't really get on Game of Thrones - hell, if and when that Netflix adaptation of this trilogy happens, I'd like to see them match Chakraborty's gift for hitting the story beats in such perfect tune that it effectively drives HBO's Game of Thrones out of public conversation forever and ever. (Though if GRRM ever does finish the books, let's keep talking about those.)

I feel like the one thing that kinda made me consider KoC a surprisingly less perfect middle entry in the series was how much its narratives struggled to coalesce, being extremely physically distant from each other and with a hell of a lot less of CoB's witty banter, particularly between Dara and Nahri. But this time, now we get a sort of inversion of the first book's balance, with Dara now being separate from Nahri and Ali, but the latter two getting to interact and adventure with each other much better, while also finally discovering lots of secrets about their pasts and their identities. Though Nahri's identity had a few twists piled on top of twists, maybe too much at times - but at least they made a hell of a lot more sense than some of the godawful reveals about Rey's bloodline in The Rise of Skywalker - Ali's secrets came out in ways that I not only vaguely saw coming, but was still super shocked to see.

As for Dara...well, that poor guy has had too much to atone for, and gets way too much punishment heaped on him still, but it all makes sense in the narrative. I see why Aimal, she who got me into this trilogy to begin with, is such a huge fan of his, and I still wish him all the best, always...but the Creator still has plans for him that don't simply involve as easy a wrap-up, especially not when he's still under the thumb of a new tyrant who only sees him as a weapon.

I can also see why Aimal wasn't quite so enthused about this book as I was, but for what it's worth, this trilogy has never failed to keep my interest with its intricate world-building, complex details, and unparalleled thematic timeliness. And The Empire of Gold is no exception, meandering its way through more of this world - even after a brief detour back to human Cairo, and my, how much that's changed in the six years since the trilogy began in-universe - and making me happy that, once again, I actually shipped right, even if it'd never particularly been one of my biggest ships.

To the Daevabad Trilogy, I now declare ave atque vale, and anoshe, and until we meet again, S.A. Chakraborty...because you're on my auto-buy list for as long as I live now.

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