Review: City of Reckoning

City of Reckoning by Brianna da Silva
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First off, Brianna...how dare you.

No, but of course you dare.

It's been a long, long time since I was lucky enough to get an ARC anywhere. Most of those came from my time working at the Stanford Bookstore, and all of them were physical ARCs. So now, I've been lucky enough to get ahold of an ebook ARC of a sprawling, epic debut from one of my dearest friends, and I'm calling it right now - I don't expect any other book to beat this one on my Top Books of 2021 list. Maybe I'm not doing the Pinecone Awards so much on my blog anymore - I've rather let it fall by the wayside, sadly - but if I was to do the 2021 Pinecones, Brianna da Silva and City of Reckoning would steamroll all the competition.

What I'm really looking forward to most of all, though, is the day when we finally get to preorder this book in physical form instead of just ebook form, because it's going to be such a beauty to see all 700+ pages bound up in a vivid, fiery form - and bedecking all our bookcases, starting with my own, of course.

Till then, though...there's so much in this book to amaze you, and also to shock and disquiet you. Exploring a world where imperialist colonialist forces still hold sway and subjugate as many people as they can, whether they be ordinary humans from another nation or Nocturans with a variety of magics and wings among them, and casual racism, classism, ableism, and sexism are ingrained in all levels of society...and naturally, there's no easy solution, certainly not when our ensemble cast of protagonists gets embroiled in an increasingly fraught war. And not just a two-sided war either. Multiple colonized nations rising up, multiple empires vying for dominance...yeah, another reason I'll be thrilled to get a physical copy someday is to be able to refer to the map as readily as I can with any other good SFF novel.

But for sure, though, Brianna's hitting it out of the park with her debut, and it's not for the faint of heart by a long shot. All our protagonists suffer immensely and legendarily for their stories - especially Kindy, who's become addicted to the opium-like dathal pills that keep her from developing her Nocturan wings and becoming conspicuous among the other highborns of the Dorish empire. And Lasía, forced into the role of her tribe's chieftain at a tender age and, with it, having to develop strategic brilliance at a rapid pace. And Kastan, who thinks himself so less than because of his lower-class upbringing (not quite to the level of the outright enslaved in this universe, but still, he gets so much abuse, some of which counts as queer bashing as well...) And, of course, the various tangled romantic interests of Kindy's brother Jensen and their friends, siblings Carinna and Lukis. Right in the feels, some of their stories hit - especially for me as a bi boy, thanks to Brianna's casual inclusion of queerness throughout the narrative. (But especially Kastan, the bi-est bi boy who ever bi-ed since at least Eros in the sequels to Beyond the Red.)

While this is meant to be at least the start of a duology, this book also feels like a pretty complete story all on its own, even with the subtle hints of what will come next in the sequel. That said, though, there's a reason I opened my review in a similar fashion to the ones I've historically written for the likes of Pierce Brown, Victoria Aveyard, Jay Kristoff, or Ransom Riggs - because that ending will absolutely bloodydamn wreck you. No joke. My mistake finishing this book on my lunch break at work, am I right?

I'll close this one with a GIF of me waiting for Book 2:



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