The Kingdom of Copper

Book 2 in a series, and a wonderful fleshing out of things that were introduced in City of Brass. The politics get more complicated and feel more real as a result, the focus characters get more developed, and the city feels more alive. It feels like such a sharp analysis of the ways resentments and conflicts get stuck and self-feeding that I kept seeing real-world stories reflected in it. But it's never as narrow as an allegory for any one thing in the real world, it's much more an exploration of the whole type of thing.

It does have weaknesses: never getting Ghassan's perspective lets him feel like a cartoon villain, and never getting Muntadhir's makes his growth feel lurching and unpredictable... which in fairness it probably would have done to people around him too. And where the ending of City of Brass deftly managed to stand on its own at the same time as leaving a clear opening for a sequel, the end of this one doesn't stand on its own at all.

I'm very glad that the teaser for Empire of Gold makes clear that we'll get some chapters from Manizheh's perspective, and I hope it also gives Zaynab a bit more space, since she feels a bit like a plot mechanism so far. But I couldn't put this volume down and it took some self control to not launch directly into the next.

This is the second book in SA Chakraborty's Daevabad trilogy. This is a strong book two for a fantasy trilogy, and I quite enjoyed it. Rather than just Nahri and Ali being the sole point of view characters, this book also brings in a third perspective that adds some more insight into outside events. I love that Ali gets some space to find new friends and discover a little more about what's important to him. Nahri really comes into her own as well.

The weakest part of this book for me are that the antagonists seem increasingly flat. I wish there had been some point of view chapters (even just one or two) from Ghassan the king to understand the incredibly horrific things that he both does and threatens to do.

If anything, I just wanted more from this book, although that's probably just a sign that I really enjoyed it.

It's definitely a weighty fantasy tome with a fairly small cast, but I still wanted to hear more about peripheral characters, especially Zaynab and Aqisa who are off page a good bit of the book. Honestly, my favorite (but also infuriating) non-pov character in this book was Muntadhir. He goes through such dramatic but believable shifts over the course of the book, not just in his relationship with Nahri but also with his sibling Ali. The tonal shift between Muntadhir's petty archery competition, the sibling argument in a closet afterwards, and then finally the heroism archery parallel at the end is just chef's kiss.