BOOK REC
SWEET TRINITY.
IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT THERE IS A (VERY SMALL BUT APPARENTLY EXTANT) FAN BASE ON TUMBLR FOR THE KENCYRATH CHRONICLES.
Beloved followers and non-followers alike, let me tell you a thing. The Kencyrath Chronicles are up there as my favorite books ever. Not the way I talk about loving Harry Potter–Hogwarts is my home, to coin a phase–or even the way I love everything Robin McKinley has ever touched–and I love her stuff like I love BREATHING, it’s not always at the forefront of my mind but when I go too long without it I ache, go read all of it immediately. No, no, no. This, my love for the Kencyrath Chronicles, is a WHOLE OTHER CREATURE. Just talking about these books makes my hands shake and my bones feel heavy and my blood become a tangible fizzy thing in my veins. Like, if being in love doesn’t feel this good, I’m honestly not interested.
These books are about grand sweeping battles between good and evil and how those grand ideals become petty and ugly and messy as soon as you look closely enough, and how people fight them anyway because it’s their purpose or because it’s their choice or because it’s their people they’re protecting. Magic is rampant, from the great and hated Three-Faced God of the Kencyr people and its ‘blessed’ chosen ones, the Shanir, who are hated and cherished by their own people and by themselves for how close they are to their meddling deity, to the wandering bands of rathorn (ARMORED FLESH-EATING UNICORNS, PEOPLE, HOW MUCH MORE OF A PITCH DO YOU NEED) and the migratory trees (yes, you read that correctly). The main character is wild and casually vicious and desperate to be gentle, and she is loved by people everywhere she goes but she’s never really one of them, and the running joke in-universe is that you can track her progress across the world by falling buildings and burning cities (”…the Riverlands in ruins and you in the middle of it, looking apologetic” is a personal favorite quote). The writing style fucking breathes with power and imagination and magic. I am not a tough sell on books, really I’m not, but these books. Trinity. The fact that these books are not the most popular things since Lord of the Rings fucking breaks my heart, it really does.
So like. Go read them. Immediately. The first two books, God Stalk and Dark of the Moon, are sold as an omnibus called Dark of the Gods, and please forgive their God-awful covers (why is the canonically very flat-chested lead a D-cup? Don’t know, just kind of relieved I read the older edition with the less awful cover). If you’ve read them and you liked them, please please PLEASE COME INTO MY ASK BOX AND NEVER EVER LEAVE.
(On a somewhat related note, I’ve read more books than I could care to count in my life, so if anyone ever wants a fantasy/sci-fi rec, I got you, hit me up.)
