What I do know is that despite its flaws, despite the unflinching way it rubs your nose in the dirt, I loved it. This is the type of book that, if you get invested enough into it, will make you hurt. The characters aren't nice, and you might find yourself wishing there was a little more give in them. A lot of real world parallels can be drawn, and some may find that offensive. The plotting wasn't as tight as it could have been, and some of the pacing will feel rushed. It gets slow in some parts and some things don't quite fit together. If however you're into a fantastically crafted world that sticks your nose down into the blood and gore and tells you to look at it, whose characters are a product of that bloody world, and has a story that continually pounds the characters into the ground? If you want a world that is vast, well thought out (and is continually developed into the next two books), that has BUG TECH and huge sociological and gender equality (no, not just women being oppressed - in Nasheen it's the men who are most outwardly oppressed) issues due to an unending war? Yeah, this one's for you. If you want a kickass assassin hero who retains the high road after witnessing or being part of bloodshed, or whose sense of honor keeps her above the nitty gritty, who can go live happily ever after when all is said and done: this is the wrong story for you. She's interested in writing real people who have real consequences from their actions. She was very into Middle Eastern religion when she wrote this trilogy, and spent six years beforehand researching war. She's the type of person interested in what makes societies what they are, and who puts all of the negativity of strict gender roles into this book, unflinching. Here's two things you should probably know before you purchase this book: Kameron Hurley is a Feminist, capital F, the kind that doesn't want women to be men with breasts. The narrative and the narration flow so well together that I didn't experience any of that disconnect you sometimes feel in an audiobook. Or, you could simply read it for the action, the pacing, the unique sci-fi world building and the interesting story.
You should read this book and appreciate it for the nuanced examination of social structures, belief and the affect of war on the human psyche. complex, morally ambiguous, someone who I could believe as a scarred war veteran. It explores questions of gender, religion, morality, violence, war, bio-engineering and what it means to be human.
The true beauty and success of the narrative is that the book does this without becoming preachy. This is one of those rare sci-fi novels that uses the genre to explore our own culture and assumptions by turning them on their head in a far-flung fictional world.
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