The Raven Tower – Ann Leckie

I like that Leckie is doing new things. Provenance wasn’t the same sort of book as her Ancillary trilogy, and Raven Tower is different again.

“The Raven Tower” is a fantasy with an interesting and fruitful premise. There are Gods - they may be numerous - but they are not Gods of this, that, or the other. All the Gods have the same basic ability: What they say is true - or becomes true. Or, if they don’t have the strength to make it true, they die when their strength is depleted. (Telling a lie, even unintentionally, tends to be fatal.) Gods get power from prayers, offerings, sacrifices, so there is scope for some Gods to gain considerable power through cooperation with Humans. Politics may ensue. And, with attention to detail, Gods can be killed.

The narrator is a God - a very old one. As a boulder, it watched life evolve. When Humans arrived, it started learning how to interact with them. When most of the Gods were drawn into a large war, it found itself on the losing side. And now, a century (more?) later, things are falling apart for the winning side. It’s an unusual take on having a story within a story: At first it seems as if the story is about a usurper who has stolen the throne (bench) from the true heir. To the Humans, that seems like the main story, but to the narrator, trying to bring the earlier war to a final resolution, it is almost a side-show.

Not as good as the Ancillary trilogy (few books are), about as good as Provenance (though very different in flavor), and worth reading.