This was a really fun setting; the cultural aesthetic of the dark ages, the knowledge that our civilization is less than it once was. But where, in the actual dark ages, the lost technologies of our forefathers were, like, Making Good Concrete and Building Aqueducts, in this book the lost technologies are things like “an artificial sun at the center of a miniature Dyson sphere” and “a man-made planetoid so near to its star that even with the energy shields keeping it livable, ships can only land on it for a couple hours every day.”
And I love that kind of thing. “Secrets of the ancients” is one of my favorite tropes, but this is very deliberately kept just on the near side of the “sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” line. It feels like everything can be understood, like the knowledge is there to be found, tantalizingly within reach.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it took a conscious effort to put it down so I didn’t stay up all night reading, and I picked it up and finished it in the morning instead. Absolutely worth the read; check it out.1
- This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩