The Kingdom of Gods

The Kingdom of Gods reckons with the origins and present state of the Arameri as seen through Sieh to make an amazing end to The Inheritance Trilogy. It complicates what we learned before without making earlier knowledge feel cheap, molding rage and sorrow like clay.

This was a deeply satisfying conclusion to The Inheritance Trilogy. There is a sequel novella to this trilogy which I will read after this, but I am content with what's here. It was tense, moving, contemplative, tumultuous, scary, exciting, and finally at peace, without losing zest and intensity along the way. It confronts and dismantles the Arameri's colonialist justifications which filled the first two books. They were challenged earlier, but this book brings things to a head in order to have a chance at a true reckoning for past misdeeds, of humans and gods. 

I loved Sieh as the narrator. I've loved him as a character since book one, and I was not disappointed by his spotlight here. Writing a long-lived godling of childhood in a way that makes him feel like a child when it's fitting doesn't seem easy, yet it was carried off in a way that accomplishes a complex portrait of childhood, not cheapening it by typifying it. 

This book examines and pulls apart old wounds, deep rifts, and sorrows from the dawn of time, giving space for healing and growth without demanding forgiveness from the people who were hurt. It is an artful example of confronting past abuses, both of the importance of doing so and of a few small ways to attempt it. The idea of a cycle of violence fills this trilogy, and this third book especially, but also there's a hope of breaking the cycles, of having something better than rage and pain to look forward to.

It's ultimately joyful without asking for mourning to cease, leaving space for both grief and joy, for people to have complex and contradictory experiences of the same events. 

Read this book, read this trilogy.

One of the signs of a great fantasy series is if it moves me to the point of tears or not. The final book of the Inheritance Trilogy did, so for me it's a successful series. The third book is set another 90 years ahead of the events in book 2 and features Sieh as first person narrator of the story. Drawn back to his former prison in Sky, the godling meets the twins of the current Arameri leader and befriends the children. When they swear a blood oath to be real friends, some strange magic happens, turning Sieh mortal and worst for him rapidly ages the godling of children. While trying to find a way to regain his godhood, he gets enmeshed in a plot to destroy the Arameri family and other machinations of a previously unknown godling.

Not only do you get to meet new characters like the Arameri twins, but you get to spend more time with characters from the previous books. Certainly ridiculous at times with this super dramatic premise of the 3 deities and their love triangle, I cared enough to cry at the equally dramatic, over the top warring gods finale.

I think I have endorsed this trilogy quite enough but have to mention that I thought it was fabulous to have a series of books with strong female characters of color and both straight and gay romances. Plus the odd pansexual, I suppose.