Chris Wooding

The Weavers’ grip on Saramyr’s rulers has grown ever more powerful, and all the while, the blight they have brought grows harsher. The land is slipping into civil war. In the mounting chaos, Kaiku and the orphaned heir-Empress must fight for their destiny and their survival, as Saramyr succumbs to the twisting of the Weave and the unknowable ambitions of the secretive Weavers.

Second book in the trilogy. I read the first book about 5 years ago and enjoyed it enough to keep an eye out for the other two books in the series (I generally avoid multi-book stories).

This is *almost* standalone, in that it's enjoyable to read having forgotten much of what happened in the previous book. It is however, not completely standalone, with relationships and groups established in the first book, that dont get explained again in this second book.

e.g. Who are The Red Order again and why are they trying to keep so hidden? That's not necessarily a fault of the book, more of the reader and the gap between books.

Meanwhile, different groups of rebels are split across the country (sorry, but a map is no good, when half the places mentioned in the story are not on it), making new friends and gathering intelligence against the Weavers. People driven to madness, Weavers are already mad and shown to be more than perverse, people are attracted to the Weave and try not to succumb. Overall an enjoyable book, and I must not wait so long to read the final book

… (més)

First book in the "The Braided Path" trilogy.

Here the fantasy empire ruling the land of Saramyr has an oriental flavour, a level of technology that allows rifles and bombs and a communications system relying on magic--the sorcery of the dreaded, masked Weavers.

By manipulating the magical Weave of the world, a kind of fantasy cyberspace, Weavers can not only send messages over any distance but manipulate minds, fight intangibly and kill. The use of the Weaving, and their masks, makes the weavers eccentric and mad and have revolting habits such as raping and killing small children. All other forms of magic talent are denounced as Aberrant and the talent-owners condemned to death.

Rebellion brews among the Empire's people and powerful noble factions when it emerges that the Heir-Empress Lucia is Aberrant, with gentle powers of communication with birds and earth-spirits. Meanwhile another girl, Kaiku, is orphaned when her family is both poisoned by an unknown hand and attacked by "shin-shin" demons. Kaiku soon finds that she herself is dangerously Aberrant, apt to send out waves of uncontrollable fire.

Kaiku makes a quixotic journey with unusual companions, and, by use of the mask that is her sole inheritance, enters a protected place to discover the grim secret of what's slowly poisoning the land. It is not, as the Weavers insist, the existence of Aberrants but rather the weavers themselves.

Kaiku and her friends join the Red Order, a sisterhood of trained Aberrants, in a desperate effort to save Lucia from the general bloodshed of the inevitable Imperial coup. Many characters fail to survive for the backlash expected in volume two.

Pretty enjoyable fare, and certainly one I intend to seek out the sequel(s) to… (més)