(no subject)

[skygiants]

I'd seen so many glowing recommendations for The Saint of Bright Doors before I read it that I was quite concerned I would end up over-hyped on it and not enjoy it as much as a result, but I didn't need to worry; I thought it was just as good as I'd heard and more.

There are some books that are built around a cool idea, and then there are books that are built around five or six or seven cool ideas that all somehow come together in a harmony, and this is one of the latter. Cool ideas include but are not limited to:

- a protagonist, Fetter, who has been raised by his mysterious mother for the single purpose of killing his father, a major religious leader, but has instead skipped town to go to the big city and get therapy and is slowly rebuilding a complicated relationship with his mother over the phone
- a support group for 'un-chosen' ones who have in some way or another missed the call to a major religious destiny that they feel they ought to have had, which is in fact a cover for a political revolution, which has recruited Fetter to go undercover as a grad student and get access to municipal secrets, forcing him to maintain a complex web of double and triple identities
- a magical city haunted by invisible spirits in which any door that's left closed long enough mysteriously turns into a bright door of unknown significance, that is also a modern city in which people have phones and therapy and internet fundraising campaigns (one of the latter of which, forwarded to Fetter by his boyfriend is attempting to raise money to bring Fetter's father to the city for a major event)
- that is also a place where everyone receives universal basic income and free housing; that is also plagued by recurring cycles of illness and violence; that is ALSO beset by a Kafkaesque bureaucracy in which immigrants and undesirable citizens can easily disappear
- a quarantine camp in the middle of said city which is so enormous and labyrinthine that once you get far enough inside the people within no longer know that they are in fact inside said city at all

There's so much going on in this book and so much that it's got to say, but it doesn't feel chaotic -- it feels like it knows exactly what it wants to be about, and has a lot to say about those things all the way through, while maintaining a sense that anything could happen. If I'd been lucky enough to have even one of these ideas, I would have been like 'what a great idea! that's a book!' and patted myself on the back and felt amazing about it, but this one just keeps building on itself and getting continually weirder and more interesting as it goes. It's not just the ideas, either; I thought the writing really landed the balance between funny and numinous, familiar-recognizable and strange-wondrous, sarcastic/despairing and sincere. By far one of the most interesting, ambitious and compelling books I've read so far this year, and I apologize if I've now over-hyped it for all of you in turn but I do think it deserves it.

Comments

[headstone]

This sounds incred--ty for the review, I'm so out of the loop at the moment it may have passed me by otherwise.

[skygiants]

you're very welcome, looking forward to hearing what you think if you read it!

[umadoshi]

I'm about a third of the way through this! ^_^ It's so neat!

[skygiants]

I don't ask of a book that it surprise me necessarily but I love it when it does, and this one kept doing so in the best possible ways

[dhampyresa]

*covers eyes* I will read this once I read the book, but rn I need to "decompress" from Some Desperate Glory (which was amazing).

[skygiants]

YEAH WASN'T IT?? I'm glad I'm not voting in the Hugos this year because I would have such a hard time picking between!

[ambyr]

I have been on the library hold list for this FOREVER. Eventually my day will come!

[skygiants]

SOMEDAY!!!

[ursula]

It's so good! And so difficult to describe in a few sentences!

[skygiants]

Yeah, it's not just that there's so much going on in it but that it is so much more than even the sum of its considerable parts!

[rydra_wong]

There's so much going on in this book and so much that it's got to say, but it doesn't feel chaotic -- it feels like it knows exactly what it wants to be about, and has a lot to say about those things all the way through, while maintaining a sense that anything could happen.

I thought the writing really landed the balance between funny and numinous, familiar-recognizable and strange-wondrous, sarcastic/despairing and sincere.

Extremely yes to these this in particular. Chandrasekera juggles all the different parts so confidently, even while he's pulling some wild moves.

I instantly pre-ordered his second novel the moment I could, despite knowing nothing about it except the title.

[skygiants]

Yeah, I'm incredibly excited to see what he does next -- on the strength of this one my expectations are really high.

[kate_nepveu]

ok sold (maybe once I come out of having tripped and fallen headlong into Cyteen for some reason?!)

[coffeeandink]

I still need to read The Saint of Bright Doors, but also I am very excited you're reading Cyteen!

[kate_nepveu]

Read it in college and totally did not understand it, inhaled it this time around and am now rereading (and looking doubtfully at the sequel)

[coffeeandink]

The sequel, unfortunately, deserves that doubt.

[skygiants]

I've still got to read Cyteen at some point!

[kate_nepveu]

it's, um. a lot, and deeply fucked up in ways I'm pretty sure it mostly recognizes, and massively emotionally claustrophobic, and a masterpiece of found documents and unreliable narrators, and crammed to the brim with so much stuff that it crashes to a halt rather than coming to a conclusion. and I read the entire thing in a single deeply unwise day and am forcing myself to stop my reread now, do the dishes, and go to bed.

so, yeah. there's that.

[sophia_sol]

this one just keeps building on itself and getting continually weirder and more interesting as it goes.

ahhhh that's just so much exactly what I want from a book, I really do need to get round to reading this one eventually! I feel like I'm just hoarding reviews of it from internet person after internet person. one day my review will join the crowd!

[skygiants]

I will look forward to it whenever it does!

[sabotabby]

Here's via rydra_wong to also say it deserved all the hype and then some.

[skygiants]

It really did -- sometimes if I hear too much enthusiasm about a book I can't read it until I've read a negative review to counterbalance, but I am so glad that didn't turn out to be the case for this one and that I now have my chance to become part of the problem!

[sabotabby]

I heard about it on the DEATH // SENTENCE podcast and I needed to read it (those guys rarely steer me wrong). They were feral about it, as am I. I read the bad reviews after. I can't understand how these other people could dislike it.

[blotthis]

oh shit!!

[derridian]

Thank you for doing this book review. On the strength of it I put a library hold on it and when it came in I read the entire thing in a day or two and it was as good you said (I'd not heard of the book before). Right from the very first sentence I just fell into the book and had a lovely time the whole way through even while it kept subverting where I thought it was going. It had so many layers! And so many good characters! And so many interesting ideas (the bright doors!) And I loved the introduction of the final character in the last couple of chapters.

In a word: squee!

(please excuse such a belated comment)

[sleepnoises]

read this based on this post and dang!!!! layers like an onion

[kaberett]

Library hold placed! For, like, autumn...

[asakiyume]

Coming back to this entry prompted by your 2025/1/13 entry on the sequel. I've seen tons of mentions of Saint of Bright Doors, which is such a resonant title, and I wanted to get a sense of it---and this entry is great for that! Definitely want to give it a try. Thank you!