jacey | Booklog 3/2018 - Elizabeth Bear: The Stone in the Skull

This starts off well. The two main characters, mercenaries, are currently signed on as caravan guards to get to where they are going (to deliver something important). What immediately sets them apart is that one is a Dead Man, the one-time bodyguard of a now-dead caliph who hides his face behind a veil (only revealing his face to someone he's about to kill). The other is a Gage, a metal man created by a now-dead wizard. The Gage used to be a human, but physically there's nothing organic left. The Gage and the Dead Man have formed a good working relationship that has become a friendship. Mrithuri, the young rajni of the Lotus Kingdom is beset my enemies. The message the two mercenaries carry is supposed to help her. In the meantime, in the kingdom next door, Mrithuri's cousin Sayeh is regent for her young son, and in an even more dangerous predicament as volcanic activity, and an army led by the Boneless and both vying to destroy her kingdom.

This book doesn't quite end on a cliffhanger but it's obvious that the biggest battle is yet to come, but the characters are all in place now and their relationships established. The world-building is rich and detailed with a strong flavour of southern Asia and a completely weird 'day-is-night' vibe going on with the 'cauled sun'

This is in the same world as Ms Bear's Eternal Sky trilogy, but set fifty years later with new characters. I haven't read the previous trilogy and I would say this easily stands alone.