Monday, January 31, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Azura Ghost by Essa Hansen

 




Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained from the publisher in advance of the book's release on February 1, 2022 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.      


Azura Ghost is the second book in Essa Hansen's "Graven" trilogy, which began in 2020 with her "Nophek Gloss" (reviewed on this blog here).  Nophek Gloss was a pretty interesting trilogy starter, featuring as its setting a "multiverse" of different worlds and species - where the worlds "multiverse" and "universe" aren't really used to describe whole fully scoped out universes, but different worlds and even smaller sized spaces featuring different physics and other rules that make certain universes better or worse for certain beings, depending on their physical traits.   The story also dealt with not just a space opera found family situation, as protagonist Caiden finds himself rescued from a massacre by an oddball crew of explorers, but also heavily with the ideas of consent and supernatural persuasion, as various characters, including the leaders of two factions and the protagonist, find themselves with nearly uncontrollable abilities of persuasion, which make it impossible for them to stop others from loving them and wanting to follow their every desire.  In this world, Caiden had to figure out who he was as he grew up, sought out his revenge, and had to deal with the fear that his friends' support was only due to this power, and not their own free wills. 

It was a really interesting story, although it didn't quite fully work due to not having enough time to really spend developing the character relationships, and left off with an intriguing cliffhanger, promising a dangerous reunion between Caiden and the childhood sister figure, Leta, now in the hands of one of the most dangerous persons in the multiverse.  

The result is a story that is at times really fascinating, especially when it comes from the struggles of Caiden and Leta to deal with who they each have grown up to be, and what remains of their relationship.  The story contrasts that with the relationship between the sibling antagonists, and this works really well.  The story's dealing with the Graven (charming) power and its implications, doesn't always get the focus it should, with Caiden's ability to control it making him a little less interesting, but it still largely works and keeps this story feeling fairly fresh as events go further and further out of control.  And then there's the further exploration of the multiverse, which works as well.  All in all, Azura Ghost is a very enjoyable second installment, leaving me eager to see how this trilogy concludes.  

Spoilers for Book 1 below.  Note that I wound up doing a full reread of book 1 prior to reading this book, and I probably recommend that for any readers here - as this book annoyingly does not contain a summary or any in-text recaps of what happened previously for readers to catch up:

-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
For ten years, Caiden/Winn has been on the run throughout the multiverse as his enemy Threi, now head of the powerful Casthen organization, posts bounties and enlists forces to hunt down Caiden and his powerful Graven ship Azura.  Caiden has spent those ten years mostly alone, afraid to go near his family for fear of putting them in jeopardy, with only Azura and a baby Nophek for company.  He's become a legend in the meantime for his small acts of defiance and attempts to improve the multiverse, but that can hardly compare to what Threi's Casthen are doing to seemingly help everyone, or the power held by the Dynast Prime, Threi's sister Abriss, ruler of the biggest universe, Unity. 

But Threi has come up with a plan to smoke Caiden out using his sister, as Abriss holds in her possession something Caiden had once thought lost: his childhood friend/sister-figure Leta.  Leaving behind Leta is Caiden's biggest regret in his life, and he would do anything for the possibility to get her back. 

But Leta is something and someone very different than the scared, abused, and awkward girl Caiden once knew.  Over the last ten years she's been experimented on as part of Abriss' Graven experiments, being able to transfer her mind outside her body into an artificial proxy that allows her to move at will throughout Unity, and to become one of Abriss' best agents.  She's found a new family in her fellow Graves - those others experimented on by Abriss - and even believes Abriss wholeheartedly when she says she is searching for a way to cure them.  And so she accepts the mission to lure Caiden and Azura into Abriss' clutches, even as her memories begin to return, and force her to question her life - both her old one and the new.....
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Like Nophek Gloss, Azura Ghost is very much the story of Caiden/Winn, as he struggles with his place in the multiverse - with his need to save everyone from Threi, with his fear of manipulating those he loves unknowingly through his Graven powers, with his loneliness and lack of understanding of how to possibly simply sit back and enjoy something.  Caiden's quest to do things has made him a legend, but also prevented him from ever being willing to spend time with the found family he loves, and have kept him mercilessly on the run, with only a pet Nophek and Azura for comfort.  And throughout all this time, the being Caiden knows to be evil - Threi - has only bettered his reputation by actually doing good throughout the universe.  And so while Caiden knows that Threi would willingly command his allies to commit suicide (via his Graven powers) in order to achieve Threi's goal of sororicide, even his friends aren't sure that his quest to fight Threi is worth it - after all, perhaps Threi is even right in wanting to take down Abriss, a woman whose will no one can resist falling in love with due to her Graven heritage.  And of course there's Caiden once again trying to be a loner who stays away from his friends for their own good, only for them to once again refuse to let him get away with it, and to force him to accept their help.  

But Azura Ghost flips things around by giving Caiden an almost co-protagonist in Leta, as nearly half (if not more than that) of the chapters take place from her point of view.  Leta has her own found family now in the Graves, a group of other survivors whose bodies were salvaged and reinforced with Graven genetics, but which cannot survive unless they spend a significant amount of time in artificial bodies...bodies which cannot leave Unity without malfunctioning.  And while Leta's real body can't resist Abriss' charm either, her proxy can, and she believes - whether compelled or not - that Abriss does want to help them through her experiments on the Graven, to make them all become the prototypes for beings who could resist her influence, allowing her to have a family that she knows loves her in truth.  

And so when Leta is tasked with luring in Caiden, she finds herself genuinely conflicted - because while her memories of Caiden are ones of love, her newfound family and Abriss are who she's spent the most recent ten years of her life with.  Leta is not the girl Caiden knew, she's someone new and different, just as Caiden isn't the boy Leta knew, with his hard edges and violent streak.  And so their old relationship can't simply pick up where it left off, and two are forced as they go through betrayal to betrayal, alliance into alliance, to figure out what new relationship can be forged alongside the ones they've built in the meantime.  The book contrasts this with Abriss and Threi, two siblings who have also spent most of their years apart, who have very different views on the multiverse and their relationship.  And so while Leta and Caiden are able (minor spoiler) to rebuild some sort of relationship, even if it's a new one, Abriss and Threi's only winds up shattering as they're not able to find something in each other's new self, and they wind up at each other's throats....a reality that destroys one of them from the inside, making them give up their remaining humanity and become an absolute heartless threat to the rest of the universe, without a care anymore for who stands in their way.  

There's a lot more here too besides these character dynamics being great of course.  There's some hinting that a lot of the coincidences that have racked up may be manipulations of some unseen force, and then there's the conflict between Abriss and Threi's philosophies: Abriss believing that the multiverse should be united into one better universe, whereas Threi believing the multiverse was split apart for a reason, so that every type of being could have some place to exist and thrive.  There's the conflict that comes out when it's revealed Abriss' tying of the Graves to Unity has caused some of them additional pain, as their bodies are stronger outside of it.  And then there's the mysterious secrets of the long lost Graven,, hidden in the bodies of Caiden, Azura, Abriss/Threi, and more.  Some things get lost in these ideas - Caiden's usage of his Graven abilities at times is a little horrifying, but the fact that he can control it seemingly also makes his internal conflict a bit weaker - but overall it's a really compelling space opera that I gobbled up in two days.  

Can't wait for book 3.


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