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Rakesfall
Rakesfall is a groundbreaking, standalone science fiction epic about two souls bound together from here until the ends of time, from the author of The Saint of Bright Doors
Some stories take more than one lifetime to tell. There are wrongs that echo through the ages, friendships that outpace the claws of death, loves that leave their mark on civilization, and promises that nothing can break. This is one such story.
Annelid and Leveret met after the war, but before the peace. They found each other in a torn-up nation, peering through propaganda to grasp a deeper truth. And in a demon-haunted wood, another act of violence linked them and propelled their souls on a journey throughout the ages. No world can hold them, no life can bind them, and they'll never leave each other behind. But their journey will not be easy. In every lifetime, oppressors narrow the walls of possibility, shaping reality to fit their own needs. And behind the walls of history, the witches of the red web swear that every throne will fall.
Tracing two souls through endless lifetimes, Rakesfall is a virtuosic exploration of what stories can be. As Annelid and Leveret reincarnate ever deeper into the future, they will chase the edge of human possibility, in a dark science fiction epic unlike anything you've read before.
Some stories take more than one lifetime to tell. There are wrongs that echo through the ages, friendships that outpace the claws of death, loves that leave their mark on civilization, and promises that nothing can break. This is one such story.
Annelid and Leveret met after the war, but before the peace. They found each other in a torn-up nation, peering through propaganda to grasp a deeper truth. And in a demon-haunted wood, another act of violence linked them and propelled their souls on a journey throughout the ages. No world can hold them, no life can bind them, and they'll never leave each other behind. But their journey will not be easy. In every lifetime, oppressors narrow the walls of possibility, shaping reality to fit their own needs. And behind the walls of history, the witches of the red web swear that every throne will fall.
Tracing two souls through endless lifetimes, Rakesfall is a virtuosic exploration of what stories can be. As Annelid and Leveret reincarnate ever deeper into the future, they will chase the edge of human possibility, in a dark science fiction epic unlike anything you've read before.
289 pages, Hardcover
First published June 18, 2024
433 people are currently reading
21998 people want to read
About the author
Vajra Chandrasekera
59 books422 followersVajra Chandrasekera is from Colombo, Sri Lanka and is online at https://vajra.me. His debut novel The Saint of Bright Doors won the Nebula and Crawford awards, and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2023. His second novel Rakesfall is out in 2024.
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January 27, 2024
Surreal, lyrical, beautiful, haunting – featuring a heady mélange of narrative forms and storytelling styles – Rakesfall is an evocative epic poem of a novel.
It’s impossible to distill Vajra Chandrasekera’s sprawling opus into any short plot synopsis (so kudos to whoever wrote the publisher’s summary), but readers will need to recalibrate their expectations if they go in looking for the everlasting romance said summary implies. Rakesfall defies any easy genre categorization. It’s closer to New Weird or “slipstream” than anything else. Oftentimes difficult to parse, but very hard to put down. The emphasis on atmosphere (read: “vibes”) over plot was a refreshing change of pace over most mainstream genre fare, as well.
This will surely be polarizing among readers as nothing is spoonfed and it challenges you at every turn. But with two incredible books (see The Saint of Bright Doors ) releasing within the last year, Chandrasekera has cemented himself as a must-read author and a bold new voice in speculative fiction.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf and follow @specshelf on Twitter and @thespeculativeshelf on Instagram.
It’s impossible to distill Vajra Chandrasekera’s sprawling opus into any short plot synopsis (so kudos to whoever wrote the publisher’s summary), but readers will need to recalibrate their expectations if they go in looking for the everlasting romance said summary implies. Rakesfall defies any easy genre categorization. It’s closer to New Weird or “slipstream” than anything else. Oftentimes difficult to parse, but very hard to put down. The emphasis on atmosphere (read: “vibes”) over plot was a refreshing change of pace over most mainstream genre fare, as well.
This will surely be polarizing among readers as nothing is spoonfed and it challenges you at every turn. But with two incredible books (see The Saint of Bright Doors ) releasing within the last year, Chandrasekera has cemented himself as a must-read author and a bold new voice in speculative fiction.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf and follow @specshelf on Twitter and @thespeculativeshelf on Instagram.
December 8, 2025
What did I just read!?!?
Rakesfall is a story that takes place across lifetimes, reincarnations, histories, cultures, worlds, dimensions, and pocket dimensions. It follows two souls, which is probably the most appropriate way to describe them, named, initially, Leveret and Annelid. It follows them starting from a TV show about them, but it isn't exactly them, during the early days of the Sri Lankan Civil War, and goes to just after the turn of the century in Sri Lanka, to the city of Luriat from The Saint of Bright Doors, to the past, back to an alternate present, back to an alternate past, to the possible near future, to a post-human cyberpunk future, to the new genesis of humanity, and finally to the dying Earth and sun.
We follow Leveret and Annelid through their new lives and reincarnations, trying to figure who is who and who has blended, all the while seeing a haunted world and history that both greatly changes in some ways yet remains the same and cyclical in others. At the center of it all is the akashic records, a collection, to put it in the best terms I can, of every thought and actions both manifest and un-manifested in the past, present, and future that all the characters have access to. And who haunts the story the most is the skinless red witch and her line of daughters, who may also be her, who possess Leveret and Annelid's other lives.
It is not an easy read. Vajra Chandrasekera abandons any form of traditional storytelling to tell this weird, hallucinatory story. It is confusing, mystifying, and makes you want to reread certain passages or even whole parts. Or at least it made me.
I cannot say that I understand everything thoroughly. Part of the reason is that I just lack the cultural background of some of the elements incorporated into the text. The other reason is, I wonder, if I was trying to discover a linear plotline that was never there to begin with. I most likely did not get the gist of Chandrasekera was getting at, but nonetheless I enjoyed this book. It's best book I have read where I didn't understand a lot of things. If you've read the book or my review and have an hour of your day, I suggest heading to YouTube and listening to the Himal Southeasian podcast where Shwetha Srikanthan speaks with Chandrasekera. He does not give us answers, at least not directly, but it can help contextualize things.
If I could be so bold, I would that say that Rakesfall is all at once a cautionary tale, a story of survival and resistance, a shared story between all of us, and a love story. Not a romantic love story, but nevertheless one about an undying love between two people that must persist if any sense of unity and survival is to remain. Perhaps I am sounding over sentimental; apologies if I do, I get like this with books that strike me so poignantly; but it is what I believe.
Self is porous.
Spoilers follow
Rakesfall opens with a TV show about two children, Leveret and Annelid. We're watching the actors, according to the narration, not the actual children themselves. Or are we? Both Leveret and Annelid lost a parent for different reasons during the Sri Lankan Civil War and as both grow older they try to figure out where they're going in life, which is seemingly apart from each other. We nor the audience within the book get to know as the show is canceled on a climatic moment. After Leveret joins one of the armed forces of one of the sides of the war, Annelid smashes a rock into the back of skull and flees into the forest. There, he lays motionlessly, and Annelid becomes possessed by the skinless red witch.
Reincarnation does not always occur when someone else is born in the book. Sometimes it happens in one moment to someone who is already a full grown adult. No idea if this is how reincarnation occurs in Hinduism and Buddhism, but it's what happens here. It happens in 2001, to a unnamed young man, who I thought was Leveret's reincarnation but still retained a small memory of Annelid's. This chapter with this young man set the tone for the entire book. Or at least showed us a recurring theme about Rakesfall: the endless cycle of corrupt powers taking control, the violence and disharmony (for a lack of a better word at the moment) they cause, and the resisting violence of those who struggle against them.
In aforementioned YouTube video I linked above, Chandrasekera mentions that both Rakesfall and The Saint of Bright Doors focus on certain problems that plague Sri Lanka both now and in the past. The Saint of Bright Doors dealt with religious control that Buddhism holds over the country and how those in power use it to discriminate others and does so by re-imagining the figure of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, and his son. Rakesfall doesn't depart from issues affecting Sri Lanka, but I think Chandrasekera expands it to be a bit more universal. Again, that's just my take.
From there we follow a young woman named Vidyucchika a woman possessed by the red witch--or is the red witch?--who casts off the maggot-ridden husk of her former body and gives it to Lambajihva, a young man who knew her. Vidyucchika was probably the most interesting character to me as her presence in the story extends beyond her set chapters and the part of the story with her is where we get more into the meat of what Chandrasekera is trying to tell us. Vidyucchika left her hometown after her parents died and became ghosts and now lives in a house with a widow named Mrs. Akan in the city of Luriat. Mrs. Akan is still being visited by the ghost of her dead husband who she no longer wants anything to do with. Vidyucchika tries to expel him from the house mystically, however, a type a resin she needs to use is not easy to get due to current political turmoil in Luriat and prices are being jacked up. She eventually meets Odeg, Mrs. Akan's son, who died as a child but now is an adult ghost who works and can touch things in the visible world. It is through their conversations that we learn that Vidyucchika's father owned a gun with no bullets in it and we come upon, what I believe, is the novel central theme: the simile of the two-handed saw.
Vidyucchika's father bought the gun merely for rhetorical power. If anyone came to their house, they would see the gun and just leave. He wouldn't have to shoot anyone. Vidyucchika became worried about this, so her father taught her the simile of the two-handed saw:
Even if the most secret of police were to savagely carve you up with a two-handed saw, limb from limb, do not allow your heart to be angered. Say to yourself: my heart will be unaffected. I will radiate goodwill and sympathy. I will not hate. I will pervade them, and beginning from the world, with an awareness free from hostility or ill will, abundant, enlarged, immeasurable.
After her parents' deaths, Vidyucchika comes to question this simile. It means one should should remain still as they are tortured and killed. The two-handed saw requires cooperation, more than one person condones your death as you are hated. Chandrasekera is questioning the path of pacifism and turning the other cheek and this thought disseminates throughout the book. In every section of the book there is an all-powerful dominating force. Their control is not always governmental or violent, but it's clear that the characters just going along with their plans or being passive goes nowhere. Being non-resistant only perpetuates the control of those in power and the gradual degradation of the world.
In the end, we learn Vidyucchika's connection with Lambajihva--I completely missed it the first time--and she sheds her flesh as Annelid laughs. I assumed this meant Vidyucchika was Annelid's reincarnation and/or she was possessed by the red witch. This section was somewhat slower than the beginning part, but it made quite an impression on me.
Then we come to a play about the colonial history of Sri Lanka, of when the Portuguese came, set in a somewhat distant future where the Earth is facing the outset of environmental disaster and collapse. It primarily focuses on three friends--possibly lovers too--Imiya, Embi, and Fernão and how their play tells the story of the Portuguese soldiers who captured and tortured Sri Lankan natives in order to find some hidden treasure. Fernão, who will be called many names later, is, in the context of the play at least, is a Sri Lankan Catholic who allied with the Portuguese and Imiya and Embi in the play the Sri Lankans caught by the soldiers. What defines them is Fernão having a soul and Imiya and Embi do not. Imiya tells the Portuguese commander that in order to find the temple, they must appease the demon of the jungle.
After this, through a second person perspective, we follow Imiya as he studies with Embi and Fernando (name change!) the ancient history of their world. Particular, the titular Rakesfall.
This section was the most interesting to me!
At one point, there were two groups of people. The Yoke who loved time and how it changed and the Rake who also loved time but wanted to protect it and to eventually went to war. This war is the Rakesfall because, well, the Rake were driven south by the Yoke and eventually their forces and cities destroyed, but some of the Rake survived. One of these Rake, the demon in the forest, the skinless red witch, encountered the Portuguese soldiers and broke history. That's when everything changed. Chandrasekera never says this in the text, but I believe that this when everyone started to have access to akashic record and reality and everything shifted. Or perhaps it was always that way.
Centuries and centuries later. Most of humanity has left Earth, but the cyborgs who remain wake up every so often to help the planet regrow. Here, we followed the Lamb, one of these cyborgs who is tasked by the AI Caretaker called the Clave Eight in investigating the murder of the other cyborgs. The presentation of gender here is interesting, everyone is called "she." I do not if this was a kind of a The Left Hand of Darkness thing where everyone is monogender, or if these characters were genderfluid and/or trans because some of them had facial hair, or if something was wrong with the Lamb's interface because she wonders if the pronoun is correct for her in the beginning. As the Lamb investigates, she notices that while some of the efforts to heal the Earth are going, some parts of it remain greatly desolate with no change on improvement. So she eventually tracks down Fern, 'Miya and Embi to find clues.
I have to confess that this section was the slowest for me and most confusing. There are some great and interesting musings about history, past lives, and continuation, but the rest of the section feels bogged down till the end, save for one other part.
Here, we get the history of the red witch, and the history of the Yoke and the Rake. Very briefly, through a first person perspective of a child, maybe the Lamb in one of their past lives or perhaps Chandrasekera himself, we learn about the eugenic and racist hierarchies and classifications two European scholars tried to group the world into. The child and their classmates are confused and don't feel like they fit in any of them, so the child asks their mother. She says that that view is skewed and they are actually Aryans, the lighter-skinned northerners who went to war with the darker-skinned Dravidians of the south. Thee Yoke and the Rake all over again. Every Sita a Surpanakha a.k.a Chandranakha. Now, this part of Hinduism I do know: Sita was the wife of the god Rama, and Surpanakha was of the rakshasa, called demons in Anglophonic works but perhaps that word doesn't quite fit and is too Christian. Surpanakha tried to woo Rama but both he and his brother rejected her so she attacked Sita but was disfigured by Rama's brother.
The story here is somewhat the same, but also different. Chandranakha was a woman of the Rake and like all of her people took an interest in art to preserve time. She and her brother the Ravenous King did not see eye-to-eye and decided to to mingle with him. Then she fell in love with and married the man Vidyujjihva and had a mostly nice life. Chandranakha's brother interjected himself into their lives and, much to her chagrin, made her husband get involved in his political discussions.
Then, Vidyujjihva is executed. Chandranakha never learns why, but she knows her brother did is involved. She flees into the jungle and tears off her own skin. She is first skinless red witch who went north to the Yoke to provoke them and the end the Rake.
Her brother started the "engine of pain" and she weaved the first red thread of it all. It was a step toward ending agony, but it was one of resistance.
After all this, Embi tears Vidyucchika out of the Lamb's body, for she of the red witch line haunts the Lamb and this world. Vidyucchika--or Chandranakha-- appears in a fable where she speaks to a wrestler about how her husband Lambajihva was killed by a king, who happens to be the wrestler's long-lost brother. The wrestler completes tasks for her then marries her daughter-self (that's what the book says) and the next thing you know Vidyucchika is hurled through space and finds herself in the Golden City. She cries and wants to return to the past for she forgot half of herself there.
This part for Chandranakha and Vidyucchika redeemed this section.
Even much further into the future, Earth is back to a replenished yet prehistoric state where post-human gods called the Sentimentals inhabit and control the Earth. True humanity is long gone and in their place are strange, hybrid humanoids. One man is killed by a woman who then resurrects him and he is left along wandering the Earth with grandmotherboard earth and his patron god. There's some more fables about attempting to usurp the powerful, but these section of the story is not as memorable to me. Anyway, this man finally confronts the woman who resurrected him and tells her she's been running from her past lives for far too long. He wants to marry so they can become one. I'm not entirely sure what this all means, but I think it had to do with Leveret and Annelid finally uniting?
Finally, we come to the dying Earth, were so so so many gods roam the vestige of the planet. One woman Viramunda, the latest in the line of red witches, hunts the wayward of these gods and destroys them. She finds one god named Lambakanna who won't go down without a fight and proves a challenge. Viramunda must fight him, for he had her daughter within him. Their final meeting is confusing. She flenses him open and wears his skin, however, her daughter cannot be saved so she becomes her daughter. With herself and all the past lives, she leaves Earth.
The epilogue says the Golden City is out there and we can get to it, but we have a long way to go. Much to do. Not all our lives are lived yet.
Self is porous...and our purpose is shared.
Whew! Okay, that's A LOT. Again, I have no idea if my interpretations are right or not; I am open to anything from anyone. I do love this book, it's not entirely perfect but it's the best book where I had no idea what was going on. Towards the end of the book I think some steam was lost, but I don't think Chandrasekera ever dropped the ball. The ending parts of the book are not as impactful for me. Upon reflection I do see the themes I spoke about earlier. The epilogue solidifies for me that this is a story about endless struggling to keep fighting and going. And I do think it's a non-romantic love story, though I don't doubt that Leveret and Annelid had feelings for one another throughout their reincarnations. I think part of the story was the one of them, I think Annelid and her reincarnations, coming to terms with needing to be with Leveret, she needed another person to do this all with. Fighting and struggling can't ever be done alone, especially against a greater power. Also, you know those "porous" quotes I've quoted twice now? They're there for a reason.
Randos wander in, too, because the boarders of the self are deeply porous...
Leveret and Annelid were always meant to be together, to struggle and fight alongside each other. As the world keeps repeating the cycle of corruption and control, you need to keep find someone to go at it with.
The prose in this book was amazing. It was beautiful, told in different perspectives, atmospheric, and cerebral. I loved how Chandrasekera played with words in both English and, I think, Sinhala. In terms of pacing, although I said there were some slower parts, overall, in spite of all the confusion and stuff, I think this was quick read; much quicker than The Saint of Bright Doors.
My review cannot do Rakesfall or Chandrasekera justice and I apologize if this review doesn't help anybody. Someone far more educated than me can write a better one. I will be reading anything that Chandrasekera writes.
Rakesfall is a story that takes place across lifetimes, reincarnations, histories, cultures, worlds, dimensions, and pocket dimensions. It follows two souls, which is probably the most appropriate way to describe them, named, initially, Leveret and Annelid. It follows them starting from a TV show about them, but it isn't exactly them, during the early days of the Sri Lankan Civil War, and goes to just after the turn of the century in Sri Lanka, to the city of Luriat from The Saint of Bright Doors, to the past, back to an alternate present, back to an alternate past, to the possible near future, to a post-human cyberpunk future, to the new genesis of humanity, and finally to the dying Earth and sun.
We follow Leveret and Annelid through their new lives and reincarnations, trying to figure who is who and who has blended, all the while seeing a haunted world and history that both greatly changes in some ways yet remains the same and cyclical in others. At the center of it all is the akashic records, a collection, to put it in the best terms I can, of every thought and actions both manifest and un-manifested in the past, present, and future that all the characters have access to. And who haunts the story the most is the skinless red witch and her line of daughters, who may also be her, who possess Leveret and Annelid's other lives.
It is not an easy read. Vajra Chandrasekera abandons any form of traditional storytelling to tell this weird, hallucinatory story. It is confusing, mystifying, and makes you want to reread certain passages or even whole parts. Or at least it made me.
I cannot say that I understand everything thoroughly. Part of the reason is that I just lack the cultural background of some of the elements incorporated into the text. The other reason is, I wonder, if I was trying to discover a linear plotline that was never there to begin with. I most likely did not get the gist of Chandrasekera was getting at, but nonetheless I enjoyed this book. It's best book I have read where I didn't understand a lot of things. If you've read the book or my review and have an hour of your day, I suggest heading to YouTube and listening to the Himal Southeasian podcast where Shwetha Srikanthan speaks with Chandrasekera. He does not give us answers, at least not directly, but it can help contextualize things.
If I could be so bold, I would that say that Rakesfall is all at once a cautionary tale, a story of survival and resistance, a shared story between all of us, and a love story. Not a romantic love story, but nevertheless one about an undying love between two people that must persist if any sense of unity and survival is to remain. Perhaps I am sounding over sentimental; apologies if I do, I get like this with books that strike me so poignantly; but it is what I believe.
Self is porous.
Spoilers follow
Rakesfall opens with a TV show about two children, Leveret and Annelid. We're watching the actors, according to the narration, not the actual children themselves. Or are we? Both Leveret and Annelid lost a parent for different reasons during the Sri Lankan Civil War and as both grow older they try to figure out where they're going in life, which is seemingly apart from each other. We nor the audience within the book get to know as the show is canceled on a climatic moment. After Leveret joins one of the armed forces of one of the sides of the war, Annelid smashes a rock into the back of skull and flees into the forest. There, he lays motionlessly, and Annelid becomes possessed by the skinless red witch.
Reincarnation does not always occur when someone else is born in the book. Sometimes it happens in one moment to someone who is already a full grown adult. No idea if this is how reincarnation occurs in Hinduism and Buddhism, but it's what happens here. It happens in 2001, to a unnamed young man, who I thought was Leveret's reincarnation but still retained a small memory of Annelid's. This chapter with this young man set the tone for the entire book. Or at least showed us a recurring theme about Rakesfall: the endless cycle of corrupt powers taking control, the violence and disharmony (for a lack of a better word at the moment) they cause, and the resisting violence of those who struggle against them.
In aforementioned YouTube video I linked above, Chandrasekera mentions that both Rakesfall and The Saint of Bright Doors focus on certain problems that plague Sri Lanka both now and in the past. The Saint of Bright Doors dealt with religious control that Buddhism holds over the country and how those in power use it to discriminate others and does so by re-imagining the figure of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, and his son. Rakesfall doesn't depart from issues affecting Sri Lanka, but I think Chandrasekera expands it to be a bit more universal. Again, that's just my take.
From there we follow a young woman named Vidyucchika a woman possessed by the red witch--or is the red witch?--who casts off the maggot-ridden husk of her former body and gives it to Lambajihva, a young man who knew her. Vidyucchika was probably the most interesting character to me as her presence in the story extends beyond her set chapters and the part of the story with her is where we get more into the meat of what Chandrasekera is trying to tell us. Vidyucchika left her hometown after her parents died and became ghosts and now lives in a house with a widow named Mrs. Akan in the city of Luriat. Mrs. Akan is still being visited by the ghost of her dead husband who she no longer wants anything to do with. Vidyucchika tries to expel him from the house mystically, however, a type a resin she needs to use is not easy to get due to current political turmoil in Luriat and prices are being jacked up. She eventually meets Odeg, Mrs. Akan's son, who died as a child but now is an adult ghost who works and can touch things in the visible world. It is through their conversations that we learn that Vidyucchika's father owned a gun with no bullets in it and we come upon, what I believe, is the novel central theme: the simile of the two-handed saw.
Vidyucchika's father bought the gun merely for rhetorical power. If anyone came to their house, they would see the gun and just leave. He wouldn't have to shoot anyone. Vidyucchika became worried about this, so her father taught her the simile of the two-handed saw:
Even if the most secret of police were to savagely carve you up with a two-handed saw, limb from limb, do not allow your heart to be angered. Say to yourself: my heart will be unaffected. I will radiate goodwill and sympathy. I will not hate. I will pervade them, and beginning from the world, with an awareness free from hostility or ill will, abundant, enlarged, immeasurable.
After her parents' deaths, Vidyucchika comes to question this simile. It means one should should remain still as they are tortured and killed. The two-handed saw requires cooperation, more than one person condones your death as you are hated. Chandrasekera is questioning the path of pacifism and turning the other cheek and this thought disseminates throughout the book. In every section of the book there is an all-powerful dominating force. Their control is not always governmental or violent, but it's clear that the characters just going along with their plans or being passive goes nowhere. Being non-resistant only perpetuates the control of those in power and the gradual degradation of the world.
In the end, we learn Vidyucchika's connection with Lambajihva--I completely missed it the first time--and she sheds her flesh as Annelid laughs. I assumed this meant Vidyucchika was Annelid's reincarnation and/or she was possessed by the red witch. This section was somewhat slower than the beginning part, but it made quite an impression on me.
Then we come to a play about the colonial history of Sri Lanka, of when the Portuguese came, set in a somewhat distant future where the Earth is facing the outset of environmental disaster and collapse. It primarily focuses on three friends--possibly lovers too--Imiya, Embi, and Fernão and how their play tells the story of the Portuguese soldiers who captured and tortured Sri Lankan natives in order to find some hidden treasure. Fernão, who will be called many names later, is, in the context of the play at least, is a Sri Lankan Catholic who allied with the Portuguese and Imiya and Embi in the play the Sri Lankans caught by the soldiers. What defines them is Fernão having a soul and Imiya and Embi do not. Imiya tells the Portuguese commander that in order to find the temple, they must appease the demon of the jungle.
After this, through a second person perspective, we follow Imiya as he studies with Embi and Fernando (name change!) the ancient history of their world. Particular, the titular Rakesfall.
This section was the most interesting to me!
At one point, there were two groups of people. The Yoke who loved time and how it changed and the Rake who also loved time but wanted to protect it and to eventually went to war. This war is the Rakesfall because, well, the Rake were driven south by the Yoke and eventually their forces and cities destroyed, but some of the Rake survived. One of these Rake, the demon in the forest, the skinless red witch, encountered the Portuguese soldiers and broke history. That's when everything changed. Chandrasekera never says this in the text, but I believe that this when everyone started to have access to akashic record and reality and everything shifted. Or perhaps it was always that way.
Centuries and centuries later. Most of humanity has left Earth, but the cyborgs who remain wake up every so often to help the planet regrow. Here, we followed the Lamb, one of these cyborgs who is tasked by the AI Caretaker called the Clave Eight in investigating the murder of the other cyborgs. The presentation of gender here is interesting, everyone is called "she." I do not if this was a kind of a The Left Hand of Darkness thing where everyone is monogender, or if these characters were genderfluid and/or trans because some of them had facial hair, or if something was wrong with the Lamb's interface because she wonders if the pronoun is correct for her in the beginning. As the Lamb investigates, she notices that while some of the efforts to heal the Earth are going, some parts of it remain greatly desolate with no change on improvement. So she eventually tracks down Fern, 'Miya and Embi to find clues.
I have to confess that this section was the slowest for me and most confusing. There are some great and interesting musings about history, past lives, and continuation, but the rest of the section feels bogged down till the end, save for one other part.
Here, we get the history of the red witch, and the history of the Yoke and the Rake. Very briefly, through a first person perspective of a child, maybe the Lamb in one of their past lives or perhaps Chandrasekera himself, we learn about the eugenic and racist hierarchies and classifications two European scholars tried to group the world into. The child and their classmates are confused and don't feel like they fit in any of them, so the child asks their mother. She says that that view is skewed and they are actually Aryans, the lighter-skinned northerners who went to war with the darker-skinned Dravidians of the south. Thee Yoke and the Rake all over again. Every Sita a Surpanakha a.k.a Chandranakha. Now, this part of Hinduism I do know: Sita was the wife of the god Rama, and Surpanakha was of the rakshasa, called demons in Anglophonic works but perhaps that word doesn't quite fit and is too Christian. Surpanakha tried to woo Rama but both he and his brother rejected her so she attacked Sita but was disfigured by Rama's brother.
The story here is somewhat the same, but also different. Chandranakha was a woman of the Rake and like all of her people took an interest in art to preserve time. She and her brother the Ravenous King did not see eye-to-eye and decided to to mingle with him. Then she fell in love with and married the man Vidyujjihva and had a mostly nice life. Chandranakha's brother interjected himself into their lives and, much to her chagrin, made her husband get involved in his political discussions.
Then, Vidyujjihva is executed. Chandranakha never learns why, but she knows her brother did is involved. She flees into the jungle and tears off her own skin. She is first skinless red witch who went north to the Yoke to provoke them and the end the Rake.
Her brother started the "engine of pain" and she weaved the first red thread of it all. It was a step toward ending agony, but it was one of resistance.
After all this, Embi tears Vidyucchika out of the Lamb's body, for she of the red witch line haunts the Lamb and this world. Vidyucchika--or Chandranakha-- appears in a fable where she speaks to a wrestler about how her husband Lambajihva was killed by a king, who happens to be the wrestler's long-lost brother. The wrestler completes tasks for her then marries her daughter-self (that's what the book says) and the next thing you know Vidyucchika is hurled through space and finds herself in the Golden City. She cries and wants to return to the past for she forgot half of herself there.
This part for Chandranakha and Vidyucchika redeemed this section.
Even much further into the future, Earth is back to a replenished yet prehistoric state where post-human gods called the Sentimentals inhabit and control the Earth. True humanity is long gone and in their place are strange, hybrid humanoids. One man is killed by a woman who then resurrects him and he is left along wandering the Earth with grandmotherboard earth and his patron god. There's some more fables about attempting to usurp the powerful, but these section of the story is not as memorable to me. Anyway, this man finally confronts the woman who resurrected him and tells her she's been running from her past lives for far too long. He wants to marry so they can become one. I'm not entirely sure what this all means, but I think it had to do with Leveret and Annelid finally uniting?
Finally, we come to the dying Earth, were so so so many gods roam the vestige of the planet. One woman Viramunda, the latest in the line of red witches, hunts the wayward of these gods and destroys them. She finds one god named Lambakanna who won't go down without a fight and proves a challenge. Viramunda must fight him, for he had her daughter within him. Their final meeting is confusing. She flenses him open and wears his skin, however, her daughter cannot be saved so she becomes her daughter. With herself and all the past lives, she leaves Earth.
The epilogue says the Golden City is out there and we can get to it, but we have a long way to go. Much to do. Not all our lives are lived yet.
Self is porous...and our purpose is shared.
Whew! Okay, that's A LOT. Again, I have no idea if my interpretations are right or not; I am open to anything from anyone. I do love this book, it's not entirely perfect but it's the best book where I had no idea what was going on. Towards the end of the book I think some steam was lost, but I don't think Chandrasekera ever dropped the ball. The ending parts of the book are not as impactful for me. Upon reflection I do see the themes I spoke about earlier. The epilogue solidifies for me that this is a story about endless struggling to keep fighting and going. And I do think it's a non-romantic love story, though I don't doubt that Leveret and Annelid had feelings for one another throughout their reincarnations. I think part of the story was the one of them, I think Annelid and her reincarnations, coming to terms with needing to be with Leveret, she needed another person to do this all with. Fighting and struggling can't ever be done alone, especially against a greater power. Also, you know those "porous" quotes I've quoted twice now? They're there for a reason.
Randos wander in, too, because the boarders of the self are deeply porous...
Leveret and Annelid were always meant to be together, to struggle and fight alongside each other. As the world keeps repeating the cycle of corruption and control, you need to keep find someone to go at it with.
The prose in this book was amazing. It was beautiful, told in different perspectives, atmospheric, and cerebral. I loved how Chandrasekera played with words in both English and, I think, Sinhala. In terms of pacing, although I said there were some slower parts, overall, in spite of all the confusion and stuff, I think this was quick read; much quicker than The Saint of Bright Doors.
My review cannot do Rakesfall or Chandrasekera justice and I apologize if this review doesn't help anybody. Someone far more educated than me can write a better one. I will be reading anything that Chandrasekera writes.
May 21, 2024
2.5 stars
How do I even rate this book? I think it set out to do something really interesting but accomplished almost nothing. I really have to sit with my thoughts on this one.
Full review to come
How do I even rate this book? I think it set out to do something really interesting but accomplished almost nothing. I really have to sit with my thoughts on this one.
Full review to come
September 5, 2025
Thank you so much to Tor for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Written in several vaguely connected, uniquely formatted short stories, two souls keep meeting and being torn apart throughout time in our past, present, and future.
I was so excited when I read the synopsis of this, but it turns out that this book was nothing like what I thought it would be. I was anticipating that this would be similar to This is How You Lose the Time War, with a love story surrounded by an esoteric plot, but this was not a love story and more esoteric than any book that I've ever read - and while I love weird books, this didn't work for me. The synopsis fails to mention that this book is a fixup novel: a collection of short stories, most of which were previously published elsewhere, bound together to make one story. But, it became increasingly difficult, frustratingly so, to piece this fixup into being one story.
I loved the first story - about a cult TV show where people believe the characters will transcend the show - but was expecting to get some sort of answers at the end of the story if not the book as a whole, and we never did. The story about a girl who moved in with an older woman haunted by her husband was probably the second best to me, probably because I fully understood what was going on. There were a couple very short ones up front that were heavily about political divides and nationalism and etc. tearing up personal relationships, which I liked the themes of. But the further we went, the more incomprehensible the book became. The connections between the stories felt tenuous enough that I wouldn't have known that the characters were all the same were it not in the synopsis. Maybe that's because several of these stories were published in other places first, and perhaps were shoved in rather than written for this collection - I don't know. I just couldn't understand what was happening even while I was reading it.
Overall, this book completely lost me. I couldn't tell you what happened in it. I got some of the themes, but a lot of this went over my head.
Written in several vaguely connected, uniquely formatted short stories, two souls keep meeting and being torn apart throughout time in our past, present, and future.
I was so excited when I read the synopsis of this, but it turns out that this book was nothing like what I thought it would be. I was anticipating that this would be similar to This is How You Lose the Time War, with a love story surrounded by an esoteric plot, but this was not a love story and more esoteric than any book that I've ever read - and while I love weird books, this didn't work for me. The synopsis fails to mention that this book is a fixup novel: a collection of short stories, most of which were previously published elsewhere, bound together to make one story. But, it became increasingly difficult, frustratingly so, to piece this fixup into being one story.
I loved the first story - about a cult TV show where people believe the characters will transcend the show - but was expecting to get some sort of answers at the end of the story if not the book as a whole, and we never did. The story about a girl who moved in with an older woman haunted by her husband was probably the second best to me, probably because I fully understood what was going on. There were a couple very short ones up front that were heavily about political divides and nationalism and etc. tearing up personal relationships, which I liked the themes of. But the further we went, the more incomprehensible the book became. The connections between the stories felt tenuous enough that I wouldn't have known that the characters were all the same were it not in the synopsis. Maybe that's because several of these stories were published in other places first, and perhaps were shoved in rather than written for this collection - I don't know. I just couldn't understand what was happening even while I was reading it.
Overall, this book completely lost me. I couldn't tell you what happened in it. I got some of the themes, but a lot of this went over my head.
August 4, 2025
Unbound from temporal or physical constraints, Rakesfall defiantly confronts the reader to question not just what they know about the world they live in but about how they exist. “What do you think is the border of you?” is asked, late into this story, but Chandrasekara doesn’t even pretend that he is interested in giving answers.
The writing in this book is dense and layered and incredibly lyrical. It is wonderfully beautiful to hear, either via the audiobook or via just reading the book aloud to yourself. Mythic language and technobabble play across the page in English as well as Pali, Sinhalese, and more, never holding the reader’s hand but insisting on itself as fundamental throughout. This extravagant style of writing combines with millennia spending landscapes to create poignant atmosphere and settings, moving from meta-fictional classrooms to civil war-ravaged jungles to contemporary concrete jungles to planets that have been destroyed and re-greened and destroyed again as they wait the kiss of emerging supernovas, to the non-physical space where gods, demons, and artificial intelligences are indistinguishable. All of these spaces feel encompassing and vivid, but by the very nature of the story they are like artistic renditions more than deep knowings. We move too quickly across space and time for more than conceptual backdrops for contemplative psychonautics, and as such the world building is effective and the atmosphere consistent and dreamy even if no one place has significant depth.
There isn’t much of a plot, instead there is a recognition that all that has been, is, and will be, whether real or imagined, is recorded simultaneously in a mythic record that eschews earthy linearity and corporality for something intangible and infinite. In this way we follow a handful of characters across countless permutations, reincarnations, hauntings, possessions, folk tales, prophecies, and remembrances. The characters are fun to spend time with, but they are necessarily cryptic, in constant flux. Nothing here has any hard boundary, and that includes characters traits and personalities, and especially character histories and backstories. This works for the surreality of the story but if you are incredibly invested in specific character depth, growth and journey this may feel frustrating, because there is definite character journeys but trying to plot them out is like trying to preserve a cupped palmful of sand by tightening your fist.
In everything, from plot to world building to characters to writing it feels like we are at the intersection between the surreal and the hyperreal, a slipstream narrative that literally leaves the reader without any actual grounding. All of this I enjoyed quite a lot. What I finished the story asking, though, was, to what end? There are certainly ideas he wants us to think about, the nature of self, the nature of relationship and family, stewardship of our planet and worlds both tangible and social, the intersections of poetry and nation-building, possession and possessions, the inevitable consequences of greed and the undeniability of the mythic, what nonduality and positive renunciation might look like in real life, and more. So many ideas. But they all feel as if presented behind a shimmer, a divide between our experiences and any resemblance of wisdom, expansive to the point where it became too dispersed to hold on to. I don’t want a book like this to give me answers but it often didn’t feel it was even asking questions but instead just brainstorming ideas that would be fun to ask questions about, if that makes sense. I would have liked just a little more direction, ironically enough, some firmer ground that let me know there was a definite collection of intentionalities behind this text instead of just fever-dream vibes and intangible wisps of gnosis riding interstellar temporal winds. All the words sound so nice, but the level of abstraction was a bit more than I really enjoy. I appreciated the language and the writing and the overall experience, and I always like being challenged and forced to sit with disquieting questions, and this novel did deliver that. I imagine reading it in any sort of discussion group would be remarkably rewarding, because it really seems like a catalyzing locus of transformative thought. It is impressive and confusing and poetic; take from that what you will.
(Rounded from 3.5)
The writing in this book is dense and layered and incredibly lyrical. It is wonderfully beautiful to hear, either via the audiobook or via just reading the book aloud to yourself. Mythic language and technobabble play across the page in English as well as Pali, Sinhalese, and more, never holding the reader’s hand but insisting on itself as fundamental throughout. This extravagant style of writing combines with millennia spending landscapes to create poignant atmosphere and settings, moving from meta-fictional classrooms to civil war-ravaged jungles to contemporary concrete jungles to planets that have been destroyed and re-greened and destroyed again as they wait the kiss of emerging supernovas, to the non-physical space where gods, demons, and artificial intelligences are indistinguishable. All of these spaces feel encompassing and vivid, but by the very nature of the story they are like artistic renditions more than deep knowings. We move too quickly across space and time for more than conceptual backdrops for contemplative psychonautics, and as such the world building is effective and the atmosphere consistent and dreamy even if no one place has significant depth.
There isn’t much of a plot, instead there is a recognition that all that has been, is, and will be, whether real or imagined, is recorded simultaneously in a mythic record that eschews earthy linearity and corporality for something intangible and infinite. In this way we follow a handful of characters across countless permutations, reincarnations, hauntings, possessions, folk tales, prophecies, and remembrances. The characters are fun to spend time with, but they are necessarily cryptic, in constant flux. Nothing here has any hard boundary, and that includes characters traits and personalities, and especially character histories and backstories. This works for the surreality of the story but if you are incredibly invested in specific character depth, growth and journey this may feel frustrating, because there is definite character journeys but trying to plot them out is like trying to preserve a cupped palmful of sand by tightening your fist.
In everything, from plot to world building to characters to writing it feels like we are at the intersection between the surreal and the hyperreal, a slipstream narrative that literally leaves the reader without any actual grounding. All of this I enjoyed quite a lot. What I finished the story asking, though, was, to what end? There are certainly ideas he wants us to think about, the nature of self, the nature of relationship and family, stewardship of our planet and worlds both tangible and social, the intersections of poetry and nation-building, possession and possessions, the inevitable consequences of greed and the undeniability of the mythic, what nonduality and positive renunciation might look like in real life, and more. So many ideas. But they all feel as if presented behind a shimmer, a divide between our experiences and any resemblance of wisdom, expansive to the point where it became too dispersed to hold on to. I don’t want a book like this to give me answers but it often didn’t feel it was even asking questions but instead just brainstorming ideas that would be fun to ask questions about, if that makes sense. I would have liked just a little more direction, ironically enough, some firmer ground that let me know there was a definite collection of intentionalities behind this text instead of just fever-dream vibes and intangible wisps of gnosis riding interstellar temporal winds. All the words sound so nice, but the level of abstraction was a bit more than I really enjoy. I appreciated the language and the writing and the overall experience, and I always like being challenged and forced to sit with disquieting questions, and this novel did deliver that. I imagine reading it in any sort of discussion group would be remarkably rewarding, because it really seems like a catalyzing locus of transformative thought. It is impressive and confusing and poetic; take from that what you will.
(Rounded from 3.5)
August 2, 2024
As a huge fan of the author’s debut, of course I had to request this arc!
Vajra Chandrasekera’s mastery with words is unmatched. And it definitely shows in this work.
But unlike The Saint of Bright Doors, Rakesfall is unfortunately a lot less cohesive and a lot more difficult to fully understand. It reads more like a series of vignettes than a novel with a central plot. (Maybe that was the intention?) I wish it was marketed more as a series of interconnected short stories than an epic encompassing novel. I had to stop reading and start over a month later because this was one of those works where you have to be in the right mindset.
I will say though, the audiobook narrator, Shiromi Arserio, had the perfect voice and diction for this fever dream of a novel. After listening to her narration, it’s difficult to imagine any other narrator giving justice to this story. (And I’m saying this as someone who consumes 80% of books through audio.) I really hope she gets some kind of recognition for her work on Rakesfall.
If you’re thinking of reading this novel, jump in with an open mind and let the author’s words wrap around you because he’s truly a wordsmith. Don’t be like me and expect a coherent, straightforward novel because you’ll be disappointed.
While this wasn’t my favorite, I’m still excited for the author’s future works.
Thank you to NetGalley, Dreamscape Lore, and Tordotcom Publishing for the arcs.
Vajra Chandrasekera’s mastery with words is unmatched. And it definitely shows in this work.
But unlike The Saint of Bright Doors, Rakesfall is unfortunately a lot less cohesive and a lot more difficult to fully understand. It reads more like a series of vignettes than a novel with a central plot. (Maybe that was the intention?) I wish it was marketed more as a series of interconnected short stories than an epic encompassing novel. I had to stop reading and start over a month later because this was one of those works where you have to be in the right mindset.
I will say though, the audiobook narrator, Shiromi Arserio, had the perfect voice and diction for this fever dream of a novel. After listening to her narration, it’s difficult to imagine any other narrator giving justice to this story. (And I’m saying this as someone who consumes 80% of books through audio.) I really hope she gets some kind of recognition for her work on Rakesfall.
If you’re thinking of reading this novel, jump in with an open mind and let the author’s words wrap around you because he’s truly a wordsmith. Don’t be like me and expect a coherent, straightforward novel because you’ll be disappointed.
While this wasn’t my favorite, I’m still excited for the author’s future works.
Thank you to NetGalley, Dreamscape Lore, and Tordotcom Publishing for the arcs.
March 13, 2025
Like the Saint of Bright Doors, it teases with real life and then just catapults us into a rich afterlife/world of uploaded minds, gods, and rebirths.
It's Buddhist SF, ya'll. It's a playground for the imagination.
I love the creativity and I admit I like to think, think, and think about all the worldbuilding here, not to mention the theology, the scope, the Akashic record.
We also get a ton of story-within-story action here, which is quite delightful.
So, why am I only giving it 4 stars? Because the core story wanders. It's fun as long as you go into this for the journey, for the sightseeing, but plot is subsumed in experience. Even dead-experience. You might say--it's just a slice of life.
Nommed for '25 Nebula awards.
My synesthesia sees a lightshow of colors throughout the novel, but all the other senses are dulled--especially the scents. I experienced this at a remove, alas. Wanting to get deep into it isn't the same as being deep in it.
Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.
Arctunn.com
It's Buddhist SF, ya'll. It's a playground for the imagination.
I love the creativity and I admit I like to think, think, and think about all the worldbuilding here, not to mention the theology, the scope, the Akashic record.
We also get a ton of story-within-story action here, which is quite delightful.
So, why am I only giving it 4 stars? Because the core story wanders. It's fun as long as you go into this for the journey, for the sightseeing, but plot is subsumed in experience. Even dead-experience. You might say--it's just a slice of life.
Nommed for '25 Nebula awards.
My synesthesia sees a lightshow of colors throughout the novel, but all the other senses are dulled--especially the scents. I experienced this at a remove, alas. Wanting to get deep into it isn't the same as being deep in it.
Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.
Arctunn.com
June 5, 2024
I saw the cover and buckled in because Rakesfall is a trip. A brilliant, imaginative trip that weaves together two souls that haunt each other through hundreds of lifetimes.
This book follows two souls who a bound together by a past that haunts them through time. Even as they inhabit different identities, they're connected and one. It's a testament to loss, friendships, and life.
***THE PLOT***
I've never read anything like this in my life. In the beginning, I was a tad confused and had to do some research of Akashic records, which is what this book heavily pulls from. Once my theories were confirmed, I just turned my brain off and enjoyed the ride.
One thing that really helped me through this book was annotating. There are so many beautiful phrases and moments within that I wanted to remember. But marking the plot also helped me follow along with it from section to section. I respected the dizzying aspect of it because Chandrasekera did the impossible- he wrote about two souls merging together to represent different people throughout lifetimes.
The author created futures and worlds unlike anything I've ever heard of. You're beginning in the 1970's, but you travel all the way to the end of the earth. It's incredible the way he illustrates the rise and fall of humanity. There are hints of magic and hints of the paranormal. There's a future in there were AI has pretty much taken over.
To conclude, this novel is beautiful, and you're not going to be able to read something like this anywhere else.
This book follows two souls who a bound together by a past that haunts them through time. Even as they inhabit different identities, they're connected and one. It's a testament to loss, friendships, and life.
***THE PLOT***
I've never read anything like this in my life. In the beginning, I was a tad confused and had to do some research of Akashic records, which is what this book heavily pulls from. Once my theories were confirmed, I just turned my brain off and enjoyed the ride.
One thing that really helped me through this book was annotating. There are so many beautiful phrases and moments within that I wanted to remember. But marking the plot also helped me follow along with it from section to section. I respected the dizzying aspect of it because Chandrasekera did the impossible- he wrote about two souls merging together to represent different people throughout lifetimes.
The author created futures and worlds unlike anything I've ever heard of. You're beginning in the 1970's, but you travel all the way to the end of the earth. It's incredible the way he illustrates the rise and fall of humanity. There are hints of magic and hints of the paranormal. There's a future in there were AI has pretty much taken over.
To conclude, this novel is beautiful, and you're not going to be able to read something like this anywhere else.
June 24, 2024
I don't know what I just listened to, to be quite honest. I may be too stupid for this novel, because even after listening to the entire thing, I didn't understand a lick of it.
I can't even give you a brief synopsis about what everything is about beyond the initial blurb says. I know that at least one character keeps getting reincarnated and we see her (them?) through many different stages of reincarnated lives, but that's about as much as I got from this. Maybe if you are smarter than I, you may like this book. There was definitely humor, and maybe if you like poetry more than I do, there might be more too it.
Overall, I did not love this BUT the cover was gorgeous and I can see other people maybe liking this one.
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I can't even give you a brief synopsis about what everything is about beyond the initial blurb says. I know that at least one character keeps getting reincarnated and we see her (them?) through many different stages of reincarnated lives, but that's about as much as I got from this. Maybe if you are smarter than I, you may like this book. There was definitely humor, and maybe if you like poetry more than I do, there might be more too it.
Overall, I did not love this BUT the cover was gorgeous and I can see other people maybe liking this one.
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Read
May 16, 2024RTC - I’m disappointed because it could have been great. Big swing, big miss. Not sure what to rate it, I need to think about it. Stay tuned for thoughts.
Read
September 10, 2025I don’t think I have any way to give this book a rating, mostly because I understood about 10% but still enjoyed quite a few scenes and visuals and the general reading experience. The whole time I was waiting for it to “click”, but that really never happened.
Overall I appreciate/admire the scope and creativity in telling the story, but I truly can’t say if the author really pulls it off. If the intention was to make it opaque, vague and leave the reader with little certainty about what is actually happening on the page, mission accomplished! If not, I feel like I was missing the context needed to understand where all the shortcuts were being made.
Overall I appreciate/admire the scope and creativity in telling the story, but I truly can’t say if the author really pulls it off. If the intention was to make it opaque, vague and leave the reader with little certainty about what is actually happening on the page, mission accomplished! If not, I feel like I was missing the context needed to understand where all the shortcuts were being made.
October 22, 2025
Announced the winner of the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction!
The reading is not easy-going nor passive, but if the reader can keep up with this book’s weighty demands, then they will find it quite a rewarding experience. No stranger to Vajra Chandrasekera, I quite enjoyed his debut novel, The Saint of Bright Doors — one of my favorite reads of 2023. I thought that would help me get a leg up on this one, but I was wrong. In Rakesfall, Chandrasekera takes his writing skills not only to the next level but to the stratosphere. What you get is a very postmodern mix of genres, narrative structures, and ideas. You will find some familiar themes, like colonial legacies, inter-generational trauma, and the cycle of violence.
This novel purports to follow two characters, Annelid and Leveret, and their inseparable bond through eons and various iterations of reincarnations and possibilities. Do not go into this thinking it is a typical romance, however. It is much deeper than that. I will admit, there were iterations (and tellings of the story) that I found more engaging than others. This book took me a while to get through, not only because of its pacing, but because of the density of ideas and their conveyance. There is no guidance nor hand-holding on how to interpret and view these ideas; the reader is forced to sit with their discomfort and unexamined biases. The dystopian and futuristic aspects of this were extremely intriguing, though I also appreciated the nods to the past and a sort of anthropological angle to the necessary histories. We are more than our pasts, yes, but we cannot ignore them altogether.
Certain themes and the sci-fi elements worked well for me here, but some of the more postmodern elements did not. Because of the changing styles and narrative switches, I found it much harder to engage with the characters here than I did in Saints. The worldbuilding, while impressive, also failed to strike as strong of a chord (though, in certain parts, it was incredible, magnitudes more daring than in the previous book). As usual, Chandrasekera’s writing is beautifully poetic without being too full of itself. This book was like a fever dream that veers on abstract nonsense at times, but by the end, it fits itself together in a semblance of satisfying cohesion. This is not a book that will work in the mainstream, but it is a book that rewards a patient and curious reader who can trust the author to tie this twisty story together.
---
A “dark science fiction epic” dealing with “the connectedness of all struggle against oppression” from Vajra Chandrasekera? Sign me the hell up. If the publisher is doing ARCs, I hope I am the first consideration.
The reading is not easy-going nor passive, but if the reader can keep up with this book’s weighty demands, then they will find it quite a rewarding experience. No stranger to Vajra Chandrasekera, I quite enjoyed his debut novel, The Saint of Bright Doors — one of my favorite reads of 2023. I thought that would help me get a leg up on this one, but I was wrong. In Rakesfall, Chandrasekera takes his writing skills not only to the next level but to the stratosphere. What you get is a very postmodern mix of genres, narrative structures, and ideas. You will find some familiar themes, like colonial legacies, inter-generational trauma, and the cycle of violence.
This novel purports to follow two characters, Annelid and Leveret, and their inseparable bond through eons and various iterations of reincarnations and possibilities. Do not go into this thinking it is a typical romance, however. It is much deeper than that. I will admit, there were iterations (and tellings of the story) that I found more engaging than others. This book took me a while to get through, not only because of its pacing, but because of the density of ideas and their conveyance. There is no guidance nor hand-holding on how to interpret and view these ideas; the reader is forced to sit with their discomfort and unexamined biases. The dystopian and futuristic aspects of this were extremely intriguing, though I also appreciated the nods to the past and a sort of anthropological angle to the necessary histories. We are more than our pasts, yes, but we cannot ignore them altogether.
Certain themes and the sci-fi elements worked well for me here, but some of the more postmodern elements did not. Because of the changing styles and narrative switches, I found it much harder to engage with the characters here than I did in Saints. The worldbuilding, while impressive, also failed to strike as strong of a chord (though, in certain parts, it was incredible, magnitudes more daring than in the previous book). As usual, Chandrasekera’s writing is beautifully poetic without being too full of itself. This book was like a fever dream that veers on abstract nonsense at times, but by the end, it fits itself together in a semblance of satisfying cohesion. This is not a book that will work in the mainstream, but it is a book that rewards a patient and curious reader who can trust the author to tie this twisty story together.
---
A “dark science fiction epic” dealing with “the connectedness of all struggle against oppression” from Vajra Chandrasekera? Sign me the hell up. If the publisher is doing ARCs, I hope I am the first consideration.
June 14, 2024
CHANDRASEKERA KINDLY STOP BLOWING MY MIND TO GLITTERY SMITHEREENS, SIR!
(Never stop ever.)
Rtc!
*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*
HIGHLIGHTS
~a handful of minutes
~hunt treasure, find demons
~time ain’t what it oughtta be
~the things one will do to get a son-in-law
~grandparents made of abnormal atoms
I’ll be honest: I don’t think I understood most of what was going on in Rakesfall.
But I loved every second of it.
In the simplest possible terms, it is, as the blurb claims, the…story…of two (at least two) souls as they reincarnate again and again. But describing it that way doesn’t even BEGIN to give you an idea of what Rakesfall is, or is like.
Part of it seems to take place in the past of our world, and some in our present or near-present – but the vast majority of it, all the stories that are really one story, are taking part in a world that isn’t ours, and then in a future that could be, but could just as easily be the future of this world that isn’t ours. (Readers familiar with Chandrasekera’s debut, The Saint of Bright Doors, will recognise the city of Luriat, which we visit again this book – albeit relatively briefly.
Does that make Rakesfall the/a sequel to The Saint of Bright Doors? I don’t think so, but some of the terms used in TSoBD come up again in Rakesfall, so it is helpful to have read TSoBD first. Very not-mandatory, though.)
Possibly this is the meaning of the title – The Rakesfall, if I understood it correctly, was an event that…‘broke’ isn’t the right term…changed the timeline, and thus the world, into…not what it ‘shouldn’t’ be, but what it wasn’t before. So I think the setting(s are) meant to be…a world our world could have been, or might have been, or would be, if time hadn’t gone the way it did. And/or will be, re the future parts, if we don’t hurry up and eat the rich already.
I’M TRYING MY BEST, OKAY?
There is wordplay and mindplay and a rapid cycling through perspectives, sometimes several perspectives of the same event or events. We jump from the colonialisation of Indonesia to the far-future when humanity has left Earth behind entirely, and a whole bunch of places – some real, some meant-to-be-real, some meant-to-not-be – in-between (and before, and after). I don’t think it’s accurate to say that there is one clear, linear story being played out over all these lifetimes and timelines (if there is, I missed it) but it would be equally untrue to claim that Rakesfall has no plot; each section of the book – most of which cover one lifetime or time-period – covers a series of events that I was very invested in, even when I knew I was missing some nuance or only comprehending a piece of the whole. There is a murder-mystery; there are many attempts to ‘regreen’ the Earth after climate collapse; there is identity-theft with souls; there are quests, kind of; there is subtle and unsubtle resistance to political oppression; there are ghosts being taken to court to stop their hauntings. There is a LOT.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
(Never stop ever.)
Rtc!
*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*
HIGHLIGHTS
~a handful of minutes
~hunt treasure, find demons
~time ain’t what it oughtta be
~the things one will do to get a son-in-law
~grandparents made of abnormal atoms
I’ll be honest: I don’t think I understood most of what was going on in Rakesfall.
But I loved every second of it.
In the simplest possible terms, it is, as the blurb claims, the…story…of two (at least two) souls as they reincarnate again and again. But describing it that way doesn’t even BEGIN to give you an idea of what Rakesfall is, or is like.
enormity cannot truly, fully be spoken of without recourse to fable. There is a dread scale at which only myth works; only nightmare has the technology. Worlds must be broken to convey that attempts to depict a multidimensionally unspeakable reality in fiction, including this one, are but contemptible in the final reading.
Part of it seems to take place in the past of our world, and some in our present or near-present – but the vast majority of it, all the stories that are really one story, are taking part in a world that isn’t ours, and then in a future that could be, but could just as easily be the future of this world that isn’t ours. (Readers familiar with Chandrasekera’s debut, The Saint of Bright Doors, will recognise the city of Luriat, which we visit again this book – albeit relatively briefly.
Does that make Rakesfall the/a sequel to The Saint of Bright Doors? I don’t think so, but some of the terms used in TSoBD come up again in Rakesfall, so it is helpful to have read TSoBD first. Very not-mandatory, though.)
Possibly this is the meaning of the title – The Rakesfall, if I understood it correctly, was an event that…‘broke’ isn’t the right term…changed the timeline, and thus the world, into…not what it ‘shouldn’t’ be, but what it wasn’t before. So I think the setting(s are) meant to be…a world our world could have been, or might have been, or would be, if time hadn’t gone the way it did. And/or will be, re the future parts, if we don’t hurry up and eat the rich already.
I’M TRYING MY BEST, OKAY?
Georges does not ask himself why the Christian devil has hooves and horns, which is of course that they are satyrical.
There is wordplay and mindplay and a rapid cycling through perspectives, sometimes several perspectives of the same event or events. We jump from the colonialisation of Indonesia to the far-future when humanity has left Earth behind entirely, and a whole bunch of places – some real, some meant-to-be-real, some meant-to-not-be – in-between (and before, and after). I don’t think it’s accurate to say that there is one clear, linear story being played out over all these lifetimes and timelines (if there is, I missed it) but it would be equally untrue to claim that Rakesfall has no plot; each section of the book – most of which cover one lifetime or time-period – covers a series of events that I was very invested in, even when I knew I was missing some nuance or only comprehending a piece of the whole. There is a murder-mystery; there are many attempts to ‘regreen’ the Earth after climate collapse; there is identity-theft with souls; there are quests, kind of; there is subtle and unsubtle resistance to political oppression; there are ghosts being taken to court to stop their hauntings. There is a LOT.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
April 20, 2025
This is a strange SF novel from Sri-Lankan author Vajra Chandrasekera. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for April 2025 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group. The novel was nominated for Nebula in 2025. The previous nominee by the same author – The Saint of Bright Doors, had a deep second layer, see details in my review HERE.
The start of this novel was previously published in F&SF magazine. It tells about kids (mid-grade?) watching and discussing a TV series, which was supposedly cancelled without tying up ends. What is unusual is that while kids watch is on a mundane “Australian-built Philips colour TV from the late 1970s or perhaps the early 1980s” their time period is undetermined and moreover, they assume that the TV series shows real life, while they are in a kind of Limbo. I’d say quite a strong and interesting start!
However, the story goes downward from that – it isn’t even a story, for it tells several stories, supposedly linked by different incarnations of two lovers, through the past, present and future. The incarnations are usually unaware of their past lives, and live in both what can be seen as “our reality” and some weird parallel universes, e.g. were the dead don’t leave but continue to cohabitate houses with the living relatives or far future, where most people left Earth long ago, while a few try to restore its ecosystem. Per se individual stories can be interesting, esp., if you want to know more about Sri-Lanka, but as a novel they are a disjointed mess, or at least I wasn’t in the mood to try to join all pieces (if it is possible).
So, a well-written novel with a potential but it hasn’t worked for me.
The start of this novel was previously published in F&SF magazine. It tells about kids (mid-grade?) watching and discussing a TV series, which was supposedly cancelled without tying up ends. What is unusual is that while kids watch is on a mundane “Australian-built Philips colour TV from the late 1970s or perhaps the early 1980s” their time period is undetermined and moreover, they assume that the TV series shows real life, while they are in a kind of Limbo. I’d say quite a strong and interesting start!
However, the story goes downward from that – it isn’t even a story, for it tells several stories, supposedly linked by different incarnations of two lovers, through the past, present and future. The incarnations are usually unaware of their past lives, and live in both what can be seen as “our reality” and some weird parallel universes, e.g. were the dead don’t leave but continue to cohabitate houses with the living relatives or far future, where most people left Earth long ago, while a few try to restore its ecosystem. Per se individual stories can be interesting, esp., if you want to know more about Sri-Lanka, but as a novel they are a disjointed mess, or at least I wasn’t in the mood to try to join all pieces (if it is possible).
So, a well-written novel with a potential but it hasn’t worked for me.
June 12, 2025
Man, what a drag.
In theory, the idea of lives being lived again and again, or souls sent careening through time is my jam. I mean, Cloud Atlas is one of my favourite novels and continues to stand as the pillar to which all novels in the genre of, uh, reincarnation fiction (?) are judged. Though Rakesfall is ostensibly about souls iterated again and again through time, the experience of reading it is mostly agonizing and painfully obtuse.
There are passages and sections of this book that do propose interesting concepts, but they are layered with needlessly confusing nonsense. There are books that unmoor a reader from what they think they know about a character, world, or concept. Rakesfall jettisons the reader into shark infested waters.The reviews calling this book kaleidoscopic and hallucinatory didn't jive me: I felt like I was on the outside looking in on an alien and incomprehensible scenario rather than being taken in the hands of an author's strange vision.
I'll concede the possibility that I'm not the target audience or that I'm too slow to grasp fully Chandrasekera's grand tapestry. As a counterpoint, I rarely shy away from a book that challenges me if it doles out some reward (either instant gratification or something to stew on) by its end. Rakesfall unfortunately felt like the literary equivalent of being thrown into an operational washing machine: disorienting and painful.
In theory, the idea of lives being lived again and again, or souls sent careening through time is my jam. I mean, Cloud Atlas is one of my favourite novels and continues to stand as the pillar to which all novels in the genre of, uh, reincarnation fiction (?) are judged. Though Rakesfall is ostensibly about souls iterated again and again through time, the experience of reading it is mostly agonizing and painfully obtuse.
There are passages and sections of this book that do propose interesting concepts, but they are layered with needlessly confusing nonsense. There are books that unmoor a reader from what they think they know about a character, world, or concept. Rakesfall jettisons the reader into shark infested waters.The reviews calling this book kaleidoscopic and hallucinatory didn't jive me: I felt like I was on the outside looking in on an alien and incomprehensible scenario rather than being taken in the hands of an author's strange vision.
I'll concede the possibility that I'm not the target audience or that I'm too slow to grasp fully Chandrasekera's grand tapestry. As a counterpoint, I rarely shy away from a book that challenges me if it doles out some reward (either instant gratification or something to stew on) by its end. Rakesfall unfortunately felt like the literary equivalent of being thrown into an operational washing machine: disorienting and painful.
June 18, 2024
Thank you Tordotcom, NetGalley, and Dreamscape Media for an ARC and an advanced listening copy in exchange for an honest review!
Man oh man I love Vajra Chandrasekera’s work so, so much, and Rakesfall was such a treat. I mostly read this on audio, which was very well done and I definitely recommend—Shiromi Arserio did a wonderful job narrating. I did go into this sort of forgetting what the synopsis was, and ultimately just went “well, The Saint of Bright Doors rules, so it’s fine,” and I think that benefitted me. It does get weird narratively and at times a bit hard to follow, but I really enjoyed it and I think it’s the kind of book that will be a joy to reread. It’s a brainier book than I typically review for, and I probably would’ve felt I absorbed more had I read this primarily physically, but I definitely plan on rereading. I admire Chandrasekera’s craft and ambition, and this was such a delight for me to read.
Rakesfall asked a lot more from me and my little brian than my usual reads, but it was so worthwhile and it worked quite well for me. I do think this is worth a shot, but maybe give it a couple of pages before you commit.
Man oh man I love Vajra Chandrasekera’s work so, so much, and Rakesfall was such a treat. I mostly read this on audio, which was very well done and I definitely recommend—Shiromi Arserio did a wonderful job narrating. I did go into this sort of forgetting what the synopsis was, and ultimately just went “well, The Saint of Bright Doors rules, so it’s fine,” and I think that benefitted me. It does get weird narratively and at times a bit hard to follow, but I really enjoyed it and I think it’s the kind of book that will be a joy to reread. It’s a brainier book than I typically review for, and I probably would’ve felt I absorbed more had I read this primarily physically, but I definitely plan on rereading. I admire Chandrasekera’s craft and ambition, and this was such a delight for me to read.
Rakesfall asked a lot more from me and my little brian than my usual reads, but it was so worthwhile and it worked quite well for me. I do think this is worth a shot, but maybe give it a couple of pages before you commit.
February 14, 2025
I respect the attempt, and there is some really great & poetic stuff in here, but I just don’t think it worked.
I could tell that there was some through-line with the characters, but it wasn’t never clear enough to keep me engaged. I don’t feel like the characterization(s) really came through, I guess - even on an archetypical level.
I kept thinking “Maybe I should finally read Cloud Atlas, maybe it’s a better version of this.”
The beginning of the book is inSANEly strong, though - far more poetic than a lot of the poetry I’ve been trying to read lately.
I could tell that there was some through-line with the characters, but it wasn’t never clear enough to keep me engaged. I don’t feel like the characterization(s) really came through, I guess - even on an archetypical level.
I kept thinking “Maybe I should finally read Cloud Atlas, maybe it’s a better version of this.”
The beginning of the book is inSANEly strong, though - far more poetic than a lot of the poetry I’ve been trying to read lately.
Read
April 25, 2024This novel is as exciting as Chandrasekra’s debut, the brilliant (and now multiple award nominated) The Saint of Bright Doors. But where The Saint of Bright Doors is an experimental novel hiding in conventional genre sheep clothing, Rakesfall is just balls-to-the-wall experimentation. It’s the sort of novel that mixes the deep thinking of M. John Harrison or Nina Allan with the wild speculative magic of Lavie Tidhar and Adam Roberts. It’s a thrill ride. But one without guard rails.
The plot? The back cover blurb does its best at describing the novel by focusing on the two entwined souls (we first know them as Annelid and Leveret) who are reincarnated hundreds of thousands of times, travelling across endless time and the multiverse (including a visit to Luriat). But even that doesn’t get to the heart of the novel, which is about identity — the blurred lines between body, mind and self — the legacy of colonialism, and the devastation and death left by the powerful and wealthy.
It’s a patchwork novel stitched together with stories and fables (some of which have been published separately in genre magazines) and a bold reimagining of Hindu mythology. Perspectives and settings shift on a dime. That lack of narrative stability is what makes it so damn exciting. Is it science fiction? Is it fantasy? Is it horror? Is it historical fiction? It’s all of these things and more. And it’s profound and meaningful and visceral in a way that’s unexpected and provocative.
This may not get the same love as The Saint of Bright Doors, but it should.
Rakesfall is out in June.
The plot? The back cover blurb does its best at describing the novel by focusing on the two entwined souls (we first know them as Annelid and Leveret) who are reincarnated hundreds of thousands of times, travelling across endless time and the multiverse (including a visit to Luriat). But even that doesn’t get to the heart of the novel, which is about identity — the blurred lines between body, mind and self — the legacy of colonialism, and the devastation and death left by the powerful and wealthy.
It’s a patchwork novel stitched together with stories and fables (some of which have been published separately in genre magazines) and a bold reimagining of Hindu mythology. Perspectives and settings shift on a dime. That lack of narrative stability is what makes it so damn exciting. Is it science fiction? Is it fantasy? Is it horror? Is it historical fiction? It’s all of these things and more. And it’s profound and meaningful and visceral in a way that’s unexpected and provocative.
This may not get the same love as The Saint of Bright Doors, but it should.
Rakesfall is out in June.
March 18, 2025
"Tracing two souls through endless lifetimes..." pretty much sums up the book. While it is very well-written, literary and almost musical in its prose, I found no real plot, more a series of episodes connected only by the two main characters in their different incarnations. Some were quite engaging, others not so much. It just really was not my style. In my view, Kim Stanley Robinson did it better in The Years of Rice and Salt.
September 5, 2025
This book was a trip. Beautiful prose and ambitious plotting. Great respect for Chandrasekera.
June 17, 2024
I think this book will do great, it's a very interesting book with great characters but it is confusing. There are so many different things and plot lines going on at once that it did get almost impossible for me to keep everything straight. I agree with the other reviews I've seen for this book, the synopsis doesn't exactly match what the book is actually about which did make a book a little disappointing. The audiobook narrator was great. I'm interested to see more from this author.
Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for the audiobook in exchange for an honest review!
Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for the audiobook in exchange for an honest review!
June 21, 2024
I don't think I've ever read a more incomprehensible book. The blurb is like a translation key for what's supposed to be happening, but even then it's like reading an allegory written in another language and then poorly translated. Maybe you could chip through to some kind of understanding with a deep dissection of each page but honestly it wouldn't be worth the effort.
January 28, 2024
This was stunning and complex. A portrait of death (and dead things walking) and incarnations and reincarnations, of gods playing games and being caught in the same cycle. I think it would help the reader to have some knowledge of South Asian religions (it helped me certainly) to have a deeper connection to the landscape at play. Chandrasekera's prose is lyrical and inventive. This book is bolder than Saint of Bright Doors in style. Despite magic and zombies-of-a-sort this feels more comfortably science fiction than fantasy or horror.
Genre: speculative fiction/science fiction
Sri Lanka, through many ages
A portrait of death (and dead things walking) and incarnations and reincarnations, of gods playing games and being caught in the same cycle, woven seamlessly with South Asian religion and lore. The story spins out over millennia and lifetimes, reaching into the distant past and stretching into the future to the ends of the earth.
I find Vajra Chandrasekera difficult to review. His prose is lyrical and inventive and his style intensely complex in an intellectually stimulating way. Knowing his style, I fully intended to take my time reading Rakesfall, and yet at halfway through I was so invested in the spiral of reincarnation and destruction that I read the entire book in an evening. Having some knowledge of the South Asian religious landscape - the Vedas and Upanishads and Sri Lankan Buddhism helped me connect to the text more deeply. Chandrasekera is playing with traditional themes of reincarnation and mixing with his own interpretation.
This book is bolder than Saint of Bright Doors in style. Despite magic and zombies-of-a-sort this fits more comfortably in the science fiction genre than fantasy or horror. At times it reminded me of a more personal or a slice-of-life version of The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson, with the winding epic quality of iterations of life after life. At other times, it reminded me of This is How You Lose the Time War, with entities altering the fabric of the world.
Rakesfall is stunning and complex. The pacing is slow and the book is wordy - I’ve never been more thankful for having wikipedia and a dictionary connected to my kindle - but utterly beautiful. Lush worldbuilding through myth and a variety of styles is a similar technique to Bright Doors, and yet gives us an entirely different and purely wild setting.
Thank you to @tordotcompub for an eARC for review. Rakesfall is out 6/18/24.
Genre: speculative fiction/science fiction
Sri Lanka, through many ages
A portrait of death (and dead things walking) and incarnations and reincarnations, of gods playing games and being caught in the same cycle, woven seamlessly with South Asian religion and lore. The story spins out over millennia and lifetimes, reaching into the distant past and stretching into the future to the ends of the earth.
I find Vajra Chandrasekera difficult to review. His prose is lyrical and inventive and his style intensely complex in an intellectually stimulating way. Knowing his style, I fully intended to take my time reading Rakesfall, and yet at halfway through I was so invested in the spiral of reincarnation and destruction that I read the entire book in an evening. Having some knowledge of the South Asian religious landscape - the Vedas and Upanishads and Sri Lankan Buddhism helped me connect to the text more deeply. Chandrasekera is playing with traditional themes of reincarnation and mixing with his own interpretation.
This book is bolder than Saint of Bright Doors in style. Despite magic and zombies-of-a-sort this fits more comfortably in the science fiction genre than fantasy or horror. At times it reminded me of a more personal or a slice-of-life version of The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson, with the winding epic quality of iterations of life after life. At other times, it reminded me of This is How You Lose the Time War, with entities altering the fabric of the world.
Rakesfall is stunning and complex. The pacing is slow and the book is wordy - I’ve never been more thankful for having wikipedia and a dictionary connected to my kindle - but utterly beautiful. Lush worldbuilding through myth and a variety of styles is a similar technique to Bright Doors, and yet gives us an entirely different and purely wild setting.
Thank you to @tordotcompub for an eARC for review. Rakesfall is out 6/18/24.
June 1, 2024
Big thanks to @tordotcom for this arc and physical copy received for a honest review. Oof this one was a doozy Some pages had to constantly be reread and required full attention, but the payoff. The last 40% came together in this beautiful web of centuries and lifetimes. The book on a whole was original and unique. So beautifully written I feel like I made it to the golden city. 5⭐️
Read
June 8, 2024what
June 12, 2025
I can appreciate this is probably really intelligent storytelling, however, I am just too stupid to understand it
July 1, 2024
WOW this book made me work for it.
A dense, complex, and demanding story, where the blurb is woefully inadequate -- this is not a science fiction romance, along the lines of This is How You Lose the Time War (which a lot of readers seem to go in expecting, and are disappointed when the blurb doesn't turn out to define the work at all), but more of a weird fiction epic, stitched together from many stories that feature (maybe) versions of the two main characters.
And that's fine! That's GREAT. I'm resistant to the idea that a book needs to be easily digestible to be good or worth your time, and while I was frustrated at times with my inability to follow where Chandrasekera was leading (I would give my actual TEETH to how he organized the POVs here), it was fun to challenge myself. Do I wish I'd understood more? Did I need to, to appreciate the scope and the technical ambition of this story? Nope!
I went to a signing for this book right after it was released, and Chandrasekera talked about how while the book is deeply rooted in Sri Lankan mythology, politics, and history, you didn't exactly need to have a background in all of that to read the story. It's true, to a point -- if I was more aware, I think I would have had a much deeper experience with the book -- but now I am very, very curious about those things, and will explore them on my own.
The writing, of course, is wonderful -- so many banger lines, so much clever wordplay -- and there's a great section in which we get to (somewhat briefly) revisit Luriat, the city in which most of The Saint of Bright Doors takes place. I definitely think the second half of the book fits together more organically than the rest, and I do love stories about what happens after the end, and what happens as people try to heal the world (look, Horizon Zero Dawn is one of my favorite video games for a reason!).
It's a heady experience, and I definitely came out of it feeling like I'd overestimated my intelligence; sometimes I feel like the individual sections, especially at the beginning, didn't cohere from their separate stories as well as I would have liked, and some of the meme-y language fell flat for me (I understand why it was used, but I always feel like that dates a work unnecessarily -- totally a matter of preference!). And it was frustrating at times, when I just wanted a clear demonstration of who was who, or a concrete ending with some of my questions answered...but it wasn't about that, in the end. And understanding that this is more of an experience, a complicated web (heh) of histories laid out like jewels on a tray, rather than a linear narrative, makes reading this far more enjoyable.
I respect Chandrasekera for writing this vivid, tricky, ambitious book -- it's a hell of a second act, and I can't wait to see what he devastates us with next.
A dense, complex, and demanding story, where the blurb is woefully inadequate -- this is not a science fiction romance, along the lines of This is How You Lose the Time War (which a lot of readers seem to go in expecting, and are disappointed when the blurb doesn't turn out to define the work at all), but more of a weird fiction epic, stitched together from many stories that feature (maybe) versions of the two main characters.
And that's fine! That's GREAT. I'm resistant to the idea that a book needs to be easily digestible to be good or worth your time, and while I was frustrated at times with my inability to follow where Chandrasekera was leading (I would give my actual TEETH to how he organized the POVs here), it was fun to challenge myself. Do I wish I'd understood more? Did I need to, to appreciate the scope and the technical ambition of this story? Nope!
I went to a signing for this book right after it was released, and Chandrasekera talked about how while the book is deeply rooted in Sri Lankan mythology, politics, and history, you didn't exactly need to have a background in all of that to read the story. It's true, to a point -- if I was more aware, I think I would have had a much deeper experience with the book -- but now I am very, very curious about those things, and will explore them on my own.
The writing, of course, is wonderful -- so many banger lines, so much clever wordplay -- and there's a great section in which we get to (somewhat briefly) revisit Luriat, the city in which most of The Saint of Bright Doors takes place. I definitely think the second half of the book fits together more organically than the rest, and I do love stories about what happens after the end, and what happens as people try to heal the world (look, Horizon Zero Dawn is one of my favorite video games for a reason!).
It's a heady experience, and I definitely came out of it feeling like I'd overestimated my intelligence; sometimes I feel like the individual sections, especially at the beginning, didn't cohere from their separate stories as well as I would have liked, and some of the meme-y language fell flat for me (I understand why it was used, but I always feel like that dates a work unnecessarily -- totally a matter of preference!). And it was frustrating at times, when I just wanted a clear demonstration of who was who, or a concrete ending with some of my questions answered...but it wasn't about that, in the end. And understanding that this is more of an experience, a complicated web (heh) of histories laid out like jewels on a tray, rather than a linear narrative, makes reading this far more enjoyable.
I respect Chandrasekera for writing this vivid, tricky, ambitious book -- it's a hell of a second act, and I can't wait to see what he devastates us with next.
June 27, 2024
I received this book on audiobook from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.
A non-linear story following two people connected over lifetimes, Rakesfall is a lyrical, poetic experience that requires a lot of attention while reading.
It takes a while to understand what is going on in terms of plot trajectory and even the characters. We’re initially set back from the story in a way that suggests the idea that stories, as a medium of connectedness, are the focus, not the people themselves. Because while the two characters are reincarnated throughout different timelines, their personalities are not exactly the same, so it’s hard to really care for them as people.
This was the hardest part of the novel for me. I had trouble connecting with the characters because they kept morphing and changing and sometimes the settings were very realistic and sometimes super surreal or almost fantastical.
Once I interpreted what I thought the novel was doing, it made more sense, but it’s also not something I’m particularly interested in. Now, I could be wrong, but I believe the novel is about
Anthroposophy posits there is a spiritual world accessible to human consciousness through inner development and that this spiritual world can provide insights into the nature of existence. More specifically, it mentions the Akashic records, which are a compendium of all human events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future. They contain, apparently, the entire history and future of every soul throughout its existence that can be accessed through spiritual means.
Now, I believe the point of this book is to show this - that humans, our essences or souls, or whatever, are all connected. I think it did accomplish this, if that was indeed the point.
Unfortunately, while I think the book did what it was trying to do, this "doing" didn’t do anything for me. I’m about as spiritual as a broken cardboard box, so this sort of “we’re all connected stuff” bores me, and I found it a bit repetitive. The different lives of Annalid and Leverit were interesting on their own, but at times, the novel felt liek a collection of short stories tenuously tied together.
Yet, the book is beautifully written - the language flows wonderfully and it’s full of beautiful metaphors and descriptions. It’s not hard to visualize what’s going on - it’s just difficult some times to understand why it was going on.
I think if you’re someone who really loves literary fiction sci-fi, loves a book that is at its core somewhat spiritual, and one that feels more episodic than continuous, you will really enjoy this. I thought it was well-done, but I didn't love it.
A non-linear story following two people connected over lifetimes, Rakesfall is a lyrical, poetic experience that requires a lot of attention while reading.
It takes a while to understand what is going on in terms of plot trajectory and even the characters. We’re initially set back from the story in a way that suggests the idea that stories, as a medium of connectedness, are the focus, not the people themselves. Because while the two characters are reincarnated throughout different timelines, their personalities are not exactly the same, so it’s hard to really care for them as people.
This was the hardest part of the novel for me. I had trouble connecting with the characters because they kept morphing and changing and sometimes the settings were very realistic and sometimes super surreal or almost fantastical.
Once I interpreted what I thought the novel was doing, it made more sense, but it’s also not something I’m particularly interested in. Now, I could be wrong, but I believe the novel is about
Anthroposophy posits there is a spiritual world accessible to human consciousness through inner development and that this spiritual world can provide insights into the nature of existence. More specifically, it mentions the Akashic records, which are a compendium of all human events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future. They contain, apparently, the entire history and future of every soul throughout its existence that can be accessed through spiritual means.
Now, I believe the point of this book is to show this - that humans, our essences or souls, or whatever, are all connected. I think it did accomplish this, if that was indeed the point.
Unfortunately, while I think the book did what it was trying to do, this "doing" didn’t do anything for me. I’m about as spiritual as a broken cardboard box, so this sort of “we’re all connected stuff” bores me, and I found it a bit repetitive. The different lives of Annalid and Leverit were interesting on their own, but at times, the novel felt liek a collection of short stories tenuously tied together.
Yet, the book is beautifully written - the language flows wonderfully and it’s full of beautiful metaphors and descriptions. It’s not hard to visualize what’s going on - it’s just difficult some times to understand why it was going on.
I think if you’re someone who really loves literary fiction sci-fi, loves a book that is at its core somewhat spiritual, and one that feels more episodic than continuous, you will really enjoy this. I thought it was well-done, but I didn't love it.
July 1, 2024
My full review of "Rakesfall"
Even though a lot of readers aren't gonna see it that way, for me, Rakesfall is an improvement over the author's debut, The Saint of Bright Doors. It's a novel that is told with utmost confidence and self-indulgence, not really caring about whether readers will actually understand it. If you're looking for a mainstream sci-fi/fantasy story where things are explained in ways that always make sense, then this is not for you, but if you're a reader looking for something that experiments not only with the structure of the story, but with prose itself, then this is something you should consider reading. It's not an easy read at all, you might be trying to figure out who the narrator is for most of the book and it'll almost certainly make you slow down, but it's worth it.
Even though a lot of readers aren't gonna see it that way, for me, Rakesfall is an improvement over the author's debut, The Saint of Bright Doors. It's a novel that is told with utmost confidence and self-indulgence, not really caring about whether readers will actually understand it. If you're looking for a mainstream sci-fi/fantasy story where things are explained in ways that always make sense, then this is not for you, but if you're a reader looking for something that experiments not only with the structure of the story, but with prose itself, then this is something you should consider reading. It's not an easy read at all, you might be trying to figure out who the narrator is for most of the book and it'll almost certainly make you slow down, but it's worth it.
June 19, 2024
I failed to understand what the book was trying to communicate. While the elements individually lured me into reading this book, it was not the prominent theme (unlike the spicy lines) that kept popping up every few paragraphs. I only wish there was a disclaimer about it and all this could have been avoided. If you like spicy fantasy books only then pick this up. It's not my cup of tea.
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