It's rather unfortunate timing that I sprained my wrist a few weeks ago when I was about to launch into this short novel, because it's precisely the sort of book I need to take notes on, but couldn't on account of pain. In fact, this is what I was reading while waiting for treatment at urgent care. Just imagine the plethora of words, lines and sections that I'd dearly love to quote to you in support of my abiding suggestion that this is a heartstoppingly beautiful read. There were plenty such that I felt the need to read aloud, just to hear them spoken, which may go partway to explaining why the nurses thought I was insane.

It's worth mentioning here that my favourite book of last year was Nghi Vo's 'Siren Queen', which was my first experience of her work. This is a very different story indeed in a very different genre, but it's just as good in its own way and, if it isn't my favourite book of this year, it's definitely close behind it, nipping at the heels of Nathan Ballingrud's 'Crypt of the Moon Spider'. Clearly, what I'd be a fool not to take away with me is the surety that I need to devour the rest of her output. She's published a lot more books than these two, including five novellas in 'The Singing Hills Cycle' with at least three more apparently on the way.

Given how highly I'm praising this already, I should throw out that the obvious comparison for me was to a book half of me hated, namely Nisi Shawl's 'Everfair'. The writer in me admired what she did with that book, how unconventionally she approached it, but the reader in me struggled with the result. Much of the reason for that was because the lead character was effectively the nation of Everfair, which endured on even as characters within it lived and died. I found it difficult to feel for characters who were here one minute and gone the next, in the context of playing a small part in the nation they called home. I did not find it difficult at all to do that here in a similar scenario.

Perhaps that's because the city of Azril is not all that endures from beginning to end. It's there at the beginning, a fantasy city full of colour and character, but so is Vitrine, an immortal demon who has adopted it as her home and guided it over many generations. When a battalion of angels wipe it almost from the face of the earth, one remains because she's cursed him, putting a small piece of her into him and so preventing his return to Heaven. He doesn't remain in Azril throughout the many generations she takes to bring it back to life, but he comes and he goes and, as time goes by, he's there more than he's not because Vitrine and Azril are changing him.

And so this is the story of a city just as 'Everfair' was the story of a nation, but we have guideposts to keep us grounded as entire generations pass. Vitrine may be a demon and she may not have the morals of you or I but she's a sheer delight of a character. I sympathised more with her plight as an entire city she loved with a passion is destroyed overnight and her body along with it than I have a legion of more overtly sympathetic lead characters. I can feel myself tearing up just remembering her passion, her anger and her dedication to bring life and culture and stability back to Azril. This is majestic writing and it deserves a majestic lead, whether we choose to call her hero or villain or neither or both.

I don't believe the angel ever gains a name, but we know who he is and we know what he was part of. Angels are supposed to be the good guys, but they're also supposed to be the righteous arm of God and that's what this angel and his cohorts served as when they destroyed Azril. What part of Vitrine lives within his body corrupts him but in a way that we could consider human. What shocks me the most about this book is how much Vo teaches us about humanity through the avatars of a demon and an angel. It's a slim volume, running only a breath beyond two hundred pages but it's rich and sumptuous. While I'm aching for the next in Ballingrud's 'Lunar Gothic' series, I'm aching to re-read this one only a month after my first time through. I have a feeling that this isn't merely a book, it's a companion to be.

There are a slew of other characters, human beings from here or there and eventually, as the city comes back to life, from Azril itself. I won't name any, because they all play fleeting parts, some in a more substantial way than others but all fleeting. They live human lifespans after all and that's a drop in the ocean of time when compared to cities and immortals. Vitrine remembers them all, and she treasures the moments she had with them, but she also nurtures their bloodlines like we might nurture a forest of trees or a lineage of horses. There are families we watch rise and fall in epic fashion over many generations, but without the exhaustive detailing of a historian. Vitrine is earthy and all about the moment, so we experience these humans in glimpses.

I adored this book. Unlike 'Siren Queen', where I have a strong background in the subject matter, this is purest fantasy and I brought nothing to the table except my eyes. Everything here is what Vo endowed it with. It's an epic fantasy perhaps more than anything else, except for a biography of a city in impressionistic moments. However, it's a love story and a war story, a story of patience and a story of redemption, ultimately a story of stories. All life is here: not just human but angelic and demonic and those become the most human of all. Never mind all the characters, I fell in love with a city here.

It's a rare book that lives up to its hype but this one exceeds it. It deserves to be read, deeply and often. It's that special sort of book that shouldn't be merely bought; it ought to be found or given or won. However it reaches you, treasure who made it possible because they have the sort of soul that's important to keep close at hand. It's a rare author who impresses me this much but Nghi Vo has done it twice now and twice in a row at that. 'Siren Queen' is a story anchored in its time. This is timeless. It's one of those books that, like Azril, deserves to live forever and we should fight for that.

So, like that but with all the words and phrases that touched me deeply but I failed to note down on account of being right-handed and stuck in urgent care at the time. Never mind. You'll read all of them yourself anyway. Trust me on this. ~~ Hal C F Astell

For more titles by Nghi Vo click here