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Kameron Hurley

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The Mirror Empire (Worldbreaker Saga Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Kameron Hurley (Author), Richard Anderson (Illustrator) Format: Kindle Edition

3.9 819 ratings

Book 1 of 3: Worldbreaker Saga

See all formats and editions

An ambitious tale of magic, war, and parallel worlds that pushes the boundaries of epic fantasy—from a two-time Hugo Award winner

On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past . . . while a world goes to war with itself.

In the frozen kingdom of Saiduan, invaders from another realm are decimating whole cities, leaving behind nothing but ash and ruin. At the heart of this war lie the pacifistic Dhai people, once enslaved by the Saiduan and now courted by their former masters to provide aid against the encroaching enemy.

As the dark star of the cataclysm rises, an illegitimate ruler is tasked with holding together a country fractured by civil war; a precocious young fighter is asked to betray his family to save his skin; and a half-Dhai general must choose between the eradication of her father's people or loyalty to her alien Empress. Through tense alliances and devastating betrayal, the Dhai and their allies attempt to hold against a seemingly unstoppable force as enemy nations prepare for a coming together of worlds as old as the universe itself. In the end, one world will rise—and many will perish.

Stretching from desolate tundras to steamy, semi-tropical climes seething with sentient plant life, this is an epic tale of blood mages and mercenaries, emperors and priestly assassins, who must unite to save a world on the brink of ruin.

File Under: Fantasy [ Orphaned Child | World at War | Blood Magic | The Fluidity of Gender]

Editorial Reviews

Review

Nominated for the Locus Award for Best Fantasy
Shorlisted for the Gemmell Morningstar Award

“With vividly inventive world building and a fast-paced plot, The Mirror Empireopens a smart, brutal, and ambitious epic fantasy series. Book two is already on my must-read list.”
– Kate Elliott, author of the Spiritwalker series

“The Mirror Empire is the most original fantasy I’ve read in a long time, set in a world full of new ideas, expanding the horizons of the genre. A complex and intricate book full of elegant ideas and finely-drawn characters.”
– Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of The Shadows of the Apt series and finalist for the 2014 Gemmell Legend Award

“The Mirror Empire is epic in every sense of the word. Hurley has built a world – no, worlds – in which cosmology and magic, history and religion, politics and prejudice all play crucial roles. Prepare yourself for sentient plants, rifts in the fabric of reality, and remarkable powers that wax and wane with the stars themselves. Forget all about tentative, conventional fantasy; there’s so much great material in here that Hurley needs more than one universe in order to fit it all in.”
– Brian Staveley, author of The Emperor’s Blades

STARRED REVIEW: “This is a hugely ambitious work, bloody and violent, with interestingly gender-flipped politics and a host of factions to keep straight, as points of view switch often. Although it is a challenging read, the strong narrative thread in this new series from Hurley (God’s War) pulls readers through the imaginative tangle of multiple worlds and histories colliding.”
– Library Journal

STARRED REVIEW: “Hurley (Rapture) reuses old tropes to excellent effect, interweaving them with original elements to create a world that will fascinate and delight her established fans and appeal to newcomers. Readers will blaze through this opening instalment and eagerly await the promised sequel.”
– Publishers Weekly

“The Mirror Empire is an extraordinary novel. The scale and invention here makes it essential reading but the characters make it remarkable. None of them are heroes and none of them have the comforting sense of having read the book they’re in. They’re all flawed, terrified people doing what they can to survive. Seeing them struggle even as the stakes are raised makes for a reading experience as packed as it is tense. Book 2 can’t get here fast enough.”
– Alasdair Stuart

“Taking epic fantasy down challenging and original paths. Thoughtful and thought-provoking with every twist and turn.”
– Juliet E. McKenna

“Hurley intelligently tackles issues of culture and gender, while also throwing in plenty of bloodthirsty action and well-rounded characters. This is a fresh, exciting fantasy epic that’s looking to the future and asking important questions. 4****/5”
– SFX magazine

‘‘The novel achieves what the most important fantasy strives for: it gives us a world the like of which we have never quite seen before, but that offers us some often unpleasant and provocative shocks of recognition.’’
– Gary K. Wolfe, for Locus magazine

“The Mirror Empire is a fresh, vigorous, and gripping entrant into the epic fantasy genre, able to stand toe-to-toe with any of the heavyweight series out there. I cannot recommend this novel highly enough.”
– SF Revu

“For me [The Mirror Empire] did all the things a fantasy should do – holding our own societies up to the light by reflecting off worlds that are very different. Add in a magic system where the users are only powerful some of the time, and semi sentient vegetation that is possibly more of a threat than the magic users, and I happily sank into this book with a satisfied sigh.”
– Francis Knight, author of Fade to Black

“Bold, merciless, and wildly inventive, Kameron Hurley’s The Mirror Empire begins an epic tale of worlds at war that will linger long in readers’ imaginations. If you’re looking for original and challenging fantasy, this is definitely the series for you.”
– Courtney Schafer, author of The Whitefire Crossing

“There’s a powerful yet elegant brutality in The Mirror Empire that serves notice to traditional epic fantasy: move over, make way, an intoxicating new blend of storytelling has arrived. These are pages that will command your attention.”
– Bradley Beaulieu, author of The Lays of Anuskaya trilogy

“The Mirror Empire takes look at epic fantasy patriarchy & gives it a firm kick in the balls… [it] will be the most important book you read this year.”
– Alex Ristea, Ristea’s Reads

“Hurley has bitten off an awful lot with her ambitious The Mirror Empire. And for those of us who are bored with a linear and predictable narrative, this is a very good thing. Hurley seems determined to supplant nearly every fantasy troupe, even down to her five-gendered social structure with group marriage and funerary cannibalism. These bold rejections of what we take for granted in our own society are illuminating in Hurley’s hands.”
– Sword & Laser

“In the two worlds of The Mirror Empire, we get Deadly Plants, Blood Magic, and yes, Brutal Women. The Mirror Empire is both a chance for fantasy fans to get to know Hurley’s writing, and for previous fans of her work to see what she can do in a new vein. And for readers new to her work, this is in many ways the best place to start. 4.5****/5.”
– Paul Weimer, SF Signal

“One of the most stunning epic fantasies I’ve read this year. The setting is unique and plays a major role in the story. A spectacular novel.”
– Books Without Any Pictures

“With her new epic fantasy series, Hurley has shown that she is no one trick pony. The Mirror Empire is a fresh, vigorous, and gripping entrant into the epic fantasy genre, able to stand toe-to-toe with any of the heavyweight series out there.”
– SF Revu

“There is so much to talk about in The Mirror Empire — whether you stick to the complexities and layers of its unfolding plot, or delve into its ideas about family and sexuality and human intimacy — and it’s Hurley’s staunch insistence on following her own drumbeat that has resulted in such a rewarding reading experience.”
– SFReviews.net

“I can’t even tell you how much I liked this book. It was long, yes, but I didn’t mind it because there was just so much awesome happening. I classify it as a fantasy, but it could also be considered science fiction, what with the parallel universes and binary star system and all.”
– In Case of Survival

“At its best this novel is as good as anything I have read this year. Expect to hear ‘ambitious’ a lot; I couldn’t imagine the mental and physical mapping it would take to hold all these pieces together but hold together they do. The world is alive, the world is unique, and the world is actually built rather than borrowed.”
– Fantasy Review Barn

“The Mirror Empire is an interesting, raw-nerved work of epic fantasy built from the ground up…By the end of this first volume in her new series, the author leaves each of the main characters with a satisfying conclusion while putting to each of them new problems… May the author not keep us waiting too long for the second instalment”.
– Borrowed Worlds

“If I had known how good The Mirror Empire was going to be, I would have waited until after the sale and paid full price as a show of support to the author. As it was, I bought one of her other books to make up for it”.
– 20Four12

“Astoundingly inventive.”
– The Illustrated Page

“The Mirror Empire is a fast-paced and exciting read, and the start of quite possibly one of the greatest political dramas I have ever picked up.”
– Coffee on My Keyboard

“I loved this book. It’s a wonderful book. Kameron Hurley’s The Mirror Empire is essentially what I wanted Game of Thrones to be: it’s a truly epic fantasy which grapples with fraught ethical questions while immersing me in a meticulously built out world of wonder.”
– Clatter and Clank

“There is plenty of originality here, and a vivid, sweeping quality of culture that cannot go unnoticed and unrecognized. In terms of worldbuilding, it was top notch, and without a trace of the western aligned molds fantasy so often falls so neatly into.”
– The Waking Den

“The world-building is incredibly creative and, sometimes, brutal. I love it.”
– Mental Megalodon

“One of the best epic fantasy novels I’ve read in a long time. It’s the sort of fantasy with the perfect balance of violence and horror that gives you chills and thrills down your spine.”
– Fairy Bookmother

“A saga that fascinates mainly by its striking and original setting. An unstoppable mix of action, mystery, magic and adventures.”
– El Caballero del Árbol Sonriente

From the Back Cover

On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event, an orphan is ripped from her world and forced to take up arms in a genocidal war as old as the universe itself.
In the frozen kingdom of Saiduan, invaders from another realm are decimating whole cities, leaving behind nothing but ash and ruin. At the heart of this war lie the pacifistic Dhai people, once enslaved by the Saiduan and now courted by their former masters to provide aid against the encroaching enemy.

As the dark star of the cataclysm rises, an illegitimate ruler struggles to unite a country fractured by civil war; a precocious young fighter is asked to betray his family to save his skin; and a half-Dhai general must choose between the eradication of her father's people or loyalty to her alien Empress.

In the end, only one world will rise - and many will perish.

About the Author

Nominated for the Locus Award for Best Fantasy
Shorlisted for the Gemmell Morningstar Award

“With vividly inventive world building and a fast-paced plot, The Mirror Empireopens a smart, brutal, and ambitious epic fantasy series. Book two is already on my must-read list.”
– Kate Elliott, author of the Spiritwalker series

“The Mirror Empire is the most original fantasy I’ve read in a long time, set in a world full of new ideas, expanding the horizons of the genre. A complex and intricate book full of elegant ideas and finely-drawn characters.”
– Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of The Shadows of the Apt series and finalist for the 2014 Gemmell Legend Award

“The Mirror Empire is epic in every sense of the word. Hurley has built a world – no, worlds – in which cosmology and magic, history and religion, politics and prejudice all play crucial roles. Prepare yourself for sentient plants, rifts in the fabric of reality, and remarkable powers that wax and wane with the stars themselves. Forget all about tentative, conventional fantasy; there’s so much great material in here that Hurley needs more than one universe in order to fit it all in.”
– Brian Staveley, author of The Emperor’s Blades

STARRED REVIEW: “This is a hugely ambitious work, bloody and violent, with interestingly gender-flipped politics and a host of factions to keep straight, as points of view switch often. Although it is a challenging read, the strong narrative thread in this new series from Hurley (God’s War) pulls readers through the imaginative tangle of multiple worlds and histories colliding.”
– Library Journal

STARRED REVIEW: “Hurley (Rapture) reuses old tropes to excellent effect, interweaving them with original elements to create a world that will fascinate and delight her established fans and appeal to newcomers. Readers will blaze through this opening instalment and eagerly await the promised sequel.”
– Publishers Weekly

“The Mirror Empire is an extraordinary novel. The scale and invention here makes it essential reading but the characters make it remarkable. None of them are heroes and none of them have the comforting sense of having read the book they’re in. They’re all flawed, terrified people doing what they can to survive. Seeing them struggle even as the stakes are raised makes for a reading experience as packed as it is tense. Book 2 can’t get here fast enough.”
– Alasdair Stuart

“Taking epic fantasy down challenging and original paths. Thoughtful and thought-provoking with every twist and turn.”
– Juliet E. McKenna

“Hurley intelligently tackles issues of culture and gender, while also throwing in plenty of bloodthirsty action and well-rounded characters. This is a fresh, exciting fantasy epic that’s looking to the future and asking important questions. 4****/5”
– SFX magazine

‘‘The novel achieves what the most important fantasy strives for: it gives us a world the like of which we have never quite seen before, but that offers us some often unpleasant and provocative shocks of recognition.’’
– Gary K. Wolfe, for Locus magazine

“The Mirror Empire is a fresh, vigorous, and gripping entrant into the epic fantasy genre, able to stand toe-to-toe with any of the heavyweight series out there. I cannot recommend this novel highly enough.”
– SF Revu

“For me [The Mirror Empire] did all the things a fantasy should do – holding our own societies up to the light by reflecting off worlds that are very different. Add in a magic system where the users are only powerful some of the time, and semi sentient vegetation that is possibly more of a threat than the magic users, and I happily sank into this book with a satisfied sigh.”
– Francis Knight, author of Fade to Black

“Bold, merciless, and wildly inventive, Kameron Hurley’s The Mirror Empire begins an epic tale of worlds at war that will linger long in readers’ imaginations. If you’re looking for original and challenging fantasy, this is definitely the series for you.”
– Courtney Schafer, author of The Whitefire Crossing

“There’s a powerful yet elegant brutality in The Mirror Empire that serves notice to traditional epic fantasy: move over, make way, an intoxicating new blend of storytelling has arrived. These are pages that will command your attention.”
– Bradley Beaulieu, author of The Lays of Anuskaya trilogy

“The Mirror Empire takes look at epic fantasy patriarchy & gives it a firm kick in the balls… [it] will be the most important book you read this year.”
– Alex Ristea, Ristea’s Reads

“Hurley has bitten off an awful lot with her ambitious The Mirror Empire. And for those of us who are bored with a linear and predictable narrative, this is a very good thing. Hurley seems determined to supplant nearly every fantasy troupe, even down to her five-gendered social structure with group marriage and funerary cannibalism. These bold rejections of what we take for granted in our own society are illuminating in Hurley’s hands.”
– Sword & Laser

“In the two worlds of The Mirror Empire, we get Deadly Plants, Blood Magic, and yes, Brutal Women. The Mirror Empire is both a chance for fantasy fans to get to know Hurley’s writing, and for previous fans of her work to see what she can do in a new vein. And for readers new to her work, this is in many ways the best place to start. 4.5****/5.”
– Paul Weimer, SF Signal

“One of the most stunning epic fantasies I’ve read this year. The setting is unique and plays a major role in the story. A spectacular novel.”
– Books Without Any Pictures

“With her new epic fantasy series, Hurley has shown that she is no one trick pony. The Mirror Empire is a fresh, vigorous, and gripping entrant into the epic fantasy genre, able to stand toe-to-toe with any of the heavyweight series out there.”
– SF Revu

“There is so much to talk about in The Mirror Empire — whether you stick to the complexities and layers of its unfolding plot, or delve into its ideas about family and sexuality and human intimacy — and it’s Hurley’s staunch insistence on following her own drumbeat that has resulted in such a rewarding reading experience.”
– SFReviews.net

“I can’t even tell you how much I liked this book. It was long, yes, but I didn’t mind it because there was just so much awesome happening. I classify it as a fantasy, but it could also be considered science fiction, what with the parallel universes and binary star system and all.”
– In Case of Survival

“At its best this novel is as good as anything I have read this year. Expect to hear ‘ambitious’ a lot; I couldn’t imagine the mental and physical mapping it would take to hold all these pieces together but hold together they do. The world is alive, the world is unique, and the world is actually built rather than borrowed.”
– Fantasy Review Barn

“The Mirror Empire is an interesting, raw-nerved work of epic fantasy built from the ground up…By the end of this first volume in her new series, the author leaves each of the main characters with a satisfying conclusion while putting to each of them new problems… May the author not keep us waiting too long for the second instalment”.
– Borrowed Worlds

“If I had known how good The Mirror Empire was going to be, I would have waited until after the sale and paid full price as a show of support to the author. As it was, I bought one of her other books to make up for it”.
– 20Four12

“Astoundingly inventive.”
– The Illustrated Page

“The Mirror Empire is a fast-paced and exciting read, and the start of quite possibly one of the greatest political dramas I have ever picked up.”
– Coffee on My Keyboard

“I loved this book. It’s a wonderful book. Kameron Hurley’s The Mirror Empire is essentially what I wanted Game of Thrones to be: it’s a truly epic fantasy which grapples with fraught ethical questions while immersing me in a meticulously built out world of wonder.”
– Clatter and Clank

“There is plenty of originality here, and a vivid, sweeping quality of culture that cannot go unnoticed and unrecognized. In terms of worldbuilding, it was top notch, and without a trace of the western aligned molds fantasy so often falls so neatly into.”
– The Waking Den

“The world-building is incredibly creative and, sometimes, brutal. I love it.”
– Mental Megalodon

“One of the best epic fantasy novels I’ve read in a long time. It’s the sort of fantasy with the perfect balance of violence and horror that gives you chills and thrills down your spine.”
– Fairy Bookmother

“A saga that fascinates mainly by its striking and original setting. An unstoppable mix of action, mystery, magic and adventures.”
– El Caballero del Árbol Sonriente

“Hurley forcefully flips every genre trope in her sights to create a work simply exploding with a kind of anarchic, creative ferocity. This is not your grandad’s epic fantasy.”
– SFF180

“Totally fascinating!”
– To Boldly Nerd

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00IQQUYVK
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Angry Robot (August 26, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 26, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 3181 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 508 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #524,365 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews:
3.9 819 ratings

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Kameron Hurley

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Kameron Hurley is the author of The Light Brigade, The Stars are Legion and the essay collection The Geek Feminist Revolution, as well as the award-winning God’s War Trilogy and The Worldbreaker Saga. Hurley has won the Hugo Award, Locus Award, Kitschy Award, and Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer. She was also a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Nebula Award, and the Gemmell Morningstar Award. Her short fiction has appeared in Popular Science Magazine, Lightspeed and numerous anthologies. Hurley has also written for The Atlantic, Writers Digest, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, LA Weekly, Bitch Magazine, and Locus Magazine. She posts regularly at KameronHurley.com.

Get a short story delivered to your inbox once a month here: patreon.com/kameronhurley. Or, sign up to be notified of new releases here: bit.ly/hurleysheroes

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819 global ratings

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That One Reviewer

It's also a pretty good epic fantasy yarn

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2014

Verified Purchase

Wow.

The Mirror Empire is one of the most challenging and thought-provoking books I've read in my life. It's also a pretty good epic fantasy yarn.

The plot is relatively well-worn in fantasy circles. Invaders from a mirror world are crossing over and hiding among the people of the realm, and they need to be stopped before their ultimate plan is enacted. It's well-executed and it's about the only standard thing you'll find in this book.

Readers who are only familiar with Tolkien-style fantasy are in for a smack in the face. The world in this book is alien in almost every way. Most of the flora are actively trying to kill and eat people. The fauna consists of dogs, cats and bears, all large enough to use as riding beasts. The languages and cultures appear to be rooted in Eastern sources rather than Western. Gender and family norms are so far removed from the nuclear family that they can be difficult to recognize - for example one culture has five different genders based on self-determined sex and social dominance, another has three genders including him, her and hir, and at least one person who shifts between all three.

If I'm screwing any of that up, it's because the book never pauses to do any hand-holding on these points, or on its magic system. There are parajitsa, tirajitsa and omajitsa, and even after reading the whole book I can only tell you what two of them are. There is a glossary at the back of the book, but I could have used a few paragraphs covering Dhai culture just a bit more clearly.

The characters and their interactions are reminiscent of Game of Thrones. There are very few unabashed good guys, and very few outright evil folk. Most everyone has an agenda in conflict with someone else, and even the people you want to root for get in the habit of doing horrible things. (One of the most entertaining and classically heroic characters is an abusive spouse who rapes her husband during his introduction.) The brutality of the environment, magic and war is played dead straight - a lot of people are killed or crippled, and a good chunk of it comes from making a wrong step into something lethal.

I would recommend this book to any fantasy fan looking for something different and willing to read it carefully. The only reason it's not five stars is because it is a challenging read, and sometimes that took me out of enjoying the story for its own sake.

Helpful

B R Sanders

THE MIRROR EMPIRE is what I wanted GAME OF THRONES to be

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2015

Verified Purchase

Notes on Diversity:
If you're looking for an epic fantasy that takes diversity seriously, this book fits the bill. Hurley writes across an entire planet, and unlike many writers who do so, she writes most of the planet as people of color. A handful of arguably white people pop up, but the majority of the cast is Black or brown--and I read all of the POV characters as people of color. Contributing to that complexity is that two of the POV characters were mixed-race and dealt with the complicated responses to their biracial identity that society reflected back to them.

But that's not all! One society (Dhai) had a five gender system which emphasized choice; that is, gender was not ascribed to individuals, but instead individuals adopted pronouns and genders as they saw fit. Another culture (Saiduan) had a three gender system with specific pronouns for individuals who did not fit within the binary1; there was less choice presented here, but it was still amazing to see these things called out. It is a rare gem of a book to see alternate genders presented with grace and nuance like this and I, as a genderqueer reader, felt for once like I was actually acknowledged.

Queer sexuality is normal and accepted. Non-monogamous relationships are similarly normal and accepted by at least the Dhai culture.

AND (and!) the arguably most important character in the book has multiple physical disabilities which are never wiped away and which are treated with respect.

Seriously, diversity is firing on all cylinders here.

Review:
I loved this book. It's a wonderful book. Kameron Hurley's The Mirror Empire is essentially what I wanted Game of Thrones to be: it's a truly epic fantasy which grapples with fraught ethical questions while immersing me in a meticulously built out world of wonder. But where Game of Thrones was full of White men and rape and ponderous descriptions of what people were eating, The Mirror Empire was full of brown women and consent2 and really good dialogue.

Like Game of Thrones, The Mirror Empire follows mulitple POVs, but nearly all of these characters are women and I read all of them as people of color. They are strewn across the world, and slowly their stories intersect as it becomes clear that their entire world is beset by a force from without, brought to bear by an ascendant star and the magical forces that star brings. It's a convoluted narrative, and if there's anything to fault the book for it's that the book races forward and trusts the reader to follow. But I followed. I didn't have any troubled keeping pace.

The Mirror Empire is notable for so many reasons. It has entire societies led by women, and they are not peaceful, loving societies. It has unabashedly ugly women in it who are not punished for being ugly. It has fat women in it, and their fatness doesn't matter. Hurley deconstructs so many things in this book it's impossible to touch on them all in this review without spoiling the book itself, but suffice to say she slices the idea that women are inherently more gentle or nurturing to ribbons in the case Zezilli. She destroys the idea that people with disabilities are fragile and incompetent with Lilia--while adamantly maintaining that those disabilities should be accommodated.

The book serves as the beginning of the Worldbreaker Saga, and it's a beautiful start. The ending leaves a number of questions open, and I'm dying to find out what happens in Empire Ascendant.

Honestly, this was a book I was waiting to read, and I didn't even know it. It's a long story shot through with gender weirdness, questions about autonomy, obligation, and redemption. It's a challenging story full of challenging characters, and I highly recommend it.

1In Saiduan, it seemed implied that this third gender category was fixed and assigned to intersex individuals.
2Dhai culture, especially, is focused on issues of consent. Casually touching another person without verbal consent given is a taboo. I loved this. Loved it. I wish we had this in our culture.

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Top reviews from other countries

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Víctor Vidal

Hugely disappointed

Reviewed in Spain on April 2, 2020

Verified Purchase

I expected something else, and what I got is a book that lacks description and that doesn't allow the reader to understand anything or to feel the importance of what's going on.

THE WORLD IS IN DANGER, but you don't see why. They tell you... vaguely.

THESE PEOPLE IS IMPORTANT, because... I don't know.

There's even a scene where a character is described in one sentence like someone who "has a mean face". WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?

Anyway, it could have been amazing, but it only became forgettable.

Juno

Interesting premise

Reviewed in Canada on August 11, 2017

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed this book and will read the next in the series. This story is fairly complex and hard to follow the characters as there are so many with two parallel worlds.

Maxine

Creative, ambitious and epic

Reviewed in Australia on January 10, 2020

Verified Purchase

Once again Hurley has shown us that she is an absolute force. I can only imagine how daunting this project was purely because of how epic in scope it is. I think the word dense could be used to describe this book (I don’t mean that in a bad way), there is so much worldbuilding, there are so many characters, there are so many cultures and histories and we get to dive into it all. She doesn’t hold us back. She gives us as readers everything she has and she smashed it out of the park. This is the longest book by Hurley I have read and as with her other stories she doesn’t waste words. Every word on the page has a purpose.

I love Hurley’s storytelling, I love her worlds, I love her characters, I love how far she pushes her characters. I love that she writes HER story and trusts the reader to get it.

A. Whitehead

A confusing opening gives way to a fresh and original fantasy novel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 5, 2017

Verified Purchase

The subcontinent of Grania is divided between several nations, including the spiritual, peaceful Dhai and the more militaristic, aggressive kingdom of Dorinah. The murder of the Kai, the spiritual ruler of Dhai, sees her untested and inexperienced younger brother taking charge at a time of turmoil. Internal dissent against his rule is accompanied by assassination attempts...apparently from other Dhai, despite this being a violation of their ideology. Meanwhile, one of Dorinah's best generals is ordered to cull the Dhai slaves living in their kingdom, despite the destructive impact this will have on the economy, and a young girl living in a Dhai monastery discovers that her destiny is far more complex than she first thought.

The Mirror Empire is the first novel in The Worldbreaker Saga, Kameron Hurley's follow-up to her splendidly weird science fantasy Bel Dame Apocrypha trilogy. Worldbreaker is wholly fantasy rather than SF and features a lot of standard fantasy tropes, but it mixes these in with fluid gender definitions (some of the inhabitants of Grania are a third sex, or change gender depending on circumstance) and also makes use of the idea of alternate timelines and quantum ideas. Some of the villains of the story are the alternate-universe versions of some of the heroes, which is an interesting idea, especially because there are "good" and "bad" guys on both sides of the mirror and many of the characters are morally nuanced, with good guys doing despicable things and bad guys occasionally showing moral courage.

So far, so standard and so grimdark (if intelligently-realised). Hurley is different in that she seemingly has no interest in making this book easily accessible. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that the first hundred pages or so represent the densest and most-confusing entry to a fantasy series since Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon in 1999, which famously puts as many people off reading his Malazan series as it does entice them in to read more. The Mirror Empire opens in media res, features explosive flashbacks without providing context and features an absolute motherlode of invented terminology and nomenclature which will have you flipping to the glossary on a very regular basis. Entering a fantasy world and spending the first hundred pages wading through stodgy exposition is quite a dull experience, so I can see why Hurley took this course. However, this book arguably goes too far in the opposite direction and I can see some readers being alienated by the opening.

Once the book calms down and relents a bit from machine-gunning the reader with under-explained ideas and concepts every five seconds, it radically improves. The characterisation of our four key characters - Roh, Lilia, Zezili and Ahkio - is first-rate and we learn more about their motivations and foibles that makes them more interesting characters than it first appears. Hurley enjoys setting up archetypes - Lilia as the callow low-class girl with unusual powers and a destiny, or Ahkio as the inexperienced young heir thrust into ruling without adequate preparation - and then undercuts them. Lilia does some pretty horrific things in her quest for self-realisation and Ahkio applies his skills from navigating household politics to the greater nation at large and this helps him become a better ruler, as well as being clever enough not to trust the temple officials and to call upon his allies when necessary.

The book unfolds from that point with Hurley's customary vigour and her aggressive, take-no-prisoners approach really makes the book stand out from the fantasy crowd. By the end of the book it has achieved a significant narrative drive that will make you want to press on to the sequel, Empire Ascendant, immediately.

The Mirror Empire (***½) is a robust, entertaining and relentlessly original fantasy, playing with concepts of identity and destiny in a fresh manner. It's also a big that takes no prisoners and almost overwhelms the reader with concepts and invented nomenclature that can be alienating. Stick it out and you are rewarded with one of the better fantasy novels of recent years.

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Politik ist keine Ausrede für die Abwesenheit von World-Building

Reviewed in Germany on June 1, 2016

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Ich muss zugeben, dass ich das Buch nicht zu Ende gelesen habe. Das allein sagt schon einiges, weil das sonst so gut wie nie vorkommt.

Die Politik der Autorin scheint von den ersten paar Seiten an aus dem Buch, und zwar stark genug, um einen zu blenden. In einer brutalen Welt auf mit mittelalterlichem Technologielevel sorgen sich die Charaktere vor allem, ob sie auch ja die richtigen 'gender pronouns' gewählt haben, um Leute anzusprechen, und ob für eine Berührung 'consent' eingeholt wurde.

Dass die Gesellschaftsnormen in dieser Welt den Diskussionsthemen pinkhaariger Gender-Studies Studentinnen entspricht, ist angesichts des Settings natürlich etwas überraschend, könnte aber natürlich irgendwo doch interessant sein, wenn sich die Autorin auch nur die geringste Mühe geben würde, Gründe zu finden, warum sich die Gesellschaft in ihrer Welt so entwickelt hat.

Stattdessen wird es einfach so hingestellt, als seien Gesellschaften das Ergebnis eines Zufallsexperimentes. Auch die Fantasy-Welt selbst wird zu keinem Zeitpunkt eingeführt oder aufgebaut, und scheint keinem erkennbaren Muster zu folgen. Sich in fantastische Welten und Gesellschaften reinzudenken ist nur dann unterhaltsam, wenn diese kohärent begründet und sinnvoll aufgebaut sind. In diesem Buch scheint World-Building egal zu sein: Hauptsache, die Autorin kann das Partriarchat zerschmettern und Gender-Normen aufbrechen.

Dazu kommt dann noch, dass die Charaktere dünner sind als Papier, wodurch dann eigentlich nichts mehr bleibt, für das ich dieses Buch empfehlen würde. Wer klassische Fantasy sucht, sollte sich von diesem Buch fernhalten. Und wer Fantasy lesen will, in der mit Geschlechterrollen gespielt wird, für den gibt es auch andere Bücher, in denen das cleverer, anthropologisch weniger armselig und mit besseren Charakteren getan wird.

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