Review of Empress of Dust by Alex Kingsley
Alex Kingsley’s Empress of Dust (Space Wizard Science Fantasy, 2024) is an amazingly compelling post-apocalyptic fantasy novel with magnificent worldbuilding and wonderful characters, including several LGBTQIA+ and non-human characters!
Harvard is a scavenger of the wasteland and “dusts” surrounding the walled city of Bastion, but he’s the weakest member of his crew, the Ivies, and he knows it. Most of the other Ivies seem to tolerate his persistent tremors and small size, but when he takes ill suddenly, even the most tolerant members of the crew are more than willing to leave him to recover. But things go sideways for Harvard (and the rest of the Ivies, separately), and then all of the members of the crew are fighting for their lives.
Though the world of Empress of Dust is very different from our own, Kingsley works the worldbuilding seamlessly into their storytelling, using flashbacks to the characters’ pre-scavenger lives and myths about the society to explain some aspects of the world. The characters, too, are very much a part of their world, with all of the Ivies and the other people (and non-human creatures) they interact with shaped by their own experiences in this treacherous and unforgiving place. All four of the Ivies, but particularly Harvard and Yale, have complex motivations, many of which they keep secret from the others for the bulk of the book. In fact, when some of those secrets come out, the reader will be just as surprised as the other characters who are just learning the truth!
If I had any complaints, it would be that this book ends on something of a cliffhanger, but with it noted as Book 1 of The Bastion Cycle, I have faith that my questions will be answered in the next book! You can start the series on October 15, when Empress of Dust comes out!
The author provided me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for review consideration.
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