The Night Diver

Right after finishing the first book, I was delighted to see that this book and its world had two more installments for me to sink my teeth into. Conqueror’s Blood is the second book in the current trilogy of Gunmetal Gods, and it was an absolute ride. The first thing that surprised me was the focus on a new set of characters and regions, while also keeping the characters from the first book. At first I was somewhat apprehensive, because I wanted to see more of Kevah, Sadie, and the rest of the original team, but I believe that this focus on new characters paid off beautifully.

The current story focuses on a new character by the name of Cyra, a young woman who was taken into the the Alanyan Empire after wars with her home tribe. It is there that she is pulled into palace intrigues, laced with deadly magics and a heaping of religious fervor. I absolutely enjoyed her story throughout the novel, as she navigates through all sorts of horrific encounters. Seeing her character grow and change in so many ways just made it all the more intriguing to read. The focal point of this story is the conflict between Cyra and her former friend in the palace, Zedra who also has machinations to take the Alanyan throne. Honestly, this rivalry and escalation between them is the crown jewel of the book. Almost like watching a long-awaited wrestling match between sworn enemies, I kept looking forward to how each of these characters would act and react within this world of shifting alliances and meddling eldritch Gods.

The other really interesting aspect of the book was the focus on deep divisions within a religion, and how they feed into a near eternal feedback of hurt and revenge. Coming from a Muslim background, it was refreshing to see just how on-point Zamil Akhtar was in illustrating the Sunni-Shiite conflict, and in a way, it was kind of a learning experience for me. There is something different about seeing a historical conflict being played out with fully formed and sympathetic characters in a story, and it gave a very new kind of dynamic that I haven’t seen in a lot of other Fantasy stories.

Alongside the politics and warfare that mars the face of this world, there is also more of the Eldritch God meddling and cosmic horror that showed itself in the first book. There are more entities that seem to be pulling strings in interesting ways, filling in more of this grotesque picture of the universe, but also leading to even more questions. The world here is dark, and it seems to be getting darker with each turn of the page, but that’s what keeps me going, just trying to see just how these humans come out at the end of it all. I think this book was a very solid addition to this series, and I am very excited to see what is in store for the third.

The only complaint I would have is that the political intrigue does get very convoluted at times, and it might require some percolating in the brain to really make it click into place. But honestly, I kind of kept the overall alliances and politics in the backburner of my mind and focused more on the characters, which still gave me an amazing experience.

My final rating for this book would be: 4/5 Stars