"How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse" by K. Eason

"Fantasy space opera political intrigue" is not a genre I knew existed. And yet, here we are.

The "fantasy" comes in from the fact that all their advanced technology is actually made of magic (or "arithmancy"). Which means you can hack it with your brain. I don't know why everyone doesn't know arithmancy if it lets you hack into things with your brain; maybe it's harder than it seems. There are also fairies, who the people in-universe didn't think existed until they invited the fairies to Rory's christening and the fairies actually showed up.

Speaking of whom! Rory Thorne, who left the structural integrity of the multiverse entirely unchanged, is a princess (of a space kingdom) who was cursed at birth by a fairy. No, this is not a Sleeping Beauty retelling; she was cursed at birth to... see through politeness. And also lies. This is one of those curses that are also sort of a blessing in disguise.

I think the book started being truly good about a third of the way through, when it decided to drop the snarky feminism and just focus on the fantasy space opera political intrigue. And I have nothing against feminism, but it's like bay leaves: it can make the thing you're making better, but if it insists on being an integral part of the finished product, it's going to mess stuff up.

And once it dropped the snarky feminism (which grated on me, just like a bay leaf), I did enjoy it. Even the fantasy space politics.

This is written in sort of the style of an in-universe history book, which gives it a unique narration voice. The framing also means that it usually just leaves you to figure out the worldbuilding from context, which it mostly does a good job of subtly explaining, aside from a couple of instances of "as you know, Bob" (which, as you know, is not generally a good way to explain lore or backstory).

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: ...a soft T15+ for bad language and some (mostly veiled) sexual references. I had a difficult time deciding whether to give this T or T15+, and eventually decided to err on the side of "there's nothing stopping a 13-year-old from reading this, but I wouldn't give it to them, so I guess T15+." That said, it's a soft T15+.

4 stars.

(Endnote: I have a theory: Rory Thorne is actually a distant descendant of none other than Carswell Thorne, of The Lunar Chronicles fame.)