Portal fantasy grows up in this immersive series kickoff featuring “a life-changing adventure, . . . compelling characters and a fascinating world” (Martha Wells, author of The Murderbot Diaries) When Saffron Coulter stumbles through a hole in reality, she finds herself trapped in Kena—a magical realm on the brink of civil war. It’s there that her fate becomes intertwined with that of three very different women: Zech, the fast-thinking acolyte of a cunning, powerful exile; Viya, the spoiled, runaway consort of the empire-building ruler, Vex Leoden; and Gwen, an Earth-born worldwalker whose greatest regret is putting Leoden on the throne. But Leoden has allies, too, and chief among them is the Vex’Mara Kadeja, a dangerous ex-priestess who shares his dreams of conquest. Pursued by Leoden and aided by the Shavaktiin—a secretive order of storytellers and mystics—the rebels flee to Veksh, a neighboring matriarchy ruled by the fearsome Council of Queens. Saffron is out of her world and out of her depth, but the further she travels, the more she finds herself bound to her friends with ties of blood and magic. Can one girl—and an accidental worldwalker at that—really be the key to saving Kena? Or will she die trying?
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2 primary booksManifold Worlds is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2016 with contributions by Foz Meadows.
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I'm so sad, because this had so much potential, and so many things I love and crave in fantasy—focus on women/POC/queer people, overthrowing a corrupt leader, multiple worlds.
But unfortunately, the execution was messy and all over the place, leaving me feeling like I never really connected with any of the characters or their goals. There was just so much going on in this book, and a lot of plot points and motivations went unexplained. I think the multiple POVs threw this story off a lot—they jumped around so much that I never felt like I was really in the story, I just felt tossed around like a pinball in a very colorful, blinking, chaotic machine.
Mostly, I think this book desperately needed more editing. Many of the POV changes weren't even delineated with a line break, which interrupted my reading flow every time. Same with the dialogue—sometimes several characters spoke within the same paragraph, and it was difficult to tell who was saying what.
I do think the author had some creative, unique ideas, and I'd be interested to read her work again, with more scrupulous editing.
Podcast review (Swedish): http://lashart.podbean.com/e/foz-meadows-an-accident-of-stars/