I'll confess I've lost a lot of context on which book was which in this series, writing the review 7 months later so I'm going to have to give them all 5 stars since that's how I felt about the overall series :)
I was so happy to see this at the start of the novel:
The following is meant only as a quick, high-level refresher of the events in The Shadow of What Was Lost, rather than a thorough synopsis.
YES! RECAP! This series is crazy complicated, tons of characters, multiple POVs, and very complex time travel as a central conceit. I needed that recap.
Some of the large plot reveals were super obvious, e.g. who is Malshash, but there were still plenty of surprising reveals. One thing that I liked a lot is that Islington didn't shy away from tragedy, the good guys can lose, catastrophically, and have to pick up the pieces. And that tragedy isn't experienced in a battle-statistics-reporting kind of way, we live through it with first person POVs.
There's a definitely some strong commentary on religion in the novel:
There is only one reason to be passionate about a lack of faith—and that is fear,” said Caeden quietly. “Fear that you are wrong. An innate need for others to share your opinion, so that you can be less afraid.” He shook his head. “I do not feel the need to argue, to cajole, to threaten or accuse. If others wish to believe differently, that is no business of mine. I simply do not think that there are gods.
Religion is the following of rules and rituals in the hope that they will somehow garner the favor of a higher power.
5 stars.
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