Charlotte Kersten

So What’s It About?

In the first book of the Kencyrath, Jame, a young woman missing her memories, struggles out of the haunted wastes into Tai-tastigon, the old, corrupt, rich and god-infested city between the mountains and the lost lands of the Kencyrath.

Jame’s struggle to regain her strength, her memories, and the resources to travel to join her people, the Kencyrath, drag her into several relationships, earning affection, respect, bitter hatred and, as always, haunting memories of friends and enemies dead in her wake.

What I Thought

This has been on my TBR ever since someone recommended it as a Planescape: Torment read-alike, and I decided to bump it up on my list when someone also suggested it for my trauma reading project. While I am not entirely sure about why it was recommended for the trauma reading project yet (I think I need to know more about the protagonist Jame’s backstory), it 100% delivered on the Planescape: Torment front. The city where the book takes place, Tai-tastigon, is truly reminiscent of Sigil from PT, although this book was written before the Planescape setting was created! It is a labyrinthine city full of violence, chaos, bizarre, dark secrets and oddities aplenty. In fact, while I was reading this, I was fantasizing about how it could be adapted into a PT-esque isometric game: exploring the different parts of the city and its strange residents, navigating different factions, completing quests for the Thieves’ Guild, using Jame’s different abilities…well, I can dream, can’t I?

Besides the magnificence of the city and its vibes, I have to say that I was a bit mixed about some other aspects of the book. For one thing, the world-building is quite complex, unique and interesting, which I love!!!!! Throughout, you piece together the story of what happened to the Kencryath thousands of years ago, what has happened to them since coming to this world, Jame’s missing memories, the politics of the Thieves Guild, and how that intersects with the overall politics of Tai-tastigon. However, all of this is conveyed in a somewhat confusing way with things happening/being mentioned offhand before being fully explained/contextualized later. I can’t help but wonder how the world-building could have been conveyed with more clarity while avoiding infodumping. Towards the end of the book the reader has a LOT to keep track of, and while I generally kept up, I similarly feel that it could have been slightly less convoluted in how it unraveled. The guide in the front proved very helpful, and there is mercifully a “Story So Far” segment at the start of the next book, which I know will prove invaluable when I continue on.

Finally, characters and character relationships proved to be generally endearing but fairly one-note. I realized this when several people died without much emotional impact on me at all. There are a LOT of instances of people getting grievously wounded and recovering quickly, as well. It is somewhat extraordinary how much of the book Jame spends running back and forth all over the city, which means that she must be ridiculously fit in addition to being a master thief and the Only One Who Knows How to Do an Amazing Magical Seduction Dance. It’s all a bit silly, but I think the book knows this and takes it in stride.

Do read if you love a weird city and complex, unique lore that gets unraveled bit by bit.
Don’t read if you need a book to be focused on deep characterization and relationships as opposed to setting/plot.