My Cultural Diet

The second novel in James S. A. Corey’s Captive’s War trilogy finds the small human community still enslaved by the all-powerful Carryx Empire. However, some of its biggest threat might come from within. At the start of the trilogy, Dafyd Alkhor was a low-ranking researcher, but now he’s humanity’s chief representative to the Carryx — which means that he has to start making hard, possibly even immoral decisions in order to ensure their ongoing survival. Meanwhile, other humans make discoveries about the Carryx’s unending war and implacable foe that could tip the balance of power. Unfortunately, the humans don’t have any power to begin with. The first Captive’s War novel, 2024’s The Mercy of Gods, wasn’t bad by any means, but it did feel like it spent a lot of its pages simply setting up the story. The Faith of Beasts starts to actually build on some of those threads, especially in its last third or so, as discoveries about the Carryx and their enemy start to be revealed. Unfortunately, I don’t really find Dafyd or any of the other humans all that compelling as characters. I’m more intrigued by the various aliens who make up the Empire, and especially a spy for the other side who is far more — and far stranger — than they seem.

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