The first Augmented Aspects novel has a setting that reminds me of Infinite Dendrogram, albeit with more of a steampunk flavor to it. While it’s fundamentally pretty standard escapist fantasy, I have no complaints about the execution and nothing but praise for how the author handles the training aspects and early formative years; making use of time skips instead of detailing every last skill point gained. The only real issue the novel has is a technical one, in that there are several instances of contradictory or repetitive paragraphs scattered about.
The Who Endures series is incredibly dark, gritty, and heavy with subject matter such as slavery/indentured servitude, sentients as sustenance, racism, rape, pedophilia, incest, and child soldiers. It’s pretty much as far from the author‘s Our Wandering Time novel as you can get, which initially came as a shock. Not helping was that it starts out at the conclusion of the protagonist’s rise from slave to assassin high priestess and only sheds light on what made her who who she is through occasional brief flashbacks, resulting in an experience akin to jumping into a series in its second season.
Around halfway through the first novel though I was hooked, as this is the kind of unapologetically complicated story that would’ve fit right in decades ago with works like The Black Company and Prince of Nothing with a thesis much like A Practical Guide to Evil‘s: Good can only be accomplished through evil.
On the negative front, aside from the subject matter itself (which will likely turn away most), the only things I can really complain about are that the incest aspects of Tir’s character arc are handled exceptionally poorly (appearing like a jump scare and resolving questionably), the first looks at the western empire the protagonist hails from suspiciously resemble Overlord fanfiction, and how in the eighth book the chameleon slime’s coloring inexplicably changes from blue to black without comment.
