DaniLanglie's Reviews > Apostles of Mercy

I really liked this, definitely better than the second installment - it actually is probably my favorite of all three so far! I love the implications of the world-building here, and I'm excited for more books to explore it further.

To start with, my big complaint in the first two novels was about the audiobook reader's performance as Cora. It was the same woman this time, but I wonder if I wasn't the only person to find her a little over the top, because she's toned it down significantly here, and it made for a much better listening experience. So that's nice! I also love a multi-narrator audiobook with distinct readers, and I thought the readers for Sol and the interstitial bits were also great.

Mostly, though, I just love how every book, and indeed every chapter of every book, in this series grows the stakes, and plays with the ramifications of what happened before. So many of the turns in the narrative felt surprising while they were happening but then also made perfect sense within the logic of this sequence of events, if that makes sense. Ellis writes in an accessible way about international politics and law and things that might be alienating (haha) to some readers, but feels very smooth here.

And I just love all the fucked up, complicated, hopeless romantic relationships going on here. I don't know that I've ever read a love story between a human and a non-human before that was this dedicated to keeping the non-human a truly alien and incomprehensible force. Cora can't even speak Ampersand's language with him, and only through extreme pain and suffering is she starting to be able to communicate with him in the way most natural for his kind.

And then you've got Paris and Nikola's developing bond, which I loved as this parallel to Ampersand and Cora. The fact that Kaveh was Paris's mentor before he died, and Nikola loved him and now grows to love Paris, provided such interesting color. Then of course there are the obvious love stories developing between Cora and Paris, and the preexisting bond of deep devotion between Ampersand and Nikola. What a fascinating polycule this is proving to be, honestly!

A few quips I'd like to make, here: I actually really liked a lot of the stuff with Sol, even including the way he was treating Cora and the way Cora resisted him, and his heroic sacrifice, then later apology to Cora after helping her to honor Kaveh's memory. All great stuff. But I really didn't like that ending note where Sol basically has a version of Spike's speech to Buffy in that one amazing episode running in his head - that he loves her, but not in the way where he wants anything from her, or what have you. I could have done without making it so explicit. I was moved by when he cried and said Cora had been one of his only real friends. It should have been left there.

The other quibble is bigger, honestly - it's been a few years since I read Truth of the Divine, but I do not remember Kaveh being quite so worthy of the extremely martyred and benevolent reputation he's managed to find for himself posthumously. Everyone loves him and thinks he can do no wrong, except for characters like Sol who then have to learn the error of their ways. I'm sorry, but I'm kind of with Sol on the perspective that Kaveh did take advantage of a young and vulnerable woman and probably shouldn't have been having sex with her? Especially since their relationship felt so tonally strange to me in the last book. I also remember finding Kaveh's essay about hope for humanity extremely trite and cliche, so to hear Cora praise him for having this amazing way with words was also a bit jarring. The lens of this book wanted me to grieve for Kaveh and think back on him fondly, but honestly reading it just soured my memory of the character from when I first read the second book.

But setting that aside - this was such an interesting read! Humanity now has two distinct but related alien species on their planet, and doom is hovering ever closer. The novel ends on a haunting and super powerful ending note, with Cora and Ampersand contemplating how they might take over the world and save it from destruction. Cora's acceptance of High Language and the consequences of that showing up in how she thought about Ampersand's powers as a benevolent dictator... oof. Really interesting stuff. I'd love to find out where that goes in future books!