de Bodard, Aliette -- Harbinger of the Storm
de Bodard, Aliette -- Master of the House of Darts
The Revered Speaker -- that is to say, the Emperor of the Tenochtitlan
nation-state -- is dead. His potential successors are maneuvering for
the throne like there was no tomorrow. There may in fact be no
tomorrow, because the Revered Speaker is the mortal representative of
Huitzilpochtli, and without one in place... the universe gets shaky.
For example, somebody important is torn into messy little gobbets by
star-demons. Our favorite High Priest of the Dead decides to do
something about this, over the objections of everybody important (that
isn't dead yet).
This series does an excellent job of the Vinge Spider Trick: you're
reading along, in tune with what's going on, and then you remember
that all of the characters have never heard of iron, eat newts for
lunch, and consider their gods to be corpses. Newts aside, this is a
satisfying political mystery of the "argh I hate politics but I have
to fix this" model, crossed with "argh half of my suspects are gods
and half of my witnesses are dead". (Being High Priest of the Dead
makes that last part easier, of course. But not easy.)
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