by Rachel A. Rosen

Vajra Chandrasekera’s first novel, The Saint of Bright Doors, is probably the best fantasy novel I’ve read in a decade. So it is unsurprising that I bought his second, Rakesfall, without even knowing what the book was about.

Rakesfall is WILD and defies description, veering from the 1970s to the end of the world, written with the kind of narrative confidence that you’d expect from an author after they’ve won a lifetime of prestigious literary prizes. I made people stop what they were doing so that I could read parts of it to them. It’s a story about struggle—often in a way that is very visceral and brutal—love and death and reincarnation and science and nationalism and climate collapse.

Can I explain what I just read? Maybe if I took a course in it. Did it blow me away? Absolutely.