Cage of Souls

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new is Stefan Advani: rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor.

This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river and imprisoned him in the verdant hell of the jungle's darkest heart; that led him deep into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld. He will meet with monsters, madman, mutants.

The question is, which one of them will inherit this Earth?

• Highly recommended.

• Story

  • The intriguing and unpredictable tales of a man's life in the last city left on a dying earth. Some novel ideas and worldbuilding contributed to a bizarre plot that kept me wanting to find out what happened next.

  • Some sections were real page-turners (I loved the scenes in the Underworld - this was by far my favourite part of the book and I could read whole series based there), but others seemed to slow down a little or were passed over too quickly.

• Characters

  • Every character, even minor one-sceners, were made memorable with eccentricities, unique voices, and a clear 'engine' that drove their decisions.

  • However, some of these eccentricities might have been a little too much, straying into characateur territory.

  • Also, I didn't feel too attached to any of them (perhaps because they were so eccentric?) and so life-or- death scenes didn't induce much tension.

• Worldbuilding

  • The vision of a end-times Earth under a dying sun is awesome - novel and fantastical, but thorough, consistent and plausible.

  • I loved most of the monsters, which were creative, fearsome, eerie, and straight up cool.

  • The world and its inhabitants allowed for some high level ideas on human nature without them being crammed down my throat.

• Prose

  • A real pleasure to read with no boring bits.

  • Clever writing paints scenes clearly without any waffling. They also were true to the 'voice' of the narrator, each sentence developing his personality.

  • The 1st person perspective was used well to introduce the world and characters, and foreshadow for tension. At times however, I felt that there was a bit too much 'telling' from the narrator and there could have been more 'showing' through dialogue or action, not exposition.

• And also

  • There was some fantastic 'sparkle' in each scene that made for a memorable book. I'll be thinking about it, at random moments, for a long time.