RAKESFALL

Transcendence doesn’t come easy in this short but labyrinthine tale of reincarnation.

What actually happens in these pages is difficult to describe or quantify. It’s a hallucinatory, often nonlinear work, constantly and confusingly shifting perspective. It concerns a small group of people, or gods, bound by love and violence across many lives, each time grasping for some kind of satisfaction or resolution as the Earth withers. Various sections are set in a magic-infused, seemingly contemporary Sri Lanka, in which the dead exist, work, and make trouble alongside the living, and demons are always lurking nearby. Other sections are post- or even post-post-apocalyptic, blending science fiction with fantasy as a small group struggles to help a barren Earth to heal, even as others escape to the stars. The author is clearly content to let readers sink or swim in the flotsam-strewn river of story, as interesting scraps of plot begin but then peter out, flowing, not entirely seamlessly, into other pseudo-plots. What seem to be local legends, mythology, and history of the area are referenced but not fully explained. Apparently there’s also some kind of age-old conflict between the kingdoms of the Rake and the Yoke, whatever those are? Meanwhile, there are clearly some points being made about the dark legacy of colonialism, the dangers of codependent relationships, and the way the living often can’t shake free of the legacy of the dead. But if there’s a throughline here, you’re going to have to work to find and fully understand it.

Poetic and unique, but possibly not worth the effort to plumb its depths.