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This is a novel associated with the rpg Numenera from Monte Cook Games. The setting is a fantasy world where technologies of dead civilisations play the role of magic or weirdness.

The narrative is based around a character, Talia, who escaped a past of being a tortured instrument of violence for the sadistic (but rather vaguely specified) "vordcha". Having got away (not without sacrifice), she is trying to build a new life by taking on the role of "Poison Eater" in the city of Enthait. The Poison Eater puts their own life on the line to gain premonitions of dangers that the city's protectors can prepare to meet. But of course, all is not quite as it seems.

Honestly, this was a bit of a slog. There are some nice ideas here, and I really wanted to like it (I like the rpgs from Monte Cook Games). The writing is...fine. The characters are....fine. But it all feels a little bit too much like the protagonist is mired in self-pity rather than guilt. There's little to no impetus for the narrative itself (the villainous vordcha are supposedly hunting her but they're never described or made clear, so there's no clear sense of the threat).

The machinations within Enthait itself have the tone of intrigue without actually being very intriguing. It all just doesn't quite land for me. I really wanted to like this much more, but couldn't get there.

This is a solid, though perhaps not stellar follow up to Titanium Noir (2023). Cal Sounder, private detective, no longer with a foot in two worlds but uncertain of how he feels about being all-in on what might be the wrong side. A body on a beach whose complex history it will take until the final pages to understand.

Perhaps in keeping with noir-ish-ness, there is a lot left very vague. It isn't the very near future (some of the characters of hundreds of years old), but the technology level is very now+just a little. The only really breakaway technology is the rejuvenating chemical T7, which both resets your physical age to late-teens, while increasing your physical size by some significant portion. Multi-dose "Titans" become greater still. The location is vaguely both North American and European. The culture is one with a love-hate relationship to these uber-wealthy in the process of speciation.

It's steadily-paced, with good characterisation, though does have the noir tendency for just about everyone to be deeply cynical and drily witty about it the wretched state of the world.

The title refers to a strange phenomenon that rings true from the cyberpunk ancestry of the mixed-genre Harkaway is using here - people arriving like human flotsam to a beach in a quasi-catatonic state somewhere between existential dread and apathy. Suicidal without the intention, non-too-subtly wasting their days on a beach made of black glass, with no connection to the world around them.

The "sleepers" play a strange background role for the protagonist, a haunting of humanity rather than a narrative driver. I won't say too much more about them, though I did feel they were both some of the more interesting but also some of the more frustrating aspects of things as the story progresses.

There's mystery, some action, a little reflection on humanity and post-humanity. Certainly enjoyable, though not something I'll urging on people who aren't already curious.

I'd have rated this much higher when I read it when I was young. It was for me, like many little nerds I think, one of the touchstone adventure stories. Very much so for people who were into or got into DnD (I wouldn't for several years after, but not for lack of wanting).

Mostly, it's a quinessential example of stereotypical high fantasy, sword and sorcery. It is a tightly woven string of major fantasy tropes; heroic adventure, fantastical settings and magical monsters. It holds up fine on the action and generally on characterisation.

It falls down mostly on attitudes to women, which are very mixed. On the one hand, the women generally have agency, clear character, and sometimes important roles to play in the plot and advancement of the setting. On the other hand, there is a recapitulation of traditional roles and attitudes that you're less likely to see in modern fantasy literature. These issues are also true of race, which has thankfully seen huge strides in the genre since, even with further still to travel in many cases.

I re-read this because a friend casually sent a text a few weeks ago, wondering how it would hold up. Lacking motivation to get stuck into more challenging fare I pulled this 30--something-year-old copy of the shelf. I won't be rushing to continue the trilogy, but might get around it over time...