I’ll eat my hat if Lara Elena Donnelly hasn’t written a damn lot of fanfic, and I mean that as a very high compliment. Armistice is the sequel to last year’s book Amberlough, which was sold to me as a gayer secondary world Cabaret, an extremely accurate description of its contents. Armistice is, frankly, even awesomer, and I am delighted as hell that it exists in the world.
Armistice picks up three years from the close of Amberlough. Cordelia has spent the last three years working for a fragile resistance against the Ospies, whose hold over Unified Gedda has only tightened. Cyril’s sister Lillian has been trapped into service as a press attache, with the threat of losing her son as a motivator. Aristide has sought refuge in the nearby country of Porachis, where he makes movies and drinks too much and makes Gedda look bad for threatening him. All their lives balance on a perpetual knife’s edge, and the release of a movie — of all things — threatens to tip them into chaos.
What an absolute joy for machination-likers this book is. Armistice reads like a middle book in the sense that we have to spend some time catching up with what the characters have been doing; but Donnelly makes this a pleasure. There’s enough history and bitterness among these characters that their conversations are heavy with subtextual barbs (heaven!), and Donnelly’s able to tuck a fair bit of exposition in among all the feelings.
As in Amberlough, the world-building in Armistice is terrific, especially if you are a fan of imaginary politics (I am!). Donnelly opens up a whole new vista of settings and ideas by setting this book in the neighboring country of Porachis. It’s a particularly good choice for a middle book published during the Trump administration, as it’s impossible for our heroes to attain ultimate triumph over the government in Gedda until the final book in the trilogy. Setting Armistice outside of Gedda maintained the high stakes but gave yr correspondent space to breathe through the fascism.
I also refuse to believe that a certain party believed dead is really dead. If this were fanfic they would definitely not be dead. If you die offscreen it doesn’t count. I deserve the angry embittered relieved reunions that will occur if/when this party is found alive, and I am determined to have them. Thank you for your time on this important matter.
I received a copy of Armistice for review consideration. It has a very attractive cover, but this still has not influenced the contents of my review.