Rakesfall

Hardcover, 304 pages

English language

Published March 4, 2024 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-84768-3

(2 reviews)

Some stories take more than one lifetime to tell. There are wrongs that echo through the ages, friendships that outpace the claws of death, loves that leave their mark on civilization, and promises that nothing can break. This is one such story.

Annelid and Leveret met after the war, but before the peace. They found each other in a torn-up nation, peering through propaganda to grasp a deeper truth. And in a demon-haunted wood, another act of violence linked them and propelled their souls on a journey throughout the ages. No world can hold them, no life can bind them, and they'll never leave each other behind. But their journey will not be easy. In every lifetime, oppressors narrow the walls of possibility, shaping reality to fit their own needs. And behind the walls of history, the witches of the red web swear that every throne will fall.

Tracing two …

Some stories take more than one lifetime to tell. There are wrongs that echo through the ages, friendships that outpace the claws of death, loves that leave their mark on civilization, and promises that nothing can break. This is one such story.

Annelid and Leveret met after the war, but before the peace. They found each other in a torn-up nation, peering through propaganda to grasp a deeper truth. And in a demon-haunted wood, another act of violence linked them and propelled their souls on a journey throughout the ages. No world can hold them, no life can bind them, and they'll never leave each other behind. But their journey will not be easy. In every lifetime, oppressors narrow the walls of possibility, shaping reality to fit their own needs. And behind the walls of history, the witches of the red web swear that every throne will fall.

Tracing two souls through endless lifetimes, _Rakesfal_l is a virtuosic exploration of what stories can be. As Annelid and Leveret reincarnate ever deeper into the future, they will chase the edge of human possibility, in a dark science fiction epic unlike anything you've read before.

2 editions

Zivan reviewed Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera

Review of 'Rakesfall' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Rakesfall is a work of art, it requires experience in order to appreciate it. This is not a novel I will gift to friends that are not deep into Sci-Fi.

I was able to grasp that I was looking at something beautiful, but I needed the final chapter to understand much of what Vajra Chandrasekera was aiming at.

Rakesfall proposes a cosmology that integrates mythology and technology. It involves possession, gods, demons, time travel and a multiverse, and it takes us all the way from colonial history to the heat death of the universe.

Yet, it is very much a novel of our time, of the powerful, the greedy and corrupt who wish to attain godhood and those who will oppose them.

screamsbeneath reviewed Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera

5 stars

Fantastic. If you enjoyed Saint of Bright Doors I’d say this is an easy recommendation. It is less linear and a bit more off the rails; it’s like reading a Dali painting at times in the best of ways. We even get to venture back to Luriat for a time, in time. Don’t want to say too much because you should just take the plunge, but it’s a book I desperately want to talk about with people.

Narration was great but it probably increases the difficulty in keeping characters straight.