This continues to be one of the most complex and rich fantasies I’ve ever read.  I’ve read plenty of stories where the author juggles multiple storylines but I don’t think I’ve seen it done as well.  Most examples I’ve seen have one or more storylines paralleling each other and finally coming together for the climax.  Wells has created two stories and runs them side-by-side; one is in the present and the other is some many years earlier, I want to say sixty or more years earlier.  Both pick up from the end of the first book.

In the present, Kai, Zeide and Tahren have just left Kagala where Tahren had been held prisoner.  They, along with Tahren’s brother Dahin, and the child Sanja, are headed to the Rising World Council to relate their account of the conspiracy that had imprisoned Kai, Zeide and Tahren.  In the absence of the Hierarchs, the Rising World coalition is experiencing political upheaval; Bashasa’s heir, Bashat, is trying to get himself proclaimed Emperor.  Almost no one is interested in having such a thing when they just got rid of the Hierarchs who’d had their boot on humanity’s neck for so long.  Millions of people died under their rule; whole cities and even tribes were completely wiped out.  Those that are left are just trying to figure out who they still are and how they want to live.  But none of that is the story we’re following.

Dahin, who is a brilliant if eccentric Lesser Blessed, has been using the months during Kai’s absence to put together a history of the Hierarchs in an attempt to discover their homeland.  It is of some interest to know if any still live and could be a future threat.  But the Hierarchs covered their trail well and it’s hard to know exactly where they came from.  But within the research, Dahin finds something truly concerning.  He thinks it’s possible some surviving Expositors might find a functional Well and create a new Hierarch.  An Expositor is a sort of servant/vessel for Hierarchs, bred to channel the power from a Well.  And the whole bloody mess would begin again.  He convinces Kai to come with him to a remote location and Kai convinces others in power that there might be something to Dahin’s theory.  So they mount an expedition to this remote location where Dahin thinks there might be an operating Well with enough power to sustain Expositors. When they do find the Well, they discover that an Expositor was, indeed, trying to feed the Well to build up power to waken a new Hierarch.  Feeding the well was done by torturing humans and taking their pain and misery.  Pretty nasty business.  The Hierarchs created a chain of these power Wells by engaging in genocide to fuel them.

Kai and his friends have to figure out how to kill the Expositor, all his deadly golem-types, and then render the Well unusable without suspecting they harbor a traitor in their group.

In the past storyline, Kai and Bashasa are trying to jump-start a new government, the Rising World coalition. Now that they’ve proven that Hierarchs can be killed, many have joined their cause. They are on their way to support a city and drive out the Hierarch when they encounter a band of dustwitches, who attack them.  This is almost incomprehensible to Kai who cannot fathom why a witch would kill another witch or even attack an army that is trying to free the world.  This encounter takes quite a bit of the story when Bashasa realizes that having a whole group of witches will add quite a bit of power to their little army when going up against a Hierarch.  The problem is that these witches have been corrupted and lost; ignorant of their history and their relationships with other witches and Demons.  It is up to Kai to break the cult-like hold their leader has over them and then convince them to come with and possibly die in battle.  But Kai and Bashasa can be quite persuasive.  And it turns out to be worth the effort when they finally engage with the hierarch. 

This part of the story could have been finished much earlier if not for the part the missing demons play.  When Bashasa freed the captive demons in the Hierarch’s court, in the last book, no one tried to give them aid or watch where they went.  Kai blames himself for not taking more interest in helping the demons find their way and now they are all paying the price because the Hierarchs paid attention and they found a use for all those lost and unhinged demons and it isn’t what Kai or Bashasa were expecting.

Both storylines are still incomplete.  In the past, we have not yet experienced Bashasa’s death so we don’t know how that happened.  Nor do we know yet exactly how they managed to kill all the Hierarchs.  And in the present, Kai has to deal with a fellow demon with whom he has a very complicated relationship.  And maybe finally learn where the Hierarchs originated.  My single quibble with this book is the title; I don’t get it.

To say this is a complex story is an understatement.  I actually reread the first book and then over a couple months read Queen Demon twice.  It was such a fascinating story and the world-building was so amazing, I wanted to make sure I got all I could from the pages. I desperately hope I don’t have to wait another two years from the next installment.  But Wells is a busy writer; she’s got a big hit on her hands with her Murderbot series and streaming show.  I am so impressed with how she can deliver such a fun and accessible story like Murderbot which seems to attract non-genre fans, and then deliver this set of books, which definitely needs a strong genre fan to love it.  I’m in both camps and ready to believe that I’ll love anything Wells writes; I just have to find the time to read her earlier stuff to verify that. ~~  Catherine Book

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