Ruin of Angels
“No city is one city, as no one mind is altogether and only itself. A woman is many women, a man is many men, a city is many cities—not in sequence, but all at once.”
Sixth book in the Craft Sequence, and sixth chronologically.
Featuring three worlds/cities stacked on top of each other, squid gods, performance art as cutting edge science, amusing descriptions of gentrification, the clash of old and new, a heist, a reckoning with colonialism, a genuflection to librarians…what more could you want?
Ruin of Angels is also described as the linking book between the first arc (numbered titles) and the Craft Wars series. I would argue it fits more neatly with the first arc.
Hidden Schools articles about Ruin of Angels
Summary of Ruin of Angelsd
The God Wars destroyed the city of Alikand. Now, a century and a half and a great many construction contracts later, Agdel Lex rises in its place. Dead deities litter the surrounding desert, streets shift when people aren’t looking, a squidlike tower dominates the skyline, and the foreign Iskari Rectification Authority keeps strict order in this once-independent city–while treasure seekers, criminals, combat librarians, nightmare artists, angels, demons, dispossessed knights, grad students, and other fools gather in its ever-changing alleys, hungry for the next big score.
Priestess/investment banker Kai Pohala (last seen in Full Fathom Five) hits town to corner Agdel Lex’s burgeoning nightmare startup scene, and to visit her estranged sister Ley. But Kai finds Ley desperate at the center of a shadowy, and rapidly unravelling, business deal. When Ley ends up on the run, wanted for a crime she most definitely committed, Kai races to track her sister down before the Authority finds her first. But Ley has her own plans, involving her ex-girlfriend, a daring heist into the god-haunted desert, and, perhaps, freedom for an occupied city. Because Alikand might not be completely dead–and some people want to finish the job.
Billionaire. Nightmare artist. Philanthropist. Eberhardt Jax wants to make his mark on the world. It’s clear he’s integral to the overarching plot of the Craft Wars quartet, linked to the skazzerai, the gray men, and the end of the world.
But who exactly is he? And what does he really want?