I’m reading Licanus trilogy and the number of time Islington says someone is tapping their teeth while thinking makes me nuts! Have you ever tapped on your tooth?! It makes my skin crawl. Maybe tapping you lip or chin, but I’m just envisioning that clicking sound of nail on teeth and I hate it! Anyone else?! 😂
I finished my rereads on both Licanius and Hierarchy, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE Islington's work. Does anyone have any recommendations for similar styles of writing that have the same fantasy magic system aspect and compelling characters? I'm thinking about reading Mistborn and the Kingkiller Chronicles, but I wanted to see if there were better options first.
Spoiler alert if you haven’t finished book 1 🚨
I just finished book 1, and wow what a ride. I’m so glad I started this series after getting hooked on Islington with Heirarchy.
So now that we know Caedan is Tal’kamaar and also Aarkin Davead, what are we supposed to glean from how the book started. I thought it was Tal’kamaar renouncing or fighting Davead, but I guess not?
Afterthoughts on The Licanius Trilogy
What a wild ride.
Looking back, I think what stayed with me most wasn't even the final reveal - it was realizing how much of the story had been circling back on itself all along. I spent so much of the trilogy trying to keep track of Timelines, Essence, Venerate, identities, moral dilemmas, and a thousand characters that sometimes it felt like homework. But once everything finally clicked, I could see the architecture of the story.
For most of the story, I kept trying to understand why everything kept going wrong and who was responsible.
By the end, the answer was basically: Caeden!
His desperate attempts to change the past were themselves part of the chain of events that caused everyone's suffering. He kept slipping through the timeline, trying to fix things, until he finally understood that the only way to end the cycle was to stop himself from perpetuating it. 2,000+ pages, Caeden. It was bittersweet waiting for your memories to unfurl slowly.
The revelations surrounding Davian were another thing that completely changed how I viewed the story. He wasn't simply some random boy who happened to become important. His entire existence was tangled into the loop. Caeden bringing baby Davian into the past meant that the boy was effectively becoming part of the circumstances that created himself. The whole thing felt like the Licanius version of “the boy who lived,” except instead of a prophecy and a scar, Davian gets a gigantic causal paradox.
And then I started asking the questions the trilogy didn't answer.
Raeleth: Where the hell did he go after Zvaelar? Niha was alone with baby Davian, and there wasn't enough closure for me there. I wanted more.
Niha: What was her life like after leaving Davian to fight with the Resistance? What happened to her outside the pieces of history we were shown? Anyway, she already witnessed who her son became.
Nethgalla: I wanted more. She was one of the most fascinating characters to me; cold-blooded, obsessive, dangerous, but complicated enough to help Davian create the vessels they needed to escape Zvaelar. Throwing her into the Abyss felt almost too easy. And because she came from the Darklands, I desperately wanted to actually see the Darklands. I wanted its creatures, landscape, people, and history. I wanted to know what living there actually meant.
Which led me to the Banes.
I wanted their biology! I wanted a clear category of each species. Many of them seemed almost partly human, and suddenly I was thinking of The Island of Dr. Moreau. What exactly did Tal'kamar create? Were the Banes originally human? How much of their humanity remained? How were they made? Did they reproduce? Did they remember what they were?
Basically, I want a novella about:
Fantastic Banes and Where Not to Find Them
That became my biggest post-series realization: I wanted more of the world when nobody was saving it.
I wanted the Venerate before they became the Venerate. I wanted Tal'kamar's experiments.
The trilogy gave me an incredibly intricate world, but sometimes I felt like I was looking at it through a window rather than actually living inside it. Still, despite the dragging timelines, complicated Essence mechanics, enormous cast, moral dilemmas, and a few characters who felt rushed—Karalein especially.
This needs a trilogy prequel about the Venerates, and another trilogy sequel about Davian’s new world.
I give it 4/5 stars
Because when the ending finally landed? WHOA. The intricacy was worth it.
I've noticed consistently that people who loved this book always praise the world-building, which I find interesting because that was actually one of my biggest disappointments while reading it. I felt like the world-building was pretty lacking. There weren't enough vivid descriptions for me to fully visualize the setting the way I have with other fantasy novels I've enjoyed.
For those of you who thought the world-building was great, could you share some specific examples? I'm genuinely curious if I missed something.