Book Review: The Book of Ile-Rien by Martha Wells

• Title: The Book of Ile-Rien
• Author: Martha Wells
• Year: 2024
• Type: Fiction

There are two novels in this volume: The Element of Fire and The Death of the Necromancer. Both of these originally came out in the 1990s. This volume is the result of Wells completely overhauling these works. A sort of director’s cut.

I’d not read the original versions, nor anything else from the Ile-Rien books, so this was my first introduction to this world. As the stories appear to have started here, I guess it’s as good a place to dive in as any.

Except that dive was straight into the deep end. This thing is more than 700 pages long, which should’ve occurred to me when I picked it up at the library yet somehow didn’t. Had I been paying any attention at all, I’d have known to pick up the ePub version instead. Ah, well. Live and learn.

Of the two, I enjoyed the story in the first book (Element of Fire) better. It was a lot less similar to our own history and gave me a better feeling of escape. Necromancer felt more like an alternate history set in Victorian or Edwardian England than in a fantastical city. Despite that, I liked the characters better in Necromancer. They were more colourful for me.

Even though I have a preference between them, they were both good. Not great, but good, solid books. I may seek out some of the other Ile-Rien books at some point, but have rather a backlog of other titles to get through.