Last year, I really enjoyed Rao's debut The Surviving Sky. It was a fascinating mix of the fantasy and sci-fi genres in a post-apocalyptic world full of climatic themes and injected with a Hindu/South Asian worldview that is unfortunately all-to rare in SFF publishing. With the shattering revelations at the end of the first book I couldn't wait for The Unrelenting Earth to deal with all of the wonderful fallout.

Unfortunately The Unrelenting Earth falls far short of the promise laid out in The Suviving Sky, giving way to both the worst impulses of SFF trilogies and the elements that didn't quite work for me in The Surviving Sky.

My biggest critique of The Unrelenting Earth is that the whole book felt unnecessary. It felt like a single act of another novel stretched out to 500+ pages, and very little is actually accomplished in this book (in terms of character, themes, or plot). I wonder if this series would have been better left as a duology, and that there were social/economic pressures pushing Rao to turn this into a trilogy. The plot and characters spin in circles for large chunks, and I found myself turning the pages waiting for ANYTHING to develop. This is a classic case of "middle book syndrome" where the author cannot move too much toward the endgame (to leave material for the final book), and so stuff that could have been a few chapters at the beginning of the next book gets over-extended into a full novel.

I could have felt a bit kinder to the unrelenting wheel-spinning here if the wheel-spinning were a bit more interesting. The problem is that so much of the page count is dedicated to Iravan's use of Rao's magic system - a philosophical, physcological, techno-magical mashup that was introduced in The Surviving Sky. The magic system was actually one of my favorite aspects of The Surviving Sky, and the way that Rao depicted it there was bursting of visual color, bombastic prose, and stimulating ideas. However, in The Unrelenting Earth she introduces so many ideas that the magic system descends into a confusing mess. Iravan spends entire chapters using the magic, and it is just word salad on the page. After a while (about the 50% mark) I found myself skimming through entire chunks just because it was all meaningless to me - and I still found that I wasn't really missing anything by doing so. Rao definitely had the challenge of conveying an etherial and dense techno-magic system that is based on a cosmology and worldview not usually presented in Western fantasy books. She more than succeeded in The Surviving Sky, but seems to have gotten buried under the weight in this sequel.

Now, having said all of that there were still several elements of the book that kept me moving through the book. While I had a lot of issues with large sections of The Unrelenting Earth, I still quickly made by way through its chonk mostly for the relationship between Rao's two leading characters - Ahilya and Iravan. Their relationship is one of the most complex, toxic, loving, and nuanced in modern-day fiction. Both of them are loving, yet condescending. Supportive yet selfish. Mature yet immature. So in love yet often on different sides of the ideological spectrum. Rao continues to walk this balance of putting Ahilya and Iravan in conflict, and yet never making it grating or annoying. It never feels like she puts obstacles between them just to keep them apart or to keep the story going. When Ahilya and Iravan are together, their chemistry crackles. When they collide into one another, their passion and anger burns bright. When Rao steps back from the techno-babble and focuses on this core relationship, I am locked in and ready to read. This is where Rao's strength relies as the author.

I just wish that Ahilya and Iravan had more interesting things to do.

In total, The Unrelenting Earth is not a total miss because of its core relationship. They kept me reading, and they will keep moving forward into the next book when it is published in 2025. However, I hope that Rao can reclaim the plot and simplify the magic system so that the best elements of the book (the fun worldbuilding, critique of human actions, core romantic relationship) shine through and the plot momentum of The Surviving Sky comes back.

CW: Include miscarriage, brief internalization of blame

Holy. Goddamn. Fuck. Kritika H. Rao, I am in absolute raging awe. The Surviving Sky was incredible. The Unrelenting Earth was breathtaking. Though it had been a couple months since I'd reread TSS, i was able to pick back up and slip right back in with a fair amount of ease. For those who do not recall the magic system, or have difficulty grasping it, there's a glossary in the back!

The spiraling of relationships, love, hurt, trust and pain-- I truly have nothing to offer other than it was a masterpiece I eagerly devoured each paragraph of. To any of my advanced readers, I'll be thrilled to recommend this one!
And to scream about it endlessly into a created Moment with my friends, of course.

Unfortunately, book 2 in the "The Rages" series was a complete miss for me, which is a shock since I really enjoyed book 1. My biggest drawbacks were:

-the magic system made no sense
-the book was way too long and felt like a chore to read
-the author should have found a way to end the series with this book (I think it easily could have been done!) but instead, is dragging it on to be at least one more book

My biggest issue is that I cannot understand the magic system. I didn't understand it in book one, and then it became infinitely more complex. I even read the glossary of magic words and still could not parse the difference between the moment, the resonance, the deepness, etc. This is a huge detriment to the reader, because every scene from Iravan's point of view is all about trajection and the different levels he is using. The first 20% of the book was just scene after scene of ectastic "trajection", so not understanding it made the book incredibly difficult to follow and get into.

Another complaint is that nothing interesting happens for about 50% of the book. When I finally became interested, it was always Ahilya's point of view I enjoyed because she didn't traject, so no need to understand the magic system. There were just way too many scenes with the vaguely described magic system throughout (especially at the end) and it made picking up this book a chore. I actively did not want to read, and that very rarely happens to me-I read every single day! I had to force my way through this book and I wish it had a conclusive ending because I will not be suffering through book 3.

The book was also just way too long; many of the trajection/ecstatic scenes could have been cut, and at this point I am tired of hearing Ahilya and Iravan complain about their relationship. Clearly they should not be together.

You may like this book if you enjoyed book 1. The world building is still super cool, with the Ashrams in the sky and the earth being uninhabitable due to the rages. You may also enjoy this series if you like a mix of sci-fantasy, and can understand this complex magic system. 3/5 stars for me because it's a cool concept that I just can't wrap my head around.

Thank you so much to netgalley and Titan Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review


I also want to put one trigger warning in a spoiler below that could be a huge drawback for some readers:

SPOILER

TW: miscarriage

The Unrelenting Earth had a strong first half, and in some ways flowed better than The Surviving Sky - Rao's writing style had certainly developed and improved. However, whilst I initially thought I was on track to like this even more than the first in the series, I found the last quarter difficult to wade through - and this detracted from the experience as a whole. As the descriptions became more technical, and there was so much action and plot progression, I began to lose the thread slightly - and this was to the detriment of my enthusiasm about reading as well. I didn't feel as invested in the characters and what was happening to them.
That said, this is still such a fascinating world - I'm assuming/hoping that this is an instance of second-book-in-a-trilogy syndrome, where a conclusion can't feel satisfactory because there is still more to happen, and the plot has to be condensed somewhat to get everything ready for what's to take place in the sequel. I'll certainly be picking up the third instalment, if/when it exists.

I think Rao has grown as an author, which is always great to see. Really excited to read the next instalment in this series.

I really enjoyed reading this book, it had everything that I enjoyed from the Surviving Sky. It uses the Hindu philosophy that worked with everything that I wanted and was respectful done. It had a great scif-fantasy novel and enjoyed how the characters were written. It uses the culture and world that was built perfectly. I enjoyed what I read and glad I was able to read this. Kritika H. Rao writes a strong story and characters that I enjoyed reading this. I can't wait to read more from Kritika H. Rao and glad I was able to read this.