Hello, my name is Sarah and I'm a bloody shrimping idiot who should be slightly (if mercilessly) skewered for thinking about DNFing this book. Yes, my Little Flimsy Barnacles, it is indeed very shameful and sad and disgraceful and stuff, but it is nonetheless (and quite dramatically) true: I read the prologue and the first two chapters of this book and thought, " please kill me somebody I'm outta here puny humans to chop into pieces places to invade and all that crap," and bloody hellish fish what a complete, utter, tremendously brain-dead nitwit that makes me. There’s just continuous fascination in this book which was provided through its rich world-building. Honestly speaking, I’ve been getting fatigued from reading medieval-European fantasy setting. I have nothing against it—I love it, actually—but this particular setting is everywhere; stumbling upon them more than ten times in a row can get very tiring. The intricate world-building that Williams has created in this book/series was a delightful feast for my imagination. I’m serious, the author has some morbidly vivid imagination. Creatures conjured out of nightmares, a giant tree named Ygseril—most likely inspired by Yggdrasil—that dropped fruits that became war-beasts, then giant bats as transportation, behemoths, and many more intrigues that I suggest reading firsthand. I simply need to read more of this world. She Who Laughs - an ageless spirit of pure energy who is the source of all winnowfire. She propelled the Aboran's Seed Carrier through the cosmos for untold aeons, before abandoning them when they came to Sarn and styling herself as a goddess instead. The Ninth Rain is remarkably written book in which Jen Williams was determined to freshen up a bit fantasy worlbuilding as we know it, combining history, archeology, botany and Sci Fi elements, all while playing with - or completely dismissing - usual and existing tropes in this genre. Tormalin the Oathless is an Eboran(a nonhuman race) warrior and Vintage’s guard/companion. He is extremely vain and selfish. He wants to drink good wine, wear fashionable clothes and enjoy life.

The world here is a fascinating one and I found the Eboran lands and the world of Sarn to be a great place to imagine. I definitely feel like I could visualise bits of this story and I am keen to see what other parts of the world or the world beyond we may uncover as we continue the series. Lastly, I’d just like to mention how much I would love to see an illustrated edition of this trilogy being published. A few of Vintage’s sketches perhaps would have enhanced the experience greatly, and made it clearer to visualise this unique world. Weeds and wolves – that was all that was left of glorious Ebora. With few ghosts that still linger in it. The book is written in the third person, with multiple POVs, the writing is fun and easy to get through, and the POV switch was very well done. Williams had clearly grown by leaps and bounds as an author when she started writing The Ninth Rain. And it is more than just her ability to create a fascinating world and sympathetic characters. The world of Sarn is complex, imaginative and unique. There is deep lore and history at play here when the Prologue is dated two hundred years before the timeline of the main narrative. In this Prologue, we see the aftermath of an invasive war which occurred centuries ago, which left an Eboran god dying after it summoned The Eighth Rain, and together with it the long-lived people of Ebora.Where to begin? Okay, let me start by discussing the narrative style and world building, because this was exactly what drew me into the novel. Williams’ writing feels instantly like a classic fantasy; it’s elaborate, sophisticated and richly atmospheric, and I have always found this style comforting to read. So, naturally I became immersed from the outset. For example, throughout the book, almost every chapter begins with an extract from the character Vintage’s journal or private letters. Through these mini preludes the reader is slowly given pieces to the puzzle regarding the history of the Eboran race, the Jure’lia, the Winnowry and Ygseril. We discover, we question and make presumptions, much in the fashion of Vintage. Personally, this style reminded me of an Indiana Jones type of plot, mixed with a Victorian-esque setting and elegant prose and mystery, which I found was similar to Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft. I loved the way tension was slowly built up throughout The Ninth Rain and the sense of foreboding. This was fascinating, captivating and truly made the book unputdownable!

Big Bad: The Jure'lia queen, imprisoned within Ygseril's roots until she is unwittingly freed by the protagonists, at which point she revives the worm people to lay waste to Sarn once again. Various friends from the U.S. and Canada told me that for some unfathomable reason this series is hard to get on that side of the world. Which is an utterly deplorable state of affairs, really, but we do live in a crazy, nonsensical world. Bullying your local library into buying a copy of this masterpiece might be an excellent idea, and if you've been planning a trip to the Old World, this is the perfect time for it as The Poison Song, the last installment of the trilogy, is just about to be published. Whatever you have to do to get your hands on this series, do it!Bittersweet Ending: By the end of The Poison Song, the Jure'lia are destroyed for good and Sarn is at peace at long last, but not without cost. All of Jarlsbad, and countless other settlements through Sarn, have been destroyed during the Ninth Rain, and the land is still covered with the worm people's varnish, poisoning it for generations to come. Noon is dead, having destroyed herself along with the Jure'lia, and all of her friends and loved ones feel her loss acutely - particularly Tormalin. However, the trilogy ends on an ultimately positive note: She Who Laughs restores Ygseril enough for it to produce its healing sap once again, thereby curing Ebora of the crimson flux at last. Furthermore, she decides to devote herself to removing the varnish from the land with her fire, thereby cleansing Sarn of the Jure'lia once and for all. Vostok has the typical fiery dragon's breath, but Celaphon (another dragon) expels electricity from his mouth instead. It's not clear if Celaphon is abnormal in this aspect due to being twisted by the Jure'lia growth fluid or if he was born with the ability. Physical God: She Who Laughs, the source of all winnowfire. She blesses those women whom she deems to be the strongest with her power, and manifests herself through the bodies of her worshippers, who allow themselves to be given to her on their deathbeds. At it’s heart, I feel that The Ninth Rain’s excels in its wondrous characters. The three main protagonists significantly felt human; they each had flaws, vulnerabilities and complexities. Vintage was perhaps my favourite. Her lust for adventure; to learn all that she could, her obsessions, even though they often blindsided her, they were qualities to admire. Her sweet mannerisms and affectionate phrases, also made her extremely charming. She’s the kind of character that I just wanted as a best friend! Then we meet Fell-Noon, who was heartbreakingly vulnerable. Denied all human touch for most of her life, the mere hint of affection and kindness was something alien to her but something she treasured too. I wanted to hug her so badly. Tormalin, our more aristocratic, lighthearted character, was also a delight to read. His inability to watch his race slowly wither away, catalysts his journey away from Ebora, and consequently Tor grows in leaps and bounds. I could easily see myself bantering with Tor! As you may have gathered by now, The Ninth Rain is Jen Williams doing what she does best: traditional tropes with a twist. Like many aspects of her Copper Cat trilogy, the tropes in The Ninth Rain are recognisable, yet strange. For example: when Williams introduces the Eborans – an unnaturally beautiful, long-lived race who keep themselves separate from mere mortals – readers might roll their eyes and mutter ‘elves’. In a dark spin on the traditional, Williams takes the Tolkien-esque elves (and other wonders) and filters them through her own unique imagination. She then takes what’s left in the filter – the grit, the dirt, the uncomfortable, the bitter and the hard-to-chew – and mixes it with all kinds of unlikely ingredients with the experimental skill and competence of a chemist.

And the moral of this reread is: any villainous villain who says stuff like “ we do not make agreements with food” when talking to puny humans is Slightly Very Awesome (SVA™), if you ask me.An unusual blend of fantasy and sci-fi. Original and fascinating world and masterful worldbuilding that I can only compare to Martha’s Wells Raksura books. Mature characters, great characterisation, flowing prose, engaging story with plenty of action and humour. Honestly, I can’t come up with any flaws even when I’m trying to. Hive Mind: The hive mind of the Jure'lia is explicitly compared to a spider's web, with the queen at the centre, and anyone connected to that web can experience the thoughts and feelings of anyone else also connected. Hestillion and Celaphon are willingly joined to the hive mind, while Bern is joined by force. Lady Vincenza, popularly known as Vintage, is an eccentric scholar that will go to great lengths to understand what made the Jurelia(the invaders) invade Sarn(their world). Right for the Wrong Reasons: Micanal the Clearsighted was an Eboran artist who famous led a great expedition across the Boundless Sea in search of an island he called "Origin", so believed to be the source of the seed that had germinated into Ygseril, tree-father and root-mother of Ebora. And he was correct, but not in the way he had expected: what he found, rather than another tree-god, was the crashed spaceship of the alien race who had planted Ygseril's seed - just one of many they had planted throughout the universe as experiments. The revelation that the supposedly high-and-mighty race of Eborans were merely an (unsuccessful) experiment by a race of extraterrestrials was enough to totally disillusion Micanal, and he spent the rest of his days growing old on the island, haunted by his failure to save Ebora. Let's Keep It In The Crustacean Family Father-Daughter Buddy Read (LKIITNFFDBR™) with My Little One 🦀