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If you have read anything about Aliette de Bodard's latest novel, the highly original and absolutely stunning fantasy The House of Shattered Wings, then you've surely encountered praise for its intricate worldbuilding, its complex and clearly defined characters, its suspenseful and engaging narrative, its subtle critique of power politics and brutal imperialism, and its numinous theological underpinnings.
And it's all true.
The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic Paris, following the Great War between, not countries, but Houses of Europe - fiefdoms run by and for the Fallen, angels cast out from Heaven for crimes they do not remember, magical beings much diminished but still trailing clouds of their former glory. Before their inhuman power games resulted in the near-ruin of a continent, the Fallen, based in Europe where the mythos we as readers recognise as Christianity was strongest, had spread out across the world, colonising other nations and driving other Heavens, other divine and magical beings, into hiding. Thus it was in Annam, where one of the beings caught in the nets of House imperialism is Philippe, an Immortal cast out from the Annamese Court of Heaven to live in mortal form as punishment for an unnamed transgression.
Freed from the House that enslaved him by its destruction in the Great War, Philippe has survived in the lowest rungs of Paris society, running with human gangs who scavenge in the ruins while the surviving Houses struggle to regain their former power and wealth while continuing to play games that could send any of them toppling into destruction.
When Philippe and a fellow gang member find a newly Fallen, weak and battered from her fall, they attempt to scavenge her, for the bodies of the Fallen carry magic. But before they can do more than collect two fingers, the head of one of the most powerful Houses remaining in Paris, Selene, arrives to save the new Fallen. When Philippe uses his own form of magic to shield his comrade from Selene's wrath, both he and the new Fallen are taken into House Silverspires - she as a dependent, to be known as Isabelle, and he as a prisoner to be studied and if possible used by the House.
Once in Silverspires, both Isabelle and Philippe - bound together by a force awakened drank when Philippe tasted her blood - become caught up in an old and dark curse that threatens to destroy the ancient House, once ruled by Morningstar, the first and foremost of the Fallen. Isabelle is loyal to the House that saved her and offered her protection, while Philippe wants nothing more than to see the House structure collapse completely and to free himself not only from Silverspires but from Paris itself, but the bond between them makes them at times allies as they seek to uncover what lies behind the deadly spell, crafted in vengeance and betrayal, that haunts the halls of Silverspires.
The House of Shattered Wings is one of the best novels I've read this year. De Bodard's website describes the novel as a standalone, but promises more novels set in the same universe. I am looking forward to reading them no matter where she focuses the next stories - but I hope we will see more of Philippe.