Popular Reviews of The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, Book 1 Embers

The work on this series is truly amazing. In 5 books, Abigail Hilton has built a world that can stand toe to toe with the worlds of NK Jemisin. In this highly unequal society, the top rung of society are the wyverns, the next rung are intelligent half-humanoid-half animal creatures and then below that their beasts of burden, who are also intelligent. It can get confusing but what's important is that in this society, fantastic racism and power hierarchies mean that intelligent beings do terrible things to other intelligent beings, including farming them, eating them, and wearing their fur. Yeah… The voice actors are perfect, the schemes and machinations by the various parties are often clever, and the characters are so detailed, they might as well leap off the pages/earbuds. Silveo may be the best realized anti-hero in podcastdom. But perhaps the most surprising thing about this series, is that while there's plenty of swashbuckling to be had, the series is also an unflinching look at the scars left by rape and sexual abuse and what it takes to recover from that. I do feel that the series runs too long and would have worked better as 4 books instead of 5. Also, the ending feels rather abrupt. However, this is a minor irritation compared to my relief that this audio drama doesn't use rape as a cheap plot device or wallow in misery porn. It's a work of uncommon imagination and compassion and while it might not be for everyone, if it's something you might be interested in, I highly recommend it.