The Raven Tower
by Ann Leckie · first published 2019
6mentions
3recommended by
6HN commenters
2019–2025first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
Listen. A god is speaking. My voice echoes through the stone of your master's castle. The castle where he finds his uncle on his father's throne. You want to help him. You cannot. You are the only one who can hear me. You will change the world. A triumph of the imagination, The Raven Tower is the first fantasy novel by Ann Leckie, New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. Gods meddle in the fates of men, men play with the fates of gods and a pretender must be cast down from the throne in this breathtaking fantasy masterpiece.
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Can second both Ann Leckie (her new book "The Raven Tower" is also a great page-turner) and N.K. Jemisin (who did totally blow my mind with her Broken Earth Trilogy). Ursula K. Le Guin also appears down below; The Left Hand of Darkness was a profound read.
on “Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?” ↗…Justice even though I don’t think I should - must be the long payoff. Of course, you can get some of the same themes in an easier (and no spaceships, sentient or otherwise) read with Leckie’s other book The Raven Tower.
on “Murderbot, she wrote” ↗I can warmly recommend anything written by Leckie. Her scifi is great. But her attempt at fantasy (The Raven Tower) is also most excellent.
on “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” ↗Ann Leckie's fantasy novel The Raven Tower is set in a world where such pagan gods are real, and dives right into a description of how human tribes will spend generations training them to respond favorably.
on “The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics” ↗…than plot. I don't really notice much difference in first and third person perspectives once into a book, although it's more noticeable when starting out. Second person is more jarring - I've read The Raven Tower and Harrow The Ninth recently, both being all or largely in second person. Interesting point you make with regards to RPGs - open worlds are addictive to me (I played Skyrim for many, many years - and…
on “The Animal Is Tired” ↗From Dust (2011) sounds like a very lite version of some of these ideas. The Raven Tower is a novel with a very similar plot including a war between gods who work through willpower rather than direct conflict. Receiver 2 has elements of the multiple layers of reality idea (and to a lesser…
on “Ask HN: What game do you wish existed?” ↗