This novel is as exciting as Chandrasekra’s debut, the brilliant (and now multiple award nominated) The Saint of Bright Doors. But where The Saint of Bright Doors is an experimental novel hiding in conventional genre sheep clothing, Rakesfall is just balls-to-the-wall experimentation. It’s the sort of novel that mixes the deep thinking of M. John Harrison or Nina Allan with the wild speculative magic of Lavie Tidhar and Adam Roberts. It’s a thrill ride. But one without guard rails.

The plot? The back cover blurb does its best at describing the novel by focusing on the two entwined souls (we first know them as Annelid and Leveret) who are reincarnated hundreds of thousands of times, travelling across endless time and the multiverse (including a visit to Luriat). But even that doesn’t get to the heart of the novel, which is about identity — the blurred lines between body, mind and self — the legacy of colonialism, and the devastation and death left by the powerful and wealthy. 

It’s a patchwork novel stitched together with stories and fables (some of which have been published separately in genre magazines) and a bold reimagining of Hindu mythology. Perspectives and settings shift on a dime. That lack of narrative stability is what makes it so damn exciting. Is it science fiction? Is it fantasy? Is it horror? Is it historical fiction? It’s all of these things and more. And it’s profound and meaningful and visceral in a way that’s unexpected and provocative.

This may not get the same love as The Saint of Bright Doors, but it should. 

Rakesfall is out in June.