Wolfhound Century by Peter Higgins

 

This is a novel a lot like the Black Sun trilogy on the surface, though it's a fantasy Russia with what feel like fake-Russian place (and plausibly character) names, where the bodies of angels have been falling from the skies for a few centuries, all of them (apparently) falling in not-Russia's territory. Maybe some of what's going on here is at least derived from actual Russian folklore, but I'm not deeply familiar with Russian folklore so I cannot say. Totalitarian government with internal conflicts and tensions is not going to stand long, and the figurehead in fact dies during the novel. It feels as though there might be (or might at least have been) plans/expectations for other novels to come after this--the ending leaves several threads dangling--and in fact there's a Book Two and a Book Three, but this is not a good enough novel for me to feel as though I need to read more of this: It's kinda muddled and emotionally flat; there's some tension in the pacing but it skips POVs enough that it ends up feeling kinda scattershot. None of the characters are anything like as interesting as Higgins seems to think they are, and the world is decidedly unclear as a setting. Not a waste of the evening, but not very good, either.