A sequel to Mark Lawrence's Book of the Ancestor Science Fantasy trilogy, it focuses on Yaz, a member of the Ictha ice tribe, who sees herself expelled from all life she's ever known, banished to the depths. There, she will come in contact with an unexpected truth, one that will take her to the farthest corners of the land.
Tropes present in this work:
- The Ace: Yaz is undoubtedly this, when it comes to channeling stars, moving them, modifying their intensity, dividing them and even, with great effort, being able to fuse them back together.
- After the End: One of the five tribes of Humanity, the quantals, have abandoned Abeth in order to ascend to a higher plane of existence, leaving behind their works of wonder, which in time have grown insane. The different tribes' technological level has dropped to bronze age technology at best.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Being a novel set After the End, it shouldn't come as a surprise. All of the abandoned cities can be said to be this, their consciousness having slowly grown insane after the departure of the Missing, but the crown jewel is undoubtedly Seus.
- Demonic Possession: As in the previous series, being in contact with stars for too long causes a person to develop "devils".
- The Determinator: The Ictha ice-tribe as a whole can be said to be this, having adopted an extremely pragmatic way of living in order to survive the harshest environment of all the tribes. Where others might balk or run, the Ictha keep pushing until the bitter end. The saying "the Ictha die on their feet" is a sign of this: even in the worst ice storms, they'll never lie down, walking through until the cold takes them.
- Kill It with Ice: Given his ice powers, it's unsurprising that Thurin does this from time to time, enveloping enemies in ice, stabbing at them with ice spears, etc. Of special note is when he throws the Watcher down a cliff.
- Mental Time Travel: Yaz's trips down memory lane, courtesy of Erris, which allowed her to see the distant past of Abeth when it wasn't covered by the ice.
- Really 700 Years Old: Erris and Elias. The first a human from the time before Abeth was enveloped by the ice -which makes him around 5000 years old- who was caught into a city's clutches and turned into an echo of himself, and the second a human who spread himself into many different copies, being part of the Missing and therefore an order of magnitude older than Erris.
- Sand Worm: The coal worms in the ice are gargantuan creatures capable of creating huge tunnels as they pass through the ice.
- Single-Biome Planet: Abeth seems to be this, until it's revealed that there's still some green left on the Green Corridor, but it's retracting fast, and soon there will be nothing but ice.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: Taken to an extreme: Any child who demonstrates particularly strong gifts (hunska speed, gerant strength, marjal magic) is immediately tossed into the depths as a burden on their families. It's all a lie by the elders to gain a workforce to mine stars. Yaz, as a quantal, would have been added to their ranks, but leapt after her brother.
