This novella was actually really quite cool. I'm reading these in the book The Tangled Lands and, of the first two stories, this one has been my favorite so far. Both stories have characters with a strong conviction regarding the world around them, but while one did it more to prove he could do it than anything and bankrupting his family, this main character lost everything and became legendary for following her path through to the end. I really loved the character arc that Tana undergoes, from butcher to executioner for one day to warlord and conqueror. She was a force to be reckoned with and never tried to claim glory for herself in any of that, which is something the main character of the first story certainly did. I really enjoyed having a middle aged main character and I really enjoyed that it didn't necessarily have a perfect or happy ending. I think it was a fair ending for what the story was like. That said, this world is incredibly bleak. I can absolutely see this as being too dark for some folks. It's also a story about women empowering themselves, which is great, but Tobias Buckell does not identify as a woman and so it cannot be an own voices thing. Still, I can't help but feel he definitely ran this past some solid beta readers.

A short novella with a powerful female lead. Feels somewhat nihilist, but we'll written