A Certain Slant of Light

In general, I feel these books do divinity *so* well - not just the scenes with the gods themselves, but the myths/legends that people tell about the gods, too. It's especially interesting given that the books are in other ways very grounded for fantasy novels, in the extremely literal sense that the characters care about things like "crop yields" and those crop yields affect their wars and political maneuverings. (Not that we're getting pages and pages about wheat and olive harvests; it's employed sparingly but strategically, so you can feel it there underpinning everything.)

I think part of what makes these books feel so unique to me is that breadth - they're interested in everything from the divine right down to the facts of the olive harvest. I may contemplate this at greater length in a future post...