2024/074: The Saint of Bright Doors — Vajra Chandrasekera

None of the others understand that the law might do anything, at any time, to anyone, and justify itself any way it likes -- it is feral, like the invisible laws and powers of the world, of which it is a pale imitation. It's because none of them can see the devils, he thinks. That's why they're all so optimistic about worldly law. [p. 147]

Fetter is the son of a religious leader, known as the Perfect and Kind, and Mother-of-Glory, who is vengeful and witchy, and raises Fetter as an assassin who will eventually commit patricide (with matricide, sancticide and heresy en route). The novel opens with the amputation of Fetter's shadow, leaving him able to levitate: he can also see the 'invisible laws and powers of the world', which most people refer to as devils and which are utterly inhuman.

So far, so fantasy. In short order we find Fetter in the cosmopolitan city of Luriat, where he's part of a support group for the unchosen -- those who grew up in religious cults but didn't become prophets or heirs -- and spends much of his time helping new arrivals in the city to complete the plethora of paperwork. Fetter's ambition is not to fulfil the destiny set out for him by Mother-of-Glory, but to live an ordinary unexceptional life. He does, however, become involved with an underground faction investigating the titular bright doors. (Doors in Luriat always have a window or some transparency: those that do not may become bright doors, which cannot be opened and which, to Fetter and some of the other unchosen, manifest uncanny sensations: a cold wind, a bitter smell.)

The worldbuilding is marvellous, and is apparently based on Sri Lankan politics / history. I have also learnt that the story of the Perfect and Good and his son is a version of the story of the Buddha and his son. I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable about either aspect to comment on how Chandrasekera transforms them, but at no point did I feel that I was missing anything vital, though I suspect there are layers of nuance beneath the narrative. The prose (tight third-person, or is it?) is splendid: the depiction of the 'death magic' (and fascism) that sustains Luriat is uncomfortably familiar. And while Fetter seems sometimes lacking in direction, the novel is well-paced and well-structured ... though I did feel as though there could have been a sequel, for there are many unresolved elements.

The Saint of Bright Doors is on the Hugo Best Novel shortlist for 2024: I wouldn't mind seeing it win, though it is not the most purely enjoyable of the shortlisted novels I've read so far. (See Starter Villain, Witch King, Some Desperate Glory.)