I enjoyed the hell out of this book. It had everything I love about Space Opera. Just enough science my eyes don't glaze over, with a little romance and a whole lot of kick ass action. About 43% into I decided to pre-order. I actually didn't realize this was a series until after I requested an arc but boy am I glad I read these books back to back. I cannot wait for the third installment.

I don't know how Hansen does it, but AZURA GHOST was even more unique and exhilarating than the first book in the Graven trilogy, NOPHEK GLOSS. This is one I'll be thinking about for a while, the way it seamlessly brings themes of found family, platonic love, transhumanism, theoretical physics, scalar gravity, and all sorts of words that I'm not even sure are *real words* but were so perfect for the story, I believed it. A special shout out to the scoundrel En, the genderfluid enby of my soul, and the way gender was really considered in the world-building gets an A++ from me. This is absolutely Caiden and Leta's book, and I can't wait to get my finished copy!

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. I will update Netgalley once I read & review a physical copy.

My review will be based on the physical ARC I read.

DNF

A confession: when I reread Nophek Gloss, book one in this trilogy, so I would be all refreshed and ready for Azura Ghost…I skipped the last 40%. At my husband’s suggestion, because I’d been struggling with it for weeks.

I didn’t mention that when I reviewed it earlier this month, because I thought it was just a reread thing – that’s the darkest chunk of the book, and I already knew how it all went down, I just didn’t want to read it again. Right???

Except that I started feeling frustrated with Azura Ghost just a few pages in, and now I’m wondering if it wasn’t a reread problem, but a problem with these books.

Look: it’s heavily implied that Laythan’s crew – the group who discover, rescue, and adopt Caiden in Gloss – have been together for a long time. I went back through the book, highlighting passages as evidence, and I’ll admit they never specifically say how many years it’s been, but they call each other family; joke about the fact that Lathan doesn’t do rehoming of strays, only adopts them; talk about in which order they joined the group as if it all happened a good while back.

And yet one of the first things Ghost tells us – tells us, not shows us – is that the band has broken up.

*Laythan’s crew hadn’t stayed together. Caiden had been their temporary glue, as children often were.*

Hold on one gods’ damn second: all in all, Lathan’s crew spent maybe a WEEK with Caiden, total! They picked him up from his homeworld and took him to Unity! And that was it, apart from [spoilers]! Now you’re telling me he was all that was holding them together?!

Then there’s stuff like this

*“Threi said he had a secret the Dynast must never know about, and the Dynast are obsessed with Graven things. My origin has to be that same thing*

How in the multiverse do you figure that one, kiddo??? You have Point A, Point B, and then you jumped right to the end of the alphabet without explanation or evidence. What???

I still love Hansen’s imagination when it comes to alien flora and fauna, and I love her insistence on making sci fi beautiful, but I just Cannot. The internal logic doesn’t hold together, there’s too much telling and way too much handwaving. It rapidly got to the point where I dreaded having to open it up and continue reading, and I don’t stick with books that make reading feel like a chore. No thank you!

Azura Ghost is unlike any other sci fi I've read, including Nophek Gloss! I loved the first book in this series for the characters and the vivid creativity, and this book takes the story to a completely new level. Unpredictable, wildly imaginative, and surreal with the perfect balance of humanity thrown in. Azura Ghost isn't as quick of a read as the first book, but it delves into some deep topics and is absolutely worth the read. I cannot wait for the third book in the Graven universe(s), because I truly don't know how it will turn out - and I"m not even sure which way I want it to turn out! Even the antagonists have valid points and deeply human backstories. This is a series I am sure to reread.

Azura Ghost is a balancing act between complex topics and engrossing fight scenes. It’s both a rumination on how we develop trust and, much more intricately, how it’s the alienation that too much power provides that can corrupt a person even more than the desire to control.

Nophek Gloss is as much a learning curve for the reader as it is for Caiden. It’s a complex novel with an overabundance of technology and flowery language, so it takes a while to understand how the world-building functions. Yet, Azura Ghost, because we have learned all of this background in book one, doesn’t have that kind of mental hurdle to deal with. You know what the invented words mean and what you’re getting into (it’s not a novel you can read while tired or distracted though, as it requires concentration). As such, the novel moves at a steady, fast pace the entire time, needing almost no space to sit back and explain stuff to us.

When it comes to the plot, it’s pretty simple. Caiden has been on the run for ten years, despite having Threi captured in a mini, contained universe, and Leta, his “sister”, as we learned at the end of Book 1, is alive and living with Abriss, Threi’s sister, who is the ruler of Unity and a descendent of these forerunner-type people called the Graven. The story starts with Caiden being attacked by a woman who claims to be Leta with her consciousness inhabiting another body, and the story goes from there.

The story is great - it’s not overly complex (it honestly couldn’t be with the number of concepts and tech words thrown around in this novel), but it’s easy to understand and the characters’ motivations are clear. There are several really cool fight scenes in this novel, including a badass one at the midway point that goes on so long I started to feel like I had bruises (in a good way though! It was awesome).

In truth, the novel is less about a twisting story than twisted people. It focuses on the duality of human nature; every character is complex and has at least two sides to their personality. Caiden is extremely strong and resilient, and you’d think he’d be a brooding jerk, but, instead, he’s sweet and overly compassionate. He cares so much he’s almost self-destructive in his martyr complex. Leta, literally inhabiting two bodies, is a shy thing who revels in her proxy’s ability to fight but also fears losing the person she is in her real body. Endiron, one of the side characters, can change their body shape and gender identity at will, and the two other main characters (whom I’ll get to in the spoilers) are also at war with themselves in different ways. Like the first book, this is not a novel about evil villains and white knights - it’s about people put in a pressure cooker and emerging changed but also maintaining a core that yearns for what they once had. It’s very easy to sympathize and understand all four characters because we can see from both sides of their own perspectives. In this regard, it’s a complicated story in truth, because the people are not one-dimensional. While the novel has a ton of action, it’s a story rooted in people.

The entire point of the novel is about perspective. How we can feel and understand something so strongly, but looking at it from another point of view can change that. And when this view comes into conflict with what we’ve decided is the truth, we either adapt or we resist.

Back to the characters, one thing I was slightly at odds with in the first book that carried into the second is Caidan’s attachment to his found family. It didn’t feel to me that he was with them enough in the first book, and definitely not the second, to have such a strong connection (especially after ten years!). Maybe I’m just a jaded person, but like last time we didn’t get enough downtime with Caiden and the other crew to really get to know them aside from little quirks. Granted, if we did, there would be less room for action, and the book is already a hefty one as is.

I did like the focus on Leta’s character - it was great to get a second perspective as book one was all Caidan. It brought a freshness to the worldbuilding and helped round out Caidan as well. I really liked how there wasn’t a forced romance between them.

While Threi is still my problematic crush, my favourite character of the novel was C, the nophek pup. Caiden refers to him once as a “sweet nightmare” which is so fitting.

I will say, I still have no idea what any of the aliens really look like. Even after reading the glossary I still could have used a bit more in-story description of them. This was something I had trouble with in Nophek Gloss too, though it’s a minor consideration.

There’s also a great deal of coincidence in this novel but it doesn’t feel preposterous. A lot of time when you have a few characters involved in events affecting entire worlds, it feels like plot armour that keeps them all linked together. But this book clearly thought this out beforehand - there isn’t a paltry explanation at the end as to why they all involved all the time, or a throwaway comment, but numerous references to how the situations are foretold or orchestrated somehow by certain forces. Whether this comes into play more in book three, we’ll have to find out.

This was an ARC, so some things might change somewhat, but there are some great bits of prose in this novel peppering the action with elegance, for example, “...[it] had long ago taught him he could bridle despair with rage and take it into battle.”

Overall, Azura Ghost is not only a worthy follow-up to Nophek Gloss but surpasses it in many ways. I very much enjoyed it and it was a great book with which to start off 2022.

Amazing follow-up to Nophex Gloss. If you are looking for top notch space opera the likes of Alastair Reynolds and Peter F. Hamilton, Essa Hanson may be even better if she keeps this up! The writing is tight, the technology is mind-bending, and the characters are all ones that we feel we know in some way. I really loved this book and this is quickly becoming one of my favorite SF series. I will be writing a more complete review over on the blog once the dust settles a bit.

--
He grazed the crystalline florescer over his head. The Azura’s universe bloomed. Light purled outward, space simmered, and effervescence settled in the wake. The vibrations quieted to a perfect chorus, ethereal and whisper-sleek.
“Ready, gorgeous?”
--

There’s a painting on my wall of a wave crashing on a beach with sea foam frothing up and down the shoreline. ‘This is just like the multiverse in Azura Ghost,’ I kept thinking to myself while reading Essa Hansen’s sequel to Nophek Gloss. Countless bubbles of foam, each with its own distinct physical properties, with a thin layer of rind separating each tiny bubble from destruction or assimilation. In the multiverse analogy, these bubbles are universes, each with their own laws of physics, their own rules of mathematics. If one bubble universe pops and bleeds into the next: chaos, destruction, eventual adaptation. Quite a scary thought if you happen to be a resident! Therefore, if the ruling Dynast, Abriss Cetre, tries to unify the entire multiverse by destroying all the border rinds, there will certainly be genocidal consequences. But when attempting to resurrect lost Graven ancestors, one must crack a few eggs to make an omelette…

One of the many things I love about this series is how deep the characters are tied into its rich story. The characters are driven by multiverse-spanning goals that are humane and relatable. Abriss Cetre may be seeking to unify the multiverse and bring back the age of the Graven, but above all she is just looking to make a real human connection and escape her cursed power of never knowing if she can be spoken to as an equal. Threi Cetre is a man obsessed with playing second fiddle to his sister, the most powerful Graven alive, and will do anything he can to find a way to usurp her power while completing his own Graven tech research. Caiden wants to keep Threi’s powers neutered and his presence banished to a jailed universe, but doesn’t want anything to do with his own Graven roots, finding the manipulation abilities cursed, as Abriss does. He chooses to live the life as a fugitive to keep Threi jailed and sacrifices his relationship with his found family so they wouldn’t be hunted alongside him. Caiden’s limits his family to himself, his Very Good Boy pet nophek, and his mysterious Graven ship’s intelligence known as Azura.

In the first book, En, Lathan, Panca, Kisñe, and more of Caiden’s human and xenid friends shared in the spotlight. In the sequel, we’re introduced to a new cast of characters in the form of Proxies: sculpted humanoid bodyguards, designed by Dynast Abriss in the image of the Graven ancestors, each capable of harnessing the luminiferity in different ways. In the luminiferity, the spirits of the Graven are diffused instead of dead, so the consciousness of the Proxies can flow between the construct bodies and their original human/xenid bodies. Proxy Number Nine has a special ability to project her spirit through the luminiferity to visit other bodies outside her own, and it sets the stage for many thrilling battles across space and consciousness. Other Proxies have specialized fighting capabilities, and there are a couple of scenes of scalar gravity slugfest mayhem when Caiden and the Proxies cross paths.

--
"Her sensitive nervous system fuzzed at the edges like the pages of the most-read books, velveted from a history of touch."
--

Some of the major themes on Nophek Gloss remain front-and-center in Azura Ghost. Inclusivity and identity are once-again explored as the Proxies struggle to figure out their role in the universe, and if they can live independently outside of Abriss’ Graven influences. I loved reading about the struggles of these Proxies and their decision-making process when finally given freedom to act on their own, outside of blanketed emotional oppression. I also loved just how damn cool Hansen’s imagination is. Incredible ship battles, chase scenes that defy gravity with each new directional leap, and alien, environmental landscapes reminiscent of the Strugatskys’ Roadside Picnic. Even more impressive is that even though this book introduces many new and exciting characters, new philosophies, and new conflicts, I found this to be a much tighter, and more focussed read than book one. Much of the first half was build-up, and the entire back-half of the story was all fallout. It stole my breath and became an absolutely relentless page-turner by book’s end.

Azura Ghost somehow raises the bar from what Nophek Gloss brought to the table: a bizarre and thrilling tale of finding one’s true family, brimming with fresh imagination and originality. Hansen paints wondrous vistas from paragraph to paragraph and drives our emotions through the blender along the way. This is the type of story that lives as a movie inside your mind and continues to play when the book is done. The Graven is one of the most thoughtful and visionary science fiction epics I’ve ever read, and I give it my highest recommendation to fans of the genre.

9.5 / 10

Essa Hansen’s Azura Ghost, second book in The Graven series, marks an enormous step up from her already impressive debut, Nophek Gloss. This new story takes us deeper into the mysterious multiverse of the Graven, an ancient race of vast accomplishments that disappeared ages ago but left numerous traces both in architectural and technological remnants and in genetics.
Azura Ghost by Essa Hansen

We continue to follow the central character of the first book, Caiden Winn, now ten years older and still trying to understand the Graven element in his genes. It is an inheritance that gives him special powers, particularly the power to compel obedience through his voice and also his ability to master the space ship, Azura, which itself seems to embody an almost spiritual force that is somehow linked to the powers of the Graven.

As in Nophek Gloss, Hansen’s language is startling and fresh, crashing senses into each other, and wrapped in driving rhythms. Sometimes it reminds me of an epic poem, nothing wasted, glowing images, as the author plunges us into the action. I don’t know a lot of Anglo-Saxon poetry, but Hansen’s language reminds me of those brief punchy lines, each with its stress and the metaphors built into the words with such economy and force. Her writing carries me along, sometimes complex and demanding (especially in the opening chapters where there is a lot to unpack) but with no dramatic letup.
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A central theme of this novel is the struggle of the main characters to understand how their human personalities can be fitted into the roles they are meant to play in realizing some of the lost Graven powers. Leta’s development is exceptional, as we hear her integrate the newly recalled memories of her childhood bond with Caiden, how that could translate into the present and testing just how close they want to be or can be, given their immersion in the godlike forces that surround and pull them in.
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There are so many spectacular ideas and innovative approaches to a multiversal space opera, all realized in rich, vivid language, that I found this book irresistible. It’s not at all your typical adventure, so please put aside any expectations you may have from other writing in this genre. This novel attempts an interesting balance of the underlying adventure and character conflicts inherent in space opera with the exploration of the transcendent dimensions of physics, spirituality and the vastness of human consciousness that Hansen probes so well. The result is a book I find profoundly interesting. The ideas are always compelling, the language superb and the difficulty is the sort that comes from first exposure to a work that is deeply original. It takes a little time for it all to soak in, but the effort makes this story all the more rewarding. I hope the third installment comes soon.

Wow. Just wow. It’s tough to be elegant with words here with the disorienting wave of what is certain to be the biggest book hang-over of all time already numbing me. I loved all the characters in Nophek Gloss, Caiden most fiercely of all—Sorry En! So, how ironic is it that Azura Ghost, the follow up to the insanely imaginative found family space opera, feels like coming home to a family that I didn’t know how much I’d missed. Essa’s characters are complex multiverses unto themselves, unique, individual, and driven by cosmic forces—but most of all—utterly relatable. You’ll find it impossible not to be tied up in the web of conflict they face, rooting for each of them in turn, wincing at their battle injuries and aching along with them through their losses. Hansen’s knack for magically plunking your consciousness into the very fibres of her characters is uncanny. You're not reading about them. You’re totally immersed, exhausted and desperate, along for the ride. If Nophek Gloss blew you away, Azura Ghost will put you back together and shatter you all over again. The universe building is staggeringly unique and imaginative, the plot balances cosmic scale with individual relationships on a knife blade. This book is overwhelmingly big and comfortingly personal all at the same time, and I’ve no idea what kind of energy Essa Hansen pulled out of the luminiferity to create it, but she is a writer with a fresh, incredible talent like no other I’ve seen. I’ll be reading this again, in many different universes, on several separate timelines, and I have a feeling I’ll absorb something new each time. Bravo.

Book about the multiverse, where characters switch from universe to universe. The struggle between good and evil goes through all the universes.

Lots of good action here, as expected. I didn't like this as much as I'd hoped, but you're into the Space Opera genre, you'll probably like this. You don't have to read it's predecessor, but you may enjoy it more if you do.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!!

fantastic sequel—at times it felt a little action heavy and I wanted more character development but still a great sophomore effort that doesn't slump.

I really enjoyed Azura Ghost, both the authors skill and the protagonist have matured in the second installment of the Graven. We pick up the story again after a decade of Caiden spent on the run, maturing him into a much hardened man, His current Journey rounds some of those hardened edges off and shows that life is not always easy and sometimes former enemies must now be allies.
Essa Hansen's amazing mutable journey thorough multiple universes, showing the richness of it all, while also showing the draw towards Unity and the clash between takes us on a colorful and mind bending journey.
I can't wait for book three!