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Rakesfall is a groundbreaking, standalone science fiction epic about two souls bound together from here until the ends of time, from the author of The Saint of Bright Doors.
Some stories take more than one lifetime to tell. There are wrongs that echo through the ages, friendships that outpace the claws of death, loves that leave their mark on civilization, and promises that nothing can break. This is one such story.
Annelid and Leveret met as children in the middle of the Sri Lankan civil war. They found each other in a torn-up nation, peering through propaganda to grasp a deeper truth. And in a demon-haunted wood, another act of violence linked them and propelled their souls on a journey throughout the ages. No world can hold them, no life can bind them, and they'll never leave each other behind.
Tracing two souls through endless lifetimes, Rakesfall is a virtuosic exploration of what stories can be. As Annelid and Leveret reincarnate ever deeper into the future, they will chase the edge of human possibility, in a dark science fiction epic unlike anything you've read before.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (12/04/2025)
...urder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. I've never read any of her books so am interested to find out how I take to her writing. I'm still reading Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera and wondering if I will ever get through it, but forcing myself because it checks off so many challenges in my Always Fully Booked planner/journal.
-Lana_Maskus
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (11/27/2025)
I'm forcing myself to finish Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera as I need it for several challenges in my book planner/journal. It's honestly the weirdest thing I've ever read and I don't know if I'll even know wh...
-Lana_Maskus
"Chandrasekera's characters' journey through fantastical worlds across millennia is reminiscent of This Is How You Lose the Time War ... Recommended for fans of ambitious speculative fiction that tackles systems of oppression in fresh ways." ―Library Journal (starred review)
"Beautiful yet murky...Readers who put in the effort will be rewarded by this rich and sweeping epic." ―Publishers Weekly
"Poetic and unique, but possibly not worth the effort to plumb its depths." ―Kirkus Reviews
"Chandrasekera follows two entwined souls through an endless cycle of reincarnation and destruction in this slipstream novel, a poetic saga about identity and memory, colonialism and revolution, connection and commitment." ―Booklist
"Rakesfall is a story that aims to give its reader the impossible sensation of falling through worlds and lives in a never-ending cycle of reincarnation tied to a cosmic war, and is every bit as epic, challenging, and discombobulating as that sounds. There's nothing quite like a Vajra Chandrasekera novel." ―Indrapramit Das, author of The Devourers
"Luminous, wrenching, intense ― Rakesfall left me breathless...If this is not considered a work of genius, we have lost the meaning of the word." ―Premee Mohamed, author of The Butcher of the Forest
This information about Rakesfall was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Vajra Chandrasekera is from Colombo, Sri Lanka. His debut novel The Saint of Bright Doors was a New York Times Notable Book of 2023, and his short fiction, anthologized in The Apex Book of World SF, The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, and The Best Science Fiction of the Year among others, has been nominated for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.
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