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by Vajra Chandrasekera
The Saint of Bright Doors sets the high drama of divine revolutionaries and transcendent cults against the mundane struggles of modern life, resulting in a novel that is revelatory and resonant.
Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. This gave him plenty to talk about in therapy.
He walked among invisible powers: devils and anti-gods that mock the mortal form. He learned a lethal catechism, lost his shadow, and gained a habit for secrecy. After a blood-soaked childhood, Fetter escaped his rural hometown for the big city, and fell into a broader world where divine destinies are a dime a dozen.
Everything in Luriat is more than it seems. Group therapy is recruitment for a revolutionary cadre. Junk email hints at the arrival of a god. Every door is laden with potential, and once closed may never open again. The city is scattered with Bright Doors, looming portals through which a cold wind blows. In this unknowable metropolis, Fetter will discover what kind of man he is, and his discovery will rewrite the world.
The Nebula Awards, 2024
"[T]he lyrical, precise prose, the original, organic nature of the world building, and the complex themes of purpose, identity, and the biased, often violent, incomplete nature of history-telling will engage readers long after finishing." ―Booklist
"Dreamlike and inventive, this unusual novel is a complicated read that ably pairs the mundane with the mystical." ―Library Journal
"Quietly masterful on a prose level, this novel is doing so much so well….One of the most satisfying novels, in any genre, that I've encountered in quite some time." ―Chicago Review of Books
"The Saint of Bright Doors is an inspired and dreamy book that follows a hero growing into the role he was always meant to inhabit, with an unexpected ending that answered all my questions from the first chapter. I truly can't wait to see what Mr. Chandrasekera does next." ―Wall Street Journal
"[T]hrillingly new and different, this bears comparison to works by Kafka and Samuel R Delany. An outstanding, genre-shattering work." ―The Guardian (UK)
"Riveting, surreal, clever and wise and all-too real―a breathtaking achievement." ―Max Gladstone, New York Times bestselling co-author of This Is How You Lose the Time War
"By turns mythic and modern, The Saint of Bright Doors delivers a spellbinding labyrinth of mysteries...A hypnotic and intricate debut." ―Sequoia Nagamatsu, bestselling author of How High We Go in the Dark
This information about The Saint of Bright Doors 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 and is online at vajra.me. His debut novel The Saint of Bright Doors won Nebula, Ignyte, Crawford, and Locus awards, was nominated for the Le Guin, Lammy, Hugo awards, among others. His second novel Rakesfall is a New York Times Notable Book of 2024.
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