Breaking Chaos
The Chasing Graves Trilogy, Book 3
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Breaking Chaos
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Narrated by:
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Moira Quirk
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Samuel Roukin
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By:
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Ben Galley
About this listen
The endgame has begun.
The battle for the emperor's throne grows ever fiercer. The City of Countless Souls cowers behind locked doors as the whims of the downtrodden and the powerful bring the great game of Araxes to its chaotic conclusion.
With the soulblade at his hip and magic in his soul, Caltro's freedom is almost within reach. But as Temsa reign of murder clashes with Widow Horix's plans, the locksmith's fate becomes all the more entwined with the needs of dead gods, the Cult, and vengeful royals.
Caltro realises his struggle is not just for his redemption, but for that of the entirety of the Far Reaches. While the Core Districts descend into chaos, debts left unpaid in the desert haunt Nilith's long-awaited arrival in the city. A new foe is hunting her through the streets, an enemy with enough power to rival even that of the Cloudpiercer.
And yet all their struggles pale in comparison to the dark omen that is spreading through the Arctian Empire:
The River Nyx is drying up.
©2019 Ben Galley (P)2019 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
What listeners say about Breaking Chaos
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ryan - UK
- 29-01-24
An original and gripping adventure
If you’re thinking of reading this, you’ve probably already read the first 2 instalments in the trilogy. Expect more of the same unexpected twists, but this time with a larger than life finale that finally ties each of the disparate plots together in one explosive climax.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- The haunt
- 08-06-23
A fun, cool finale to a fun cool series
All the parts finally met from the previous 2 books. In a good way as well. Lots of action, unique and just generally very fun. And as always the narrators were brilliant.
Already got Ben Galleys other books on my listening list.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Natasha
- 25-11-23
brilliant ending
the political power plays really stepped it up in this final book. everything came together and tied up nicely, but also in an unexpected and intriguing way.
Pointy is my favorite character of all time; which is a might feat considering he is an inanimate object!
Yet again the narration was brilliant. This is one of my favourite series and they did it justice, indeed. Funnily enough Moira Quirk narrates my other favorite "The War Eternal" so I would recommend and books she narrates.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Sebrina Autumn Calkins
- 20-09-23
Tragically Disappointing End to a Trilogy
I've had some time to try and wrangle my thoughts. I think my overwhelming feeling is disappointment. There's so many things about this book and the series as a whole that are disappointing, specifically because Chasing Graves was such a fresh, original, and bloody brilliant book that took concepts and tropes in a genre utterly drowning in mediocrity and formulaic versions of versions of versions. I'm going to talk a bit about the first two books, but I'll do my best to keep them vague enough to mot be too spoilery.
Chasing Graves is acerbic, unsentimental, gritty, grim, and genuinely amusing in ways so many other fantasy books strive for, but in taking one or more of those elements more often than not they miss the mark and/ or plunge into cheap, problematic shortcuts that are so often ignorant, bigoted, and harmful. I was so here for this!
(I've not got my Goodreads wings yet, so just imagine the Tyra Banks 'We were all rooting for you' GIF here)
There was such rich worldbuilding and characters that emerged naturally through the story with the dual perspectives of the self-centred, unlucky master locksmith and the self-righteous, spiky Empress that begin to unfold the political intrigue, criminal enterprise, supernatural quandaries, and imperial (and family) divisions. Chasing Graves sets up this world, premise, and tone perfectly, but it's downhill from there.
I won't talk about Grim Solace too much, but it is very much the middle passage of the trilogy with our erstwhile locksmith being battered around like a political football and discovering a unique ability, which is fine, but stretched out to half a novel means it feels a bit like treading water, while the Empress continues her tiny Mad Max fury Road journey on a mission that the true impetus isn't revealed until most of the way through the next book. She's a sneering Furiosa with trials and tribulations aplenty, and I'm here for them. Unfortunately, these two storyline aren't enough or rather are filled with so much unnecessary dead air and repetition that I was starting to seriously zone out as I felt the wheels starring wobbles and the momentum starting to wane.
This brings us to Breaking Chaos and the culmination of this trilogy and the collision of the two protagonists and every other faction and player. We find out why a master locksmith was original sought out and so viciously fought over, which is a serious let down as the job was obvious from the start and we have known what is or isn't behind that door from book one. There's some reveals that aren't that interesting, although I do have to recognise a tower becoming an emergency steampunk airship is pretty cool, but nothing really comes of it. All the players converge with some fortuitous happenstances along the way that veer into deus ex machina territory a little too much for the overall tone of this series for the climax.
This is what this whole series of interesting characters, underhand dealings, mysteries and entreaties of the dead gods, and political machinations have been building to -- a big, generic, fantasy battle with the protagonists going beastmode, complete with the cavalry turning up on the darkest hour in a story element take directly from A Song of Ice and Fire with none of the very obvious and serious ramifications, and some unbelievably painful and hypocritical, extremely white 'Western' (read: unbelievably ignorant, problematic, centrist, and obscenely racist) perspectives and moralising that made me want to start eating my headphones.
I'm a big enough gal to admit it, Ben Galley fully Pierce Browned me, Chasing Graves into the cisheteronormative white capitalist death spiral of Red Rising. Dudes may rock, but they absolutely smash their hard work and talent to pieces with their ham-fisted, privileged, and dangerous world views. While Red Rising was a saga of exploited workers taking a stand to ultimately go full great man, war crimes are cool, former friends turned fascist are worthy of more respect than dead comrades and innocents, Chasing Graves went from greed, authority, slavery are bad to full fear of reprisals and retaliation fantasy with maintaining the oppressive systems, but maybe just a little bit nicer, and effectively genociding the oppressed it was worried were going to do a genocide. Not to mention, the heroic efforts of the nightmare capitalist slavers who have been trying to trap and kill a main character throughout the book saving the day, so another brave hero can disregard the agency and autonomy of countless others so they can go Super Saiyan!
I'll talk more specifically about my issues in a moment as they will need to be marked as spoilers.
I was so thankful to be back in this world after reading a bunch of other things in between and I loved being back in the bleak, sarcastic tone of these books that Moira Quirk and Samuel Roukin bring so perfectly to life with their narration. My first updates are so full of joy and hope. But then it dragged so much harder than the last book in the middle, before completely messing the bed with the ending, both in terms of the tone and vibe of everything that came before, and the repugnant events, motivations, and politics.
This story wasn't enough for three full novels and this is one of its major weaknesses. The dual narratives are great, but both end up having to tread water or dash forward at times to keep pacing and ultimately culminate together. One big book or being a much tighter duology would have really made the good parts of this series sing. Nothing short of a total rewrite, including plotting and changing the events, or at the very least the perspective with which they are shown can do anything to work as damage control for the ending.
Just like Red Rising, it was the best of times and then the worst of times that made me wish I had never has the good times to begin with and had either avoided these books entirely or just read the first one and pretended like it was just a stand alone brilliant book.
***Spoilers Ahead***
Okay, I've already spent way too much time thinking and writing about this book, so let's just hit some points that I hated:
- 'Good Cop' character seems like they are going to do the only good thing a cop can do - stop being a cop (ACAB), but instead they want to be an imperial cop and convince the Empress who wants to do good and then step down to be the Girlboss she deserves to be because she's the empress baybee!
- 'Good Cop' sacrifices themselves to a bounty hunter as the fake Empress and then manages to convince the Consortium of capitalist slavers to save the city because they can exploit it. Believable, but not shown as bad at all.
- Consortium of capitalist slavers are the cavalry, save the day, and are heroes with no discussion or criticism.
- The emancipation of the slave shades is used as an excuse for the dead to genocide all of the living, so our protagonist hero turns on his new friend without telling her or anyone of his plans, so it can be a dramatic reveal for the book, saying that actually maybe we need the slavery instead to avoid this. Presenting this binary is beyond disgusting and racist. This is the fear of reprisal that is a cornerstone of white supremacy and colonialism that is used as the excuse as to not give colonised and indigenous people autonomy to make decisions for themselves and the land Stolen from them. I actually thought Galley did quite well over the series to not make the enslavement of ghosts and their treatment as second class citizens too much of a racial allegory -- this could be my own ignorance and privilege for sure. It's definitely better than things like Detroit: Become Human. To throw that away with racist fears and a black and white approach is colossally disappointing.
- After having this moment of disgust at the potential genocide, our now morally upstanding hero proceeds to forcibly incorporate a bunch of shades into their body to power themselves up. This is described in detail as being against their will and them fighting as their selves are subjugated and their essence is subsumed. This is unbelievably awful and never portrayed as the horrific abuse and ignorance of consent or reflected upon in any critical manner. It's okay though because the people it happened to were baddies...
- Actions taken essentially lead to a lot of the shades being genocided - sent to the afterlife against their will. In a world where ghosts are people, especially one in which they are almost entirely slaves, a good ending would be them having some choice and agency, but nope that's only for important characters.
- They really wanted to do the whole 'person who holds the thing is in charge', after showing how gross it was that class and power were more literally tied to the weight of wealth a person has in this city than in real life? But it's turned down and we get the 'rightful' Empress for a new age of benevolent dictatorship...
- The series is book ended with a not very good prank. A literal poop joke. In the offing it was establishing character. In the end it is a metaphor for this book and the total vapid stagnation of authoritarian rule of the city and the total lack of character depth or development.
I never thought I would end up hating this book and series and much as I loved the first one. I didn't think I could be broken again so spectacularly as I was by Red Rising. Morning Star fully had me heartbroken fury sobbing, but Breaking Chaos just brought bitter tears to my eyes. At least I'm getting more inured to this BS.
Thanks, I hate it.
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Original Review: 2/5
I will need to come back when I am capable of more cogent thoughts, but I am become Tyra Banks.
At first I was so happy to be back in this world I enjoyed some much.
Then I was drifting off and bored.
Finally, I was colossally disappointed and let down by an ending that was the novel equivalent of the trend of movies that all ended with a big blue light in the sky.
I am genuinely gutted and disgusted. It's not even the events, though they aren't great, but so much of the unchecked rationale, reactions, and reasoning for the actions taken that have left me feeling disappointed and sick.
I absolutely adored the first book. The second was a bit of a repetitive nothing burger, but the character stuff was good. This end of the trilogy threw character stuff away for a relentless series of events building to a ridiculous and 'epic' conclusion that lacked anything that made these books good.
I really didn't think this trilogy was going to Red Rising me, but dammit if Ben Galley hasn't absolutely Pierce Browned me.
Moira Quirk and Samuel Roukin's performances continue to be perfection. I honestly don't think I would have actually made it through without them. Nothing to do with them, but the audio quality and sound mixing really wasn't great for the audiobook, or, rather, it was fine for the most part, but the way parts were stitched together has wildly different sound and quality, so when bits has been redone or whatever really stood out in a bad way.
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