The first three books of this ongoing series reside comfortably in the fantasy side of the SFF spectrum, with the occasional hint that more sci-fi elements would eventually appear. Well, they certainly show up in The Language of Power, and it’s interesting to connect this novel (first published in 2004) to that time’s particular spin on cyberpunk and hacking. It’s not hard to see why this came out contemporaneously with the first Matrix movies.
It’s a bit of a swerve from the last two books, which were thematically connected by a focus on colonialism and its effects on this world. This book feels smaller, more focused—it’s basically a heist story (which is not a criticism, I do love a heist). It left me hollering—both from its revelations as well as the sobering fact that it’s been twenty years and we are still waiting for the fifth book.