As a reader, there’s no better feeling than finding the right book at the right time. It’s as if the world has aligned to let us experience a sublime moment that sadly is all too fleeting. Daniel Polansky’s The Seventh Perfection found me at the right time. In short, I loved this book.
TL;DR
Daniel Polansky’s The Seventh Perfection was the right story at the right time for me. It’s fantasy that pushes stylistically and pulls with intriguing characters. Highly recommended.
From the Publisher
Hugo Award finalist Daniel Polansky crafts an innovative, mind-bending fantasy mystery in The Seventh Perfection
When a woman with perfect memory sets out to solve a riddle, the threads she tugs on could bring a whole city crashing down. The God-King who made her is at risk, and his other servants will do anything to stop her.
To become the God-King’s Amanuensis, Manet had to master all seven perfections, developing her body and mind to the peak of human performance. She remembers everything that has happened to her, in absolute clarity, a gift that will surely drive her mad. But before she goes, Manet must unravel a secret which threatens not only the carefully prepared myths of the God-King’s ascent, but her own identity and the nature of truth itself.
Review: The Seventh Perfection
The Seventh Perfection is about the Amanuensis’s quest to solve a mystery. She has mastered the seven bodily perfections to achieve service to the ruler, and as such she receives a certain deference – better described as fear – from the people she interviews. The Amanuensis acts as the God King’s memory. She sees and she remembers. The reader soon finds out that she’s on an investigation that if solved could rock the city to its foundation. What happens a servant of the state looks into the originating myths of the state?
This story takes place over three days, and each chapter is an interview with an inhabitant of the city. The conceit is that each interview is a memory, I think. The Amanuensis is trained with perfect recall; so, we are reading what she remembers. (This brings up interesting questions whether the narrator is unreliable or not?) With its worldbuilding, I’d place The Seventh Perfection into the category of weird fantasy. There’s magic and machinery, humans and creatures, gods and mortals. It’s a beautiful world, and I’d like to see more of it.
Monologue or Dialogue?
Each chapter is an interview. But the reader only gets the interviewee’s side of the conversation. We can infer her questions based on the answers. The story is told entirely through dialogue; actually, it’s told entirely through a series of monologues. This requires effort on the part of the reader, but adjustment to style is quick.
Each interview read as a unique individual. Action and movement all are conveyed through these interviews, and it was compelling. The Seventh Perfection’s style propelled me from one page to the next. The mystery is quickly solved if paying attention, but the mystery isn’t the book’s strongest point. The characters are. Meeting the next interviewee was enough to keep me glued to the pages. Hopefully, an audiobook is made because I’d love to hear a reading of this. Much like Catherynne Valente’s Space Opera is excellent on the page and enhanced in the audio edition, I think The Seventh Perfection would be enhanced with the right narrator.
The World
The fantasy world of The Seventh Perfection was limited to the city. It was much more modern than the typical medieval based fantasy. It could have been Victorian equivalent, even a much altered version of today, or a society that had fallen from its technological greatness and recovered to a post-apocalyptic version of itself. The reader only gets bits and pieces of the world through the Amanuensis’s interviews. This story is much less concerned about that the world and intensely focused on the people in it. That said, enough slips through to make me curious about the larger setting.
In the book, there’s a group labeled Halflings. My image of a Halfling comes from the Dragonlance series. But in this book, Halfling means something different. They are genetically half human and half something else. Polansky even gives us a chapter with three Halflings, and it was really well done. They were distinct, fun, and not quite human. I liked how it shifted my image of Halflings to something more broad.
The Political World
The Seventh Perfection like any other world has its own politics. I liked picking up clues here and there about them. For example, slavery plagues the world, as the God King’s servants are called slaves. The city-state is obviously a theocracy with all the authoritarian trappings. The reader learns about book burnings and propaganda, measures to keep the citizens faithful. And fearful. There are student rebellions and disgraced military leaders. One chapter featured a rebel who became a functionary in the new government. He became the person his younger self fought against.
The Amanuensis seeks answers to her mystery that conflicts with official propaganda. There’s a powerful message here about memory controlled by or resisting the state. Some share their stories out of defiance, some due to fear, and some out of pride. Each is a study in how people cope to survive. Throughout, the reader sees the people warning the Amanuensis about learning the truth. In a nation where truth means different things to diffent political groups, I found a lot to think about here. Because there’s the official “truth” of the God King, and then there’s the “truth” of what people saw and experienced. The state may be able to force them to spout the official story, but it can’t make them forget their lived experience.
Conclusion
Daniel Polansky’s The Seventh Perfection was perfect. While everyone’s mileage may vary and while someone out there in the lovely internets is waiting to tell me why I’m wrong, I’ll double down. The Seventh Perfection was perfect; it was the right story at the right time for me. The stars aligned; Jupiter was in retro-retrograde; the sun was shining, and all was right with the world for the times I sat down to read it. I know reviews are supposed to be objective, weighing the material in judgment. Usually, I try to do this, but for now, I’m skipping that. Art and fiction are meant to be so much more than just weighed and measured. For now, I’m going to bask in the feeling that The Seventh Perfection left me with and be subjective as all hell. I hope when you read Daniel Polansky’s The Seventh Perfection, you have an equally wonderful experience.
Daniel Polansky’s The Seventh Perfection is available from Tor.com on September 22nd, 2020.