I really loved this book. It was creepy and full of horror. The world and the magic system were fascinating and I grew to really care about all the characters. I can’t wait to see where the next book goes. ( )

There are some issues that keep this from being a five star book, but overall I thought this was a really enjoyable read. First the good: the world and characters felt real to me in a way that many modern fantasies just don't. I understood why Krona, Louis and the others make their choices in the context of the society as its set up, even if those choices wouldn't make sense in our world today. I really rooted for all of them to succeed, even when they had incompatible goals. I also really really liked the idea of magic being more like science in this world, where a pinch of A and a dab of B always leads to the same result, allowing magic to be systematized and regulated.

Now the flaws: for a world that's set up with 5 different genders there is very little done with this premise. Women are allowed to be enforcers of magical laws on an equal footing with men....but they still wear skirts on their days off? There are explicit mentions of additional genders with specified pronouns, but all of the main characters appear to use the traditional he/her pronouns and be involved in heterosexual relationships. It honestly came across to me as more performative than genuinely inclusive of trans/nonbinary identities, which is a bummer to me. ( )

It just never clicked.

Three separate stories, three different timelines, nominally related. But they were spaced far enough apart that the two non-Krona storylines narratively didn't deserve the page space they took. And Krona's super-long chapters weren't at all interesting until more than halfway through.

I hated the way information was presented. Too many awkward infodumps. I deliberately skimmed over the god explanation stuff. I knew 25% through that I wouldn't be reading the sequel, and I could get enough of what I needed to know through context clues instead of raging even more. I hated the infodumps. I hated them so much.

I didn't entirely buy the romances , especially Melanie's. I feel like a crapsack world has an expectation that various characters have a large bundle of self-interest, and the altruistic characters didn't really work for what the rest of the book was selling. I don't know if I'm putting that right - but basically Sebastian's motivations being exactly what they were laid out to be, and not really being any deeper, was super disappointing for that timeline. I kept expecting a betrayal but there was ultimately no subtext that was teased out.

There was no good reason to have the separate POVs - I think it would have been better to get the requisite information into Krona's. There were ways to do it, and it wouldn't have let the reader feel like Krona was dumb for not having info that the reader has, but she doesn't. Cutting out the POVs would also have shortened the book, which would be much better.

Ultimately, the clumsy absolutely-no-subtext is kinda what makes me want to label this as YA-ey, even though serial killers obviously is not a YA subject. It might also be the references but absolutely no textual examples of sex happening. It just seemed juvenile overall.

And this ties in to the rest of my complaints - but at least 100 pages too long. ( )

The Helm of Midnight was a unique reading experience. I'd never thought to read a serial killer police procedural set in a richly imaginative steampunk fantasy world, but that's what this book delivered. The world-building here was stunning in both its depth and intricacy. Both the society and the magic on which it's built are incredibly complex. At times, the story dragged a bit, and I suspect that it ran about 20% long, though I don't know what could be cut, as the plot. characters, and setting are so expertly interconnected. This is a dark story, and the atmosphere becomes at times quite oppressive, but there are glimpses of light. I am in awe of the author's creativity. The co-dependency of the humans, their gods, and the world they created reminds me very much of [a:Robert Jackson Bennett|2916869|Robert Jackson Bennett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1328633063p2/2916869.jpg]'s Divine Cities trilogy, which like this series, begins with a murder mystery of sorts. I'm anxious to see where this trilogy leads. ( )

Love the premise. I simply couldn’t do the audiobook. The accents of the readers sounded too upper class to fit the grittiness of the world and characters. I found it horribly distracting.

I will rate the book once I get my hands on a print/written copy, as I don’t wish to let my annoyance with the readers’ voices color my opinion of the story.