So. "Furious Heaven" by @KateElliottSFF. Or, in short, "genderbent Alexander the Great in space with dinosaurs". I don't really have much to say about the first part; it's an interesting idea, but I don't know enough about Alexander, and gender doesn't seem to play a huge role for this figure anyway. So more learned people must comment on that.
But the rest is pretty neat, too, and there /are/ some obvious Alexander references, especially in names.
(1/n)
We're in a space empire whose backstory is fascinating: founded by trade syndicates, whose faster-than-light travel beacons started to fail and everything fell apart. Thus rose the Phene empire, and, as an offshoot, the Republic of Chaonia.
Both are named somewhat misleadingly, as the Republic is a monarchy and the Empire ruled by an elite council. They are at war: Eirene, ruler of Chaonia, has won major battles and her successor, Sun, wants to finish it.
(2/n)
If one considers travel and communication, the universe is an "age of sail" type at first glance: there's FTL travel, but the Chaonians have no faster communication.
The Phene, however, have Riders: people who share a collective consciousness and can communicate instantly. This asymmetry, and the consequences it has for warfare and diplomacy, is a fascinating bit of worldbuilding I liked very much.
There's a lot of very neat worldbuilding here anyway!
(3/n)
All depicted cultures have rich backstories, contradictions, and depth. The Chaonians use dinosaur-themed proverbs a lot, and may have the dinosaurs as well, which is a lot of fun. It's a very rich tapestry, against which much warfare, palace intrigue, friendship, love, and rivalry play out.
We get to see this through a diverse cast of characters: Sun herself, her closest companions, but also some ordinary people giving intriguing views of the lower classes.
(4/n)
It's very well written, and the many different narrative strands are held together by Sun's relentless forward drive. As is the Republic, I guess; as was Alexander's empire.
There are similar themes of empire, holding it together, companionship of rulers, loss of technology and the use of distributed consciousness in both @ArkadyMartine's Teixcalaan duology and @deuceofgears's Machineries of Empire trilogy - a detailed comparison would be very interesting!
(5/n, n=5)
Jules