I have enjoyed reading Kai Ashante Wilson's works before, and very much enjoyed this one. What stood out for me was it's very conscious literary beauty.
Our protagonist is Demane, a distant descendant of the gods, who still has quite a lot more going for him than the average person. He is in love with another of his kind, Isa, the Captain of the mercenary band that will guard a trading caravan going through the Wildeeps. They shepherd a band of brothers that have bonded deeply through their life and combat together. The focus of the story and the beautiful prose is those relationships, though there's plenty of action, particularly at the end.
The book manages to strongly celebrate gay relationships, including the sexuality, without getting explicit. Also, Wilson attempts to ground the magic in science, though it comes of pseudoscientific in places.
This is a catch up item for me, the second in the series, "A Taste of Honey", is nominated in the Novella category this year. We'll see how this holds up. I give this one a strong three stars.
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