That was…an experience.

When I was 20 percent in, I actually wrote on Paolo Bacigalupi’s Facebook page that I was enjoying his world-building and the use of language and nuance in his new novel, Navola. (As has been previously commented upon, I am a stickler for authentic world-building.) He responded that he had enjoyed creating them, and I can believe that, because there is a lot of loving detail in this book. As it turns out, maybe too much? At first it reminded me of my best-beloved fantasy series, The Queen’s Thief, by Megan Whelan Turner, and also gave me the feel of Ursula LeGuin’s masterpiece of pseudo-historical fiction, Malafrena. But as it went on, I felt so overwhelmed by the discussion of every niggling detail (and the need to figure out what was meant by all the semi-Italian, sometimes Latin-based lingo) that it almost felt like being back in English class, being forced to read a classic work about which I felt reluctant, since it wasn’t my choice. I couldn’t help but contrast this with Bacigalupi’s excellent Shipbreaker series, in which he masterfully paints the scene using just what he needs, and then jumps full-force into the story.

The world of Navola seems to be based on a loosely historical evocation of city-states from the Italian Renaissance. There is all the intrigue of the Borgias, with both front-facing and behind-the-scenes manipulation of absolutely everyone by everyone else, except by our protagonist, Davico, son and heir to the wealthy and successful merchant banker, Devonaci di Regula da Navola, who is the power behind the titular heads of state of Navola. Di Regulai rules by maintaining a calculated balance between greed and politics, alternately controlling and rewarding his many clients within Navola and in all the surrounding states. But despite Davico’s training in all the arts both physical (knife- and sword-fighting, equestrian, etc.) and mental/political (negotiation, the reading of faces and body language, the subtle acquisition of background information), he remains largely ignorant (or innocent) of the real breadth of knowledge necessary to step up to the challenge presented by his father—to rule Navola as Devonaci has done. Davico is a tragic hero: His honesty and authenticity is a liability in the world to which he has been born, and although he toys with rejecting his heritage, he is not strong enough to stand up to the culture within which he is embedded, nor to the expectations of his father.

Although I have always been a proponent of thorough world-building, I found myself overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the information Bacigalupi attempts to convey throughout this nearly 600-page tome. There are multiple information dumps—my least favorite parts of the book—and even in the course of the sometimes exciting and action-packed scenes, the “behind-the-hand” translations of the language, the explanations about the involved parties, and the setting of context weigh down the actual events to the point where I felt I was constantly digging for the meat of the story.

There is a fantasy element (introduced on the cover by the depiction of a dragon’s eye, an actual artifact Devonaci keeps on his desk in his library), but while its presence is strong in the parts of the story in which it is included, those are few and far between. Its significance to Davico is toyed with early on, and then mostly recedes until near the end of the book, almost past the point where anyone would care.

There is also a grimness to this story that may be disturbing to some; in addition to the mental manipulation, there is no escape from murder, rape, or graphic revenge amidst the noble families’ bloody pursuit of power. It’s not quite as overwhelming as, say, Jay Kristoff’s Nevernight Chronicles, but it has its moments of queasy-making horror.

The real fault I have to find with this book, however, is the complete lack of foreshadowing by anyone—the author, the publisher, Goodreads—that this is merely the opener for a continuing story! I began to realize, at about the 80 percent mark, that this would have to be the case, because the events took such a back seat to the development of the venue itself that there would be no time, unless it was criminally truncated, to resolve the hero’s situation and provide a satisfactory ending, and indeed I was right; it’s one of those cliffhangers where the hero lives to fight another day. It’s not abrupt, but the story is by no means at an end and, if it is, then I would have to say, What was the point of all that? Navola is too well written to give it a bad rating, but if, when perusing the teaser for the book on Goodreads, it had said “volume one,” I would have approached it with a completely different attitude that wouldn’t have left me feeling duped.

Maybe the lack of this was the author’s way of leaving himself an out; if the first book doesn’t go over so well, do you really want to invest the time in writing a sequel? But I am here to say, Paolo Bacigalupi, you owe us all the rest of the story, having made us endure through the laborious stick-upon-stone of the world you built to house it!