Really extra brilliant and gorgeous in some places, but I can't decide if it actually hangs together as a narrative. Am I missing something? Is it fragmented for a reason? Do I need to reread it again---and if I do, do I want to?

Update: I'm going to stop my skim reread, because it's making some symmetries clear but falling short of a structure, and now I'm even more conflicted. There are some really wonderful insightful bits in here though, e.g.:

"Well, that's how empire works," said Ariel, and somehow he was glum, muddy, in just the right way to remove any sting from this. "It puts out this mythology that it's the only really safe thing. The myth's meant strictly for the rich and native-born---warm house, outsiders out---but sometimes people on the outside get caught by it too, by that sticky promise of safety." ( )

In a world that looks just like ours but has magic in it, Annae had ended up in the same place where a lot of young scientists end up in - having fallen started a relationship with her academical supervisor, she ends up with a damaged career and prospects as soon as the relationship ends. So she flees America and comes to the only person who is willing to supervise her PhD now - Marec Górski.

The problem is the kind of magic both of them are doing - Annae read minds (and cannot stop doing it now - trying not to end up in a position to be hurt again) and Marec is mostly known for splitting the good parts of his own mind into a new person - the second doctor Górski. By the time the two damaged scientists meet, Marec had been alone for a long time (having chased away his second part - even if he does not remember it that way exactly) and Annae's work on finding the triggers of human reactions (such as fear) and emotions and influence them had been been somewhat discredited. If you expect the two of them to find love and heal each other, you are in the wrong book.

As it is though, Annae needs to find a way to understand Marec Górski - even if that means really pissing him off by finding his other part, his homunculus who carries the missing parts of his brain.

The novella is both a commentary on academia and surviving abuse in academia and a study on what happens when we lose our emotions. But it is not as dry as that description sound - just imagine what the mind of a man who can split himself into two viable beings can do - and then add some almost Disney level villains' inclination (after all he did remove the good parts of himself).

While I enjoyed it, it may have worked better as a slightly longer work - novellas may be the best length for a lot of fantasy and science fiction but here it almost feels like the tale was squished to fit the format. ( )

So interesting and clever, and with a tone almost unheard of in fantasy literature outside of maybe Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell or A.S. Byatt—like Possession written in a world of magic. And a quick read; I devoured it in a single bite. ( )