The Killing Moon
This is the second novel by N.K. Jemisin I've read, or fourth if you consider that the first volume was a trilogy bound together. It starts off slow and fantasy blah until at some undefinable the plot kicked off, the uniqueness of the magic settled in, and then I set aside time to really plow in a finish it. The idea that the good guys are part of a religion whose priests absorb your soul was interesting; its usually the bad guys who are empowered by spiritual vampirism. But this religion has pretty strict rules in theory limiting their priests to relieving those who are dying anyway, taking just enough to knock you out, or sapping just enough from one person to give it to another as a healing magic. But of course the bad guys don't care about the rules, and sometimes the good guys decide someone is so corrupt they come in the night and the corrupted don't wake up.
According to her commentary in the back, she based all this on a combination of Egyptian mythology and Jungian collective unconsciousness, and there are some nice touches like the world actually being the moon of a Saturn-like planet.
According to her commentary in the back, she based all this on a combination of Egyptian mythology and Jungian collective unconsciousness, and there are some nice touches like the world actually being the moon of a Saturn-like planet.