The sprawling epic The Weight of the World, sequel to 2015's The Promise of the Child, is a tour de force of universe building and characterization. In a plausible far-future posthuman society, 14-foot-tall Lycaste the Melius tags along with Hugo Maneker, of an immortal race called the Amaranthine (after the mythical flower that never fades), and the tiny Huerepo, a clever little being with a flair for finding (and hoarding) treasure. Lycaste is invested in Maneker's quest to save the Solar Satrapy from hordes of the Prism, a loose alliance of hominids intent on overthrowing the rule of the Amaranthine. The immense war spans the galaxy, something Lycaste seems buffeted by without any real motivational compass.
The sequel also resumes the story of the immortal Jatropha, who must ensure that an infant heir assumes the Amaranthine throne. Meanwhile, Sotiris, another Amaranthine, continues his quest to find his long-lost, presumed-dead sister in a dimension that only he seems able to see.
The Weight of the World requires careful attention and frequent use of the glossary at the end of the volume to track its splendid, outrageous and brilliant speculations about the galaxy-spanning society of the 147th century. The characters may be highly evolved physically, but they retain the desire for wealth, fame, meaning and love that current humans do. The novel does not handhold, affording careful readers a complex tale of a possible far future. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor