Sunset Mantle by Alter S. Reiss 

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Tor.com (September 15, 2015)

Length: 192 pages

My Rating: 4 stars

Another of Tor.com’s impressive novellas, Sunset Mantle by Alter S. Reiss is a complex, beautifully written tale of an outcast warrior who finds a home and companion in a city doomed to destruction.  The political machinations, personal relationships, battle scenes, and concise world building infused in this narrative combining together to create a tale epic in scope yet with a feeling of intense intimacy; all done in less than two hundred pages.

Cete is a disgraced warrior, cast out from his homeland for following his conscious.  Wandering into Reach Antach (A new colony still bound to its founding city by ties of blood and trade.), his intention is to do his business then leave due to his unerring feeling that the Reach is doomed.  However, a beautiful…