Mostly recommending this NPC conversation. [The Seventh Perfection by Daniel Polansky]

Look at this beautiful cover!

When a woman with perfect memory sets out to solve a riddle, the threads she tugs on could bring a whole city crashing down. The God-King who made her is at risk, and his other servants will do anything to stop her.

To become the God-King's Amanuensis, Manet had to master all seven perfections, developing her body and mind to the peak of human performance. She remembers everything that has happened to her, in absolute clarity, a gift that will surely drive her mad. But before she goes, Manet must unravel a secret which threatens not only the carefully prepared myths of the God-King's ascent, but her own identity and the nature of truth itself.

Reading Daniel Polansky's The Seventh Perfection is like watching a cutscene game movie. Not a straight cutscene movie where the scenes of dialogue are stitched together to form an informal movie, but a cutscene game movie where parts of gameplay are included for added context. When the game prompts the player to make a choice among the questions you can ask the NPCs and they give you some vagueries that partly answer questions and/or give clues to yet unknown mysteries. That's what reading this book was like.

And I actually really enjoyed that format. Our protagonist, Manet, or as she's addressed for the majority of the text, Amanuensis, barely has any direct dialogue, if any at all. Inferring and learning with gaps, the story reads like a murder mystery. For such a short book, it really draws the reader in. Into the world, into its' mysteries and fantasies, its truths, if there are any. But what might read as clearer and unfold easily for others became more obscure and abstract for me. This was a fun read and I enjoyed it, but the ambiguity of the ending and how the ending general unfolded left me too confused. I want to give it a lower rating because of that vagueness, but because of how much I enjoyed it I'm rounding up and giving it 4 stars.

The Seventh Perfection is due for publication September 22, 2020.