Which means that if one is to move through a rent between the dimensions to another world, his or her mirror twin needs to be dead.

There are changes, of course, but even the people are the same on every world.

If this is not complex enough for you, let me add the twist: there are many worlds like this, each a reflection of the world described in the novel. And – yeah, you’ve got it – she is coming, much earlier than any of the star gazers could have anticipated. Oma is the harbinger of death and profound change once she passes, the world is never the same. The most mysterious and dangerous of them all is Oma, the black moon, or maybe just a black hole, giving unearthly power to those who are able to wield it, and raining destruction on the worlds as she nears them. But as the satellites circle the planet on their respective paths, their magic waxes and wanes, according to their position on the sky. Rarely, there are people able to pull on more than one magic. Every talented person can pull on the power of one satellite: Tira, Para, Sina or Oma. There are four main moons, and four types of magic associated with them. Hurley creates a world teeming with poisonous, semi-sentient plant life, and a variety of wizard priests, whose power is derived from one of the natural satellites circling the planet. Just look at the gorgeous cover! 🙂 Angry Robot really knows how to do them. And it would have been a missed chance, because even if it’s not a masterpiece – and to be frank, it’s not, not by a long shot – the book’s worldbuilding and the sheer size of the what-if exercise poured onto its pages is something definitely worth acquainting oneself with. If not for his short review, I doubt I would have even known the book existed. Kameron Hurley’s The Mirror Empire, the first installment in her Worldbreaker Saga, came to my attention when Adrian Czajkowski recommended it on his blog.

The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley