The thing about this novel that I have just finished is that I SUSPECT a lot of people are going to be reading it thinking I've skipped the interesting part which is perfectly fair but like to me all the crunchy political stuff is just not that fun. I don't want to write about the actual mechanical process of what it's like to dismantle an empire from the inside because I don't think my understanding of politics and economics is good enough to really carry it off. What I WANT to think about is what is it like to be the kind of person who would do that (extremely aware of your own limitations of perspective but also very certain of yourself) and then you do it and have to live the rest of your life after having done it because you didn't actually just disappear into mist at the end of it like you vaguely assumed you would. What is it like to live after having accomplished an impossible goal that nobody believed you could or would or should do. And also, follow that, if your ethical principles remain the same, what are your responsibilities to yourself and other people now? The empire remains inside you, what are you going to do about it. Anyways this is probably all less interesting to the type of reader who likes political fantasy than the actual crunchy bits but so it goes.