Whump Of All Time Tournament #2: Electric Book-aloo
@whumpofalltime
Whump polls tournaments run by @sickbayy. Originally we crowned the Whump Of All Time. Now? We're focusing on whump books. See pinned post for details. currently posting preliminary match up!
Congrats to Assassin's Apprentice for winning the book bracket! Stay tuned for whatever the heck comes next. Original announcement post pinned for reference.
🔪💉🔪💉🔪We're Back!🔪💉🔪💉🔪
WHAT:
A polls tournament to find the greatest whump book of all time (WBOAT). Are we judging by best writing? Juiciest tropes? Most whumpable characters? Variety? Density? You decide!
WHEN:
Open for nominations NOW! Nominations will run through November 1st, 2025. Polls will be posted after that, and the tournament will (hopefully, depending on the number of entries) be finished by December 1st.
Want to help out? Reblog this post, or tag your most passionate book-whump mutual. The more nominations we get, the better the tournament!
Please note that spoilers will abound!
🔪💉🔪💉🔪SUBMIT HERE!!🔪💉🔪💉
NOMINATION GUIDELINES:
1. Whump is defined as broadly as possible, including sickfick and angst, although the focus is the classic "hurt/comfort, heavy on the hurt".
2. "Whump books" are written, original works featuring whump. They need to be accessible to voters, so please nothing behind paywalls or from very small presses that don't ship internationally (for instance). No fanfiction or books that can't stand alone, for similar reasons. Novel-length original works available on Tumblr or elsewhere on the internet are ok to submit, as are self-published original works.
3. There are no restrictions surrounding age or identity of characters, sexual violence, vanilla NSFW content, or anything else. Submit it all! We'll do our best to include warnings for submissions with minor characters or sexual violence, but can't guarantee this.
4. Submissions for the works on an entire author, a specific character, etc, will be deleted.
5. Please consider submitting propaganda can be submitted with your nominations. Excerpts are encouraged! You can also tag this blog or send an ask (ie, if you've written a post about a book before).
6. There are no restrictions on submitting your own work.
7. Please avoid tagging authors on Tumblr about any submissions of their work. They can interact with us as they choose, if they choose. Don't make their Tumblr experience weird. (Exceptions: close personal friends and mutuals; defer to your dynamics, of course.)
8. There is no limit to how many submissions you can make, although we ask that you don't submit the same book multiple times. (Just contact me through this blog if you need to add propaganda, etc.) Amount and quality of propaganda will be used to determine any early-round byes.
I'm thinking about using this space for a bingo-style whump reading challenge. I'd make a bingo card, create a challenge on Storygraph, and maybe reblog reviews people posted of their fills if they tagged the blog. Does that sound like something anyone would be interested in?
Possible categories include:
written before 1980
med whump
survival
POC author
nominated for "whump book of all time" (so, anything included in the bracket we just ran)
indie publisher/self published
cyberpunk
fantasy
relevant nonfiction
work in translation
2+ torture scenes
Open to general feedback and suggestions for other possible categories!
Endless thanks to everyone who submitted books, shared propaganda, reblogged posts, and checked over titles for this tournament, and a very big congratulations to the Robin Hobb fans for winning this round. Sorry about your boy and also the dogs, I guess? Les Miserables comes in a respectable second, and Martha Wells' All Systems Red narrowly beat out The Sparrow for the third place slot.
See our full list of included titles and (coming soon) our "honorable mentions" list on our page. I'd link you, but I think Tumblr still hates links and anyway, it's fun to read the propaganda.
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo vs Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
Les Mis
Assassin's Apprentice
Voting ended onMar 28
Propaganda under the cut!
New propaganda will be added and reblogged, and will follow the winning entry into the next round. Please keep your comments on this post, including in the tags, positive, saving critiques for your own posts.
Les Miserables:
@melannen says, "Look it's literally titled "The Wretched". Jean Valjean suffers when his parents die and then suffers from poverty and having to take care of his sister's family and when they starve he suffers really hard in prison for 20 years! and then he finally gets out and everybody hates him and spits on him and he suffers some more! and then he meets the Bishop, who is so nice to him he has a complete mental break and has to try to completely erase and deny his past even when that means cutting himself off from everyone, even himself, and he's being stalked by an equally wretched cop who has never experience happiness and wants to throw him back in prison.
And then we meed Fantine…. (and then Cosette. Eponine. Marius. Mabeuf. …..) And then everybody dies, except Marius and Cosette who are trapped in a haunted house with his abusive grandfather forever."
Assassin's Apprentice:
Anon: "This book is so emotional and the main character, Fitz, is put through so many awful situations. Not only being injured, poisoned etc but also mentally through being chronically gaslit by a superior. The kind of emotional anguish suffered by Fitz is very heavy and it is astonishing to imagine it happening to someone as young as he was in this book. It makes you want to just wrap him up and prevent anything else from hurting him <3 NOT a feel-good book."
Post from 2021 by @whvmp (about the whole book): "You guys this is some god tier whump. It's got more whump than your average 8 season tv show, and it is good. Im talking poison, im talking seizures, im talking mind control and energy leeching and chronic disorders and ptsd and torture and and and...
If youre looking for a good political assassin fantasy story you have to pick this one up, it does not disappoint."
@janeways-coffees says, "Y'all. This shouldnt even be a competition. This is the book where fitzy gets poisoned and drowned and develops a seizure disorder because of it. It's the book where he gets mind-raped. It's the book where he sacrifices his chance at Skilling for Burrich and gets unequivocally disowned for it. Its the one where his dog dies. It the very first one and things only get worse from here!!!!"
This has come up a few times in the notes so I thought it would be a good time to clarify for folks joining us for the finals (hi! welcome!) that all books included in this tournament had to be either the first in their series or stand-alones.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel vs All Systems Red by Martha Wells
The Sparrow
All Systems Red
Voting ended onMar 28
These books lost their semi-final round. Help us decide which one takes the third place spot!
Propaganda under the cut!
Please keep your comments on this post, including in the tags, positive, saving critiques for your own posts.
The Sparrow:
Anon says, "The main character has been through an incredibly traumatizing ordeal that has left him mentally scarred, physically disfigured, and in poor health. He is interrogated throughout the book about the events leading up to this ordeal by superiors who don't know what happened and have little sympathy for him.
The book constantly switches between present and past, so you get contrasting views of this character when he used to be a bright and outgoing man versus when he is a traumatized wreck who won't stand up for himself.
On top of the whump, this is a beautiful piece of literature, highly recommend!"
Murderbot:
Anon says: "short action SF novella featuring a human-like robotic construct that hacked its safeguards to prevent Traumatic Incident from happening again, and exists in constant fear that the humans who rented it will find out and have it destroyed. Luckily, its current humans are empathetic scientists from a world that is not the capitalist hellscape that encompasses much of this universe. Various healing sequences, passing out, injuries that would be catastrophic for a human, self-sacrifice, found family, angst. the whole series is great but this book is just a blast and Martha Wells really knows her whump."
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo vs Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
Les Mis
Assassin's Apprentice
Voting ended onMar 28
Propaganda under the cut!
New propaganda will be added and reblogged, and will follow the winning entry into the next round. Please keep your comments on this post, including in the tags, positive, saving critiques for your own posts.
Les Miserables:
@melannen says, "Look it's literally titled "The Wretched". Jean Valjean suffers when his parents die and then suffers from poverty and having to take care of his sister's family and when they starve he suffers really hard in prison for 20 years! and then he finally gets out and everybody hates him and spits on him and he suffers some more! and then he meets the Bishop, who is so nice to him he has a complete mental break and has to try to completely erase and deny his past even when that means cutting himself off from everyone, even himself, and he's being stalked by an equally wretched cop who has never experience happiness and wants to throw him back in prison.
And then we meed Fantine…. (and then Cosette. Eponine. Marius. Mabeuf. …..) And then everybody dies, except Marius and Cosette who are trapped in a haunted house with his abusive grandfather forever."
Assassin's Apprentice:
Anon: "This book is so emotional and the main character, Fitz, is put through so many awful situations. Not only being injured, poisoned etc but also mentally through being chronically gaslit by a superior. The kind of emotional anguish suffered by Fitz is very heavy and it is astonishing to imagine it happening to someone as young as he was in this book. It makes you want to just wrap him up and prevent anything else from hurting him <3 NOT a feel-good book."
Post from 2021 by @whvmp (about the whole book): "You guys this is some god tier whump. It's got more whump than your average 8 season tv show, and it is good. Im talking poison, im talking seizures, im talking mind control and energy leeching and chronic disorders and ptsd and torture and and and...
If youre looking for a good political assassin fantasy story you have to pick this one up, it does not disappoint."
@janeways-coffees says, "Y'all. This shouldnt even be a competition. This is the book where fitzy gets poisoned and drowned and develops a seizure disorder because of it. It's the book where he gets mind-raped. It's the book where he sacrifices his chance at Skilling for Burrich and gets unequivocally disowned for it. Its the one where his dog dies. It the very first one and things only get worse from here!!!!"
Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb vs All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Assassin's Apprentice
All Systems Red
Voting ended onFeb 28
Propaganda under the cut!
New propaganda will be added and reblogged, and will follow the winning entry into the next round. Please keep your comments on this post, including in the tags, positive, saving critiques for your own posts.
Quarterfinals are untagged, so your reblogs really do matter!
Assassin's Apprentice:
Anon: "This book is so emotional and the main character, Fitz, is put through so many awful situations. Not only being injured, poisoned etc but also mentally through being chronically gaslit by a superior. The kind of emotional anguish suffered by Fitz is very heavy and it is astonishing to imagine it happening to someone as young as he was in this book. It makes you want to just wrap him up and prevent anything else from hurting him <3 NOT a feel-good book."
Post from 2021 by @whvmp (about the whole book): "You guys this is some god tier whump. It's got more whump than your average 8 season tv show, and it is good. Im talking poison, im talking seizures, im talking mind control and energy leeching and chronic disorders and ptsd and torture and and and...
If youre looking for a good political assassin fantasy story you have to pick this one up, it does not disappoint."
@janeways-coffees says, "Y'all. This shouldnt even be a competition. This is the book where fitzy gets poisoned and drowned and develops a seizure disorder because of it. It's the book where he gets mind-raped. It's the book where he sacrifices his chance at Skilling for Burrich and gets unequivocally disowned for it. Its the one where his dog dies. It the very first one and things only get worse from here!!!!"
All Systems Red:
Anon says: "short action SF novella featuring a human-like robotic construct that hacked its safeguards to prevent Traumatic Incident from happening again, and exists in constant fear that the humans who rented it will find out and have it destroyed. Luckily, its current humans are empathetic scientists from a world that is not the capitalist hellscape that encompasses much of this universe. Various healing sequences, passing out, injuries that would be catastrophic for a human, self-sacrifice, found family, angst. the whole series is great but this book is just a blast and Martha Wells really knows her whump."
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo vs The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Les Miserables
The Sparrow
Voting ended onFeb 28
Propaganda under the cut!
New propaganda will be added and reblogged, and will follow the winning entry into the next round. Please keep your comments on this post, including in the tags, positive, saving critiques for your own posts.
Quarterfinals are untagged, so your reblogs really do matter!
Les Mis:
@melannen says, "Look it's literally titled "The Wretched". Jean Valjean suffers when his parents die and then suffers from poverty and having to take care of his sister's family and when they starve he suffers really hard in prison for 20 years! and then he finally gets out and everybody hates him and spits on him and he suffers some more! and then he meets the Bishop, who is so nice to him he has a complete mental break and has to try to completely erase and deny his past even when that means cutting himself off from everyone, even himself, and he's being stalked by an equally wretched cop who has never experience happiness and wants to throw him back in prison.
And then we meed Fantine…. (and then Cosette. Eponine. Marius. Mabeuf. …..) And then everybody dies, except Marius and Cosette who are trapped in a haunted house with his abusive grandfather forever."
The Sparrow:
Anon says, "The main character has been through an incredibly traumatizing ordeal that has left him mentally scarred, physically disfigured, and in poor health. He is interrogated throughout the book about the events leading up to this ordeal by superiors who don't know what happened and have little sympathy for him.
The book constantly switches between present and past, so you get contrasting views of this character when he used to be a bright and outgoing man versus when he is a traumatized wreck who won't stand up for himself.
On top of the whump, this is a beautiful piece of literature, highly recommend!"
Hi! Sorry it's been so long before the last round - I've been trying to cram some stuff in before an academic deadline. We'll still finish out this tournament, don't worry!
Join us for the first ever Whumpy Reads Challenge over on Storygraph! This is a low-key, year long reading challenge to read whump books. There are 12 total prompts, and you can complete as many or as few as you want! The goal is to read some whumpy books and have fun! You can join the challenge here.
The prompts are:
A book featuring your favorite whump trope
A book that gave you whumperflies
A sci-fi, dystopian, or post-apocalyptic whumpy book
A fantasy whumpy book
A whumpy book with a protagonist and/or author who is not a cis man
A whumpy book with a disabled protagonist and/or author
A whumpy book with a LGBTQ+ protagonist and/or author
A whumpy book with a BIPOC protagonist and/or author
A book from a whump-adjacent genre
A whumpy book released in 2026
A self-published whumpy book
A book published by WPP
I hope you'll consider joining us on this whumpy reading journey!
Whump Book of All Time: Quarterfinals! (Match-up 4)
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch vs The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Locke Lamora
The Sparrow
Voting ended onDec 23, 2025
Propaganda under the cut!
New propaganda will be added and reblogged, and will follow the winning entry into the next round. Please keep your comments on this post, including in the tags, positive, saving critiques for your own posts.
Quarterfinals are untagged, so your reblogs really do matter!
The Lies of Locke Lamora:
Micha says, "A group of orphan thieves and con artists in a fantasy setting. Trials, fights, angst, grief, faking illness by making himself sick… Hard to describe it without spoiling, but if you've read it, you know it's very whump filled. It can be read alone, but the sequels are also full of hurt!"
The Sparrow:
Anon says, "The main character has been through an incredibly traumatizing ordeal that has left him mentally scarred, physically disfigured, and in poor health. He is interrogated throughout the book about the events leading up to this ordeal by superiors who don't know what happened and have little sympathy for him.
The book constantly switches between present and past, so you get contrasting views of this character when he used to be a bright and outgoing man versus when he is a traumatized wreck who won't stand up for himself.
On top of the whump, this is a beautiful piece of literature, highly recommend!"
Whump Book of All Time: Quarterfinals! (Match-up 3)
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo vs Captive Prince by C. S. Pacat
Les Mis
Captive Prince
Voting ended onDec 23, 2025
Propaganda under the cut!
New propaganda will be added and reblogged, and will follow the winning entry into the next round. Please keep your comments on this post, including in the tags, positive, saving critiques for your own posts.
Quarterfinals are untagged, so your reblogs really do matter!
Les Mis:
@melannen says, "Look it's literally titled "The Wretched". Jean Valjean suffers when his parents die and then suffers from poverty and having to take care of his sister's family and when they starve he suffers really hard in prison for 20 years! and then he finally gets out and everybody hates him and spits on him and he suffers some more! and then he meets the Bishop, who is so nice to him he has a complete mental break and has to try to completely erase and deny his past even when that means cutting himself off from everyone, even himself, and he's being stalked by an equally wretched cop who has never experience happiness and wants to throw him back in prison.
And then we meed Fantine…. (and then Cosette. Eponine. Marius. Mabeuf. …..) And then everybody dies, except Marius and Cosette who are trapped in a haunted house with his abusive grandfather forever."
Captive Prince:
@morbiditea says, "Two princes: Damien killed Laurent's brother, and has now been gifted to him as a pleasure slave. Laurent is a pretty nasty whumper, but uses Damien for political maneuvering and for taking his emotions out on."
Anon says, "It's got everything you could ever want: royalty now in a position of slavery, threats of noncon, whipping, noncon, and a whumper that you slowly grow to care for as whumpee peels back his layers."
Whump Book of All Time: Quarterfinals! (Match-up 2)
Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb vs Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey
Assassin's Apprentice
Magic's Pawn
Voting ended onDec 23, 2025
Propaganda under the cut!
New propaganda will be added and reblogged, and will follow the winning entry into the next round. Please keep your comments on this post, including in the tags, positive, saving critiques for your own posts.
Quarterfinals are untagged, so your reblogs really do matter!
Assassin's Apprentice:
Anon: "This book is so emotional and the main character, Fitz, is put through so many awful situations. Not only being injured, poisoned etc but also mentally through being chronically gaslit by a superior. The kind of emotional anguish suffered by Fitz is very heavy and it is astonishing to imagine it happening to someone as young as he was in this book. It makes you want to just wrap him up and prevent anything else from hurting him <3 NOT a feel-good book."
Post from 2021 by @whvmp (about the whole book): "You guys this is some god tier whump. It's got more whump than your average 8 season tv show, and it is good. Im talking poison, im talking seizures, im talking mind control and energy leeching and chronic disorders and ptsd and torture and and and...
If youre looking for a good political assassin fantasy story you have to pick this one up, it does not disappoint."
Janeways-coffee says, "Y'all. This shouldnt even be a competition. This is the book where fitzy gets poisoned and drowned and develops a seizure disorder because of it. It's the book where he gets mind-raped. It's the book where he sacrifices his chance at Skilling for Burrich and gets unequivocally disowned for it. Its the one where his dog dies. It the very first one and things only get worse from here!!!!"
Magic's Pawn:
@alipeeps said: "This book - and the rest of the trilogy - were foundational in my development as a confirmed whumper in my teens. It is beautifully written with an engaging storyline and characters, the worldbuilding is amaaazing (people with magical powers forming a psychic bond with magical horses who Choose to be their bonded partner) the main character (and others) is/are gay and this is written sympathetically (and this was written back in the 80s so that wasn't common!) and it is just SOOOO whumpy! All 3 books are, but the first in particular.
There are multiple instances of whump AND also of angst, but the biggest is a traumatic event where the energy from a spell backlashes and rips open Vanyel's (the main character) dormant magic abilities. It nearly kills him and he takes a long time to heal (and to grieve as his lover died in the same catastrophe) and also… it leaves him particularly sensitive to that type of magical spell, where if anyone uses it in his vicinity it causes him tremendous pain (often causing him to blackout). He cannot control his new STRONG magic abilities (the channels burned wide open by the backlash from the spell) and his condition makes him a danger to others around him (plus one of his new magic abilities is hearing others' thoughts and he can't control or shield it yet and he hears people thinking he is to blame for his lover's death and attempts suicide). It is a whole glorious whumpfest!! And also, crucially, there is lots and lots of comfort and people who love Vanyel being terribly worried about him.
Vanyel is a teenager (at the start of the story) who is abused and rejected by his family, who goes on to find acceptance and love… but then loses that love traumatically. Who gains special abilities at the cost of his lover and his health and has to deal with issues of self-worth and learning to control dangerous new powers… all against the background of a growing threat to his nation which he is one of the few people able to fight back against. I have read this book SO many times since I was a teenager and it remains one of my favourite ever book series.
Here's a (somewhat condensed) excerpt from the aftermath of the traumatic event that burned open his magic channels (Savil is Vanyel's aunt and his teacher/mentor at the Heralds College):
The peaceful night rocked; Vanyel convulsed, wailing- His cry sounded like something in its death agonies, and made Savil's hair stand on end. The room trembled; literally. The walls shook as Vanyel's muscles spasmed. His eyes were wide open but saw nothing, and his pupils dilated with fear. He convulsed again and the very foundation of the Palace rocked. The bed shook as if it were alive […] and Savil was tossed from his bedside to the floor before she realised it. She picked herself up off the floor beside his bed without thinking about safety or bruises, and flung herself at him again. He thrashed beneath her, fighting her with a paranormal strength; he couldn't know where he was or who she was. All she could read from him was terrible agony- and beneath the pain, confusion, panic, entrapment. She caught his wrists and tried to pinion them against the pillows; then tried to pin him down with the blankets. His chest arched against hers, he screamed, and the walls shook again. Jaysen was coming on the run; Savil could Feel him reaching out to find out what the hell was going on, and Felt the panic in his mind when he realised they had a powerful Gifted trapped in a pain-loop and hallucination. He all but broke down the door, trying to get in, and threw himself into the affray without a second thought. "Shield him, dammit!" he shouted, throwing himself across Vanyel's legs, as the walls shook. "I'm trying," she snapped back, giving up on the uneven struggle to pin Vanyel down, and settling for securing his arms. "He breaks them as fast as I get them up!" Jaysen succeeded in getting Vanyel physically restrained where she, being lighter, had failed. He added his strength to Savil's and Donni's on the crumbling shields they were trying to get on the boy. But it wasn't even stalemate; they were losing him to his own nightmares. Andrel appeared. Savil didn't even see or Sense him run in; he was just there all in an instant. But instead of flinging himself into the melee, he grabbed their arms and pulled both of them off the boy. Then he reached down for something at his feet, and came up with a bucket of icy water. He doused the boy, bed and all, without a heartbeat of hesitation. The convulsions stopped as Vanyel came abruptly awake. He sat up - stared - and then he suddenly went limp. The room stopped shaking.
***
@bluewingedcoyote says, "More Vanyel propaganda!
Magic's Pawn absolutely gutted me y'all! Not only did Vanyel lose his lover in the most tragic way you can imagine, they had a Soul Bond called a Lifebond. He felt everything Tylendel felt as he lost his (also soul-bonded) twin brother, lost his Companion (soul-bonded magic horse) and succumbed to madness and death. He not only felt but witnessed his lover take his own life right in front of him.
And people blamed Vanyel for all of this. He had not only the ability to hear thoughts after his gifts were ripped open by spell backlash, he could feel emotions too. The first night after his lover died, they left a homophobe to watch over him and he both heard and felt the man's disgust and that he thought Vanyel was a vile predator (despite being the younger of the pair) who preyed on Tylendel's "weakness" to bring him to ruin.
Vanyel tries to follow his beloved into death and is only stopped by having one of the Companions choose him too. He only clung to life out of bitter duty and the feeling that he had to make up for taking away the 'golden boy' that everyone loved and leaving them only with him as a sorry replacement."
***
@pennie-dreadful "Look there is nothing that will convince me that LHM is not the whumpiest of all time. When I tell you this is not even the tip of the iceberg, Brother I Mean That Shit. And it's a whole damn trilogy of basically neverending whump and sometimes hurt/comfort. Vanyel can never catch a break, even later in the series when he's a celebrated war hero. The LHM absolutely emotionally destroyed me the first time I read it. Lackey has such a talent for getting you really invested in a character and then, in her own words, "drop a mountain on them". I tell you, I have felt like I was grieving for people I knew in real life after reading some of her books. I couldn't just close the book, feel sad for a few minutes, then move on with my actual nonfictional life where none of my actual nonfictional family and friends didn't just die. No, that shit HURTED. It lingered. The quality of this whump is simply unsurpassed."
Whump Book of All Time: Quarterfinals! (Match-up 1)
As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann vs All Systems Red by Martha Wells
As Meat Loves Salt
All Systems Red
Voting ended onDec 23, 2025
Propaganda under the cut!
New propaganda will be added and reblogged, and will follow the winning entry into the next round. Please keep your comments on this post, including in the tags, positive, saving critiques for your own posts.
Quarterfinals are untagged, so your reblogs really do matter!
As Meat Loves Salt:
@mumblingsage says, "The narrator and protagonist of this story, Jacob, is in fact the whumper half the time, including several points where he injures his lover, Ferris. Jacob himself gets put through the wringer, especially emotionally. And so does the reader!"
Anon says, "Set in England in the 1600s, two men pine after each other in a time when homosexuality is punishable by death. But this repressed desire is not the main reason that this book tops the whump meter.
Jacob, the protagonist and narrator, is hot-headed, impulsive, with a very dark streak lurking inside him. He is a big-boned man who does not know his own strength and is physically imposing to his love interest, a smaller man who ignores the warning signs and lets Jacob into his life.
The relationship between these two men is strife with tension and reading this book feels like watching the characters walk through a field full of land mines. There is so much angst and physical whump, and much more hurt than comfort. If that is your type of whump, and you enjoy a bit of historical fiction, then this is the book for you!
Content warning for graphic violence, including sexual violence."
All Systems Red:
Anon says: "short action SF novella featuring a human-like robotic construct that hacked its safeguards to prevent Traumatic Incident from happening again, and exists in constant fear that the humans who rented it will find out and have it destroyed. Luckily, its current humans are empathetic scientists from a world that is not the capitalist hellscape that encompasses much of this universe. Various healing sequences, passing out, injuries that would be catastrophic for a human, self-sacrifice, found family, angst. the whole series is great but this book is just a blast and Martha Wells really knows her whump."
