I just read through this giant book twice in a row, and my TL;DR is that it’s a must-read for anyone that loves fantasy, furry or not. I picked up an EPUB copy from Etsy, and the ~$7 price tag is a steal for its quality and length. You can also find a copy of this book on the high seas, but the final retail version has far fewer grammatical errors than the 1st edition, and I’d recommend showing support if you make it a few hundred pages in. It’s a single book that’s just over the length of a full trilogy, but I finished my first read in ~5 days because I couldn’t put it down. The first 1/3 of the story is relatively straightforward and gets you comfortable with the world and characters, but as the story continues it slowly starts rolling faster and faster until it crashes through the finish line. It has a dense writing style, and the world-building is top-notch. The author describes every single object, character, and action in a healthy amount of detail, and they never rush through a scene just to keep the story moving. This is clearly the work of someone who really valued their world and loved fleshing it out no matter how many pages it would take.

A few things to note off the bat:

• The concept art for this book has heavily-bara depictions of all the characters, but this doesn’t come across in the story at all. I did not see the concept art until after my first read and was shocked at how different my mental image was. Characters are usually initially described as muscled/athletic, but not in an extreme or even unusual way. Most characters are as strong as you would expect a guard/soldier to be, with hyenas in particular being shaped more like traditional gnolls. One character’s large size is intentionally brought up repeatedly as a plot point. After a character is introduced they seldom reference their musculature again, but if a new character is meeting an old character for the first time you’ll often get a re-description of the entire character from their perspective. Point being, the story is not going to force you to imagine the characters as bara or not bara, and I assume that either way will be supported by the text.

• The characters in the story are anthropomorphic wolves, hyenas, pigs, rabbits, etc, but there’s not really a strong plot reason aside from being a more palatable metaphor for racism. They’re mostly anthro for style and aesthetic, and the author does an excellent job at fleshing out their descriptions so you can easily imagine every character’s unique visuals. I don’t think you need to be a furry to identify with these characters - they’re just complex people who happen to have tails.

• There are same-sex relationships in the story, but they’re only ever vaguely-mentioned, and any sort of tangible same-sex interactions between characters are almost completely non-existent. Moreover, half of the references to same-sex relationships are negative, as in this world same-sex relationships usually equate to being someone’s “beta” (don’t worry) and most characters think that’s degrading. Some of the characters momentarily find themselves nearing “beta” relationships and usually react negatively or with regret. Conversely, many characters in the story seem to be bisexual, but same-sex relationships are never shown as having the same weight in society as a “normal” hetero relationship (of which there are several prominent ones that we follow). The “homophobia” present in the book’s universe is portrayed as old-fashioned and negative, but by mostly showing our own characters being vaguely homophobic and never showing any detailed positive same-sex relationships I feel the book missed a large opportunity to make an actual point. Even the subtext behind most of the “positive” same-sex relationships is a little troubling. I hope this is explored better in the next book, because the author was clearly trying to include these elements into the story in a constructive way, but never committed hard enough to make an impact.

• There are no sex scenes or anything of an explicit nature, though there’s one fade-to-black.

Imperium Lupi is set in a fantasy/steampunk world where the main source of power and manufacturing causes atrocious pollution, “rotting” the citizens and causing them to live much shorter lifespans full of pain and suffering. It’s not a happy world, and it’s not a happy book. Thankfully, the characters in the story are almost always charming and upbeat, having long since resigned to their fate in this world, but the subtext of the overall universe and plot has a crushingly-negative trajectory. I often found myself longing for characters to catch a break or apologize for the negativity they inflict on each other. This book frequently grabbed my heart and sometimes brought tears to my eyes for a variety of reasons - plot twists, injuries/deaths, unexpected kindness, and oftentimes the cruelty of their world. Even on my second read I was unable to get through the fable of the “dayfly” without breaking down all over again.

The world-building is one of the highlights of the book for me, and learning all the mundane details about this society was one of my favorite parts. It feels like the author created a robust world and history first, then set the story in just a small portion of it, occasionally showing glimpses of the world beyond. I would read any number of spin-off books set in this universe, as it seems there’s still so much left to explore. There’s a semi-scientific “magic system” that isn’t terribly complex but does have dangerous and long-lasting consequences whenever it’s used, which keeps combat mildly fresh while contributing to long-term character growth.

I would say the main focus of the story is on intense political scheming - every character in the book has their own complex motivations and many of them are trying to achieve their own goals. As the story starts rolling, there’s an endless onslaught of schemes, traps, and double-crosses that have long setups and payoffs. I was able to keep up with about 85% of the schemes on my first read, but still often forgot about pieces hinted at 800 pages earlier. I read most of this book in a few days, but if you’re stretching this out over longer time spans I imagine it will be more difficult to keep track of everyone’s plans. On my second read I had a much easier time following everyone’s actions with the foresight of their motivations, and I especially found the first half of the book rewarding to re-read as there were many small hints and character actions that couldn’t possibly hold any value without the later story’s context - e.g. a twitch of a character’s nose at the mention of a certain topic. Unfortunately, the second half of the book was mostly void of any additional details that I would have missed on my first read.

There’s a few dozen characters that the story is told through, and aside from a few obvious protagonists we’re often not sure if most characters are truly “good” or “bad”. Usually they’re somewhere in the middle, making decisions based on the limited information they have and their own ever-changing morality. Sometimes we even get new information that recontextualizes the actions they’ve taken thus far. The PoV swaps seamlessly between characters within a scene which takes a little bit of getting used to, and there are usually 2-6 sub-plots/scenes occurring simultaneously that the narrative interleaves into and out of whenever it feels like. Thankfully it rarely leaves scenes on cliffhangers, so it usually doesn’t feel frustrating to swap somewhere else. I think the main reason I couldn’t put this book down is because there was always at least one extremely interesting scene that I wanted to get back to.

By the final act of the book there are so many sub-plots occurring that it’s hard to imagine everything will come together properly, but the story does mostly stick the landing and I’ll give it an 8/10 in that regard. I enjoyed the journey and finale, but I felt like the post-finale was very rushed compared to the rich detail of the rest of the book. This is potentially justifiable by the fact that there’s another book coming, so we aren’t saying goodbye to these characters forever.

If you haven’t guessed by now, this story is an easy 5/5 for me and is being archived as one of my favorite books. I absolutely cannot wait for the second book.