The Wall of Storms is a most worthy follow up to The Grace of Kings. With an engaging new set of characters, surprising plot developments, and a continued expansion to the world of Dara, this novel is fantastic. 

Much like The Grace of Kings, the first 200-300 pages of this novel are a slow setup, which, while paying off later, I found to be a bit of a slog to get through. By choosing to put a time skip between The Grace of Kings and The Wall of Storms, Liu has to introduce the next generation of characters in Dara. Much like A Little Hatred, I began the book wishing I could spend more time with the pre-time skip protagonists only to fall in love with the new protagonists as the novel continued. 

As Liu develops new characters, he also introduces more conflicts.

While he initially hints that revolution might be the greatest threat to Garu's empire, invasion becomes the major focus of the book, a plot only spoiled slightly by the inclusion of a map of the invader's land at the beginning of the world.

These changes make this story feel like a beautiful evolution from The Grace of Kings. With the background of The Grace of Kings, the incredibly painful moments

and numerous characters deaths (Kuni Garu, Gin Mazoti, Luan Zya are amongst the most hard to take)

in The Wall of Storms are all the more brutal. As the plot develops, so does the world. From Luan Zya's search for a literal wall of storms to the ways the gods change their perspectives and appearances over time to the rapid and fantastic evolution of fanciful technology, Liu demonstrates the richness of his "silkpunk" fantasy world.

Through The Wall of Storms, Liu employs new literary techniques to immerse the reader in his world. Perhaps most effectively is his use of frame narrative

first to introduce Zomi Kidosu and later to tell the tale of Luan Zya's exploits

, which he uses to tell this story slightly out of order, in contrast to the more linear structure of The Grace of Kings.