Middlegame

How it reads

Middlegame is fantasy (metaphysical fantasy, specifically), and its dominant mood is eerie. It's atmospheric and uncanny, with a sense that something is wrong. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.

It's set in several locations, in the historical past, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are identity, power and politics and art and creativity. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 492 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.