The Last Facet

Beautiful language and a striking central image, but I found the story frustratingly incomplete. Scenes like the market of keepsakes and the kiln’s rituals are evocative, and Tarin’s apprenticeship gives a good sense of craft. However, the moment when she discovers her brother leading the movement felt rushed — we see his role but not his reasoning, and that makes his villainy read a bit cliché. The ethical dilemma (memory vs. comfort) is interesting, but the narrative skirts the messy middle. There are hints of resistance and public debate, but those threads never develop, which makes the mass "clearing" feel more like a plot device than a believable social phenomenon. The ending aims for tragedy but left me wanting more context and nuance.

I wanted to love this more than I did. The premise — memory as glasscraft, a movement that surgically dulls people — is intriguing, and some scenes (the kiln, the market, Tarin’s hands) are vividly drawn. But the story leans on familiar beats: the betrayed sibling, the lone maker who must sacrifice, the city-as-choir image. None of these are bad on their own, but together they felt a bit too tidy. Pacing was a problem for me. The middle slowed into reverie just when the plot needed more pressure; certain emotional pivots (especially Tarin’s final decision) read as inevitable rather than earned because we don’t get enough of the movement’s public dynamics. Why did so many people accept the clearing? The story hints but doesn’t show enough. Still, there are lovely sentences and a compelling core idea. With tighter plotting and a deeper look at the movement’s allure, this could have been outstanding.

This story lingers because it treats memory as craft rather than metaphor. Every facet Tarin cuts is a miniature argument about what should be kept and what may be handed over for an easier life. The opening — Fenmarra waking "like glass" with "a thousand small radiances" — establishes the city as an active participant, almost a character itself. I admired how the author uses sensory detail (kiln smoke braided with fog, the edge singing under Tarin’s palm) to make the abstract idea of communal memory palpably physical. The moral tension is compelling: the movement’s surgical clearing is sold as gentler living, but the cost — the erasure of painful and joyful things alike — is chilling. The reveal that Tarin’s brother is leading this movement turns the abstract into personal conflict; the scene where she decides whether to forge a living facet felt like a moral trial. I found myself asking whether restoring a city’s voice — even at the cost of a single person’s memories — is a true restoration or simply a new kind of violence. Technically, the story is strong. The pacing slides between quiet craft scenes and high-stakes decision points smoothly. The only section I wanted more of was the movement itself: its rhetoric, why so many citizens would accept surgical dulling, and whether any factions resist it beyond Tarin’s internal resistance. Adding a few scenes showing public ceremonies or testimonies for the clearing could have sharpened the political stakes further. Still, this is a moving, imaginative piece. The final image — a living facet forged from sacrifice — is both heartbreaking and resonant. It’s the kind of fantasy that stays with you because it asks uncomfortable questions about memory, consent, and the price of peace.

Witty, haunting, and occasionally devastating — The Last Facet surprised me. I expected another memory-driven fantasy, but the glasscraft detail and the city as orchestra lifted it. Tarin’s alert, practical POV keeps the prose grounded; you get the craft in the kiln and also the political creep of a movement that promises peace by emptying people out. A particularly nice note: the market scene where neighbors hang small keepsakes like a roof of recollection felt both whimsical and ominous. The climax — forging a living facet — is such a poetically grim solution. Also, props to the author for making "surgical dulling" feel legitimately terrifying instead of just a shorthand for evil cults. If you like sensory, thought-provoking fantasy with a sting at the end, this is for you. Also, I laughed out loud at one moment (not spoiling it) — dark but human humor is sprinkled just right.

I’m still thinking about the brother-sister tension after finishing The Last Facet. The moment Tarin realizes her brother is leading the clearing is heartbreaking — a perfect collision of family loyalty and civic duty. The story does an excellent job of making the stakes feel both intimate and monumental. The atmosphere is lush: the kiln, the smell of heated sand and cane, the market’s ritual of keepsakes. I particularly loved the textual image of the city as a lattice of "bright, humming tether lines" — it made the idea of a lost communal memory feel tangible. This book asks difficult ethical questions without answering them for you. The sacrifice at the end felt earned and tragic; it’s the kind of ending that sits with you and makes you argue with yourself over the right thing to do. Highly recommended.

Measured, haunting, and quietly political. The Last Facet has the kind of worldbuilding that accumulates through small human acts: cutting a bevel until the edge sings, trading a facet for figs, neighbors threading recollection onto cords. The prose is economical yet luminous; I found myself rereading passages about the city’s "music" to savor the craft. The story balances the personal and the civic ably. Tarin’s decision — to create something that could restore the city’s voice at the cost of her own memory of family — is a grim, morally complex move that feels inevitable rather than contrived. The depiction of the movement’s surgical dulling is chilling without being didactic. A minor quibble: a few secondary motivations could use more texture (I wanted a touch more on the movement’s public appeal), but overall this is thoughtful, well-executed fantasy.

Short and sweet: this story hit me right in the chest. Tarin at the kiln, the market of keepsakes, the kid dropping a tray — tiny, everyday details that make the big choices land hard. The ethical dilemma (memory vs. comfort) is handled with real tenderness. Also, that scene where the facet finally sings? Gorgeous. 😢✨

The Last Facet is an elegant piece of urban fantasy that marries sensory worldbuilding with a moral core. The author’s prose is attentive: the kiln’s heat, the smell of heated sand and cane, and the market ritual of stringing keepsakes all function as more than set dressing. They are integral to the text’s argument about memory as infrastructure. Tarin is a well-drawn protagonist: practical, skilled, morally conflicted. The reveal that her brother leads the movement for the "clearing" is handled with restraint, creating a believable personal schism rather than melodrama. I appreciated how the notion of a facet — a vessel for a single held thing — becomes a device to explore identity and civic voice. The climax around forging the living facet is earned and tragic. If there’s a flaw, it’s a tendency toward reverie that occasionally slows plot momentum, especially in the middle sections, but that same lyricism is also the book’s strength. Highly recommended for readers who like their fantasy contemplative and tactile.

I loved how The Last Facet wakes a whole city into being with sound and glass. The opening lines — Fenmarra waking "like glass" and the thousand small radiances — stuck with me for days. Tarin’s hands, the kiln smoke braided with morning fog, and that moment when the edge of the facet "sang under her palm" are written so vividly I could almost hear the city’s music. What really got me was the moral ache at the center: the movement’s promise of gentler lives that comes at the cost of memory. The scene where Tarin discovers her brother’s role in the movement is devastatingly human — you feel the personal and civic stakes collide. The idea of forging a living facet as both craft and sacrifice is such a beautiful, terrible image. I came away thinking about what we would lose for comfort, and how memory shapes community. Beautiful, aching fantasy.