I finished this some time ago, but I still can't really do it justice in a review. Some of the themes and world-building (and even one of the characters!) is shared with the later novel Noor, but this novel is somehow more elemental. For me the two most powerful themes were the codification of hatred as religion and how sex and reproductive biology inform politics (in the small).

Content warnings: pervasive misogyny, sexual violence, and racism play important roles in the plot.