Dreams of the Compass Rose by Vera Nazarian is a wonderful collection of intertwined stories that explore humanity, godhood, what is right, and what is illusion. It drew me in with a strong storytelling voice, sometimes using an overt narrator and sometimes just the tale unfolding.

In a way, the style reminds me of the older fantastical fiction like Tales of the Arabian Nights, at least in the beginning. This isn’t a modern fantasy where the magic has its own physics, and yet much of it follows conventions and laws within its own world, whether it’s demonstrating the dangers of acting on too little information so though your intent is good the results are bad, or the risks of letting arrogance make you believe yourself smarter than gods. It’s a world where horrible acts have consequences, and horrible suffering sometimes offers a faint reward.

At the start, the characters are all strangers, but as the book progresses, some of those strangers become familiar, even welcome. The narrative style changes too from an account of distant times brought to life by a storyteller to a tale unfolding before your eyes through the lens of a first person actor within the events. The choices made are ripe with conflict and often not what the character deserves, and yet as the stories come full circle, it works out. Things make sense, and even offer elements of happiness.

This is a skillful, complex world peopled with compelling, three-dimensional characters that offer their dreams and nightmares in the hope that you, the reader, will walk away changed. My only regret is that it took me so long after getting the book to read it.