All three books in the Daevabad trilogy were some of the best books I read last year, so when I heard that S. A. Chakraborty was releasing a short story collection in the Daevabad universe, I was excited. I love those characters and it's a series I know I will return to someday, so more content was welcomed.
This collection of stories was good. The thing is, I don't really prefer short stories in general, so even though I already loved these characters and this world, I did have some level of disconnect with the stories. I read the original trilogy a year ago, so I had forgotten some events and minor characters when I started reading The River of Silver, which I believe was to my detriment. The tales in this collection cover a timeframe that begins before The City of Brass, spans all three books, and concludes after the events of The Empire of Gold. This collection, in my opinion, is one to be read alongside your reading of the trilogy, or shortly after finishing it, so the details and events of the world will be fresh in your mind. All of the stories begin with a few sentences explaining exactly what scene it falls before or after, and which books it contains spoilers for. For some of those events that I forgot happened, I had a hard time placing the story in the overall timeline of the series.
There were fifteen different stories told from a plethora of POVs. Our protagonists tell some tales, of course, but there were also some tales told by secondary and tertiary characters. It is likely that if there's someone you wanted to hear a story from, their perspective is included in this book.
The River of Silver is a wonderful addition to the Daevabad world. Some of these stories had me completely engrossed and in disbelief that they weren't included in the original books because of how pertinent they seemed, while others were less interesting to me. Short story collections are always a mixed bag, but the vast majority of these ones were enjoyable for me. The only thing that would have made this book even better was my reading it closer to when I finished the original trilogy, which is something I know I will remedy in the future when I inevitably reread this series someday.
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