{"id":9961,"date":"2025-11-30T10:50:48","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T16:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.delirium.org\/?p=9961"},"modified":"2026-01-20T20:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T02:49:07","slug":"fairest-vol-3-the-return-of-the-maharaja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/?p=9961","title":{"rendered":"Fairest Vol. 3: The Return of the Maharaja"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I don’t even know the last time I read a Fables-adjacent book, nor what it was<\/a>[1]. And I’m not even sure how many books are left. I think not many? I should probably zerg rush the ending, but that would make it still months away. Just not years.<\/p>\n

In any event, this book was way way off in the periphery of the series. The land of Indus (think The Jungle Book<\/em>) is no longer threatened by that one woodcutter’s evil empire, since it doesn’t really exist anymore. But all the villages and palaces and suchlike have been basically emptied of able-bodied men who went off to lose the war, leaving only the elderly, the infirm, the very young, the harems[2], and of course the [other] women.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the main character, Nalayani, protector of her village from roving packs of dhole, which are wolf-adjacent animals from the Indian subcontinent. (I had heard of them before, but not with any commonality.) Anyway, she must now quest to the new maharaja I mentioned to ask for help with the problem, only to find herself embroiled in a civil war and with a pretty unlikely ally, at least if you remember previous events in the series, which I must admit I did not very well.<\/p>\n

I have no idea if I should know who Nalayani is as a fabled character? I definitely do not, which did not negatively impact my enjoyment of the story, and anyway there were other characters I did recognize. If the series wasn’t nearly over, I’d think big things were afoot in the main sequence as a result of this one. As it is… maybe this was a happy ending?<\/p>\n

[1] I mean, now that I’ve searched it and linked it, I maybe know. But I did not before.
\n[2] If you happen to live in the maharaja’s palace, at least, and this I suppose explains the presence of the new maharaja, Shah Ah Ming<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t even know the last time I read a Fables-adjacent book, nor what it was[1]. And I’m not even sure how many books are left. I think not many? I should probably zerg rush the ending, but that would make it still months away. Just not years. In any event, this book was way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[106,17],"class_list":["post-9961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words","tag-fantasy","tag-graphic-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9961"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9966,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9961\/revisions\/9966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/delirium.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}