Books like The year of our war by Steph Swainston

Jant Comet is a unique immortal who can fly, a rare talent that has earned him a place in the Castle Circle as Messenger to Emperor San. He traverses the bloody battlefields of his world, carrying urgent news between the emperor and the ever‑escalating conflict between humanity and vast armies of flesh‑devouring insects. While Jant’s duty is to stay neutral amid the petty rivalries of the fifty immortal beings who neither age nor die naturally, centuries of bitter competition threaten to erupt into a savage civil war. Only Jant, through extreme doses of the narcotic that binds his soul, can access a strange and horrific alternate reality—an abyss of dark wonders and revelations that may hold the key to halting both the onrush of insect hordes and the brink of internal conflict. An imaginative and stylistically bold work, the novel invites readers into a fantastical world where immortality, war, and alien‑like insect armies collide, and one mortal’s rare gift may be the sole hope for survival and peace.

First publish date: 2004