These Burning Stars was one of my favorite books of 2023, and it looks like On Vicious Worlds will be one of my favorite books of 2024. While this book doesn't necessarily have the cat and mouse element from the first book, it has plenty of masterminds, spies, and intrigue. We get lots of introspection from our characters as they struggle with their obsessions, be it revenge or with each other. There are explorations of the meaning and importance of home, both at a personal level as well as for a group of people. There is blistering action, shocking twists, and an unflinching look at how radicalization happens. The book is structured like the first, jumping between time and perspectives, and at a high level, being split into 2 separate storylines. My one slight criticism is that I found one of the storylines better than the other, with the pace *slightly* feeling like it slacked a bit due to that storyline in like the 60-70% range. That's a very minor complaint because this book packs in a lot. Plenty of schemes and politics that legitimately feel intelligent, great questions about identity both at a personal level as well as in relation to ethnic and political groups, thematic relevance to real world political events, really strong and complex characters navigating government structures that fail them, and unapologetically queer. What's not to love?