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Steles of the Sky is Elizabeth Bear's 2014 finale to her Eternal Sky trilogy, the secondary-world epic fantasy that began with Range of Ghosts (2012) and continued through Shattered Pillars (2013). The series is built on a Mongol-empire-inspired worldbuilding template (the steppes culture, the multiple competing religions, the political reality of a contested khan succession) and a hard-magic system tied to the literal sky overhead.
Bear is the rare fantasy writer who can deliver a complete trilogy that does not bog down in its middle. Range of Ghosts is the right entry point; Steles of the Sky is the resolution that justifies the journey. The Re Temur (heir to the khaganate) and Samarkar (former princess turned wizard) protagonists are both fully realized, the multi-religion theology pays off, and the final-act siege is one of the better-written siege sequences in modern fantasy. The ending earns its quiet moments and its loud ones.
Recommended for fans of Mongol-empire-inspired secondary-world fantasy (Daniel Abraham's The Dagger and the Coin, Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven), and for readers looking for books like Steles of the Sky in the patient-epic tradition. Four stars, with Range of Ghosts as the right starting point.
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