Far Removed is the first book on the science fantasy series The Apidecca Duology, written by the South-African author C B Lansdell. A novel where you can guess how much time the author has spent building and creating a complex world, really intricate and with unique inhabitants, that are used to tell an apparently simple story that hides a lot between the lines.

A novel that is told using two POVs, situated in the extremes of the Apideccan society. On one hand, we have Oklas Sayve, a politician and college director that has risen to prominence in Apidecca; he has the resources that would be needed for changing the world to the image he envisions, but he's also experiencing how the sovereigns he is serving are opposed to it. The higher stratums of society are a pit of corruption, looking to keep the status quo; Oklas wants to protect the low strata students that attend his college, and with this in mind, when a young knyad is accused of insurgency activity, he will risk his position in order to smuggle her out of the city. After being discovered, the world he carefully crafted around him will shatter, getting punished and demoted to the lowest position in society, maskad.
On the other hand, we have Prismer, a knyad who made a big mistake in the past, costing her all the opportunities to climb. Now, she only has her job sculpting, but some of her interests will end drawing the attention of powerful people. In comparison with Oklas, she's really kind, and even helps him when he's relegated to the position of a maskad; without her, surviving would have been impossible.
Those two stories get woven together, creating a character driven plot that draws us really close to them. The two characters feel real and sensible, having to deal with horrific situations, and even if their initial points are so different, they end converging due to circumstances.

The world is excellently built, with an insane attention to the detail. In order to avoid an excessive amount of exposition, Lansdell opts for having a small appendix where the basic details about Knydrea and the knyads are collected.
Inside the novel, we can see how this is a society based on technology and in theory around change, but this soon turns to not be applicable to social status; a society divided into stratas, and which is really still. Corruption and racism are implied, especially for those that are in the higher positions.
Apart from this, we have some elements that are closer to fantasy, such as the mysterious resin, which I hope gets expanded more in book 2, as there are still some questions I have about it.

With this book, Lansdell mirrors some aspects of the real world, portraying them subtly. In the same way those aspects might be horrific, the complete novel is focused on hope; even in the worst situations, you can find it.

Far Removed is an excellent novel, a book that leaves you craving for a second part, perfect for those that love character-driven stories, but with an extensive amount of world building. I can say that waiting for the second book will be painful!