The Blinding Knife
Just finished the second book in an ongoing series. I commented before on The Black Prism, including some more spoilery thoughts. This is a worthy sequel in most respects. It's good. It's got some emotional gravity. It's got some big philosophical thoughts, mostly through the opposing sides in the budding war of lawful/restrictive/established versus chaotic/freedom-preaching/rebels.
I find some amusement in the fact that the back story of the setting made me think of the Brothers War in Magic the Gathering. According to the acknowledgements in the end of this book, the author was asked by someone who read the first book if he played MtG. He hadn't, but became familiar with it and drew on it somewhat as inspiration for the Nine Kings card game that makes a notable appearance in this second book. That inspiration is definitely there.
The author seems to delight in jarring, abrupt twists - sometimes even to the extent of axing lingering plot threads or throwing out unlikely connections. By and large it works, but there are several "holy shit, did that just happen?" moments. The addition of a seer has sort of cast a shadow over things from my perspective that looks like it'll stretch into the next volume.
Still like Kip and Karris. I still feel supremely uncomfortable with Liv's direction, though she's sort of supposed to be the "sympathetic" character on the "bad guys" side. Andross Guile is (for 99% of the book) way too in-control and evil-schemey. Teia is a neat addition.
I think I came to like Gavin all the more this time out. And that's probably the central part of the cloud of emotion that hovered over the latter half of the book for me. Here's someone who's been living a lie for so long and struggling inwardly with it, yet he very much tries to do good. He sees a lot of the flaws in his society, even if he doesn't push too hard to change them. He's mired in politics and risks it (even if it's a measured risk) to run off and try to save the world by staving off a war. And when that doesn't work, he tries to mitigate the damage as best he can. He goes alone to fight the birth of a "god," and succeeds. He's a frickin' superhero.
But he's not perfect by any means. His baggage with his brother is the best proof of that. So when he finally resolves that and starts down the path of trusting the woman he loves, several things immediately pop up threatening to send that careening into chaos. And when it doesn't all blow up in his face... well, yeah, I want to see him have some happiness in there.
But you know it can't last, both with the way the story has gone and the looming prophecy that he's losing his powers and the point of his death is known (and soon by all indications).
That's depressing.
And while I expected that to get resolved by the end of this book, it hasn't been. So that's going to be hovering over the next one too.
And the knife itself... uhh... seems a little Deus Ex Machina-y. At the end of the first book, it hits the Prism and he loses his ability to see/draft blue. In this book, it seems to similarly mess up a drafting assassin. But... Gavin loses green without any further interaction with the dagger, yet at the end it seems to claim all the other colors from him. It hit a red wight and turned them back into a normal, haloed drafter. And in all those cases, it didn't seem to do any physical damage. Yet on the green bane, it seemed particularly good at carving through luxin and wights, and kill the would-be avatar.
Unless I misread some passages, the effects of it seem to be all over the board.
I find some amusement in the fact that the back story of the setting made me think of the Brothers War in Magic the Gathering. According to the acknowledgements in the end of this book, the author was asked by someone who read the first book if he played MtG. He hadn't, but became familiar with it and drew on it somewhat as inspiration for the Nine Kings card game that makes a notable appearance in this second book. That inspiration is definitely there.
The author seems to delight in jarring, abrupt twists - sometimes even to the extent of axing lingering plot threads or throwing out unlikely connections. By and large it works, but there are several "holy shit, did that just happen?" moments. The addition of a seer has sort of cast a shadow over things from my perspective that looks like it'll stretch into the next volume.
Still like Kip and Karris. I still feel supremely uncomfortable with Liv's direction, though she's sort of supposed to be the "sympathetic" character on the "bad guys" side. Andross Guile is (for 99% of the book) way too in-control and evil-schemey. Teia is a neat addition.
I think I came to like Gavin all the more this time out. And that's probably the central part of the cloud of emotion that hovered over the latter half of the book for me. Here's someone who's been living a lie for so long and struggling inwardly with it, yet he very much tries to do good. He sees a lot of the flaws in his society, even if he doesn't push too hard to change them. He's mired in politics and risks it (even if it's a measured risk) to run off and try to save the world by staving off a war. And when that doesn't work, he tries to mitigate the damage as best he can. He goes alone to fight the birth of a "god," and succeeds. He's a frickin' superhero.
But he's not perfect by any means. His baggage with his brother is the best proof of that. So when he finally resolves that and starts down the path of trusting the woman he loves, several things immediately pop up threatening to send that careening into chaos. And when it doesn't all blow up in his face... well, yeah, I want to see him have some happiness in there.
But you know it can't last, both with the way the story has gone and the looming prophecy that he's losing his powers and the point of his death is known (and soon by all indications).
That's depressing.
And while I expected that to get resolved by the end of this book, it hasn't been. So that's going to be hovering over the next one too.
And the knife itself... uhh... seems a little Deus Ex Machina-y. At the end of the first book, it hits the Prism and he loses his ability to see/draft blue. In this book, it seems to similarly mess up a drafting assassin. But... Gavin loses green without any further interaction with the dagger, yet at the end it seems to claim all the other colors from him. It hit a red wight and turned them back into a normal, haloed drafter. And in all those cases, it didn't seem to do any physical damage. Yet on the green bane, it seemed particularly good at carving through luxin and wights, and kill the would-be avatar.
Unless I misread some passages, the effects of it seem to be all over the board.
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