Cast in Sorrow
All last week, plus two days this week... but finally a day without something breaking on my watch or being run ragged over the workday. Woo!
It also gave me the opportunity to finish the latest in the Chronicles of Elantra, last commented on here. Pretty much all my previous comments remain. This book "finishes" the previous one - and I rather think the two should have been edited down into a single volume, but what can you do? I continue to find a certain charm an appeal in the series, though there are technical issues that bug me even while reading. It's enough to bother me, but I still enjoy the stories.
Kaylin remains herself, with clumsy fumbling along her destined path seeming to be a character trait that precludes developing much wisdom. None of the dragon characters make an appearance, though the "small dragon" familiar finally gets some explanation. Severn continues to bother me a bit with how little he depth of his own he seems to have, even if there are references to history he has in West March that he refuses to expound upon. Teela, the Barrani Hawk, gets a good bit of screen time and development this time out.
My biggest downside, though is how drawn out and repetitive things are feeling to me. Describing how these supernatural places are "like, but not like" or "here, but not here" and having one character or another aside to Kaylin about some aspect of Barrani culture she doesn't understand are all suitably valid and sometimes even poetic-feeling approaches. The problem is how it feels like that's 90% of the book. It gets a little old. Also, it'd be nice to see a narrative climax where Kaylin didn't go in blind, fret about not knowing what to do, then instinctively figure things out anyway.
It also gave me the opportunity to finish the latest in the Chronicles of Elantra, last commented on here. Pretty much all my previous comments remain. This book "finishes" the previous one - and I rather think the two should have been edited down into a single volume, but what can you do? I continue to find a certain charm an appeal in the series, though there are technical issues that bug me even while reading. It's enough to bother me, but I still enjoy the stories.
Kaylin remains herself, with clumsy fumbling along her destined path seeming to be a character trait that precludes developing much wisdom. None of the dragon characters make an appearance, though the "small dragon" familiar finally gets some explanation. Severn continues to bother me a bit with how little he depth of his own he seems to have, even if there are references to history he has in West March that he refuses to expound upon. Teela, the Barrani Hawk, gets a good bit of screen time and development this time out.
My biggest downside, though is how drawn out and repetitive things are feeling to me. Describing how these supernatural places are "like, but not like" or "here, but not here" and having one character or another aside to Kaylin about some aspect of Barrani culture she doesn't understand are all suitably valid and sometimes even poetic-feeling approaches. The problem is how it feels like that's 90% of the book. It gets a little old. Also, it'd be nice to see a narrative climax where Kaylin didn't go in blind, fret about not knowing what to do, then instinctively figure things out anyway.
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