A Grand Finale

The Dying of the Light, by Derek Landy. Book 9 of the Skulduggery Pleasant series.

It’s been a long time coming, and Skulduggery and Stephanie have been through a lot, but here’s the conclusion to one of my favourite series from the 9-12 section of the bookshop. For those unfamiliar with the series, it’s summarised in my review of the short story collection Armageddon Outta Here.

Honestly, there’s not much point in reviewing this one. If you’ve made it this far through the series you owe it to yourself to see how it ends. If you’re just starting out, reading a review of the final book is a bit odd. I’d say I won’t judge you… but that would be a lie. I’m totally judging you.

Anyway, on to the review. I’ll try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but some are almost certain to sneak in for previous books. You have been warned.

The book does a good job of wrapping up loose plot threads over its course, which is something I appreciate a lot. It seems that every (surviving) named character from the series so far has some part to play in the story too, which is pretty cool. However, it does seem at times that there’s just too much going on. That may well have been the intention of the author, given that the world’s under threat from multiple unrelated sources. It’s never hard to tell what’s going on, but some plot points do seem to come out of nowhere, due to having only just become relevant to the viewpoint character.

The story is broken up by chapters from another time (it’s unclear for most of the book exactly when they’re set), which is a pretty cool idea, and the final chapter of that bit is pretty awesome. Unfortunately, they only seem to have a tangential relation to the main plot (again, until near the end), which makes them less exciting to read through.

Overall, I was a little disappointed with this book. It’s well written, coherent, and the antagonists are legitimately threatening. There are so many awesome moments that I couldn’t list them all even if they weren’t spoilers. It ends the series at a reasonable point without leaving you wondering what the heck’s going on. But still, I’m disappointed.

Maybe it’s the lack of progress that the heroes make towards saving the world. A lot of things crop up in the way and are dealt with, but as for the two world-threatening calamities, one’s resolved with a cunning plan that seems to come from nowhere (actually kept secret for security, I seem to remember), and the other’s resolved offscreen (though I should say I’m totally fine with that. It’s resolved awesomely.).

Maybe it’s the anticlimactic use of a prophetic vision which has shaped most of the series, or the gratuitous (and unnecessary) use of alternate dimensions. Who knows. I’m veering really close to spoilers here, so I’ll stop, but something left me not entirely satisfied with this book, and I don’t know what.

Actually, I’m pretty sure I do know what, but that’s a massive spoiler.

In short, it’s a decent conclusion to the series. If you’ve enjoyed the first few, keep going. This is not a bad book. It’s just not everything I wanted it to be.

Next up… oh. Right. That.

Birds Of A Feather…

The Girl At Midnight, by Melissa Grey. Book one, of The Girl At Midnight series.

I picked this book up on a whim, based on the title and the cover. It’s about a human thief, Echo, raised by supernatural bird-people. There’s some neat magic, and some of the characters are pretty cool, though it’s not perfect by any means.

Hmm, that was basically the length of review I was planning when I started these things…

Anyway, the core conflict of the story revolves around a war between the bird people and the dragon people, set to a backdrop of the modern world where nobody is any the wiser. This works well enough, though doesn’t really seem to impact on the story – everyone seems to use magic or historic weapons in combat, though modern medicine is a thing.

One thing that was cool was the mechanics of transportation magic – it’s not enough to know how to use it, you need to be in the right place too. A doorway, for instance. It’s a neat touch that adds some personality to the world.

Of course, it can’t all be good, and in this case it’s the secondary characters who showcase that. They’re not bad as such, they’re just less, well, characterful. The exception here is an old acquaintance of Echo’s, Dorian, who just seemed spot on

My one other nitpick is that the romantic subplot was a little predictable. I won’t spell it out here, but I called most of the romance-related twists as soon as the characters involved showed up. Ah well, such is life. In the book’s defense, there were some good reasons for everything that happened, so I foresaw what, but not how.

Overall, not a bad read. Not up there with the greats, but good enough that I’ll look out the next in the series when it comes out this time next year.

Next up, the finale of a series, and one that I’ve been looking forward to reading for a good few years now!

More Epic

Words of Radiance, by Brandon Sanderson. Book two of the Stormlight Archive.

Continuing almost exactly where The Way Of Kings left off, Words of Radiance follows the same characters, but with a slightly different focus. For one thing, Adolin gets more of his own plot line, rather than primarily supporting his father.

Another difference is that we learn a lot more about Shallan’s background in this book, much like Kaladin in the previous book. There are some surprises in there, and that’s all I’ll say on the subject. The “protagonist effect” that I mentioned before is less pronounced this time around, perhaps because the various characters’ stories are beginning to overlap.

Once again, the world building is consistently great, as are the illustrations. But I covered them last time, so let’s move on!

The between chapter interludes make a return, and their purpose (beyond world building) is beginning to become more apparent. Suffice to say, it’s tied heavily into the plot, and I don’t want to spoil that. The merchant apprentice I mentioned is one of the few interlude characters who appears again (awesomely), and there are another couple who I’m hoping to see again too.

One thing I didn’t mention in my review of The Way Of Kings is the system of magic in this setting. The reason for that is that while it’s a massive part of the world, it doesn’t define any of the characters. Still, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it this time around. There are two kinds of artifacts which make up the magic of the world. Shardblades, impossibly sharp blades which can cut through any non-living matter like air, and kills living matter that it passes through; and Shardplate, a kind of magic power armour which cannot be cut by Shardblades. A man with both dominates any battlefield, and thus a lot of politics revolves around acquiring more of them.

Overall, a great followup to the first book, and I’m looking forward to the next one!