• Tag Archives Essalieyan
  • House War #4-8

    The fourth House War book picks up right from the point Jewel left the narrative of the Sun Sword series. And if you haven’t read that series you will definitely end up lost here.

    It and the fifth book are pretty similar in style to the better of those novels so there’s not really much to complain about with either aside from the ever-stronger parallels to the author‘s Elantra franchise. I’ve never really understood why authors will write multiple ongoing stories concurrently since they will almost inevitably bleed into one another.

    Oracle being a good example. This is where things start to seriously diverge from the Sun Sword narrative and become ever more Elantran, with a heavy metaphysical focus. The other key difference with this book is that Jewel gets shunted into a tertiary role while Jester and Finch take center stage.

    Once again, if the foreword is to be believed, the series finale was split into two books. The first, Firstborn, is a bait & switch. The cover and synopsis give the impression the focus will be on Carver/Ellerson, but it’s not. They have about as much page time as Jewel did in the previous entry. Instead it primarily concerns itself with Jewel’s mostly pointless metaphysical travels. Frankly, both Carver’s situation and this book in general both come across as filler. There’s not much to justify either’s existence.

    With that out of the way the action finally reaches its climax in War. I can see what they were going for here, but there are so many points of view to jump between that instead of building tension it just builds exasperation. If this were to be made into a live action series you would have to do a 5-way split screen to properly ramp things up, and that’s just not possible to do (at the length this requires) in text format. That said, the end result certainly isn’t as disappointing as Sun Sword‘s; aside from the catalyst for Jewel’s decision events conclude fairly well.


  • The Riven Shield & The Sun Sword

    The fifth book in Michelle Sagara/West‘s Sun Sword series was allegedly supposed to be the last, if the foreword can be believed. Curiously though it does not come across as the first half of a whole or as something unnaturally extended. It’s remarkably self-contained in its momentum and makes the long, long lead-up worth the time spent.

    The follow-up, however, isn’t anywhere near as good. It barely even feels related. There’s a disjointedness about it along with a lack of decisiveness… rather than being concluded, events merely feel delayed. It’s very anti-climatic in practically all ways.

    Well, here’s hoping the rest of the House War series makes something of it.


  • The Shining Court & Sea of Sorrows

    The third entry in Michelle Sagara‘s Sun Sword series introduces what readers of her Elantra series will be well familiar with: Abstract mysticism.

    To be honest, at this late date, I don’t remember much about it besides that it was okayish. The reason for this is the follow-up, Sea of Sorrows.

    I do not think it’s ever taken me so long to finish a book. A chapter here, a chapter there, over the course of… months? I don’t even know. The book isn’t bad per se, it’s just that the newfound mysticism element combined with the (possibly e-book specific) visual issue of perspective breaks no longer being double-spaced results in an experience lacking engagement. And the clinical sort of vibe around it that lasts up until the last few chapters certainly doesn’t help. Hopefully the remaining two books in the series pick up the pace.


  • The Broken Crown & The Uncrowned King

    Prologue aside, The Broken Crown takes place ~16 years after the author‘s third House War book. As it was written over a decade earlier, jumping from that novel to this one results in a few continuity-related oddities where Jewel’s past is concerned.

    Which ends up not much of an issue at all since very little of the story is told from her point of view. Instead it’s set in the southern lands, focusing on a rotating cast of characters each with different goals. Aside from that lack of protagonist what makes this book stand out is a persistent aura of dread; both the first and last third are thick with the suspicion that everything is about to go wrong for the characters who have managed to find some semblance of happiness. And it does, yet when the implied events finally occur they somehow end up feeling… mundane?

    The Uncrowned King on the other hand is set in the Empire and has Jewel as one of the main point of view characters. It’s much closer in structure and mood to those early House War entries than Broken Crown, which makes the backstory differences a bit more jarring (it also makes it easier to read for extended periods). The only real complaint I have is how it ends up treating Kiriel. Her heritage, power, and struggle against that heritage are everything that makes her interesting, everything that sets her apart from the other characters. Why would you go and throw all that away to deus ex machina her into a (mostly) powerless human?


  • House War #1-3

    Michelle Sagara‘s House War series starts off both reminiscent of and extremely different than her Elantra series.

    The first book (The Hidden City), though it certainly doesn’t shy away from dark/explicit topics or events, in general tells the uplifting story of someone building something for themselves after having lost almost everything. You can see hints of Elantra‘s Kaylin and Severn in the two protagonists and a bit of similarity in the layout of the cities, but for the most part the world and characters created here stand on their own. What really sets it apart from that series though is that it never gets bogged down in metaphysics or abstracts.

    City of Night follows it in much the same way The Empire Strikes Back followed its prequel… which is to say that it tears down much of what Hidden City built up. This is a very dark book centered on both despair and necessary sacrifice. While it ends on what could be considered an optimistic note, the actual path traveled to get there is littered with loss.

    The third then decides to strike a mood balanced between the two previous entries. Again we have a tale focused on building a new life from the ashes of an old one, but one interspersed with quite a bit of frustration and some trauma (although it’s mostly side characters facing the trauma here rather than the central group). Ultimately I think it wraps things up too well. Too conveniently. While I’m glad to not have a repeat of Elantra‘s re-occurring etiquette and social class subplots, having everyone fit in so well strains credibility.

    It will be interesting to see both how this will get to where it needs to get to match its prophesized events and how well it ends up integrating with the author’s earlier Sun Sword series.