Book Review: The Cracked Throne
This is the sequel to the Skewed Throne and all I have to say is: Wow, what an improvement.
While still accessible, the writing style was not so overly colloquialized as to annoy the reader and the story had a definite plotline, instead of being almost all backstory. The characters, while mostly 1 or occassionally 2-dimensional, were nonetheless engaging and were there for a definite reason, so as to advance the story.
While the main character, Varis, is still not all that appealling (for me), this story at least shows her as sympathetic, if somewhat stupid and occassionally immature. (I mean, seriously, you could have sent ANYONE on that bait-ship, and tagged anyone, so why the fuck send two useful people on a suicide mission? And especially Erick... you need him way too much to send him off to die!).
All in all, I have just 2 problems: 1) All characters are exactly as they seem. If Varis trusts someone from day 1, they are and always will be good. If she dislikes someone, he/she is evil and will ultimately show themselves to be even more evil. There are only two characters that strive towards some sort of gray space in between--Eryn and Avrell--and both of them are ultimately good, if somewhat less friendly. Baill is a perfect example. he was an ass in book 1, he was unfriendly in book 2, and by the end of it, guess what? He was a traitor!
The enemy--what the fuck? its only at the end that we get a half-page explanation for their ambitions. They are just THE ENEMY. Let's try for something a bit more 3-d, can we? I'm sure that there's more to it than "We are evil, and want to conquer your land, since Atlantis is going to be destroyed".
All in all, though, it's a huge improvement over the last book and I am going to get the next book, too.
While still accessible, the writing style was not so overly colloquialized as to annoy the reader and the story had a definite plotline, instead of being almost all backstory. The characters, while mostly 1 or occassionally 2-dimensional, were nonetheless engaging and were there for a definite reason, so as to advance the story.
While the main character, Varis, is still not all that appealling (for me), this story at least shows her as sympathetic, if somewhat stupid and occassionally immature. (I mean, seriously, you could have sent ANYONE on that bait-ship, and tagged anyone, so why the fuck send two useful people on a suicide mission? And especially Erick... you need him way too much to send him off to die!).
All in all, I have just 2 problems: 1) All characters are exactly as they seem. If Varis trusts someone from day 1, they are and always will be good. If she dislikes someone, he/she is evil and will ultimately show themselves to be even more evil. There are only two characters that strive towards some sort of gray space in between--Eryn and Avrell--and both of them are ultimately good, if somewhat less friendly. Baill is a perfect example. he was an ass in book 1, he was unfriendly in book 2, and by the end of it, guess what? He was a traitor!
The enemy--what the fuck? its only at the end that we get a half-page explanation for their ambitions. They are just THE ENEMY. Let's try for something a bit more 3-d, can we? I'm sure that there's more to it than "We are evil, and want to conquer your land, since Atlantis is going to be destroyed".
All in all, though, it's a huge improvement over the last book and I am going to get the next book, too.