Marina Dyachenko Sergey Dyachenko

While "Vita Nostra" didn't quite live up to the hype for me, I still found it an interesting reading experience, and was wondering in what direction the authors would take what seemed like a perfectly acceptable free-standing novel. That brings us to "Assassin of Reality," which essentially suggests that everything one read in the initial book is wrong, and is focused on the main character's trying to overcome their ostensible failure. At that point the air went out of the balloon for me and I had a hard time maintaining interest in this enterprise, and only got to the end by dint of some skimming; though that ending is an explosion of narrative color.

Going forward, it's hard to see a successful conclusion to this trilogy, what with the passing of Sergey Dyachenko and not knowing what his wife Marina brought to their artistic partnership. It does make me sad that I can't give this work a higher rating.… (meer)