2/3 of it were so YA (and 90%of the characters are teen girls) that I got bored a lot, did not connect with the story and found way too many not believable situations and deus ex machina. 2 stars at best. The last third, though, was finally the great kind of book I expected after the first volume, with good intrigues, politics and war. 5/5 and enticing enough to make me jump immediately to the next book in the series. ( )

Now I enjoyed this one more than the first. Because it is more my kind of story - politics and adventure and magic and fewer battles. Liked the new princess character a lot. But Jane is a pain in the...... ( )

The first book was a military fantasy set in a modernizing Napoleonic world. With magic. It was awesome. There definitely was politics and exposition on soldiering, proxy wars, economic imperialism etc but they didn't overwhelm.

This one is a political thriller(?) set in a quasi-French revolution setting. It has one real battle that is smaller in page-length than a skirmish in the first novel and just as it is setting up an end of book demon on demon magic showdown... it fizzles out. Instead we get the storming of the Bastille (Vendre in this world) which results in a surrender and many, many pages of character exposition on various revolution themes without going much of anywhere. Sorry Django but the real French revolution was far more interesting!

Waiting for book three and a return to the battles and magic with just a touch of politics that made the first book great. ( )

This is a clear improvement from the first book, but having characters and plot points self-admittedly ripped from the stupidest tropes from a hundred years ago don't help things.

“Truth! Freedom! Justice! Reasonably priced love! And a hard-boiled egg!” - Fucking Danton, probably.

THE RANKING THUS FAR:

tST > tTN

EDIT: Here's some actual words and less wanking:

Good things first: There is a clear improvement from the first book that is clearly derived from three changes:

1) Clearer emotional stakes
Aside from Jen (and who didn't see that coming) there's not much to look out for in The Thousand Names . Here, we have a clearer view of what's at stake.

2) Better characters
Every new character introduced in this book was a treat, especially Raesinia. Her chapters were the best in the whole book.

3) Better pacing
Dear god, how relevatory is it to have a book not the size of a bus to have important plot points outside of the last 200 pages. The last book was also good in this respect, but still.

But this all comes with a cost, by the name of Winter Ihernglass. I am not one for either romance or stupid cross dressing subplots, so some of her chapters just became unbearable. There was one particularly egregious piece of narration that nearly made me throw by book at a wall. By how the plot is moving, it seems were putting that behind us, so we'll see.


( )

This is a clear improvement from the first book, but having characters and plot points self-admittedly ripped from the stupidest tropes from a hundred years ago don't help things.

“Truth! Freedom! Justice! Reasonably priced love! And a hard-boiled egg!” - Fucking Danton, probably.

THE RANKING THUS FAR:

tST > tTN

EDIT: Here's some actual words and less wanking:

Good things first: There is a clear improvement from the first book that is clearly derived from three changes:

1) Clearer emotional stakes
Aside from Jen (and who didn't see that coming) there's not much to look out for in The Thousand Names . Here, we have a clearer view of what's at stake.

2) Better characters
Every new character introduced in this book was a treat, especially Raesinia. Her chapters were the best in the whole book.

3) Better pacing
Dear god, how relevatory is it to have a book not the size of a bus to have important plot points outside of the last 200 pages. The last book was also good in this respect, but still.

But this all comes with a cost, by the name of Winter Ihernglass. I am not one for either romance or stupid cross dressing subplots, so some of her chapters just became unbearable. There was one particularly egregious piece of narration that nearly made me throw by book at a wall. By how the plot is moving, it seems were putting that behind us, so we'll see.


( )