Stars: 4.5 out of 5.
I loved this book! But then again, I have loved everything Martha Wells wrote so far, especially the Murderbot series. So let’s narrow this down and say that this is the book I loved the most in the Ile-Rien series.
The Element of Fire and the Death of the Necromancer were okay, but I hadn’t been particularly excited for the world or the characters. This book changed all that. From the very first chapters, I was intrigued, I was puzzled, but I was also getting more and more attached to the characters. And I was full blown hooked when the two storylines merged after Tremaine and Co went through the portal.
I think the characters are what makes this book so immensely readable. They are flawed, but they are “alive” and they are interesting. And there are so many good ones that it’s hard to say who was my favorite. I loved Tremaine and her identity crisis. Even her suicidal tendencies are explained by the end of the book (and what a sad and tragic explanation). I loved Ilias and Giliead, our wizard hunting brothers, and I especially loved Gerard, the scholarly wizard and friend of Tremaine’s father. But even the side characters feel like real people, whether you like them or loath them.
It was also interesting to return to Ile-Rien after the events of the second book and follow Tremaine, who is the daughter of the protagonists in The Death of the Necromancer. Something tells me that the events of that book will have consequences in the rest of the series. It’s not coincidence that the enemies Tremaine faces now are called Gardier. Also, where is Nicholas Valiarde? A man with his talents is very hard to kill, so I’m sure we will encounter him in future books of the series. And I really hope that Ile-Rien isn’t lost. That Tremaine and her friends will be able to rebuild this mighty city after they have defeated the Gardier.
The new world they are dumped into is also very interesting, with its own distinct culture and customs, so I had fun exploring it as well. And I hope we get to do more exploration in the next books. And I still really want to know where the Gardier come from and how such a civilization came to be. Also, what is their end goal? World(s) domination for the sake of it? Expansion for expansion sake? It’s unclear.
Either way, I have two more books to look forward to, and I will definitely be along for the ride.
