Thursday, March 27, 2014

2014 book 67

Rachel Neumeier's Land of Burning Sands
I appreciate that Neumeier takes this second volume in a whole new direction, focusing on a couple of the denizens of the land of the invading army from the first book--primarily a talented slave and an adorably absent-minded academic type woman. I liked what she was saying about freedom and kindness here. Then the slave encounters the cold mage from the previous book--and again, it's nice to get his point of view, when he was basically just a magical villain in the first book--but it gets so repetitive after that! I swear the slave and the mage have the EXACT SAME conversation like eight times. So boring, especially when one is petulant and one is kind of snide. At least the academic is off dealing with interesting political things--and running into one of the characters from the first book. Eventually all the characters come together for a pretty great ending (I also like how the little bit of romance kind of simmers below the surface till then, too). B/B+.

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