two book twos

[psocoptera]

Cold Fire, the second of the Kate Elliott Cold Magic books. I don't know, I had a hard time getting into this book and a hard time following it, the pacing and the emotional beats all seemed sort of disjointed and jarring to me. But there were some bits I liked, and I'm probably going to read the third one rather than not complete the trilogy?

Two Serpents Rise, the second of the Max Gladstone Craft books. I think I shouldn't have started this right after finishing Three Parts Dead - first I was disappointed it wasn't about the same people (it's in the same world, but different cast), then it felt a little too samey to the first one, except I didn't like any of the characters nearly as much. But it's a good formula, and there's some really good fantasy-ization of California water politics, and there were some great moments, some of which redeemed some of the earlier bits that had annoyed me, and I'm definitely reading the next one of these too.

Comments

[mst3kforall.livejournal.com]

I read the Cold Magic trilogy. It kindof went "in one ear and out the other" but I mostly enjoyed reading it. I had more fun putting together the author's ego trips and personal complexes because I felt that they were glaringly obvious, and I remember talking back quite a bit in my kindle notes.

My impression based on your fiction reviews is that you may find some of the author's propensity to suddenly shift the entire location, action, and story goal in an unjustified instant, (which I felt got worse in the second and third books) to be an irritant.

But I don't regret reading them. I got kindof addicted to the world and to some of the writing, even though I felt that there were so many glaring inconsistencies.