Storm of Locusts
Sep. 4th, 2019 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraStorm of Locusts, Rebecca Roanhorse, 2019 sequel to last year's Trail of Lightning which I talked about here. Good stuff! No big spoilers here but I'll do a spoiler cut for my opinions and some small spoilers anyways. My overall verdict is that I recommend it if you enjoyed the first one (but definitely don't try to start the series here).
So I liked this better than the first one, thought it was better written - the plot is really firmly on rails, so there was nowhere for the character motivations to get muddled. And also I think it helped that this seemed to be, as second books sometimes are, a sort of standalone side-quest from the main business started up in book one that will presumably finish up in book three, like we were able to focus on character and cast development without having to deal with any of the stuff that didn't make sense last time. And there was in fact some good character development for Maggie, and a great new character added to the cast. And Roanhorse continues to do a great job with the details of the worldbuilding - there's a perfect moment when two characters review the meanings of the symbols on a remote, a now-rare device one of them hasn't seen in many years, and some discussion elsewhere about how prior isolation muted some of the effects of the apocalypse. Also I won't say where or why but Roanhorse made one particularly excellent choice, the kind that makes you go "yes, THANK YOU" out loud, or maybe that was just me. I'm still a little nervous whether book three will manage to make sense, but I'll definitely read it.
So I liked this better than the first one, thought it was better written - the plot is really firmly on rails, so there was nowhere for the character motivations to get muddled. And also I think it helped that this seemed to be, as second books sometimes are, a sort of standalone side-quest from the main business started up in book one that will presumably finish up in book three, like we were able to focus on character and cast development without having to deal with any of the stuff that didn't make sense last time. And there was in fact some good character development for Maggie, and a great new character added to the cast. And Roanhorse continues to do a great job with the details of the worldbuilding - there's a perfect moment when two characters review the meanings of the symbols on a remote, a now-rare device one of them hasn't seen in many years, and some discussion elsewhere about how prior isolation muted some of the effects of the apocalypse. Also I won't say where or why but Roanhorse made one particularly excellent choice, the kind that makes you go "yes, THANK YOU" out loud, or maybe that was just me. I'm still a little nervous whether book three will manage to make sense, but I'll definitely read it.
