Tina's Reading Books

This is such a fantastic series. The progression of the story is wonderful, the ever widening circles of cause and effect and actions and repercussions is so well done. I am intrigued by the Elders and am nervous for 'our' humans.

In the aftermath of the last book and the rise of the Humans First and Last (HFL) coalition, it was clear that we were heading toward a major clash.

A major strike by the HFL happens in this book and finally, the Elders make their appearance. As I was reading this book I felt like I was holding my breath waiting for that ...thing... to happen. There was such an air of dreaded anticipation hovering over this book with the feeling that events would begin to really over-take our little group from the Lakeside Courtyard.

And they do because the world in now bigger in this book. The action isn't centered in the courtyard as much anymore. We get intercut scenes between the Lakeside courtyard, the Lakeside police, a town in the midwest that is a flashpoint to events in this book, overseas in the oft-heard about Cel-Romano, and various Intuit settlements.

We also meet new characters. We get POVs from some new power players, Erebus Sanguinati flexes his muscles a bit and we meet more of his clan who move into some key positions. And we get to finally meet Shady Burke (I have always loved that name!)

Meg and Simon, of course, remain central to everything. Between the two of them they hold the fate of the human population in Thasia in their hands. Simon is volatile and doesn't really care for humans. But Meg cares and he'll do anything for her.

There are also some intriguing developments about ways in which the cassandra sangue could use things other than cutting to tell prophecy. There is a nice call-back to the old cassandre sangue Simon remembers giving him prophecy so long ago. This series always raises some interesting questions about its world. How much of the prophet's need to cut is learned behavior and addiction rather than absolute necessity? Can the girls learn other ways to give prophecy without always cutting first and only using cutting when it is critical?

Another thing the about this series is that it it very,very light on anything romance, but you always know that hovering around and over things is that there's something between Meg and Simon. They are so clueless when it comes to 'romance' stuff and tiptoe around each other when it comes to that, but Meg is beginning to awaken to the possibilities. There is a scene where they make one more baby step in that direction.

Now I have to wait very, very, very impatiently for the next one.