booksthatburn's Reviews (1.46k)

I found myself struggling to get through THE WILL OF THE MANY, and I ultimately did not finish reading it. I enjoy doorstoppers and I like long books, the length is not the issue. I can like a slow burn story when I have an idea of what the slow burn is building to, but while I mostly understand why Ulciscor is doing what he's doing, I don't understand what Vis (the protagonist) is doing or what his goals are.

The character's background is conveyed mostly through his thoughts, and at first I thought it was going to be gradually revealed in bits and pieces. Having made it a quarter of the way through the book before stopping, it doesn't really seem like more is forthcoming (at least not in time for it to feel meaningful). 

The Will system is interesting, it's well-described and has some fascinating implications for the world. I appreciate how the exploitative nature of this power is combined with a colonialist empire. It's a synergy between the political and magical in a way that makes sense as to why things are as bad as they are for almost everyone in the system, with the magic and the exploitation feeding into each other in a horrible self-reinforcing loop.

Ultimately the pace was slow enough that it broke any sense of momentum that I had while reading, and I'm just not interested in finishing it.

The main character kills someone on page 1 and thinks to herself how she didn't have to but she's just doing her job. Based on that intro, I don't want to stick around.

MYSTERIES OF THORN MANOR finds Elisabeth and Nathaniel trapped in the manor with Silas and their new maid, Mercy, unable to leave and having difficulty figuring out what’s going wrong. Aside from getting out, the main focus is on figuring out what the dynamic will be between the four of them in one house. Silas previously has not had to abide with a human servant in his space. Nathaniel has a tendency to forget that just because something seems obvious, it is good to say things specifically. Elisabeth is worrying about everyone and trying to figure out what to do with her life now that she’s not a normal Librarian. This is the first time Mercy has had her own life outside of the asylum, and she is still terrified that Silas will eat her because he’s a demon.

As a novella following a novel, THE MYSTERIES OF THORN MANOR tells a pretty self-contained story whose significance is within the context of the first book. The specific tale is very self contained in a way that would be understandable to someone who started with this and hadn’t read anything else in the series, but most of the worldbuilding is done by reference to things explained in much more depth in the first book. It shows the next phase of what happens to Elisabeth, Nathaniel, and Silas after the first book, as well as more fully introducing Mercy who briefly appeared in SORCERY OF THORNS. It's not particularly wrapping up anything, but specifically moving a few things forward and making the new status quo clear. There’s a new storyline which wasn’t present previously, for something magical has gone awry and trapped them all in the manor. They have to solve it and get the doors unbarred before the Midwinter Ball that Nathaniel is hosting. While as of the time of this post this is the newest book in the series, it seems unlikely to be the last, with an ending that clearly telegraphs that more to come. 

This is excellent as a brief story set an established world. It stokes my eagerness for a full length sequel to follow, whenever that appears. I already love Nathaniel, Elisabeth and Silas as a trio, and I like that a novella gives space to show what has changed in their dynamic since the very traumatic events at the end of the first book. It also serves to integrate Mercy into their household, keeping them from being quite so insular. As is often the case with sequels, and especially with a sequel novella, it doesn’t make sense to start here, and it would be much better to read the first book before this one. If you came across this without reading the first book and enjoyed it, definitely go back because the heart of this series is the relationships between the characters, and those are wonderfully displayed here. I like the audiobook narrator, generally, but I love their voice for Silas. It forms an excellent contrast with the others in a way that conveys his personality instantly.

I like the plot, I like the setup, and I love the characters. This is perfect for anyone who enjoys the first book and wants to spend more time with them.

As the second book in the series, A PRAYER FOR THE CROWN SHY continues the journey of Mosscap and Sibling Dex, this time meeting people rather than staying in the wilderness. It kind of wraps up things left hanging from the previous book, because Mosscap wanted to meet humans, and so it needed help to meet more humans than just Sibling Dex. The monk had been trying to figure out their life, what to do on a daily basis, and also in terms of a bigger trajectory, if they were no longer going to serve tea. 

This is satisfying in a way that means I'm not sure whether there will be more books in the series. It's a story of two entities trying to figure out their lives as individuals and in the context of their communities, as well as exploring what those communities are.  The first book was in the wilderness, but this time around there are other people to talk to. There's a mix of opening up new relationships, and reacquainting Sibling Dex with people they already know.

This is a bit calmer than I usually like my stories, but I love books full of dialogue, and most of this is a series of conversations. Finally arriving in civilization, the monk and the robot travel from settlement to settlement while Mosscap asks what people need. It’s a very meditative and philosophical book, with much of the story consisting of the discussion between the main characters (sometimes involving other people). A PRAYER FOR THE CROWN-SHY would mostly make sense to someone who started here without reading the first one, but it has resolutions to questions implied in A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT, and both books are very short. I definitely recommend reading them in order. 

BACKPACKING THROUGH BEDLAM Follows Alice, Thomas, and Sally as they work to resettle the remaining refugees, and finally get a chance to go home to Earth. It's a place that hasn't really been home for any of them in a long time, but Alice, at least, is determined to try. She's been on a single-minded quest to find and retrieve her missing husband, stolen by the Crossroads on the strength of a bargain he made to save her life before they were a couple. Sally, too, was taken through a bargain, where the Crossroads were willing to take her as payment for something a previous bargain made it impossible for them to grant. Now, the Crossroads are dead, Thomas has de facto adopted Sally, and Alice is adjusting to Thomas as he is now, with both of them changed by their decades apart. Of course, this is an InCryptid book, so barely are they home in Buckley before they have leave again to deal with the war the Covenant is waging on their family and on the continent, this time in New York.

This is the second book in a row with Alice narrating. She’s finally reunited with Thomas after fifty years of searching, and now must do a few last things before they can figure out what home looks like with the two of them in the same place. It wraps up a few things left hanging, specifically, but not only what happens to the refugees who made it out of the bottle dimension with them. Additionally, it’s obvious that Sally is the same girl who was James's best friend before the Crossroads took her, and I’m pretty happy with how that plotline is moved forward. 

There’s a new storyline related to the dragons in New York City, but even that is an opportunity to move forward things which were established in previous books. Because Alice is (mostly) new to this particular iteration of the Covenant's attacks upon her family, it provides opportunities to explain things in a way that should help get newer readers up to speed, while having a lot of "where are they now" updates for anyone who’s been reading the series since the beginning. As a sequel, this has specific updates that go back to the very first novel in the series, requiring at least some knowledge from almost every main character’s arc. It’s a pretty direct follow up to Verity's challenge to the Covenant, Sarah's developing powers as Jorhlac, James's history, and, of course, Alice’s search for Thomas. There’s a specific issue with the dragons which is both introduced and resolved here, and drives the plot for the second half of the book. This is not the last book in the series, in fact, it seems like they’re just getting started. In addition to whatever Alice and Thomas are going to decide to do, it seems pretty clear to me that future books will perhaps focus on James and Sally as adoptees into the family (by different routes). 

Alice was the narrator in the previous book, and her narrative voice is consistent with that. This would not be a good starting point for new readers, as so much of this is meaningful and provides catharsis because of having spent the rest of the series hoping that Alice would find Thomas. There's a lot of worldbuilding, but even more character development. It’s relying on things established throughout the series leading up to this point, so most of what remains that requires being explicitly shown is given through how characters behave, and what they choose to say. That goes for enemies and allies alike. At this point I'm so familiar with the setting (through the main series and associated short stories) that it's hard for me to say if anything would need more explanation than it received for a new reader, but if someone really wanted to get into the series late, and not go all the way back to the beginning, then I would recommend either starting with the first book from Annie’s perspective (MAGIC FOR NOTHING), or one book before this one (SPELUNKING THROUGH HELL). Starting with Annie’s perspective, leading into meeting James, give some perspective for Sally's presence, and also can be enough of a leadup for what happened in this book that anything else could just be summarized to catch up the reader. The next best thing would be starting with the book before this one, and therefore (at minimum) witnessing Alice and Thomas's reunion, as that’s extremely important for this story. 

There’s a bit of an explanatory tone that I’ve noticed over time in the series. I’m not totally sure how much is a deliver a choice for Alice as a character and how much it’s something in the general style of Seanan as an author. Alice is trying to figure out what it looks like now that she has Thomas back, but part of the problem is they keep not getting a chance to just be, and figure each other out. Also, Thomas has adopted Sally, who is his second in command when they were stuck in a bottle dimension, and who has now been accepted by the mice as a member of the family. 

I like the ending for the main story, I think it gets enough things for the plot to feel settled while still giving an idea of where they’ll go next. What cements this impression for me is the choice of story for the novella at the end. I especially enjoy when they show things from the perspectives of one of the mice, and this one alternates between two narrators in a way that works really well.