Dull. It had some good parts, but they were isolated in a vast quagmire of general dullness. This book took me a long time to read, partly because I haven't been in a reading mood recently, but also because it just didn't inspire me to go back and read more - in fact, I'd pick it up and would be bored enough to put it down after a chapter or two. The story that takes up most of the first section, about what happened to Khaster while the events of the first book were going on, was easily the best part of the book... the characters are familiar, interesting details left mysterious in book one are explained, and it actually achieves at least some emotional resonance. After that, though, it's a long sharp downhill slide. There's some political scheming and some rather perfunctory sex and a quest through the rainbow-energy lakes to acquire the artifacts that will help the One True King and a LOT of pretentious and overly self-conscious mystical babbling about the elemental forces and religion and blah blah blah. No one talks the way people in this book do, not even the bard, the warrior, and the mystic of the One True King on a quest through the magic lakes in a not-very-good fantasy novel. There's a lot of ambition in the writing here, but it's just plain out flat and uninvolving. I've already purchased the third book in the series, but I wish I hadn't - and I'm a compulsive finisher, so that's saying something. ( )

It's a trilogy; am I buying book three?

Nope.

*pause for shocked horror to subside*

I know, I've bought and read astounding crap, I've gone and bought more by the same author of said astounding crap. Rarely am I bored. I could blame this on my having a cold, but I'm going to blame this on the series being overly mystical, going into far too much detail on minor points, having too many plot lines that don't merge and having far too many unsympathetic characters. I wanted to like it, I've been reading Storm Constantine for over 10 years now, I read Hermetech when I was 17 and loved it - in fact go buy a copy and read it, go on. Yes you. I'm not sure what the plot is, it might be about the fun you can have when you're a royal princess and in love with your twin brother, it might be about how it's possible to be a complete prat in the military (or in a forest), it might have been about achieving elemental harmony in a lake and it might even have had something to do with talking to dragons that possibly don't exist. I am not in the slightest bit curious what happens next, I presume Taropat gets over his hatred for Valraven, is reunited with his wife and his young male lover and there is some sort of resolution - preferably involving a hideously painful death. I was kinda maybe fond of Taropat's wife for the first half of book one, I was vaguely in favour of Valraven's second wife Varancienne for a while too.

It wore off.