F/SF

I thought this was good. A small vigilante group, wronged by the establishment, seeks to right the old wrongs against the noble villains, but gets involved in a bigger problem with a powerful necromancer. Good, strong characters in the main two, Nicholas and Madeline, good action, and good supporting characters. The basics seemed a little too familiar - it felt like Batman and Comm. Gordon against corruption a few times, but those aspects were not obvious or bothersome and otherwise enjoyable. Well written and engaging ( )

This is a very well-crafted fantasy detective novel with French 1800s/early 1900s Batman meets Sherlock Holmes that people who are not me may actually enjoy (and clearly do, judging by the love I see for this entry in the series). Personally I felt it could have been at least half its length, much like "The Element of Fire" could have been at least half its length. That being said, I struggle to agree with the suggestion that if you're interested in reading this series, you should skip EoF and start with DotN. While I do honestly agree that reading EoF likely ruined my reading experience to some degree with this one, because they are both overly long and kind of boring novels, and this is the second in the line so I'm more exhausted of it, and I think DotN actually does a number of things better than EoF and shows how far Wells came as a writer at this time, reading EoF also makes a large part of the last third of DotN enjoyable, and if I'd skipped it, I would have likely missed a large part of what made this book bearable.

If you like more stereotypical mystery stories in the vein of Sherlock Holmes or Batman, skip EoF. Read this one. This will likely appeal to you more than EoF. If you like high fantasy and mystery and political intrigue, start with EoF. If you want Martha Wells writing good fantasy, I'd recommend skipping the whole thing and just reading her Raksura series.

I also think the last third is generally, EoF aside, the more enjoyable part of the book. It's still overly long and boring, but it has a lot of the more fun character interactions, in part because Arisilde is in so much of it. So if you're struggling, maybe skim a bit until you get to that last third. Or drop it and read something else, like Murderbot.

My favorite characters are far and away Reynard and Arisilde, and I would have honestly enjoyed them as protagonists much more than Nicholas and Madeline. Really, we could have had a fascinating m/m mystery novel, and instead we had... this. Ah well. The cast was by and large well-crafted, and the universe was well-designed and believable. You can really see how good Wells is at creating complex and believable story universes, even this early on. They're just not... very compelling story universes.

I don't know that I'll give the rest of the series a shot. I know some of the cast sticks around for the following trilogy, but I'm not a big fan of "next generation" stories, which is another part of why I didn't like DotN, although the timeskip between EoF and DotN was far more substantial. If you want a mystery queer fantasy series with a faux foppish European with a dark past, read KJ Charles "A Charm of Magpies" series. That's shorter, funnier, and overtly queer, and much tighter. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's novels are also great for queer fantasy mysteries with large, complex casts. And they're long, but use their time well. Or maybe just rewatch "Mask of the Phantasm" or "Batman Beyond" for some good Batman stories. I know at least the latter holds up decently well. ( )

Another reviewer called this Lies of Locke Lamora meets Sherlock Holmes. I have to agree. This was SO GOOD. I really liked Wells' world-building. There was so much rich backstory that was alluded to in the book that I almost wish there was a prequel just so I could see Nicholas's early adventures. But this book worked so well without it. Wells did something quite different - this book isn't the beginning of the characters' stories. It opens in the middle (perhaps even the beginning of the end?) of their stories and it really worked. The characters came fully formed, sprung from the mind of the author like Athena from Zeus's head. It was apparent they had rich and full lives that the readers had not been privy too, and that they would continue to have rich and full lives after the last page.

As for the plot of the book, it starts off deceptively simple, but soon starts to twist in a labyrinthine manner and it was all I could do to hold on for the ride. As soon as I thought I knew where the plot was going, Wells surprised me once more.

This was the first book I've ready by Martha Wells but it will certainly not be the last. This is fantasy at its best. ( )

I adored this! I haven’t read a good fantasy with thieves and con artists since Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom. Everything about this—the main characters, the supporting characters, all the sneaking around and disguises, the worthy foes and tricky alliances, the revenge, and the little bit of romance—I just ate it up.
I did most of this on audio, and the reader, Derek Perkins, did a great job. I would have preferred Nicholas to sound younger than Perkins made him sound—sometimes I got him confused with Reynard—but otherwise, I really enjoyed his performance.
I’ve read Martha Wells’s sci-fi, high fantasy, and now historical fantasy, and I’m so impressed with her range. Her unique characters, be they robots or thieves or sorcerers, are what I love most about her work, but she spins a good yarn too. The pacing for this was as good as the Murderbot books, and the heroes just as reluctant to get “sentimental” about their comrades (even though the reader knows better). I clapped and cheered for Nicholas, Madeline and their crew, and I smiled so hard at Nicholas’s final maneuver.
So much fun! ( )