This Rough Magic (2003)

baen ebook

While I like this series just fine, and This Rough Magic is a perfectly acceptable entry, I don't like it as much as its predecessor for a couple reasons.

The pacing issues I mentioned in my review of the previous book become almost overwhelming here. This is not so much a book as a collection of three separate novels about the same people spliced together - my paperback copy is 900 pages long. It's hard to pick out what needed to be cut, though, because it's all solid writing and tight plotting - there's just too much of it. And the magical adventure at the end feels distinctly tacked-on - it's foreshadowed well enough, but for being the big emotional climax of the main relationship conflict, it's got next to no time spent on it compared to the rest of the book.

I also have mixed feelings about the female villains and their relationship to sex and power. There's a lot of talk of how many and what kinds of beings one has to fuck to become an immortal dark sorceress, and it feels a little obsessive. There are some interesting things done with the con-artist and his harem of bored housewives, but the actual magicians just don't quite ring true. There's also no mention of the humiliating and painful sex male evil wizards must have in order to gain power, which is probably what bugs me.

So, overall, still like the series, but it's not one I come back to often. It's not quite worth the immense time it takes to slog through it. ( )

Sample Chapters: http://webscriptions.net/chapters/0743471490/0743471490.htm

This is a adequate follow up to the first novel (The Shadow of the Lion) - again nothing hugely original. All of the romantic loose ends are tied up as expected. ( )

Sequel to a previous novel, this is very readable and actually a better read than the previous one! ( )